Serious fun
Penn And Teller Tell A Lie presents a fun way to learn about the world.
LET’S be honest. When was the last time you sat through an entire hour-long documentary? For many of us, the only time spent watching a documentary or any educational programmes were those measly two or three seconds when an erupting volcano or an endangered animal caught our attention while we were channel-surfing.
Watching a pack of lions defend its territory by roaring in the night or a bunch of scientists clad in lab coats discussing atoms, molecules and chemical compounds require a lot of determination.
Laden with cold and hard facts, and made worse by a sombre narrator, learning about our world suddenly becomes a serious and daunting undertaking.
But not anymore as Discovery Channel’s latest series Penn And
Teller Tell A Lie is showing viewers that acquiring knowledge doesn’t have to be serious business. The show takes viewers on a series of strange, outrageous stories, ranging from the possibility of lifting a car with a head of human hair to stopping a speeding arrow with just a linen shirt. These stories are demonstrated through either reenactments, experiments on real-life participants or security footages. Of the seven stories, all are true except one.
The fun starts when viewers are invited to spot the lie while its witty hosts Penn Jillette and Raymond Joseph Teller tease the audience. By dropping hints and even roping in experts from the relevant fields, even the most unbelievable claims don’t seem so far-fetched anymore, making the task of spotting the lie a challenging and intriguing one.
Star2 recently spoke to the series’ co-host Jillette in a phone interview from Las Vegas. “The idea for the show came about because Teller and I are such huge fans of science and nutty facts and information. But because we’re magicians, we earn a living not telling the truth, and we wanted to find out if we could be good enough liars to be able to come up with a story that is just unbelievable and put it across,” the 57-year-old explains the idea behind the show.
Prior to the series, Penn and Teller have made a name for themselves as one of Hollywood’s most iconic magic-comedy duo. They first teamed up in 1975, coming up with Minnesota Renaissance Festival. Their powerful chemistry and infectious personalities have captivated audiences ever since, performing to sold-out audiences in Broadway while making hundreds of television appearances. But it wasn’t until their eight-year stint on the show Penn And Teller Bullsh**! – a documentary series where the two would discuss anything from political topics to paranormal activities and environmental issues – that solidified their status as household names.
The show bears a strong resemblance to Mythbusters, a successful documentary series that sets out to take age-old myths and put them to test on Discovery Channel.
However, Penn is quick to point out the difference between the two shows, stating: “The Mythbusters is taking things that people already believe and testing them to find out whether they are real or not. In Penn And Teller Tell A Lie, we are creating the lie, we are creating the myth… it’s exactly the opposite,” Jillette says. In essence, instead of debunking myths, the show makes up their own myths for the audience to decide which is true and which isn’t.
Another major difference has got to be the layer of wizardry the two hosts bring to the table. Penn shares that their 35 years of experience as magicians lend well to the show, especially in determining “what kind of things fool people and what people will believe”.
In the show, Jillette wields his credibility as a magician to plant doubt in the viewers’ mind by suggesting the possible use of a split screen during an experiment (a trick often used in magic performances). This in turn leads viewers to believe that the myth could very well be the lie – or just a clever strategy to confuse the audience.
Add to that, Jillette’s narration on the show is often hilarious and unpredictable, an element absent in most documentaries (yes, even in Mythbusters). While narrating for an episode where Steven, the subject of an experiment involving a flamethrower, Jillette breaks away from the monotony of the documentary format and conspires with the audience, saying: “Let’s get our story straight, if he’s burnt to a crisp, we’ll tell his mum he died saving a busload of orphans.” The result is a funny (albeit morbid), lighthearted series that both entertains and informs the audience.
On the show, the hosts aren’t only talking heads, they lend themselves to perform some of the stunts as well. For instance, Jillette shares one of the most memorable stunts that his co-host Teller shot (read on with caution, Jillette gives away one of the myths here).
In an episode, the team was making the claim that piranhas – a South American fish known for eating people – weren’t dangerous. “While waiting to shoot it, Teller was on top of the water dangling his toes… but what we didn’t know is that if you have your whole body in the water, the fishes would not attack because they are afraid of you.
“But just by dangling his toe, one of the fish took a big chunk of his toe and Teller was screaming and yelling. He wasn’t badly hurt, but he sure was scared,” Jillette recalls.
Penn And Teller Tell A Lie is revolutionising the way we learn about our world, so enjoy!
Penn and teller tell a lie premieres tonight at 10pm and airs every Wednesday on Discovery Channel (Astro Ch 551).