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The "That's incredible" show

timebomb

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Hi, everyone,

Greetings from Singapore.

This is my first post and it's going to be quite a long one. Please bear with me.

Many years ago, in the early eighties or thereabouts, there was a show on TV called "That's incredible". I don't know which network produced the show but it was an American show. It was hosted by 3 persons, the names of whom I can't remember, except for the fact that one of the host was a busty lady.

In one of its episodes, they introduced a young American who claimed to have amazing powers. I can't remember his name but let's just call him "F". F made a pencil rolled across a board and flipped the pages of a telephone book without touching either the pencil or the book. To prove he wasn't blowing with his mouth, F also moved a piece of paper enclosed within an inverted fish tank just by waving his hands over the tank.

In the show, it was mentioned that the late President Sadat was so impressed by F's abilities, he invited him to visit Egypt. And whilst F was there, he managed to cure one of President Sadat's relatives of cancer just by putting his hands on her body.

I was an impressionable young adult then and I believed F really had special powers. But a couple of months after watching that show, I was home one Saturday afternoon and feeling bored, I switched on the TV. It was a good thing I did because that afternoon, I saw a show that changed my life and started me on the long road to becoming a skeptic.

The show was hosted by a magician. He invited F to perform his special powers on his show. F, not knowing that he was going to be exposed, accepted the invitation. He was asked to show the audience his telekinesis powers but this time, the magician placed a microphone close to F. And F just couldn't perform. He claimed then that occasionally, his powers desert him. When he was pressed, he became so agitated he kicked the table.

The magician later went on to explain how F carried out his tricks. He also went on to perform the same tricks but he did even better. The magician not only moved the pages of a telephone book away from himself but towards himself as well. F could only move the pages one way, away from himself.

Now here's my question:

Who was that magician? Was he James Randi?

I feel I owe him a great debt for pointing me in the right direction to life.

Loh K L
 
It was indeed Randi! The "pyschic" he exposed was James Hydrick who was trying to win the Paranormal Challenge ($10,000 in those days) on TV in 1981.
NB Firefox has a problem with the security certificate for this site -
Link
 
This has been discussed here before - if anyone googles for previous threads then click on the cached version or you won't get what you're looking for (something to do with the forum update I guess).
 
Ah, a fellow Singaporean skeptic. I don't feel so lonely anymore. :)
 
Thanks for the welcome, Dragon. And the answer as well, of course.

So it was indeed James Randi, as I had suspected. I'm happy to know the answer but I'm even more happy to find that there's another Singaporean skeptic in this forum.

Merentha, I know perfectly well what you meant. For a long time, I've felt so alone too. I'm in a hurry now but when I have time, I'll get in touch with you through private messaging.

Loh K L
 
The hosts were John Davidson, Fran Tarkenton, and Cathy Lee Crosby. Cathy Lee was the reason I watched the show.
 
Thanks for the information, guys. The link was particularly helpful. It was exactly as I remember it. You know, for years I've been asking around but no one I know in Singapore saw the show where James Hydrick was exposed to be a fraud but many saw the one in "That's incredible" where he demonstrated his so-called special powers.

But even if they did, my guess is many of them would still believe Hydrick to be a psychic.

A couple of years back, a newpaper here ran an April Fool joke where they claimed a "flying rabbit" was caught in one of our forests. They showed a picture of a rabbit hovering in the air between 2 persons. The rabbit wasn't hovering, of course. It was simply flung from one person to another. The interesting thing about the joke was that, one day after they said it was just an April Fool's joke, many still continued to believe rabbits can fly.

Loh K L
 
Oh, by the way, the link didn't explain how Hydrick moved the piece of paper which was enclosed inside an inverted fish tank. If you like to know -

The tank was supposed to be air-tight but it wasn't, you see. One of the sides of the tank was cut slightly lower than the other 3 sides. Just a little bit lower but it made enough of a gap for air blown from Hyrdick's mouth to go inside the tank and moved the paper.

Loh K L
 
timebomb said:
...
Many years ago, in the early eighties or thereabouts, there was a show on TV called "That's incredible". I don't know which network produced the show but it was an American show. It was hosted by 3 persons, the names of whom I can't remember, except for the fact that one of the host was a busty lady.
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Click to expand...
Yeah, I used to watch that show all the time. Once they had this guy on who swallowed a mixed-up Rubic's Cube. Then he twisted his stomach around for a while with his hands, before coughing up a fully-solved cube.

There are two ways I can think of that he may have performed the trick:

1) He never actually swallowed anything, but did some sleight-of-hand that made it look like he was swallowing/regurgitating stuff. He had a solved cube hidden the whole time.

2) He swallowed a solved cube before the show, and somehow coughed that one up instead of the mixed-up one.
 
Vorticity said:
Yeah, I used to watch that show all the time. Once they had this guy on who swallowed a mixed-up Rubic's Cube. Then he twisted his stomach around for a while with his hands, before coughing up a fully-solved cube.

There are two ways I can think of that he may have performed the trick:

1) He never actually swallowed anything, but did some sleight-of-hand that made it look like he was swallowing/regurgitating stuff. He had a solved cube hidden the whole time.

2) He swallowed a solved cube before the show, and somehow coughed that one up instead of the mixed-up one.
Click to expand...

I've also seen on a blooper show (not sure if it ever really aired) where they had karate experts or some such and in one set Fran hits a steel bar to show it's solid before the expert breaks it and it breaks in half! They also demonstrate how they can walk across eggs without breaking them so Fran steps on the eggs to show they are real and they don't break! Not sure if it aired but those guys looked really, really bad with all the non-intentional exposing that went on.
 
Vorticity said:
Yeah, I used to watch that show all the time. Once they had this guy on who swallowed a mixed-up Rubic's Cube. Then he twisted his stomach around for a while with his hands, before coughing up a fully-solved cube.

There are two ways I can think of that he may have performed the trick:

1) He never actually swallowed anything, but did some sleight-of-hand that made it look like he was swallowing/regurgitating stuff. He had a solved cube hidden the whole time.

2) He swallowed a solved cube before the show, and somehow coughed that one up instead of the mixed-up one.
Click to expand...

3) He swallowed a mixed-up Rubic's Cube, twisted his stomach around for a while with his hands, and then coughed up a fully-solved cube! :p
 
Vorticity said:
Yeah, I used to watch that show all the time. Once they had this guy on who swallowed a mixed-up Rubic's Cube. Then he twisted his stomach around for a while with his hands, before coughing up a fully-solved cube.

There are two ways I can think of that he may have performed the trick:

1) He never actually swallowed anything, but did some sleight-of-hand that made it look like he was swallowing/regurgitating stuff. He had a solved cube hidden the whole time.

2) He swallowed a solved cube before the show, and somehow coughed that one up instead of the mixed-up one.
Click to expand...

I doubt anyone could swallow a full sized rubik's cube. A small one would be hard enough.

LLH

_38040008_rubiks_cube.jpg


00728-big.jpg
 
LordoftheLeftHand said:
I doubt anyone could swallow a full sized rubik's cube. A small one would be hard enough.
Click to expand...
It was one of the small ones.

The same guy (apparently) did two other things:

1) He swallowed a bunch of numbered bees (they had little numbers painted on their backs). Someone would call out a random number, and he would cough up the bee with that number on it.

2) He swallowed some fluid that was supposed to be gasoline (or some other flammable liquid). Then he swallowed some dish soap. Then he proceeded to cough up bubble after bubble, each evidently filled with gasoline vapor. He used a flame to blow up each bubble after it had floated a few feet from his body.

I read in Randi's history of magic book that one recognized sub-group of magicians are the "regurgitators".
 
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