How I Fooled Penn & Teller!! (FULL EXPLANATION)

you sure what's up team welcome back I fooled Penn and Teller oh yes I did many of you know this oh how sweet it was and today for the first time ever I'm gonna explain that trick everything about it so if you don't wanna know the magic works get out of here go right now go go go but if you do want to know feel free to stay check it out many of you wonder why I would do this well I'm doing this because the trick is five years old right I did this five years ago five years a long time I'm gonna explain this because I don't do this trick anymore maybe you wonder why I wouldn't well this trick involves a phone book and phone books are just so hard to come by there's like no way to get them anymore because the internet so yeah I'm like why I can't have phone books I can't do my phone book magic trick it's retired for the rest of the history of the world no one's doing a phone book magic trick I figure you guys might as well know how it works so let me show you and I have not watched this clip in a while so I need all right got it Hey found the jacket I use in the show a little tighter actually not so bad I even found the shoes I used in the show orange soles gray come on I'll put those bad boys on high kick high kick okay I found the sword whoo this swords my brothers he was the theater major in college and I don't know what play they need this for but he had it and I took it because well he's in business now and now I'm the theater guy it's real sword it's cool but it's dull dull as hell all right and need a phone book here is the Toronto phone book Toronto Canada biggest city in Canada this is the phone book this is why you can't do this trick anymore okay this isn't explaining right here I don't know what will so just for the demonstration purposes we'll use this phone book but look how small this is so unimpressive now let me explain step by step okay so there's one gimmick you have to make for this and it's really simple I'll show that right now you need one playing card any card will do you're going to fold it in two quarters right and so you got a playing card fold it into quarters you only need one quarter of it okay this is almost all the gimmick I need a piece of phone book you got to cut out a piece of the the phone book that's larger than the corner of the card well phone book page cut out now you're gonna glue it on top of the card so it's gonna be just like that page is glued onto the card card on one side page glued on the other so that can go into a finger palm like this now we've seen some double-sided tape on this side and we're all set this side looks like a page of the phone book this side is a card a sticky tape on it so it's nice and solid you can hold that in finger palm like this and that way you can stick it to something no problem now that's gonna go in your right jacket pocket you're all set now let's go through the episode a little bit and I'll show you what's what so I did my fool s appearance when Jonathan Ross was the host not alyson hannigan I don't know why they switched I really liked working with Jonathan I've never worked with Allison though so I don't know but yeah so that's why it looks a little different yeah he is so much fun on stage it was like hilarious Stefan with you could do it everyone he was just roll with a kind of guy loved it so yeah I walk out there and making fun of them you got my ass they're hilarious man I gotta get that haircut bags I was tighter there alright so look at that foam look that's a real size phonebook missing that alright and I'll teach you how to rip a phone book right here but there are way there are ton of good YouTube videos how to rip phone books anyways he gives it back to me now yeah you can see my hands clenched right there pause you can see my hands clenched right there when I gave him the phone book to inspect it to make sure was a normal phone book I reach into my right pocket and I got the gimmick that we talked about so I've come out with this gimmick like this right sticky side out and finger palm something like this so when he's looking at the phone book I reached in my pocket I grabbed it about and kind of like this now when I grab phonebook back I'm holding it a little bit weird so that's that I sent him to go get a notepad and pen that's key I want his hands to be busy so I have a reason to flip through the phone book so that's not flipping through the phone book and I say just say stop you can see my hand I'm like I'm kind of using this hand to flip through I'm holding it funny no one knows I'm holding this by me I just grabbed it I say go through I say just say stop he's gonna say stop forever wherever he says stop doesn't really honestly doesn't matter free choice you can stop anywhere wherever he wants to stop I reach in and then I stick my gimmick right doesn't really look like much me do it I do look at it you can see right but as at a glance it doesn't look like anything but that's stuck right there and what that's done is now it's made its marked with this pages I know what I'll be able to find this page any day of the week right any day that we got to find that page now it's marked but no one will notice it because well there's nothing for true ting it's just made a thicker unless you know you're looking for you would never notice anything's there but now your fingers can find it so fast so that's key so he says stop every wants I go like that and I stick it on where he wants it okay now it's great because I know I'm I'm stuck this on I'm holding the phone book open I'm literally not looking I'm holding the phone book open and I'm saying to him I say write down the page you're on and he can write this number or this number I don't know he might write this side he may write this side I'm not sure which one you're right doesn't matter that's the beauty of this so he breaks out a number I'm looking away I see you got it I close it back up and I can show it's fair it wasn't a force like big guests and and I'm not holding anything right like you know I mean so it's totally fair now that's part of the beauty of this and that's why it makes it so deceptive so I don't know the number no one knows the number but him he's written it down he's setting it facedown on the stool we can't see it okay that's so that's so key I don't have a gimmick anymore because I've stuck into the inside of the book now this is the fun part now I tell them I gonna rip it in half and it's kind of a joke it's fun but it actually helps my method your watch I say don't rip it in half like this because this is actually