The Genii Forum

I read about a P&T routine once. Where they performed a trick and then exposed it on stage. Except they offered the audience the choice of watching the exposure - or closing their eyes to keep the mystery alive instead.

I am just wondering if they have ever performed this routine on TV (eg Fool Us?). I am familiar with most of their work. But this is one routine I really want to see.

Perhaps it's the trick where Teller gets himself into a cabinet shaped like a rocket ship and then gets sliced into parts, his head is removed (trapped in the front section of the rocket) to a table, things happen, then he gets his head portion put back on and is shown restored. The exposure is Teller wheeling around under the platform on which Pen is standing, riding along on a sort of dolly.

Anyway, that's how I remember it.

Very clever and fast moving. To expose it, the effect is repeated with the covering removed from the front of the raised platform so you can watch Teller zooming around.

The trick is called Honor System. Teller escapes from a secured wooden crate that has been thoroughly examined by audience members (during the preshow music). The audience can then decide whether to close their eyes or keep them open to see how the effect works.

I'd tip the method here, but I've never opened my eyes during the trick.

Cheers, Mike!

Just a few weeks ago on "Fool Us", P&T did a "packing box escape" (or exchange?)....where Teller escaped from a wooden box on stage.

There was an assistant onstage assisting P&T, that helped with the misdirection.

Was that the "Honor System", or their alternate version of it?

That was not Honor System.

I think Danny Orleans briefly talked about his family's experience with this effect in an article he wrote about his family's magic vacation in Vegas. I can't remember if the article appeared in Genii or MAGIC.

Michael Close wrote:The trick is called Honor System. Teller escapes from a secured wooden crate that has been thoroughly examined by audience members (during the preshow music). The audience can then decide whether to close their eyes or keep them open to see how the effect works.

Sounds like the show opener at the Rio, or at least the one I watched. There was no reveal option, though. Very puzzling unless you think like a magician.

Bill, you may be thinking of an opener that is similar to Honor System in that it involves the audience inspecting an empty wooden crate prior to the show. Then when show starts Teller appears from the crate. There is no reveal, just the sudden appearance.

If I recall correctly, in Honor System there was also an inspected plexiglass box placed inside the create. Teller escaped from both. And I'll fess up that I peeked.

John Signa wrote:Bill, you may be thinking of an opener that is similar to Honor System in that it involves the audience inspecting an empty wooden crate prior to the show. Then when show starts Teller appears from the crate. There is no reveal, just the sudden appearance.

If I recall correctly, in Honor System there was also an inspected plexiglass box placed inside the create. Teller escaped from both. And I'll fess up that I peeked.

Ah, yes. Similar but not the same. At the Rio, Teller appears inside the previously inspected empty box, he does not escape from it.

I noticed that in the opening credits for Fool Us, it lists Alyson Hannigan as a Producer of the show.

Really?

Producers get paid more.

Exactly.

Really?

More often than not it’s because producers get paid less.... but that the title sounds illustrious and like a promotion for the individual concerned so in lieu of pay rises tv shows give the talent credits as head writer or producer, maybe employs their friends/partners in minor staffing roles and let’s them sit in on a few meetings because that costs a lot less than paying the talent an extra 100k per episode.

Obviously o don’t know the specifics of this show but that’s how and why it happens on virtually every other tv show I’ve worked on.

Very interesting. Thanks for the enlightenment, Tom.

Producer credits aren’t always meaningful.
Recent Vanity Fair article:

Vanity Fair: Natalie, I saw that you have an executive-producer credit on the film, as well as an acting credit. What has your relationship with this project been like over the years?
Natalie Portman: I do? [Laughs] That’s awesome! I didn’t have a relationship—I guess that’s something my agents added in, and I didn’t realize. [Laughs]

A Producer credit might bring in more money over the course of time. I know from reading about Gilligan's Island - which was re-run over and over and over and … - that the producers/writers/directors got residuals forever, whereas the actors only got anything for the first four or five (something like that anyhow) repeats. The actors were quite bitter about that.

Contracts may have changed since then of course. Still, a Producer credit is potentially lucrative, as well as being a nice thing to have.

Looked like the producers anticipated diminished viewing figures for the Labor Day broadcast, and stacked the deck accordingly.

Those producers earn their money.

From IMDB, please find following a list of the producers for Fool Us. (I didn't realize there would be so many of so many different types, or that sometimes they only produce an episode or two. Ms. Hannigan seems to be in the latter category, at least since the last time this imdb listing was updated.)

Series Produced by
Danny Harris ... producer (40 episodes, 2015-2018)
Dan Bowen ... associate producer / story associate producer (26 episodes, 2016-2017)
Michael L. Holland ... associate producer (20 episodes, 2015-2016)
Seth Howard ... supervising segment producer / segment producer (13 episodes, 2015)
Joseph D. Reitman ... segment producer (13 episodes, 2015)
Julie DeMarre ... associate producer (13 episodes, 2016)
Peter Adam Golden ... executive producer (12 episodes, 2011-2017)
David Ae Levy ... associate segment producer (11 episodes, 2015)
Olumide Odebunmi ... story producer / senior producer / supervising story producer (6 episodes, 2016-2018)
Andrew J. Golder ... executive producer (5 episodes, 2011-2017)
Darren Toon ... talent producer (5 episodes, 2015-2017)
Glenn S. Alai ... co-executive producer / associate producer (4 episodes, 2011-2017)
Lincoln D. Hiatt ... executive producer (3 episodes, 2015-2017)
Katharine Begg ... producer (2 episodes, 2011)
Peter Davey ... executive producer (2 episodes, 2011)
David Green ... executive producer (2 episodes, 2011)
Alek Compton ... assistant segment producer / associate story producer (2 episodes, 2015-2017)
Penn Jillette ... executive producer (2 episodes, 2015-2017)
Teller ... executive producer (2 episodes, 2015-2017)
Alyson Hannigan ... producer (2 episodes, 2017)
Tom Dearden ... assistant producer (1 episode, 2011)
Bob Massie ... executive producer (1 episode, 2015)
Jonathan Ross ... co-executive producer (1 episode, 2015)
Chris Smith ... segment producer (1 episode, 2015)
Jake Deptula ... associate story producer (1 episode, 2017)
Rick Manfredi ... story producer (1 episode, 2017)
Zach Ralston ... story producer (1 episode, 2017)

WOW that's quite a list. I guess it comes down to who has the time/availability at any given point (or, in the case of executive producers, the money). Or, as was pointed out on this thread, who might be willing to take less compensation in exchange for a "producer" credit.

That's Show Biz...

I assume that segment producers and story producers have actually done some nuts and bolts work. The rest...well it used to be, back in the day, that the producer was the person who convinced the other guy to risk their money.