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Jonah and Ben answer all your questions about how they got their appearance on Penn and Teller’s Fool Us, and how you can get yours too.

How Did We Get On?

Ben had actually been approached before as his name was passed around as a potential candidate, but back then when he applied they declined. As years went on and Jonah and Ben found themselves locked down together during the pandemic they decided to work together and apply a duo act, a new pairing that they hadn’t tried before but found they enjoyed working together. 

Jonah and Ben share with you how they worked together as a team to invent the trick they performed on Fool Us and how they have worked out their dynamics as they’ve moved from solo performances to a duo act. 

How Did We Pick The Trick?

How did they pick the trick they performed on Fool Us? They didn’t! 

At first Ben and Jonah submitted their tricks they were doing for their virtual Zoom shows. The response from the show producers was that they liked their energy but the tricks needed tweaking. 

Ultimately their answer would lie in their Youtube series diving into the Tarbell books in magic. In that series Jonah and Ben would each challenge each other to find a different Tarbell trick and give it a modern twist. It was from that series that the Watermelon Trick was born. 

Jonah and Ben break down the entire process of developing the Watermelon Trick and what it was like auditioning it to the Fool Us producers, what worked, what didn’t, and what changed before it made it onto television.

How Did We Prepare?

Finally they had caught the interest of Fool Us, but unfortunately it was for a new trick they had never performed before. How did Jonah and Ben prepare to perform the Watermelon Trick in front of Penn & Teller? How did they work out what to say, where to stand, and where to look? They go over all the meticulous planning, practicing, and rehearsing that went into getting the trick up to the quality that they’d perform on Fool Us. 

Plugs

Check out the Toronto Magic Company’s Youtube Channel to watch the performance on Fool Us as well as the Tarbell Challenge videos that started the journey to discovering the trick they performed for Penn & Teller.
https://www.youtube.com/c/TorontoMagicCompany

And check out Jonah’s previous conversation with Teller:
https://discourseinmagic.com/a-life-of-magic-with-teller/