Wizard Wars (2014) s01e03 Episode Script

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen, this is the Wizard's version of the sawing illusion.
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Shimshi! And welcome to Wizard Wars.
Ellen: Let's hear it for our Wizards, Justin Flom, Angela Funovits, Gregory Wilson, and Shimshi.
Great job, you guys.
Hi, everyone, I'm Ellen Fox, and welcome to Wizard Wars.
Today, two teams of spectacular magic creators will compete against each other in the challenger round.
The team that wins the challenger round will advance to take on a team of our Wizards in round two, the Wizard War.
If the challengers beat the Wizards, they'll bank $10,000.
All right, our first judges have been an unstoppable force in the world of magic for nearly 40 years.
Please welcome Penn and Teller.
Our next judge knows how to spot a star.
She's a world renowned magic critic and astronomer, the scintillating Christen Gerhart.
At the age of 18, our final judge was one of the youngest performers to ever headline at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.
Let's hear it for Jason Latimer.
Our first challengers are both rising stars in the world of magic.
Starting with a man who at only 24 years old has already created tricks for illusionists David Copperfield and David Blaine.
Here's Blake Vogt.
Blake: I've been fortunate enough to be able to use my magic consulting skills for movies in Hollywood, such as Now You See Me and big name musicians such as Avicii and Pharrell and Kanye.
Now I'm ready to show people what I've got and preform it myself.
Blake's teammate is a self-taught magician, singer, and comedian.
Adam Trent.
Within the magic community, I'm known for my use of comedy and just having a lot of fun.
And so to get everyone who's at the top of their game in the same place, it's going to be interesting to see what comes out of it.
Competing against these up-and-comers are two master creators, including a teenager known for rubber band illusions.
Yes, it's a thing and it's incredible-- just like him.
From Warren, Ohio, let's hear it for Cashaan Wallace.
My type of magic I would describe as close-up magic.
I feel like I'm helping carry the torch for the new generation of magic.
And teaming up with Cashaan is a stellar street magician who's one of the top trick creators on the market.
Here's Dan Hauss.
For people that aren't in the magic industry, I am a bit underground.
So, yeah, I think this is a great opportunity to finally get my name out there to the rest of the world.
Now here's how the challenger round is going to work.
Each team will be given three of the same everyday objects and they must use each item at least once in a routine.
They will be judged on creativity, deception, and showmanship.
Let's reveal the three objects you'll use in your routines.
Tarot cards, a remote control helicopter, and some sparklers.
Blake and Adam are up first.
They've already built their routine, so let's take a look at how they did it.
See if there's anything related to Tarot.
Here's a Ouija board.
Awesome.
Hey, that's kind of cool.
We got some manipulation cards right here.
- Somehow-- - I wonder if there's a way we can do this with Tarot.
Holy crap, man.
- Something like that? - Blake: That's awesome.
Cool.
Announcer: Looking for a way to add the sparkler to a prediction based routine, Blake and Adam test them out on the Tarot cards.
- Now could this burn something? - That's cool.
What if you could use this to sign something, like, burn a signature into it? What if we put sparklers on the wings and tried to get the helicopter to spin the sparklers? Let's try that.
- You good? - Yeah, I think we're good.
- All right.
- Ready? ( laughing ) Blake: No, it shoots sparks.
Announcer: With their idea spinning out of control Blake: All right, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
Oh, God.
I don't think that's cool.
Announcer: where will the guys go from here? Realistically, I don't think we can pull that off.
It's important to note tonight's illusionists won't be using any camera tricks.
First up, Blake and Adam.
Thank you, everybody.
My name is Blake and my partner Adam is flying in right now.
Ooh, yeah.
Excuse me.
Excuse me, guys.
Excuse me.
Excuse me through.
Coming through here.
Oh, yeah.
Blake, bring it down.
Bring it down, Blake.
No, down, Blake, down! Down, down, down, down.
- Blake: Yes.
- Whoo! Now before we get started, I want to apologize to the gentlemen right here, I almost hit you coming in.
- What's your name? - Justin.
Justin, nice to meet you.
Justin, two things.
Number one, don't take your eyes off this helicopter.
