The magicians Penn and Teller have a television show called “Fool Us”, in which aspiring magicians do their best tricks in front of the duo. If they can’t figure out how the trick is done, the entrant “wins,” and at least some of them get invited to perform in Penn and Teller’s show in Las Vegas.
Here’s a new video showing a winner: Léa Kyle does the well known “quick change act” in which a full change of clothes appears instantaneously on the magician. You can see how it’s done with just one or two changes by looking for “quick change act” on YouTube, but in this act Kyle instantaneously changes clothes eight times in four minutes, plus does a bunch of other magic stuff.
It’s amazing, and Penn appears especially astonished. I have no idea how she does it.
I have no clue how she did those changes.
Phenomenal! I was thinking halfway through the act that this was just a rehash of stuff I’ve seen many times before, but, as Penn said, she took it further and further until it turned into something remarkable. I always love seeing new twists on old tricks, and this wasn’t just a new twist, but a complete reinvention. It defies categorizing.
I’ve seen Penn and Teller several times, and they’re just the best in the business. I can’t imagine how much genius it takes to consistently stay ahead of the curve in magic for so many decades, but they’ve done it. They were signing autographs after the first show I saw. It was really weird to have Teller just chatting with us. I’d never heard him speak before!
Fantastic act
I don’t watch the show regularly, but it’s great fun when they get fooled. I saw a self-taught fellow who did sleight-of-hand with foam balls, and blew them away. I did catch part of the trick here. At 4:14 there is someone behind her in the booth, who pulls off the outfit to reveal the green dress. I had to stop at watch it again, it was so remarkable.
Good call. Her translator/boyfriend is a fantastic magician on his own, also with expertise in this kind of magic. I think it was part of the act that her English is not quite good enough and she needs the translator.These were two-person tricks, very well done.
Obviously she is taking off one outfit to reveal another, but how she does it so quickly and flawlessly is amazing.
She also went from bare legs to tights.
She went from half leg to tights. You can see the tights at knee length while she is in the red dress. They dropped to her ankles when she was behind the red veil.
the tights were not that tight they were designed to drop down when the dress above went away. What I want to know is how did the red boots disappear?
I am not a magic fan but that was excellent!
Slowing it down shows some of the tricks. The clothes hangers have a hidden compartment inside that can flip open. You can also see that she has an accomplice hidden inside the changing box who reaches out and helps her change her clothes. But even knowing that I still don’t understand how it’s done so fast. 🙂
Great magic is infuriating. That’s why I love it.
Amazing! Each time I thought she had finished she went even further.
I binged on this show during lockdown — I really like the format.
This is my favourite — a guy from Spain got a famous old Spanish magician to “guess which card P&T would choose” and seal it in a box. This fellow, ‘Jandro’ has a really charming sense of humour, and the trick is really good.
And I should say, this quick change artist is the best act I’ve seen.
Are we sure that’s not just Robert Picardo doing a Spanish accent?
IF I’m right about the trick, I think it’s a really easy one to figure out. I wasn’t even trying to look for the trick, but I couldn’t help noticing that he never brought his left hand up from underneath the table. I assume that, once the card was chosen, he had a deck in his sleeve with each card “marked,” picked out the card, put it in the open box, closed it, closed the lock, folded the clay over the side (you can see that the clay is folded on only one side of the box), and that was that.
It seems like P & T often give people the trophy even if they really do know how the trick was done, just based on their performance and the skill it required. Here, the dexterity and practice is amazing, just as in the video Jerry posted. But they surely do know the mechanics behind how the people did these tricks.
I suspect in this case they were expecting him to do the trick differently than he did. (I think he had cards under that green cloth which he didn’t want Penn to disturb when he was bashing the blocks down.) They did seem genuinely surprised that he let them open the box themselves.
With new technology available, the often aren’t able “know the mechanics behind how the people did these tricks.”
P&T don’t consider themselves “fooled” if they can’t figure it allout.
They also have an advisory panel that sometimes makes a final judgement, especially in cases where language might be seen as a barrier.
I did notice that she never changed her shoes. Now seriously (and I don’t mean to be sexist), would a woman ever wear all those outfits with the same pair of shoes? I think I know how she turned the green dress red. Other than that, I don’t have a clue. You would need one of those super high speed cameras that shoot thousands of frames a second and watch it in super slow motion.
What I really liked was the sheer look of delight on Teller’s face. I am a big fan of his. I was able to see his productions of The Tempest and Macbeth at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Think of those plays with magic incorporated. Incredible. Tempest was the more incredible of the two.
If you get a chance, watch Tim’s Vermeer which Teller directed.
Dang, would that I had paramours with mad skills like that, I’d’ve had to jump out of a lot fewer bedroom windows as a young feller.
Thanks, Ken – I’m enjoying the mental imagery of both scenarios!
Well, you can tell that she has costumes bunched up under her current costume. Flesh colored tights that looked a bit wrinkled at one point.
But yes, it just kept going on and on. Phenomenal.
And such a charming young lady. See you in Vegas!
That was entertaining, to say the least.
Wow! It’s. Like. Magical.
YouTube is showing me the following message: “This video contains content from LDS, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.” Is anyone else getting that?