PENN & TELLER
Two bug-loving magical maniacs who will
shatter any illusions you have
about illusionists
Iagic shows were once a major part of American
society, promising the miraculous and the
wonderous. They toured the world, playing to
crowded tents filled with astonished children,
some doubtful adults and admiring royalty.
Magicians used to wrap themselves in flow-
ing capes, don sorcerer's hats, and sport beards
or long handlebar mustaches to separate
themselves from the uninitiate in the arcane arts.
They had names like Herrmann the Great, Kar-
Mi, and Harry Houdini, and they were quite
serious, even pompous about their profession.
The hottest prestidigitators today, though, love
rap and ride motorcycles.
by H.W. Moss
Penn Jilette wears his colors with pride.
"My street attire is a beat-up Army jacket that says,
'Helmet Laws Suck,' and has the Presidential Seal on
the back from a movie I did with Jud Reinhold. Yester-
day I added a THRASHER patch to the sleeve."
Penn is a talker-he almost never stops, on stage or
off. At 33 years old he's the bigger half of the com-
edy/magic team of Penn & Teller. "It doesn't matter what
we call ourselves," Penn says. "We like the term
'swindlers' a lot. That may be a tad precocious, but we're
comedians. We do a
funny show with lots
of special effects."
No matter how you
choose to label Penn
and Teller's act, you
can be sure of one
fact: people love it.
This duo has created
a a unique blend of
comedy and legerde-
main that clearly sep-
arates them from the
rank and file of cane-
wielding, glittery,
condescending mag-
icians. On stage they
flawlessly perform
marvels, eat fire, and
tell the future. But
they're always "up-front" about it. During their act they
tell you, "No matter how it looks, it's all fake."
After they finish their tour (at the end of this summer),
they intend to take a vacation.
"It's been three years without a break. It'll be time to
chilly chill-chill soon. Then we can come back hard."
They co-wrote and starred in the Run-DMC music video
which was shot in January '86.
"A guy named Chris La Salle from Profile Records came
to see our show on 43rd and 9th. He came up to me after-
ward and said, 'Hey, I thought you guys were legitimate
theater and I come here and there's a lot of hip-hop talk
It doesn't matter what we call ourselves.
We like the term swindlers a lot.
Penn smirks, "There's some highfalutin theater stuff,
too. I mean, Frank Rich of the New York Times called
us geniuses."
Teller is listening to all this with a look of zen-like com-
placency. During their act, however, it's Teller who is held
upside down over a bed of spikes in a straight-jacket. He's
the one who swallows 100 needles and six feet of thread
then disgorges them strung together. He's the one who
holds his breath for well over five minutes in the water
tank (Houdini still holds the world record: 5 minutes, 35
seconds), while Penn tells the audience it's too late to
let him out: "Forget it. He's brain dead."
"We predict the future in a fraudulent way," Penn says,
"which is hardly necessary to add. Because if we do
predict the future, it has to be in a fraudulent way. We
have Mo-Fo the Psychic Gorilla from Harvard Medical
School. He is a beheaded, talking gorilla that reads minds.
And if you believe that..."
and rap in your act.
How come?' And I
responded by saying
I worship Run-DMC,
all the while not
knowing he repre-
sented them. So we
struck a deal where
they wrote the song
and we wrote the
video. We're the bad
guys in it, only we get
even in the end, but,
after all, we wrote it."
As for the DMC
crew, Penn could not
stop saying nice
things about them.
"They're charming
people to work with;
wonderful gentlemen. They are what people who are
heroes should be. We taught them some magic and Teller
wrote the Neil Armstrong moon rap for them. I still believe
that Teller is the only person other than a member of the
band who ever wrote a rap for them."
Penn says he used to street skate, but he didn't have
it as good as we do today.
"I was born too early. When I was a kid, skateboards
were rollerskates on a board. That's just one of the things
our generation had to suffer through. That and being in-
undated with old hippies."
Penn freely admits that the public does not usually like
magic shows.
"The reason they hate magic so much is because you
have some guy who, as a rule, is not very skilled, with
an attitude of 'I can do something and you can't.' He does
that in front of an audience who can program computers,
fix cars and perform surgery. To come out on stage and
say 'I can do this, you can't, ha ha ha,' is missing the
whole point."
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