Original subtitles

Illusion, the art of tricking the brain, distorting the senses, challenging

perception. You can't trust what you see even with your own eyes.

Meet the Masters of Illusion.

Hello.

Hello and welcome to Masters of Illusion.

Okay, look at this card.

Is it possible that these lines are perfectly straight?

Is our brain trying to fool us?

Well, reality and perception are not always the same.

Would you bet me?

Would you bet me?

Okay, then you'd lose, because these lines are perfectly straight.

I'm a little slow, but they're perfectly straight.

I would not bet that our next master of illusion is a great animal trainer.

Here is Ed Alonzo.

It's going to get hot in here.

Now let's get all wound up in the beats as the great Las Vegas magician Rick

Thomas shows us the twist can be more than a dance.

Okay, people, I need your help.

With me.

Keep it going.

Yeah.

Can the fantasy of a simple drawing turn into reality?

Well, it can, if you are Michael Grandinetti.

I have something pretty special to show you. And for this, I need a couple

people to come up here and help me out.

Let me see here.

Would you come up here?

Yeah? Would you come up here?

Give me a hand as they come up here.

Would you stand right here?

And stand right here. What's your name? Jasmine.

Jasmine, nice to meet you.

Courtney Rose. Courtney Rose.

Thank you for coming up here, ladies. I have a couple of things for you. First

of all, we have this wine glass.

Courtney Rose, hold on to that. Okay. Okay.

And I hold it from kind of the middle so that the audience can see inside.

Give me one hand here and one hand there. Perfect.

You've done this before.

Now, question for you, Jasmine. Are you a good artist?

Yes. I knew I picked the right person when I went down there. Yay!

So I brought something for you. This is a little sketch pad, okay? I want you to

look through it, make sure it's just a normal sketch pad, nothing hidden

Does it look okay?

Now I'm going to have you draw something for this audience.

Okay.

Something simple.

Let's make it a fish, okay?

Take the marker, and right in the center of the pad, draw me a fish right about

there.

He needs an eye.

Now,

one more thing. He needs a little bit of water underneath him.

Oh, you need a fin, too.

That's perfect. What do you guys think?

Huh?

Very good job. Now, I'll tell you what. If you could just rip that drawing off

there for me.

Now, you know, they say a really good artist, their work actually comes to

right off the page.

So I'm going to prove to you that you are a really good artist.

Okay? Watch.

Everybody watch her fish.

Now, I want you all to imagine with me.

Everybody first, imagine the water that she drew.

Watch.

It almost looks like that water is pouring right off the page.

You see that?

I have one more thing for you. What?

Thank you so much, everyone.

Next, Johnny Ace Parker.

Marion Stewart, Les Arnold, and Dazzle, and Michael Turco.

Say hi to one of Masters of Illusion's favorites.

We can always count on him to make our lives a little more colorful.

Johnny Ace Palmer.

Thank you very much. Hi.

I'm very happy to be here to show you some magic.

This is where I invite two people from the audience to come up and help me.

There's a lady on the end in the yellow.

Would you be kind enough to join me? And how about the lady in the blue in the

third row there? Would you come up too? How about some encouragement for my two

volunteers?

Thanks for joining me.

May I have one of you on each side of me, please?

Once again, my name is Johnny Ace Palmer. And what's your name?

I'm Ashley. This is Ashley, everybody.

And what's your name?

Kim? This is Kim, everybody.

Kim and Ashley, this is everybody.

I have three magic scarves, a blue one, a red one, and a yellow one. They are

the primary colors, red, blue, and yellow. I'm going to tie a magic knot in

blue scarf like this, and when I blow on the knot, the knot will disappear.

See?

Ashley, will you blow on that, please?

Thank you. See, she's magic, too.

And Kim, will you hold the blue one, please? Thank you. Here's the yellow

Whoop, that's the floor show, everybody.

Here's the yellow one. At least the act is picking up.

And Ashley, will you hold the yellow one, please? Thank you. Here's the red

Try to watch the red one. The reason I said try is because it will disappear

right in front of your eyes.

Keep one eye on this hand and one eye on the red scarf.

Keep one eye on this hand, too.

If you don't have three eyes, I'll go slow.

The reason I invited these two young ladies up here is so that they could see

the magic up close.

You can see the red scarf right now, and you can see it until the last second.

But then it's too late. The red scarf is gone.

I'll show you where it is. Thanks.

It's inside of the blue scarf, believe it or not. Inside of the blue one is the

red one.

See, now you can hold the red one.

May I please have the yellow one? Thank you. I'll place the yellow one into the

blue one. See it going down in there?

See it going down in there?

See it going down in there?

Now the yellow scarf has magically disappeared.

Of course, we know where it is. Thank you.

Since the red one came out of the blue one, may I have the red one, please?

Thank you. I'll reach right down inside of the red one, right in the middle,

right in here, and I'll pull out the yellow. Oops, I missed.

Kim, will you reach in there and pull out the yellow scarf, please?

See, she's magic, too. I knew you could do it. Thanks for your help. Thanks for

your help. Well, before you go, shall we try one more special illusion?

It's something I've always wanted to do as a magician.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. I will now attempt, with the help of these

two lovely ladies, to pull a real live bunny rabbit out of this very magical

hat. Would you like to see that?

Yeah? All right.

How about the rest of you?

All right, here we go.

A spin, a wave, and a snap, and she's in there.