pretty easy to do ripping it with down the spine it'll kind of snap and break and I said I want you to do that and because later we're going to throw pages in the air and if you rip it down the spine you won't end up with separate pages so I say don't do that I say don't rip it like this okay I won't and I'm like and also don't open it halfway and rip it like this because that would be way too easy too so I'm pointing out two ways I don't want me to do it okay don't rip it like this like that and as I'm moving doing this gesture look at my eyes you can see I'm reading a page so right now I'm on page 135 in the video there I'm on 520 but I look and I read that as I'm gesturing with this so I'm describing him but I don't want him to do but at the same time that's where I'm getting the peak so now I know what page number he was on so I looked down I go okay and I close it back up and I say what I do want you to do is I want you to rip it this way and I proceed to demonstrate how I want me to rip it and then give him the book so that's where I get my peak it's so free that little gimmicks just stuck in there hanging on no one would ever notice it and that's what I'm getting my peak it was super fun that way like it's so bold because it's right out in the mid you look at my eyes you can see just looking at it so scary but no one's looking for that moment that moments well disguised and then I'll let him try and rip the phone book it's really funny you could throw some jokes and jabs in there if you want all good and then you can't do it gives it back to me now I grab the phone book just okay this one's quite thick so I'm like really plain it but I'm also playing it up a little bit for the for the show but the one I have here right now like this one I mean I could rip this in two seconds which I'll show you how to do okay quick interlude how to rip a phone book I could rip phone books like like that thick easy but there's don't exist anymore so okay we're gonna go small one this is what you're doing you put your fingers pretty close together and you're gonna bend and you're gonna squeeze and look at all that air that gets in there see that you squeeze in together with your index fingers you're gonna push those together so you're bending up and you're pushing these together and look at the air that gets in there see that air air between every single page and that's what you want you're gonna just break it apart you're gonna see it peel one piece at a time look at that and once you get to here you're fine you can regrip and now you can just pull it all the way apart like that it's crazy because any other method were you trying to rip pages that are all together like that it feels like steel feels impossible but if you learn to like Bend and get that little air gap in there it just like comes apart like like knife through hot butter that's a funny moment throw away the spine give them the loose pages so now we're not going to go through all of this but basically I give him two loose pages the tricks are already done okay he picked a you picked a free a free page I stuck my gimmick inside right it was very free I said don't do this don't do this please do this that's game over all I'm thinking all this other talking I'm doing on there is just being entertaining trying to fun with the situation but I already know that the number and no one saw when I got it so rip the phone book in half and he throws the pages in the air I set everybody up for this gag cuz this is the last part of the puzzle to make this trick actually work okay you see this black ampersand Penn & Teller symbol that's there for a reason cuz I have my sword balloon and something else back there we talk explain in a second so I give them these I tell Marsan and I tell them how to throw and very stressful this this bit because it's like it's kind of um it's nerve-racking I go get my sword some jokes of the sword and I start establish that I'm going to be standing in my back of the audience for that performer you never wonder stand with your back to the audience but I established that so I'll be standing and I turn round jabbing and it's all this is why I love this routine it's so much me it's so much me to goof around like this like not a logic not a lot of magic is happening right here but I'm like able to have so much fun and freedom and goof around the guy on stage and make to my little jokes and I love this style of performing so much so obvious that's why I do it so look where I'm standing I'm standing right next to that box with my back to the audience okay for the Box on this side I go get my sword I come I start making jokes with homeless stabbed a blah blah blah right the box is right there my sword right here this is the image I want people to rent remember this is the image I want them to see okay and I turn around everything's fine nothing fishy he's got all the pages whatever there is one more page behind that box just a random page ripped out of the phonebook but this one page I don't care what the numbers are one random page and it's sitting right behind that box boom everything's free and clear this is why it makes it so deceptive I go back to my position so this is where Jonathan throws the pages right I say throw the pages and you throw him I say on the count of three it's such a funny moment he throws him is a huge mess everyone in the room thinks he's screwed it up but he hasn't I sucker everybody in with this joke it's so funny it's such a mess it's such a fun visual I'm doing it for the joke but I'm also doing it to see how they throw because sometimes I have people that are bad at throwing pages and later on when I turn around I need those pages to be sort of in the right area if they're not in the right area that my trick won't look right so I'm gauging how was he at throwing okay and and it's just too funny not to do this is this is a really key thing he throws the pages huge laughs I'm evaluating I make fun of him I say Jonathan I'm over here you're throwing them over there well I love making fun of them and I just playing into it ah it's my favorite moment performing on stage and especially having it work so well on that show holy [ __ ] it was my favorite thing so check us out they throw it goes everywhere I see you're lucky I have one more phone book because this trick does need two phone books every time I walk back over to that box and as I go down there I do this so I go slide that page on the sword I set it down the pages on there I leave it back here though I come back with the phone book more jokes lalala we're joking around I rip it in half