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Penn & Teller are a two-man illusionist and comedy team from the United States, comprising Penn Jillette and Teller. Penn is a raconteur; Teller (generally) does not speak while performing. The duo specializes in gory tricks, fake exposures and clever pranks, and have become associated with Las Vegas, atheism, skepticism, and libertarianism. They call themselves “a couple of eccentric guys who have learned how to do a few cool things.” *

Career

From the beginning Penn & Teller were street entertainers, performing at San Francisco's famous Fishermans Wharf and where ever they went, a tradition they still do at spontaneous moments. The duo met in 1975 and from the early 1970s through 1981, Penn & Teller were part of a three-man act called Asparagus Valley Cultural Society which played in San Francisco at the Phoenix Theater. This act was sillier and less "edgy" than today's Penn & Teller act. The third member of the AVCS, Weir Chirsamer, helped to develop some bits that have continued on, most notably Teller's Shadow-Flower trick.

By 1985, Penn & Teller were receiving rave reviews for their Off Broadway show and Emmy award-winning PBS special, Penn & Teller Go Public. In 1987, they began the first of two successful Broadway runs. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, the pair made numerous television appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Today Show, and many others.

Penn & Teller had national tours throughout the 1990s, gaining critical praise. They have also made television guest appearances on Babylon 5 * (as a comedy team Rebo and Zooty), The Drew Carey Show, Hollywood Squares, The Bernie Mac Show, Fear Factor, The West Wing, Home Improvement, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and The Simpsons. They also appeared as scam artists in the music video for "It's Tricky" by Run-DMC in 1987.

Their Showtime Network television show Bullshit! takes a skeptical look at psychics, religion, the pseudoscientific, and the paranormal. It has also featured critical segments on gun control, astrology, Feng Shui, environmental issues, PETA, weight loss and the war on drugs. Some have praised the show for its libertarian perspective, while others have criticized it for the same reason, alleging that it sometimes employs the same brand of fallacious reasoning that the show ostensibly opposes, notably in relation to passive smoking and climate change.

The pair has written several books about magic, including Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks For Dear Friends, Penn & Teller's How to Play with Your Food, and Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic.

Since 2001, Penn & Teller perform six nights a week (or as Penn puts it on Bullshit!: "Every Night of the Week!...except Mondays!") in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino.

Penn Jillette began a weekday one-hour talk show on Infinity Broadcasting's Free FM radio network in January 2006 with cohost Michael Goudeau. [http://www.pennandteller.com/03/news.html

Tricks

Their tricks include Teller hanging upside-down over a bed of spikes in a straitjacket, Teller drowning in a huge container of water, Teller being run over by an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, Teller swinging over bear-traps on a trapeze, and knives going through Penn's hands. Many of their effects rely heavily on shock appeal and violence, although presented in a humorous manner. Often, the pair will claim to reveal a secret of how a magic trick is done, but those tricks are usually invented by the duo for the sole purpose of exposing them, and therefore designed with more spectacular and weird methods than would have been necessary, had it just been a "proper" magic trick. Penn and Teller perform their own adaptation of the famous bullet catch illusion. Each simultaneously fires a gun at the other and then "catches" the other's bullets in his mouth.

They also have an assortment of card tricks in their repertoire, virtually all of them involving the force of the Three of Clubs (used because it is easy for viewers to identify on television cameras *) on an unsuspecting audience member.

In one of their most thoughtful and politically charged tricks, they make a U.S. flag seem to disappear by wrapping it in a copy of the United States Bill of Rights, and apparently setting the flag on fire, so that "the flag is gone but the Bill of Rights remains." They normally end the routine by restoring the unscathed flag to its starting place on the flagpole; however, on a TV guest appearance on The West Wing * , this final part was omitted for dramatic reasons.

Television projects

Movies

Other appearances

Books

Awards and recognitions

Video games

External links

Celebrity duos | American magicians | American actors | American writers | Multiple people | American skeptics | American atheists | Atheist thinkers and activists | SubGenii | Buskers | Penn & Teller | Libertarians

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