Number two, later in the routine this will become very, very important.
So when it does, I'm gonna say, "Justin, where should we go?" And you're gonna say, "Get to the chopper" in your best Arnold Schwarzenegger accent.
- Sound good? - ( laughing ) Ladies and gentlemen, we have three things tonight that we're gonna be using that were once considered magic - until later proven wrong.
- Starting with - flight.
- Fire.
Frickin' Tarot cards.
Wait, uh, Adam, people still think Tarot cards are magic.
That's adorable.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, magicians primarily use playing cards.
However, tonight Blake and I will be using Tarot cards.
Yes, indeed.
I have a Tarot box here, and in a moment, I'm going to select someone from the audience at random by turning around, closing my eyes, and throwing the empty box over my head.
- Everybody, get ready.
- Actually, Blake, Blake, I have a much better idea.
I see a lady I'd like to say hello to.
- Hello.
- Are you familiar with a box of Tarot cards? - Now I am.
- You are now, of course.
How else would you make important life decisions? Right? It's very simple.
Basically, it's a lot like a regular deck of cards except for there's way more of them.
Well, we've made it very easy to see right here.
They're divided into swords, cups, wands, pentacles, and the character cards.
Each one has their own row.
Melanie, in a moment we're gonna have you name one of those five rows.
Not yet, but have it in your mind, okay? We're also gonna be using this helicopter.
I think we can all agree that these blades will provide a beautiful canvas for Adam to create a piece of artwork for you all.
Melanie, I asked you to go and think of one of those rows in your head because you're gonna name it out loud.
That moment is now.
Melanie, what row are you thinking of? - Swords.
- Adam: Swords! Here we go.
Ladies and gentlemen, watch.
- S - Oh, jeez.
W - O - ( screams ) R D - S - Ah! - Done! - Okay, okay, okay, okay.
If you guys all look very closely, you will notice that written on the blades Adam has written, "Omsrds.
" - Like, horizontally.
- What? - Horizontally.
- Swords! Adam: Swords! That was good.
Adam, that was an impressive skill - you just demonstrated.
- That was a feat.
Let's try something with magic.
Melanie, we've already narrowed it down to the swords column, yes? Well, let's get more specific.
Go ahead and point to a judge of your choice.
Any one of those four judges.
Point to one of them.
- Teller.
- Adam: Teller.
Now in a moment we're gonna narrow it down to which specific card in that swords.
Don't say it out loud quite yet.
Do not say it, but have it inside your mind.
( laughing ) So you're thinking of a card in one of these cards on this row, but there's also another card that's folded up small onstage and it's been onstage since the beginning.
But, Blake, wherever could that be? I think you should ask Justin, Adam.
- Justin, where should we go? - Get to the chopper! Yes, indeed.
This chopper-- the blades have been spinning since the beginning.
Since we've come out here.
And we're going to stop the chopper.
Now.
Whatever.
- Technology, that's not really magic, - That was great.
But as you notice there's a folded up Tarot card rubber banded to the fin of the helicopter.
My hands are empty, my sleeves are rolled up, all I'm literally going to do is pull this card off, and then I'm not going to move.
Fantastic.
He will not move an inch.
Now, Teller, a moment ago, you thought of one of these 10 cards in the swords column.
Teller, for the first time tonight, which one of those swords were you thinking of? Nine, correct? Nine.
Let's see.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
This one right here, yes? You notice this is very different than the nine of cups, or the nine of wands, or the nine of pentacles.
This is the only one exactly like this.
Ladies and gentlemen, Tarot may indeed be fake But magic is very real.
Let's hear what kind of impression you made on the judges.
Christen.
I loved the chopper trick.
I thought using the sparkler to write on the blades was something I never would've dreamed of.
I thought that was genius.
And one thing that I really, really loved is you knew who your judges were.
And you came out here and didn't use Tarot cards as Tarot cards, you went, "Tarot is fake.
We're gonna use these to do magic.
" And you knew who you were preforming for-- - Sucking up worked.
- It worked really well.
So kudos for just really killing it.
Congratulations, guys.
Truly.
One thing I noticed about this routine, is that you used multiple pieces in the same tricks.
The helicopter was part of the prediction that was at the end.
