Special effects and illusions
designer Jim Steinmeyer once said, "Magicians
don't protect their secrets from the audience. They protect the audience from
their secrets," which is true. Magic is always more fun
if you can't figure it out. But, sometimes, we
just want to know how the dang trick is done. And over the years, magicians
have spilled the beans on stage, in books,
and even in court. So, today, we're
uncovering the secrets behind some famous
historic magic tricks. But, first, make sure to
subscribe to the Weird History channel. After that, leave
us a comment and let us know what other men
behind the curtain you'd like to sneak a peek at. OK, I have to think the alliance
is going to frown on this. [MUSIC PLAYING] On a live 1983 CBS
television special, the iconic magician with
the Dickensian name, David Copperfield,
did what certainly seemed to be the impossible--
he made Lady Liberty disappear. A live audience,
television crew, and stage were all on a large platform on
Liberty Island in New York City viewing the Statue of
Liberty in the distance. Also on the platform,
framing the statue, were two scaffolds
decorated in lights. Copperfield raised a curtain
between the scaffolds to hide the statue and
give a short soliloquy on cherishing freedom, which
you may find more powerful than the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution combined. Then the curtain dropped,
the lights flashed, and the Statue of
Liberty was gone. Take that, Planet of the Apes. But don't worry, unlike
in Ghostbusters II, that big, green, She-Hulk
of American iconography didn't actually move at all. So how did Copperfield do it? Actually, pretty easily. He just rotated the platform
everyone was standing on. The vibrations of
its movement were masked by loud music being
pumped through speakers while Copperfield
speechified over the noise. When the curtain dropped,
the platform's new location blocked the statue from view
by one of the scaffolds. And the stage lights
were turned on so bright that no one could see
the statue behind them. So, good luck trying
that one at home. [MUSIC PLAYING] Ask an average Joe
or Jane to think of one magician and chances are
they'll give you Harry Houdini. One of the most celebrated
and influential illusionists, Houdini was most known for his
daring and dangerous escape tricks. He was totally committed
to the bit, too. His life came to a
tragic end as the result of a stunt gone wrong. Hey, Harry, we didn't need to
believe in magic that badly. Among Houdini's many tricks
was the underwater box escape. He would climb handcuffed into
a wooden crate that was nailed, trussed, and chained shut. And if that wasn't enough,
the Houdini-stuffed crate was hoisted by a crane
into New York's East River, where it promptly sank. But, a few minutes
later, Houdini would emerge free of his
bonds at the water's surface, presumably after trading
some gossip with the fish. So how the heck
did this guy do it? Well, basically,
with a trick crate. It had small holes in
it that not only helped the crate sink
quicker but allowed Houdini to easily breathe
while he waited for the box to be "nailed". Did you hear the big,
sarcastic air quotes around the word "nailed"? Because, while the crate
appeared to be nailed shut, one of the sides had
two fake nail heads, which disguised a trapdoor. Once Houdini was
inside the crate, and it was being
lifted by the crane, he would take off the
handcuffs with a handy pair of hidden keys. After the crate hit
the water and sank enough to cause
sufficient thrills, he would simply kick open
the crate at the hidden hinge and swim to the surface. It's much less impressive
when you know how it's done. Hopefully he apologized
to any lifeguards watching to whom he
undoubtedly gave heart attacks. [MUSIC PLAYING] David Copperfield is back to
discombobulate us all once again. Copperfield performed his
Lucky 13 trick regularly during his Las Vegas shows. First, large bouncy balls
are thrown into the audience to select 13
volunteers at random, which would be a very whimsical
way to decide the Hunger Games. The 13 people are
led onto the stage and asked to sit on a raised
platform with a curtain draped over them. For some added
spooky theatricality, the volunteers shine
flashlights through the curtain to show they are still there. But then, the curtain is
dropped with explosions, and the 13 people disappear. Did he just detonate a
group of total strangers? No, it's merely the
power of illusion. Copperfield redirects
the audience's attention to the back of the theater. And the 13 volunteers
reappear behind them. How's that for a lucky number? Now, you really shouldn't
try this one at home. Because 58-year-old
British tourist Gavin Cox was chosen as
one of the volunteers at Copperfield's show. And he got himself
injured in the process. So Cox sued Copperfield. And, as part of
Copperfield's defense, he was forced to
reveal the secrets of the trick in open court. Just as the sheet is being
pulled from the raised platform with a
flourish, assistants are helping the 13 volunteers
out of the back of the platform and into a backstage area. They're led through a
passageway around the theater and to the back, where
they can reappear. That's the kind of case you
hope for when you get jury duty, testimony, and a show. Cox claimed this
passageway was dimly lit and had loose construction
material and dust lying every which way, causing him to
slip, fall, and become injured. Copperfield countered
