I wasn't sure which forum to best post this in, but I have a couple of rather general questions regarding the exposure of magic.

1. I know that the 'Masked Magician' was revealed as Valentino, but who was the masked 'street magic' exposer?

2. The exposures have rightly been critisised by magi, but I'm not clear why the exposures done by Penn & Teller seem to have been much less critisised.

I would be interested in people's opinions on this. Or have I missed something obvious?

Personally I'm not bothered about exposure such as the Masked Magician. Nothing that has been revealed on any of these programs have been real cutting edge stuff, and even if a method is revealed, a change in presentation can easily make an effect baffling to a lay audience even if the method is known to them.

Cheers

Mark

The identity of the masked street magician remains a mystery. That was a weird show. Some of the things he supposedly exposed were absurd. The supposed exposure of Psychokinetic Time was ludicrous to the point of being laughable, and the brick-sized magnet in the jacket sleeve...

Penn & Teller were criticized, most notably by Richard Kaufmann in Almanac. The thing about their seeming exposure is that it really exposes nothing. They do the cups and balls with clear cups and explain everything they are doing and still manage to blow people away with the final loads--and under clear cups at that. Dai Vernon was also criticized for his explanations of techniques used in C&B and 3 card Monte.

I think the big difference between what P&T do, and what Dai Vernon did is that those guys were really using exposure to make the effects even more baffling. Whereas the Valentino shows did not do this, they merely showed the effects, and then showed how they were done.

Jim

I think another element of P+T is that they fool you at the end. You get sucked into the explination, then kicked in the hauches at the ending.

I doubt many people will take their explinations to heart because they were fooled in the end. They don't know where they should draw the line of believing what they were told. They also may feel the whole explination was just part of the trick.

Finally, some guys who can actually talk sensibly about Penn and Teller's exposure. I've seen Martin Nash "expose" 2nd deals, but the way he does it, makes you respect him even more!

Often Penn and Teller came up with totally original ideas to explain. The truck going over Teller for instance. In doing so they are not damaging anyone's livelihood. The "bad boy" reputation was created by them to get press. They actually came up with some very clever, fresh, funny and mindblowing presentations.

Mark said about the masked moron;
Nothing that has been revealed on any of these programs have been real cutting edge stuff, and even if a method is revealed, a change in presentation can easily make an effect baffling to a lay audience even if the method is known to them.

I think Mark, if you had just spent many thousands of dollars on a Zig Zag and other illusions exposed, and spent many hours working on your routines with an assistant,you would probably have been a bit more upset

I don't think a change in presentation to the Zig Zag would make a big difference.It's easy to sit at home with a pack of cards in hand and think it doesn't affect us. But they have already done one "street magic" close up exposure, who knows what will be given away in another. Close uppers ARE fortunate in being able to adapt quicker and at less cost.

But it is sad what people are willing to do for their 15 minutes of fleeting fame. Blimey, there's so much rubbish on TV is it really so brilliant to sell your soul to get on there? lol.

Paul Hallas

My biggest gripe with the Masked magician shows was the attitude of the Narrator. All that "The magician wants you to think that he can ............."

No I don't I just want my audience to have fun Period, No one walks away from one of my performances thinking I have genuine Psycic or magical powers, and that has never been my aim. Obviously I don't want people to know how I do the effects, but I like to think of what I do as "Magical Entertainment". The Masked magician shows reduce everything to a series of Puzzles.

Cheers

Andy

I just saw an ad for another exposure show that will be airing next week on Fox. Wednesday night, I think. It's going to expose Blaine's "frozen in ice" (or whatever he called it), among other things.

Paul,

Fair point about cost - It's easy to forget that big stage illusions cost big money when you don't have to pay for them

However, it's still possible to alter presentation to change the perception of a big illusion. Take Copperfield's Death Saw for example. This is basically the same effect and method as "Sawing a Woman in Half", and many muggles know how the old effect is done, yet are baffled by Copperfield's presentation.

I think that with many of the big stage illusions, most muggles are aware that by putting someone in a magical looking box automatically implies that there is something about the box itself that allows the magic to happen. While they may not be able to determine the finer details of the method, it's fairly obvious that the box is the key.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking anyone who does perform such illusions, it's just that for me to perform any effect, I like to feel that the method is suitably obfuscated by my presentation - which is a lot harder if the key element shouts "prop" to the spec the first time they see it. For this reason I personally tend to steer away from any tricks (close up or otherwise) which look overly proppy.

But yes, you're right, it's much easier to be tolerent of the Masked Moron when he's not exposing methods which I actually use.

However, I also think that a large number of people watching exposure programmes do tend to have goldfish memory (a sad reflection on TV culture in general) - they watch it, digest it, and promptly forget it and they can be completely baffled seeing an effect a couple of months later.

Having said all of this, the one thing that annoys me is that there is so little magic shown on TV these days, yet exposure programs get made instead of programs which showcase the Art. I would much prefer the Masked Moron's budget given to an innovative performer to develop new ideas.

Cheers

Mark

All this exposure really is SO annoying even if some people believe it isn't directly damaging magic.

Paul is totally right, they really have us at their mercy.
I totally agree with Andy Charlton about the Masked Mug's narrator. He tries to come across as all condescending like
"that's all there is to it/how did we ever fall for that?"
Coincidently there is another Masked Idiot show on Sky One tonight. I am not sure what type of magic he will be doing, I think it is similar.
How can Valentino be revealing all this stuff? If he is a magician himself isn't he making it increasingly hard for himself to make a lively hood? How can he be doing himself any favours (obviously apart from the huge pay off he is getting)?

PT

Umm, what's a muggle?

A muggle is, according to the Harry Potter books, a non-magician.

Cheers

Mark

PT,

I can only find "World's Most Dangerous Magic I" listed on Sky One this evening (at 21:00) according to the sky web site. I don't think that this is an exposure type show.

Cheers

Mark

Mark,

Yeah sorry, I saw an advert for it and though I saw the Masked Magician prancing around but I obviously wasn't paying enough attention.
Oh well, I am sure there will be more.

PT

Exposure!!!

Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed -Part 5, FOX-TV (US), May 15, 2002, 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm (ET).

WHAT NOW

:sun:
Ustaad

How many people actually saw this?

Unless you do the big illusions (and mostly the 'older' stuff), I don't think you have anything to worry about...