The sparkler was part of the helicopter over there.
Everything was just woven in together.
The weakest part was the trick that really didn't need to be there, the idea of the helicopter flying in on the table.
But all in all, the creativity behind it, the showmanship was right on there.
Deception-- ( chuckles ) You got-- awesome, amazing.
Yeah, exactly.
I looked at Teller, I'm like, "What?" R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
You showed a great deal of respect for your audience and that is so rare in magic.
There was no insulting of the audience's intelligence.
The table coming out, I happened to get the idea that the helicopter was carrying the table.
That could've, I suppose, been a little clearer.
What I really liked about your whole routine is you knew what tricks were supposed to play to the audience and what tricks were supposed to be done with a wink and playfully.
And that is so rare and so beautiful in magic.
Cashaan and Dan have their work cut out for them.
We'll see their routine when we return.
Coming up A gem symbolizes rock.
Announcer: A pair of close-up magic kingpins take the stage.
We had to utilize the carrot cards.
Announcer: Will their routine be good enough to win? You guys wanna see Penn fly the helicopter? Welcome back to Wizard Wars.
We are midway through the challenger round where two teams of masterful magic creators must transform the same three ordinary objects into extraordinary routines.
The winners will face our Wizards in the Wizard War for a chance to win $10,000.
Close-up magic kingpins Cashaan Wallace and Dan Hauss are up next and they've already built their routine.
So let's see how they did it.
Dude, this is awesome.
I think we can use this.
I'm thinking just the head.
What do we have here? This is amazing.
These ring boxes may come in handy, dude.
We could do something like take the ring off, throw it back on, and then it ends up in there.
Aww, see, you're already thinking.
Announcer: These sleight of hand specialists - head into the workshop - Let's do this.
to build a table to stage their props.
- We're gonna cut some-- - Wait, wait.
- Have you built a table before? - Yeah, I've got this, man.
( wood clatters ) Yeah, we're gonna do good, man.
The idea is as you put the tape on it'll burn underwater.
Oh, boy.
All right.
That's kinda cool, isn't it? Having fizzled out with the sparklers Right.
All right, cool.
We're gonna try something else.
- Uh - ( laughing ) the team hopes to soar to new heights - with the helicopter.
- Dan: We have liftoff.
Whoo.
Okay.
Yup, that's-- yeah, all right.
Coming for you-- ahh! Whoo.
Stay in front of me.
Announcer: Will their routine crash and burn? If it doesn't work, we just run off stage.
Pretty much, yeah.
Dan and Cashaan, time to light up the stage.
We're gonna try something tonight using this.
You know what? Forget the head, forget the head.
You know what? Let's just dump this out.
We're gonna use this, uh Gem.
Now a gem symbolizes luck and health.
It also represents rock magic.
They say that it also symbolizes wealth.
Now, we had to utilize three specific items for our routine, so the first item we would like to use - are the carrot cards.
- Dan: What? Carrot cards? Dude, they're Tarot cards.
They're right here.
- Oh, Tarot cards.
Ah.
- Why would you use-- Makes much more sense.
Okay.
You know, Cashaan, we're gonna need somebody for this, so would you grab somebody from the audience, please? Somebody from the audience.
Uh, ma'am? Could you please help us up onstage? Dan: Give her a round of applause as she makes her way up.
- What is your name? - Holly.
Cashaan: Her name is Holly, could you please take a seat? Dan: Holly, nice to meet you.
Please have a seat.
Okay, so, Holly, what I want you to do is just take your fingers like this and cut a pack off for me.
Perfect, amazing.
So what we're gonna do here is we're gonna go to the first facedown three cards that Holly cut to.
And those three cards will represent the past, the present, and the future.
So the first card we're gonna use is the past.
Because the past is the past.
That always comes first, correct? Right? - Yes, okay.
- Absolutely.
Let's see.
So the-- ( screams ) Why would you scream like a girl? - Ooh.
- I'm sorry.
No, no.
Yeah, I saw it.
This is freaking me out a little bit.
Oh, boy.
- Oh, boy.
- Holly, do you know what this means? - No.
- Cashaan: No.
Audience, do you know what this means? We just preformed magic with this exact scene.