that thousands of people had participated in the
trick over the years. And he, himself, walked
that same pathway earlier, and nobody else had
ever gotten hurt, which is a bit like
claiming you're indestructible because
you've never broken a bone. But it is a fair point. The jury wound up finding
Copperfield negligent, but not civilly liable for
Cox's fall, determining that the magician owed the
volunteer no money in damages. In other words, he made
his liability disappear. [MUSIC PLAYING] British magician Robert Harbin
invented the classic Zig-Zag Box illusion in 1965, performing
it for many an amazed audience since. It's like the
sawing-a-person-in-half trick's groovier cousin. In the illusion, an assistant
steps into an upright cabinet with the face, hands, and
foot visible through openings in the front-- the
foot, presumably, so Quentin Tarantino
can stay focused. The magician then inserts
sharp, dangerous metal blades horizontally in the
cabinet's midsection, dividing it into thirds. Then they slide the
cabinet's midsection apart from the top
and bottom thirds, so there can be no mistaking
that the assistant is now in three distinct pieces. The magician adds to
this gruesome ordeal by opening a small door on
the cabinet's midsection to reveal the assistant's
body somehow intact inside and reassure the
crowd that a crime has not taken place. At the end, the
assistant's midsection is slid back into place,
the two blades are removed, and the performer steps out
of the cabinet in one piece. So, what's the secret? Dark magic? Well, while the assistant
doesn't go that far, this trick does rest
on their shoulders, rather than the magician's. The box is made to look
narrower than it actually is. There are black
stripes down the side used to imply negative space. But those black spaces
are actually quite usable. The assistant still fits
in the rearranged box, though it's a very tight fit. And, when the
blades are inserted, it looks like they take
more space than they do. Although, they probably feel
huge when you're crammed in there waiting for
the routine to be over. In essence, the trick relies
on a flexible assistant and forced perspective. And Harbin was so annoyed at
magicians stealing his stuff, that he wrote all of this
down in the 1970 book, The Magic of Robert Harbin. There were only 500 copies. And Harbin only granted those
who bought the limited book permission to use the Zig-Zag. [MUSIC PLAYING] Fans of Red Dead Redemption, now
you'll know how this is done. The bullet catch trick,
which, as it sounds, involves the magician
conjuring superhuman speed to literally catch a bullet
fired out of a dang gun. It's thought to have
been performed as far back as the 16th century. Several street magicians
did versions of the trick throughout the 18th
century, many claiming to have invented it
themselves, which is a thing street magicians do. Many versions of this death-
and physics-defying stunt exist. But the basic mechanics are
that a bullet, sometimes marked by an audience volunteer,
is loaded into a gun by a magician. An assistant aims the gun at
the magician from a distance and fires directly at
the magician's dome. Sometimes there is an object,
such as a pane of glass, between them that
breaks for extra oomph. And then the magician
does not fall over and die but instead reveals that
they caught the bullet in their teeth. Tasty and thrilling. The most common
method to perform this gunpowder-filled
breakfast of champions is to load the gun with
blanks so a properly powerful explosion occurs but no actual
bullet leaves the barrel. During this practice, the
magician palms a spare bullet and places it in their mouth
out of the audience's view. Any prop in the way of the
imaginary bullet's path, like a glass pane, is
broken with a squib or electric charge. And then the magician
gives their audience a bullet-eating grin to a
massive and terrified applause. Other versions have permeated
through the sick and twisted minds of magicians. Back when you had to
load individual rounds into your musket,
some assistants employed a magnetic bullet
that could be dropped down the barrel of the gun,
then picked back up when a magnetized
stick was pushed down to quote unquote "load it". The trick has also been
performed with wax bullets that can shatter glass
but melt before they reach the performer, which
still sounds terrifying. Another common early method
was to palm the marked bullet, but then fire a real
one, but aim to miss, which sounds downright stupid-- at least no one ever tried
to catch a bazooka missile. All of these methods have their
own inherent danger, clearly, as no trick using a
firearm can be 100% safe. Several performers
have actually perished attempting this trick-- including American magician
William Ellsworth Robinson, who wore heavy makeup
and spoke broken Chinese to perform as Chung Ling Soo. When a bullet accidentally
hit him during a performance, he dropped the act,
shouting in English for the first and
last time on stage, "Oh, my god,
something's happened. Lower the curtain." Heh. "Something's happened" might
be the gentlest way anyone has ever said, I've been shot. Even Harry Houdini, that
maverick escape artist, never performed the
bullet-catching trick because it was so dangerous. So definitely do not
try this one at home. Remember what happened to
Christian Bale in The Prestige. So what do you think? Which of these tricks
surprised you the most? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History. [MUSIC PLAYING]