I given the page I say there's no more phone books don't mess this up super fun but you guys did you know that when I go back to forget the sword I slide into position so no one could tell got here no one knows just me right try not to flash anything then I say okay this time throw the pages at the count of three we do a very big on purpose he throws it as soon as I have the most amount of pages fluttering around in front of me that's when I turn right it's a timing thing you watched the slow this if you slow it down at one point you do see this look how bad that is look you can see it's already on the sword it's just unfortunate editing when you watch it just normal you don't see it but obviously is there people on YouTube slow down all the time and always try and point it out and that's fine it's just it's it's probably a trick that's better in person than it is on TV but it worked obviously but yeah so you stabbed it you come through you stab it now you got this and I take this and I grab it pull it off the end like I'm really looking at the numbers here okay I really look at the numbers and I say alright I snap one page I stabbed 520 and 521 as if that's what I'm reading it's not in this case I'm reading 183 and 184 but I just I'm not reading the right numbers I'm just lying right I'm just pretending to I already know what his page was from earlier so I just pretend to read that the writing's so small who's gonna check I say I have 520 and 521 what do you have and he holds up 520 and I just say this thank you and I just let that page fall into the thousands of other pages that on the ground thank you very much I mean no one can even check it now unless they really get down there to see which page is pierced but they're not going to do that especially not in that situation never who would ever do that no one would ever do that they might have wondered they might have wanted to see it but they're not gonna go look for it and if you read it convincingly like I obviously did they're not gonna know that I was lied Penn and Teller are the best and here's why for my trick they could have guessed at things they already knew and that would have been that would have been in fine like they could have said well we know the page was already on the sword before you turned around they knew that and they could have guessed that and I would have been like yep you're right thanks very much guys night to having me out but because they wanted to play the game the right way they wanted to challenge themselves and me they decided to guess the stuff they weren't quite so sure at so they thought that I made Jonathan choose a certain page that was his joke here about when he makes a joke about like is what I find Luke Scott Walker in there I mean I was so nervous and so rattled about the whole experience I didn't understand he was talking about the force that I force the page to Jonathan and I didn't so it took me a second I was like look like an idiot phone oh my oh no I didn't and they couldn't believe they didn't force it if I decide to do a Penn & Teller set and force the page you could easily do that and the trick would look to the audience very very similar for me it's not quite as deceptive so I chose not to do that but it's a perfectly logical method so it's kind of a strange thing like so no you're wrong but that would also work so it was a good guess it was wrong ultimately and then he said something else where he says so you got a peek and then you have an index of pages behind the box and he's half right there so I tried to cut him off he said you took a peek and I'm like yeah and then he's like and if you just stop there I probably would have been like yeah you got me thanks for having me is so fun to be in here but he didn't he kept going you said and there was an index I was like oh no like there's not like there's not a thousand different pages I'm not going back behind the box and like rifling through a bunch of pages to find the right one to put on the sword that's when I knew for sure they had no idea because that's impossible to go and quickly scan through a thousand pages of a phone book grab want to slide on a sword that fast it's not gonna happen they know I got a peek I don't think they know when but they know I got a peek which is good good guess but then do you have an index no I don't so now they've guessed three things they've only got one sort of right so that's when they had to say it we have taken this is just ridiculous we've taken two runs at this almost seems like we're about to cross into unfair and almost seems like we're cheating magicians are supposed to cheat you have cheated better than us you sir and you fooled us and I couldn't believe it like what a crazy experience it was like such a good feeling and I honestly didn't care whether they figured out it or not because I was just having fun up there you know like actually actually having fun up there easily one of my favorite experiences my whole career definitely my favorite TV experience it was just so surreal and they were so great to like I said to like try and guess the thing they didn't know and that was so fun for me where they were like yeah we're not gonna worry about the sword and how the page got on there and I'm not like well let's guess of how he knew even the comment to get on the other YouTube video or people are like it's already on the sword it's already on the store that's always the comment it's like yeah Penn & Teller knew that guys they're not like of course they knew that they're the best what they didn't know was how I knew which page and that was the really tricky part of this trick that was like the beauty of it and I'm so glad that they chose to focus on that and I mean it really feels good to explain this to you guys I hope you enjoyed it I hope you I hope you thought that was neat hope he's not the method was cool I hope if you're not a magician and and you watch this it didn't ruin anything for you you should've turned away I warned you I hope you are a magician or have interest in magic and you do like to know methods I hope you appreciate this one really appreciate coming out ahead of last end and I'm having a blast now so thanks so much team I highly recommend you go to Erica Claire's channel he's explaining his trick for the same reason I just explained this one is he's not gonna do it again I'm not gonna do this one again certain tricks you just can't do they're meant for a certain thing and then they're not you know they're not gonna work in real life anymore so go over there and enjoy that as well see you later teams bye

