Teller Gives an Interview – Has His First Name Been Leaked?Inside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

The New York Daily News gets in on the fun of promoting Penn & Teller’s show for this Sunday at 8:00 pm Eastern.

By our count, this is the fifth angle by which Penn & Teller have brought their message to the public.

Compared with the Gay-Baiting in The USA Today / The New York Post, Mr. Teller’s piece seems like a legitimate news story.

We note, however, The Daily News did not pick up on The USA Today’s scoop: Teller’s first name is “Joe.”

The interview starts out with a sense of purpose:

The Daily News
did manage to catch Teller at a good time. He was willing to talk ? on
the phone ? about the duo’s latest TV special, “Penn & Teller: Off
the Deep End.” Airing Sunday night on NBC, the show features P&T
performing such illusions as making a submarine disappear ? and then
revealing how they did it.

You’ve been with Penn for over 30 years now. What’s the secret?

Division of labor. We each respect what the other does
well. And we also don’t spend any social time together. When artistic
partners start off as buddies, the first time they have an artistic
disagreement, their friendship goes to hell. We’ve always been business
partners, and so when we fight over artistic things, we don’t really
take it personally.

You’re not only going to make a submarine disappear on the show, but you’ll be revealing how it’s done, too?

Yes, we will. For some people, that’s going to be the most fun part.

I guess it’s that kind of irreverence toward magic that’s a big part of your success.

We really respect the intelligence of the audience. We don’t pretend
there’s real magic and we don’t do “booga-booga.” That entails a ?level
of frankness that I don’t think ?people are used to seeing in people
who do magic.

You guys pretty much only reveal tricks you’ve devised
yourselves. Is that so you don’t insult the rest of the so-called magic
community?

No, it’s because your conventional magic tricks are not
very interesting to learn about. How interesting is it to find out
there’s a trap door, or to find out that somebody had something hidden
in his hand? The biggest secret to all of magic is that the best magic
tricks are done by means that are so ugly, nobody wants to know about
them.

Check back often for the latest angles, the faux-controversies, and our takes. You can read our cynical essay on gay-baiting as a publicity tool here on the award-nominated Quinlan’s Inside Magic.

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