- That's creepy.
- That is a little creepy, Holly.
Let's go to the second card, which represents the present.
- Hopefully, it's not as weird.
- Yes, okay, uh, the present.
I got nothing on that one.
Um, here, let me go ahead and use my expertise.
I see a ring of fire and a lady jumping through it.
Dan: That's pretty obvious.
Holly, we have never met before so we couldn't have set this up, correct? - Correct.
- Do you or do you not professionally jump through hoops of fire? - Not that I know of.
- Oh, jeez.
Not that you know-- okay.
Dan: You know, what I think this means this is something a little more personal.
there is some sort of connection with the ring of fire.
And you're wearing a ring.
So would you do me a huge favor? Can you take the ring off? Just the band, though.
Ooh.
The one and only time I'll ever touch one of these.
Can we get a close-up of this ring? Okay, this is the last time I'm going to physically touch this and I want you to hold onto it underneath that handkerchief.
Nice and tight.
Good, good, good.
Nice and tight.
Perfect.
Now let's get to the last card, which is the future.
We have no clue what the future's gonna hold.
That looks like a guy looking up into the sky.
- That's all I got really for that one.
- Looks at fireworks.
Dan: All right, like we said, we can't read the future, but what we do know for certain is that we have one more object.
One more object-- I know.
He's so excited to fly this thing.
You guys wanna see Cashaan fly the helicopter? - ( cheering ) - Dan: Yes! Cashaan, get the helicopter.
He's super excited about this.
This is ridiculous.
All right, Cashaan, give it a try.
Is it going? No, no, no.
Dan: It's not working.
Let's try to let somebody else do it.
'Cause obviously you don't know how to work it.
Uh, ma'am? Could you pass this back to Penn? We would like him to fly the helicopter.
Dan: You guys wanna see Penn fly the helicopter? All right, Penn, don't do anything just yet.
I feel like this is the grand finale, man.
Grab the sparkler, we're gonna make some noise here.
- We're gonna make this happen.
- Cashaan: Ready? Here goes those fireworks.
Get that sucker up on the stage, let's hear it for Penn.
I don't know what any of the buttons do here, but, um - Cashaan: What was that? - Penn: I can't seem to get it to go.
Hit the side.
Hit the side.
Give it one more try.
A little encouragement again! - Nothing? - It's, uh - Ooh.
- Penn: It's not working.
Okie dokie.
- Sorry about that.
- Cashaan: Things happen.
Dan: That's all right, that's all right.
This is live.
We did some good magic for you at least.
We did do some good magic, so that'll be worth it.
Thank you guys so much.
I'm sorry that-- Oh, wait, no.
Holly and her ring.
Oh, God, we almost forgot about you.
Holly, do me a favor, just take your ring back-- - This is weird.
- Is that a battery? Wait a second.
If the batteries are here then, Penn, can you turn over that remote and open the back? This where the battery goes right here? - Cashaan: Yeah.
- Well, there's no batteries, which is why it wasn't working.
There's a cloth in here.
Should I open the cloth? - Cashaan: Please.
- Dan: Yes, please do.
- Inside the cloth is a ring.
- Cashaan: A ring! Holly, can you please confirm if that is your ring? That's my ring, yes.
Give a huge round of applause for Holly.
Come on over here, Holly.
Let me walk you down.
Give it up for Holly.
Thank you so much, Holly.
Let's see if you enjoy what the judges thought of your performance.
Penn? I liked a lot of the stuff.
The ring in the impossible location is always great.
I felt it was a little bit hard to follow what the effects were, although I do love taking the scene from the first Tarot card and having the prediction be that the whole thing is set up like that.
And then the skull, which is arbitrary at first, makes perfect sense.
And using the helicopter battery pack is a very surprising way to use a helicopter.
I liked that for the creativity.
I liked it.
You guys are sleight of hand guys and I'm glad that you guys put that in there.
I didn't love the skull.
I know you love skulls - and all of that.
- I do.
I do.
- I carry one in my head.
- I didn't think it was-- ( laughter ) I didn't think it was particularly necessary.
I think you guys could have shown off your sleight of hand skills maybe without it, but other than that I thought it was very deceptive.