Channel: WES Barker

Views: 2,426,751

Rating: 4.9290757 out of 5

Keywords: Wes Barker, Stunt Magician, comedian, magician, magic trick, comedy, Vancouver, Toronto, street magic, riddles, puzzles, logic, pranks, sketch, magic, podcast, bottom of the barrel, bar bets, canada, couples, Fool Us, tutorial, explanation, revealed

Id: cDQOytYPi3M

Length: 19min 2sec (1142 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/BlueCanukPop]

Nicely put together trick. I’m so glad he shared it.

[u/RowYourUpboat]

Video of the trick on "Fool Us".

[u/robotpoolparty]

This dude is pure good vibes!

[u/Jakeman52]

For sure getting banned from the league of magicians.

[u/MenacingMelons]

The only thing I enjoy more than watching magic is the meticulous detail that goes in to performing the trick.

[u/Chioster]

Wes Barker is a great guy. He came to our school's athletic banquet a few years back as he graduated with a fellow coach of ours. He performed all night and performed this trick to the kids. It was a great night and one to remember.

[u/slartibartfist]

That was a hugely enjoyable explanation. His enthusiasm is heartwarming, and it makes me love P&T even more... they're more interested in it being a fun experience for the viewers than just being right and clever-clever. Ace

[u/VitaminZebra]

Love how nice he was about standing up for penn and teller.

[u/SonarRocket]

why does he sound exactly like ben schwartz