A homebound Penn & Teller make magic
The magicians Penn & Teller hope to pull off a heck of a trick — make fears of the coronavirus disappear, at least for an hour.
The duo star in the CW’s special “Penn & Teller: Try This at Home,” created and filmed entirely by the homebound magicians and their friends.
“It is a fascinating challenge to be able to do magic for people when you can’t touch anything,” said Penn Jillette, the taller, more vocal part of the group, who goes by his first name. “It’s not even a retooling. It’s a complete ground-up rethink.”
Viewers get to see guest stars Elle and Dakota Fanning do a card trick from their home — they had to order decks of cards delivered to them in lockdown. Elle will be uncannily able to find the card that Dakota chooses.
“Teller and I had to run that with dozens of people sitting in for Elle remotely because we were making this trick work by the skin of our teeth,” Penn said. “We had a margin of error that was much, much slimmer than we would have in stage show or an ordinary TV special.”
Teller — Raymond Teller, the silent partner onstage — does a trick with two bowls and seven tin foil balls, and also submerges into his home swim spa with a snorkel to make magic with yellow sponge balls. “It was much, much harder than I ever dreamed,” he said.
Magicians Shin Lim and Michael Carbonaro share some of their tricks and illusionist Mac King reveals a cool one — taking uncooked popcorn, pouring it into a paper lunch bag and somehow using his phone’s light to turn it into cooked popcorn.
The special’s name is a riff off the title of a TV special they did years ago, “Don’t Try This at Home.” This time they want the audience to try the tricks on their families and maybe amuse delivery people.
“We have a bunch of tricks that they can learn and actually do and actually practice,” said Penn, whose wife did his hair and makeup and who was also in charge of sound, camera and props.