Again, I loved the ring.
I thought that was a really, really nice touch.
- Great job.
- Thank you.
The creativity of using the remote as the reveal to impossible location-- I love it when predictions are in somebody's hands and they're kind of, just, like, "Oh.
That's right, I'm holding the answer.
" Your showmanship was good, but the sparkler wasn't used enough.
You just used it as a prop.
You didn't do any magic with it at all.
So I would've liked to have seen it used a lot better.
Thank you.
Ellen: Coming up Did you catch what I was doing? It's all subliminal.
Announcer: Our sleight of hand champion reaches into his bag of tricks.
Don't let me influence your decision.
And later My hands are completely tied together.
the Wizards perform a spellbinding routine.
He thought it would be a good idea to show up in a pink shirt.
So I tied him up.
Welcome back to Wizard Wars.
Two teams of challengers just performed some high-flying routines using three of the same everyday objects.
Now it's time to find out which team won and will square off against our in-house Wizards in the Wizard War for a chance to win $10,000.
- Penn.
- Yeah, you know, you both did a wonderful job.
The idea of using Tarot cards to use the picture on the Tarot card itself to predict something in the future, I really like.
I thought that on the sparkler, you guys using it as a pencil was a really, really smart idea.
Helicopter, Blake and Adam, used it's blades protecting us from reaching in.
And Dan and Cashaan, you used it to move it to an entirely different place, which is the battery compartment, which is a wonderful way to take that to a whole meta level.
But none of the four judges have any idea how you did the card trick at the end.
Ladies and gentlemen, Tarot may indeed be fake But magic is very real.
It's gonna go to Blake and Adam.
Congratulations, Blake and Adam, you are moving on to the Wizard War.
Cashaan and Dan, you did a spectacular job - Thank you.
- but unfortunately it's time to say good-bye.
Amazing job.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you so much.
- Thank you, guys.
It's time for the Wizard War.
Blake and Adam, you'll take on two of our Wizards.
If you can top them, you're taking home $10,000.
Let's talk about your challenge.
Each team will be given four random objects to create a routine using these items salt and pepper shakers, a chess board and chess pieces, a rocking chair, and a pirate costume.
Wizards, two of you will be taking on Blake and Adam.
I will give you a moment to decide who that's gonna be.
A rocking chair? That comes outta nowhere.
I have no idea.
Pirate's costume, love to see you in a pirate's costume.
- Of course.
- What was the other one? - Salt and pepper.
- Gregory: Chess pieces? - Chess.
- Salt and pepper's actually a challenge.
All right, time's up.
Who's competing in tonight's Wizard War? It's gonna be me and Shimshi.
Ellen: Ah, all right.
Now, as you know, upstairs we have a workshop with a magic shop and everything you need to turn these everyday objects into extraordinary routines.
Challengers, you're first, so head on up.
While the magicians work on their routines, let's have some magic down here to entertain us.
Gregory, do you want to do some magic? Okay, all right.
Okay.
Okay, I'm going to show you a little game that I invented when I was a waiter working my way through college.
It was a long time ago.
Check this out.
So I got a spoon and I've got a fork.
I need someone to help me play.
You, sir! Okay, here it goes.
One fork, one spoon.
Here's my advantage-- they look the same.
The handles look the same.
So when I line it up like this, you can't tell which is which.
Especially when I do this.
Okay.
You ready? It's up to you.
Take a guess.
Find the fork.
- Top.
- No, that would be the spoon.
Don't feel bad.
You're only off by one.
Play again? Okay.
Here it goes.
Watch.
Go ahead.
Take another shot.
- Bottom.
- No, that would be the spoon.
That would be the spoon again.
Did you catch what I was doing? It's all subliminal.
The first time I did this.
I said it's up to you.
So now you understand how it works.
It's up to you.
Good luck.
Which one do you want? Don't let me influence your decision.
Or steal third base.
Go ahead.
- Bottom.
- The bottom.
No, that would be the spoon! I'm so sorry.
Okay, I'll make it so easy you can't screw up even if you tried.
Watch.
I'm going to teach you in the fairest possible manner.
Right over there like that.
Go ahead.
