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 everyone, I'm Dean P, and welcome to Masters of Illusion.

What's real, and what is not? That's a question you may be asking yourself a

over the next half hour.

But that's the beauty of magic performed by masters. Will you be entertained?

Ladies and gentlemen, Wayne Hoffman.

Sorry,

I will talk backstage. I'm working on something really quick. It's a whole

about recycling.

I got two crushed cans. Green or red? Which one do you want?

Green. Green?

Your call. Watch the dents in the can because if you imagine we can take the

dents out, the dents will start to come out of the can. Now we still have a

hole, but if you imagine we can grab it and throw it away, if I just snap, you

see the hole refills itself. It's actually refilled. Tap on it.

Refill.

Refill. Now we can refill it. See, listen, there's nothing in there yet,

imagine we can refill it.

Starting to refill. Keep going. Now make it cold.

Here, feel it. You'll feel it getting colder. It's very cold. It's getting

colder and colder.

I'm a big fan of recycling.

And this one's for you, bud. But you're going to be doing a lot of introing and

a lot of talking for the show. So here you go.

This next act

can't just be a lucky guess.

It's beyond prediction.

What's the explanation?

Must be magic.

So let's hear it for Eric Jones.

Good evening, folks. Thank you so much for having me back. I want to show you

all something interesting. Here in my pocket, I've got a single envelope.

In that envelope happens to be a playing card with a prediction, a commitment to

your astonishment. Ma 'am, what is your name?

If it's okay, I'd like to try something with you.

You, me.

And my pack of playing cards.

Specifically, I've got two black kings here on top of the pack, which I will

leave here for just a few moments, Valeria. I need you to choose a card.

pass through the cards just like this. Whenever you get the notion, I want you

to say the word stop. Wherever you say stop, that'll be your card. Does that

sound fair?

Would you like the uppermost card where you said stop or the lowermost card?

Completely up to you. The uppermost card.

Ooh, that is not a bad card at all.

Now, if it's okay with you, I'd like to mark this card because the truth of the

matter is I could have another card just like this in the pack. So I'm going to

ask you a couple of personal questions. What's your middle name?

A -L.

How tall are you?

Five -four. That's admirable. I like that.

Five feet, four inches. So we got that there as well. Last but not least, did

you happen to have a pet growing up as a child?

You did. Was it a dog, a cat, a gerbil, a snake?

A dog. What kind of dog?

What was your Rottweiler's name?

How do we spell that? B -E -B -A.

Now, there's no way that I could know any of this information. Your middle

your height, or the name of your childhood pet. That's true, yes?

That all checks out.

Are you a science fan at all?

You are. Have you ever heard that matter cannot be created or destroyed?

Yes? You may have also heard that it cannot occupy two places at once.

Now, folks, what you're about to see is going to look like trick photography.

So if you need to blink, do it now.

Watch.

You know, at the very beginning, I was hoping that I could make a connection

with one of you, and I got to learn a little bit about you, as a matter of

But I also said that I was going to make a prediction, a commitment to your

astonishment, that I mentioned that I wouldn't touch until the very end.

Now, wouldn't it be interesting, wouldn't it be strange, in fact, if this

playing card that's been in your view this entire time would happen to be your

three of clubs with your middle name, your height, and the name of your

childhood pet?

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

What you're about to witness defies the basic laws of matter.

And who better to attempt such a feat than Ana de Guzman?

Thank you all so much. I'm here with a lovely volunteer from the audience.

what's your name? Celine. Celine, what is your favorite thing to drink?

Water. Water.

It's super exciting.

Well, you normally drink water with a straw, right?

Could you hold out your finger like this?

Right? Just do this finger. Yeah.

Can you try to balance it so we can hold it?

Perfect.

All right.

Okay. Let go.

You know how it works when I just got this static from your hair?

What? Yeah.

Watch if we just get more.

Watch what happens.

Make it stick on one finger.

You want to see this?

That's insane.

Yeah.

If I could get it right,

it should be able to.

Can I see it first?

Yeah.

Hold it out like this?

Yeah. I'm going to put the straw in. Like I said, you can't.

Hold tight. Don't move.

Oh, God. Oh, God. What do you have in here?

