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What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?   Part One…

What’s the Trick to Fooling Penn & Teller?   Part One…

By Paul Gertner…  One of the hottest shows this summer has been Penn & Teller: Fool US, which is now in its third season on the CW Network. I had the pleasure of appearing on the show this season. I was assigned the task of fooling Penn & Teller…with a trick they already knew.

If you have not had a chance to view my recent appearance on Fool Us, you can go to my YouTube page and click on the Penn & Teller Video Link to watch that performance video before reading any further. If you do, this Blog Post will make a lot more sense. You can also link to the video from my website.

Back in February I was contacted by Lee Terbosic an excellent magician and good friend from Pittsburgh who said he had an opportunity to appear on the TV show Penn & Teller Fool Us. But the tricky part (pun intended) was that they wanted him to perform my routine Unshuffled and he was contacting me to get my permission to perform that routine on the show. (As a side note to magicians reading this: That was a very professional thing to do. Unshuffled is a published routine and Lee was under no obligation to do that, but he’s a pro.)

I have to admit, I was a bit surprised that Fool Us wanted someone else to do my trick because to me that show is all about original inventions… or at least magicians adding their own unique presentation to a trick and seeing if their performance was clever enough to fool the Bad Boys of Magic: Penn & Teller. Read more at: http://gertner.com/fooling-penn-teller/

‘Braindrops’.. Magician Paul Gertner uses an iPad to surprise, educate.

‘Braindrops’.. Magician Paul Gertner uses an iPad to surprise, educate.

There are plenty of magicians in the world but not many perform their craft with a message.

Then there’s Paul Gertner, who for nearly 30 years has been considered a magician’s magician, someone who explores illusions and tricks with a cerebral flair that wows audiences and exasperates his peers.

The Pittsburgh resident’s latest show is “Braindrops,” which will come to Youngstown on Friday for a show at the Butler Institute of American Art North Building. Ironically, it was an exhibition at this same venue a few years ago that inspired Gertner to embrace, explore and debunk technology.

“‘Braindrops’ is basically a show that combines magic, mind reading and technology,” said Gertner, calling from the Steel City. “Essentially, ‘Braindrops’ kind of asks the question, are we addicted to technology?” It sort of challenges the audience about what they believe in terms of what’s real and what’s not…  (By John Benson)

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