Find the fork! - Top.
- No! I'm so sorry.
The fork would be over here in the back pocket.
No, this one over here, that's the spoon! This one over here, that's a bloody knife! Where does that come from? I know! That's how it works! That challengers face an insanely tough task.
Let's see how their plan is shaking out.
I don't know.
The pirate costume, I got nothing on.
You want to see what's in the other room? Let's check it out.
Adam: We got pirate birdcage.
- Pirate sword.
- Pirate sword.
Pirate bowling pin.
Pirate radio.
Here, let's try something with this.
Like this.
Announcer: After a cavalier start to their build - Pirate vanish.
- Pirate vanish.
Blake and Adam head back to the workshop to get serious about their routine.
I don't know how all these things can be related.
Right.
The salt and pepper shakers - actually look like chess pieces, don't they? - Yes.
It looks like a pawn or like a queen.
I don't know about this material, though.
I don't like the board.
What if we made our own? I'll get the spray paint.
This'll work.
Kind of like a chessboard.
Announcer: The guys have solid ideas for all of their props except one.
We don't know what we're doing with the rocking chair.
What if we alter the rocking chair? I think we'll figure it out.
Ellen: Coming up And all the way there! Announcer: The challengers perform groundbreaking magic I believe that's a new piece of magic.
but will they take it a step too far? Yes, we saw bunches of stuff we shouldn't have seen.
Welcome back to Wizard Wars.
Time for the main event-- the Wizard War.
Challengers, you're up first.
The judges are looking for the best routine using the same four everyday objects salt and pepper shakers, a chessboard and chess pieces, a rocking chair, and a pirate costume.
Blake and Adam, take it away! Tonight, something very, very special, a private chess demonstration just for you.
I just texted my buddy Blake.
He should be here any minute for the private chess demonstration.
This'll be very exciting.
Hey! Is this demonstration going to be PG or "Arr"? What are you doing? Pirate chess demonstration.
No, no.
It's a private chess demonstration.
Dude, I got the text from you.
Look, right here.
A text from Adam Trent.
"Pirate chess demonstration.
" Do you really think I would wear this to something like this? It was an autocorrect fail.
Autocorrect fail.
- Really embarrassing.
- I have a great idea, Blake.
I've got a much better idea here.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the best possible way to autocorrect an autocorrect.
It looks like this.
Ladies and gentlemen, one, two, three! The autocorrection! Not bad, except you forgot the pirate bandana.
Oh, no, no.
This is a Blake bandana.
I wear these because they're cool.
Who's ready for the demonstration, huh? You know anything about chess? Funny you should ask, Adam.
I know a thing or two.
I think-- I could be wrong-- but the strongest opening move I'm aware of - is that right there.
- Wow.
- What do you have to say about that? - That's standard.
Well, I've been around the board myself.
Watch.
This is one of my favorites.
Watch.
Ready? ( whistles ) And all the way there.
Check.
I'm pretty sure that a move like that is definitely considered illegal, okay? I think maybe a shirking penalty might be in order.
Just like that.
That might put you down to size, right there.
That's a bit infantilizing.
He's just a little guy! Give it to me.
Give it to me.
Watch this.
I take the smallest piece on the board.
I make it the biggest piece on the board! Adam, that's a salt shaker.
That's the biggest piece on the board.
Okay, okay, okay.
I see what you did there.
I see your biggest piece and I raise you another biggest piece on the board.
- That's a pepper shaker.
- "Biggest piece on the board.
" Give me the pirate bandana.
Give me the pirate bandana.
It's a Blake bandana.
It's become very clear this board is no longer suitable for the smaller guys.
Give me these pawns.
Give me the pawns.
Put it in, put it in, put it in.
Bobby Fischer would not approve of this.
All the way in.
All the way in.
I take the final pawns of the board.
Ladies and gentlemen, watch.
On the count of three.
One, two, three! Did you turn the pieces into salt and pepper? No, no, no.
We made them switch places.
What do you mean? Oh! The classic pieces to pepper shaker! Well, Blake, I think it's pretty safe to say - that this game is a-- - Draw? - Is it a draw? - Yeah, it's a draw.