Now the hard part.

She's gone.

That's amazing.

I don't have a tie, do I?

Let's try again, but this time, Ashley and Kim, will you please wave your hands

over the hat and snap. Go ahead.

Look,

we did it. Look right here. You see what I see? Look right here.

It's just a little hair.

You know, like the tortoise.

Let's look under the table. Do you see anything?

Do you see anything under the table?

Neither do I. Let's try one more time. Will you all help me, please? Wave your

hand and snap.

We did it. Look.

A real, live bunny rabbit out of the hat.

I knew we could do it.

You know how fast she is. You can see her.

Doesn't she look weird?

She is real.

She's just outside.

This is Snowball. She lives with me and my family in Huntington Beach. That

makes her a beach bunny.

Thank you for being a great audience, and thank you, ladies, so much for

me. Thank you.

Next, Barry and Stuart when we come back. And coming up, Les Arnold and

and Michael Turco.

Scotland's fast -talking duo.

will now explain how they do a classic illusion.

But don't let them disillusion you.

Barry and Stuart.

One of the most closely dotted secrets in magic is an illusion called the red

carpet illusion.

The red carpet illusion has an amazing history.

In 1891, the amazing not -so had his assistant build him into a reclining

Sadly, he was discovered when he was accidentally sat on. Before the

of tape recorders, the one and only Billy the Baffler, he planted a parrot

the dressing room of his rival, hoping that it would hear the secret and then

repeat it back to his master.

Unfortunately, all he learnt was that his rival was a pretty boy.

Years later, Harry Houdini's not -so -famous brother, Gary Houdini, actually

kidnapped his own brother in an attempt to extract the secret from him.

Harry escaped.

Gary really should have seen that one coming, shouldn't he?

Barry, this is the wrong panel. It should be... Switch it. Yep.

Switch it around.

In 1946,

Francis the Astonisher hid in the lights that hung above the stage at the Empire

Theatre. Upon finally discovering the secret to this illusion, a single tear

joy rolled down his cheek and onto an exposed copper wire, electrocuting him.

to death.

This final panel will act as our front door. And now the final piece of the

puzzle, the red carpet itself.

Not only does that give the trick its name, but it's also the way that

have been making their assistants appear from nowhere for over 100 years.

Like this.

Gabrielle!

But tonight, we're going to tell you exactly how this thing is done.

Let's... Reset the red carpet. Let's do it.

New technology makes it a lot easier nowadays to find out the secret behind

magic trick. And we don't just mean watching it again and again and again on

YouTube. Not that. No, we're talking about a very special camera. An infrared

camera. Because with one of those, you would be able to see right through these

thin plastic sheets.

And although magicians are supposed to never, ever give away their secrets...

We're going to show you exactly how this works by using one of those special

cameras now.

It's going to be like having X -ray vision. You'll be able to see through

panels. Here's the secret. Before the trick begins, Gabrielle starts out

crouched behind these panels right here. If you look on the special cameras, you

can see her body heat right through these panels.

Everyone in the studio, you'll be able to follow along by watching on the big

screens. Gabrielle, are you ready?

Ready. Great.

And now the secret behind the red carpet illusion.

The first panel is slid along the ground and attached to the back of the box

like this.

As the second panel is slid along the ground, Gabrielle crawls along at the

speed as it, then she hides behind the back panel. The third panel allows

Gabrielle to sneak from behind the box to behind the red carpet.

I then pretend that this piece does not...

fit on the side of the box. This isn't a real mistake. This is actually just a

fake mistake, allowing us to take the back panel off, letting you see briefly

all the way through the box, making you think that everything is still fair and

completely above board.

The final panel allows Gabrielle to sneak behind the box.

I then hand this panel to Barry standing at the front.

Stuart then gets the red carpet.

and gives it a flick. This is actually misdirection, allowing Gabrielle to

behind the front door.

That's then slid along the ground, she walks along with it, and steps inside

box. And that is the secret behind the red carpet illusion, but does not

how we managed to do this.

And definitely does not explain how we managed to do that.

Les Arnold and Dazzle and Michael Turco.

Time now for that dazzling couple of sophistication, Les Arnold and Dazzle.

If you can't find a genie in the bottle, well, the next best thing to make a

wish come true is Michael Turco.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, we're going to have some fun here. Any

single guy in the audience?

Right here? What's your name? Garrett. Garrett, come on up here, Garrett.

I'm going to ask you a couple questions, all right? Come on over here for me. I

think it's right here.

I'm going to ask you a couple questions.

You got three favorite things?

Yeah. Yeah?

Cars.

Cars? Yeah.

Girls? Food.

Food, okay. So cars. Do you like slow cars or fast cars? Fast.

Fast cars, good answer. And girls, what do you think, blonde or brunette?

Blonde. Blonde's all the way? Yes, sir. All right. So we've got fast cars, we've

got blondes, and what's your favorite food?

Pizza. Pizza. Well, I'm from the East Coast, so Jersey, New York pizza's good?

New York will do it. All right, that's the best. I got something for you. All

right, head right back to your seat.

Fast cars, pizza, and blondes. Check this out.

Hey, girls, flip that cloth up.

Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes on this cloth the entire time. Don't take

them off. Whatever you do, keep them on.

Check this out.

I hope you have been amazed as I have. Be sure to join us next time for more

Masters of Illusion.

Until then, I'm Dean Cain.

Good night.