It's still going, okay?

Oh, okay. Oh, God. It's... How did you... Where did you... How...

Next,

an impossible prediction by Rob Lake. When we come back.

I know these illusions are beyond belief, but don't worry.

You're wide awake.

This magician, however, would like to take us on a journey through his dreams.

Here's Rob Lake.

Last night, I had the strangest dream. It was so strange, it actually woke me

in the middle of the night. So I wrote every detail of my dream down on a piece

of paper, and I filled that paper inside of this box. That way I could show it

to you tonight. But before I can show you my dream, I have to find...

A dream date.

Who wants to help out and go on a dream date with me?

Excellent. Right here in the front.

And excellent, excellent. Oh, are you guys together?

I'm going to steal your date for a moment. I'll let you stay back down

Have a seat right here to my right. Have a seat right there.

And what is your name?

Cody. Excellent, Cody. I have a key to this box.

I want you to hold on to this key. Keep it very safe and secure.

Thank you, sir.

All right, tonight...

I had a dream that the audience set me up on a blind date with you after the

show. Really? We're going to let them decide all of the details of our dates.

Like here, let's see.

Here in the front, the guy in the vest.

Where do we go on our date? Anywhere in the entire world, where was our date?

Japan. Oh, Japan.

I absolutely love Japan. Excellent.

All right, here. And in the middle of the front here, what did we have for

dinner?

A poppy seed salad. My favorite. Really? Yes. Excellent. The gentleman in the

glasses on the second row back there.

What did we do on our dream date after we had our poppy seeds salad?

You went to a sauna.

Ah, so soothing. Perfect.

Now, lady here in the front, do you have any coins in your pocket? I don't have

coins, but I do have cash.

What do you got?

$20. $20. Oh, big spinner tonight.

Excellent. All right, Cody, back to you for a moment. Who did you come here

tonight with? I came here with my boyfriend. Oh, your boyfriend.

Yes. The guy who tried to come up on stage and ruin my date.

And what is your boyfriend's name?

BJ. Has BJ taken you to Japan yet? No. Oh, so Mr. Magic is ahead right now.

Cody, come right over here. Stand right here. I'll be right back. This box has

been hanging up in the air out of my reach the entire time you could all see

No one could have possibly touched it.

Cody, you still have your key?

Bring your key over here.

I'd like you to please remove the lock from the box.

Yep, carry the lock to the center of the stage. I will meet you there.

This box was out of my reach, in the air, above your head this entire time.

thought no one could have possibly touched it.

Inside, I have a jar. This jar is sealed airtight, yes? Yes.

Inside is a piece of paper. Please remove the paper.

Excellent.

And I want you, Cody, to hold this corner right here, please.

Check this out.

Last night, I had a dream that I was on a blind date with Cody.

We went to Japan.

We had the most amazing gourmet Japanese version of a poppy seed salad you could

ever imagine.

After that, well, we hit off great in the sauna.

The total cost of our date was only $20.

But the best part of all was BJ had to pay.

Cody!

And BJ!

Watch the astounding skill of Robert Ramirez when we come back.

This hallucinist would like to pay some respect to the magician who came before

him with an act that stands up to the test of time.

Let's hear it for Robert Ramirez.

I'm going to show you one of my favorite manuscripts. This is what we call magic

apparatus, a word that's not used very often. It used to be really popular in

the 60s and the 70s. It kind of started dying in the 80s and 90s, and now nobody

really does this kind of magic. But it was shown to me, and I just thought it

was so incredible that I had to show you. So what an opportunity we have that

you get to see this. A little history. It's called Cube on a Release. It was

invented by a man named Jack Hughes in 1956.

It's three pieces, but we're only going to talk about two of the pieces at the

moment. So it's got this wood frame, which we'll get to afterwards.

Mainly, it's this two -rope.

With the red block in the center.

Perfect.

Two ropes. We'll do this one at a time so you can see.

Stay. Stay.

Solid piece of rope all the way through. There's no magnets or it doesn't come

undone or anything like that. That's rope number one. Rope number two looks

exactly the same.

Smells exactly the same as well.

Don't ask me what it smells like. It just smells exactly the same. We have

red block here.

It's solid on all sides.

