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The magic tricks may be simple, but that's not to say they're easy to perform

Bunny and I watch “Fool Us [1],” a show where Penn & Teller [2] showcase a
number of magicians and try to figure out how the trick was performed. It's a
cool show and we will often rewind bits (and again, and again) to see if we
can spot the trick.

On the recent show we saw Wes Iseli [3] whose trick with a single 50¢ piece
[4] fooled Penn & Teller. He walked out on stage, handed Alyson Hannigan [5]
(the hostess) a “prediction” for her to hold on to. He then had the entire
audience stand up and had them call heads or tails as he flipped the 50¢
piece. After about ten flips, there was a single audience member left
standing. Wes then asked Alyson to read the “prediction” he made, and it
described the audience member left standing.

I think I know how it was done [6], and the only reason it fooled Penn &
Teller was due to a bad guess on Penn's part (if they know of several ways a
trick can be done, and they guess the wrong one, they're fooled). The thing
about magic is that often times, the “trick” is so simple that once you know
how it's done, it's like “that's it? That's how it was done?”

For instance, way back in the second season, Wes Barker [7] did a trick where
he speared a page from a phone book with a sword [8] which fooled Penn &
Teller. He recently revealed how he did the trick [9] (because, as he stated,
phone books don't exist anymore). The trick was stupidly simple and by
overthinking the trick, Penn was fooled. Oh, and it was interesting to learn
yet another method of tearing up a phone book (as if we'll ever have a phone
book to rip up).

Another instance of a very simple method tricking Penn & Teller is a recent
trick by Eric Leclerc [10]. He did the “needle in a haystack” trick, but this
time finding a marked packing peanut by Teller in a huge box of packing
peanuts [11]. And again, it was a very simple trick [12]. It's amazing how
simple these tricks really are. It's almost likey they're cheating. And in a
way, I guess they are.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_&_Teller:_Fool_Us
[2] https://www.pennandteller.com/
[3] http://wesiseli.com/magician/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAC4grDNJEI
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alyson_Hannigan
[6] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2020/07/07/coin-flip.x-html
[7] https://www.wesbarker.ca/
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8L3EBJhXU4
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDQOytYPi3M
[10] http://ericleclerc.com/
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFm71WQ_bYk
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4TTjsmSotU

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