Yes, it hurts my knuckles. Yes, it hurts my knuckles. There's two holes on the

inside, and that's so you can see right through.

But really, it's for the two ropes. So we're going to place the two ropes

through the cube.

The goal is, the magic trick here is, I'm going to get the rope to melt right

through that solid cube without touching the cube. So we're going to place it

right there. I'm going to take one side of the ropes on each side and cross

them. That way it gives me a little heftier grab there. Okay, perfect. On

count of three, I'm going to pull the two ropes without letting go. The ropes

will magically and swiftly pass through the red cube. On the count of three.

Here we go. One, two, three. You'll see that the two ropes go straight through.

It's pretty impressive.

I know. I know.

1956 is pretty crazy. But whenever I do this trick, people always immediately

say, oh, I bet you that's just flight of rope.

I have no idea what that means, but it must be some type of magic that

So, again, solid cube all the way through.

Great. So we're going to put the rope back through, back through the cube like

this. The frame is so that it lets me not do what we call slight of rope. It's

solid wood frame here. The cube goes right there.

Ropes locked into place.

Just like we had at the very start, we have this beautiful piece of apparatus.

Now, the goal is to do the exact same trick, to do the exact same trick.

where the cube's going to go through the rope. But this time, I will not touch

the rope in any way, shape, or form. I'm solely only going to touch the cube,

and the cube will still melt right through the rope. Here we go.

Close up on this.

Not this. This.

This is hurting my thighs.

All right, here we go. I should have... All right.

This is exactly how it would have looked in 1956, full squat and everything.

All right, here we go.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Cube Unreleased from 1956.

Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Let's give a round of applause and a warm welcome to our very own May Room.

Thank you.

I don't quite understand how this next one is done, but maybe you do. Dan

is up next.

This performer has been described as eccentric, mysterious, and now

Here's Dan Sperry.

Now, usually magic, right, deals with the supernatural.

Sometimes it even delves into the super unnatural.

I know, I know, I know. That's what we're going to do right now. You and me.

are you, by the way? Gabby. Gabby. Take me like that. Stick your hands out like

Frankenstein. Right.

Step up a little bit. And, yeah, pinch your fingers together and make like two

fists like you're riding an invisible bike.

In a moment, you're going to make a choice.

I'm going to demonstrate, but the choice is going to be yours, so you don't have

to copy me. So when I say go, you're just going to lower one of those fists

like I did. Ready?

Go.

Perfect. So that's the one that we're going to get rid of. If you kept that

keep that fist and hold it against your heart.

Perfect. Gabby, I have a little friend with me in my pocket. Again, getting to

the supernatural, super unnatural aspect of magic. This is little Gabby. You can

see her in this.

Gabby, did you have, like, a nickname in school or anything like that?

Gab.

Gabs. All right, so this is going to be Little Gabs, right? In order to invoke

that power, I'm just going to pass it around you. Don't move. You won't feel

anything, and I'm not going to touch you.

Just like that.

Gabby, do you feel any different?

Yes. Yes, okay, good. So there's Little Gabs.

Now we need to add an element. That element is fire. If I take a little bit

that fire from this lighter, you'll see that little bit of the element causes

little Gabby. That means we've made a connection.

Starts to stand up. If I take, so that's your left hand. So if I actually singe

and burn a little bit of the left hand right there, watch.

Just like that. If I snap, that's fine.

But if I singe a little bit of little Gabby's hand.

Did you feel anything now?

So, yes. What I want you to do, go ahead, extend that fist, spread your

peek, and show them.

Magic show!

You're done. Thanks, Gabby. The rest of you go to church.

We never know what to expect with this magician. He constantly challenges what

we thought was possible.

Here's the one and only Ed Alonzo.

Okay, watch closely. And at home, get up nice and cozy to your flat

screens, because I'm about to show you my magic box.

It's right back here.

But let's take a look inside.

Ah, what do we have?

Fetters!

Check this out.

Empty.

Go.

Let's do it again.

That's impossible.

Take a look.

Oh, yeah.

Well, that's it for this edition of Masters of Illusion. We hope you'll join

next time for more amazing magic.

Until then, I'm Dean Cain. Thank you for watching.