Is it over? Yeah, I'm pretty sure this game has come to an end.
- Get rid of these? - Yeah, let's get rid of these.
Let's get rid of all these.
Hey, what's another word for "End"? - Oh.
- It's the end! Ladies and gentlemen, it's over! - Thank you! - Thank you guys very much! Blake, Blake, Blake, Blake, Blake! Blake, Blake! We didn't do anything with the rocking chair.
Oh, yeah, we did.
I sat in it.
Yeah, no, but we didn't "do anything" do anything with it.
Like, we didn't do a trick with it, you know? Oh, you mean, like, do a magic trick with the rocking chair? Yeah, not sitting in it, but a trick, you know? You thinking what I'm thinking? - You thinking paper? - I'm thinking paper.
- Thank you! - Thank you! - Jason? - You know what I love about you two? Is it's not the magic as much as the strategy.
You put all the props and you blended them together.
We were like, "Oh, private chess demonstration.
" And then you came out with the pirate outfit, and I'm like, "Oh.
" That was really good.
That really knocked that out and they blended them together again! And the magic, there was a couple little flashes, but it's hard to play in that situation.
When I do some close-up magic for stage, it's difficult.
The rocking chair.
How to do the-- how to do a trick with a rocking chair, I think you guys should write a book about it.
Once again, there's this tremendous respect in knowing what the audience is thinking.
Just letting us worry about the rocking chair and using that for a punch line that completely delivered.
I believe that's a new piece of magic.
I haven't seen furniture turn into paper.
Yes! We saw bunches of stuff we shouldn't have seen.
That's the kind of thing with angles and dexterity that you have to practice for years.
And giving it a try, something you're practicing for hours, is wonderful.
I just loved it.
First off, I love the way you justify things.
You didn't try to make it anything other than a ridiculous pirate costume and I loved the salt and pepper thing.
I think you guys utilized it in multiple ways.
And the showmanship was stunning.
You guys are fantastic together.
I truly love watching you perform.
So congratulations.
Ellen: Coming up Instead of making it rain, I can make it snow.
Announcer: The Wizards go to work.
Shimshi, what did you do? Will they get the job done? Jason: That's beautiful.
That's about as magical as it gets.
Welcome back to Wizard Wars.
The Wizards already built their routine, so let's see how they plan on outwitting the challengers.
Straitjacket.
We can always use glitter.
Instead of making it rain, I can make it snow.
- Very nice.
- Yay.
What else can we use? Ah! Look at that.
Oh, my God.
Wait! I like these.
I see a correlation almost with the salt and pepper, especially if you do some kind of mentalism with it.
Announcer: With the pieces in place for a prediction routine Angela: I think I can really get inside someone's head with this.
Angela and Shimshi move onto their toughest prop, the rocking chair.
Angela: I don't know what we're going to do with this.
Can you sit on it for a second? Yeah.
You know what? The chair is too low.
We might have to get that a little bit higher.
I'll work on the chair.
- Angela: Nice.
- Shimshi: Shoot.
Shimshi, what did you do? Announcer: What will their backup plan be? Plan B.
We don't have a Plan B.
Let's see.
Ellen: Wizards, time to show us what Wizards can do.
Hello and welcome to my black and white party.
My name is Angela Funovits and this is my friend Shimshi.
He thought it would be a good idea to show up in a pink shirt.
So I tied him up.
I think it's about time that we get him into a proper black and white costume.
Let's see.
You, sir, you're wearing black and white.
You look great.
Come on up and join the party.
And you, sir, how about you? You got a nice black and white suit on.
Give these men both a round of applause.
- What's your name, sir? - James.
James.
Nice to meet you, James.
- And what's your name, sir? - Anwar.
Anwar.
Nice to meet you.
Do you mind actually standing right over here for me on this platform? - Face everybody.
- Anwar, you're going to grab ahold of this bar here and we're going to raise this curtain up just like so.
Now, James, would you mind putting on that fine costume right there? James: Sure.
Shimshi: All right, guys, come on.
Raise the curtain.
- Raise it up.
- And drop it down! That's more like it.
Step to the side.
Untie me as quick as you can.
Go ahead.
Looks like you're having fun.
I'll try to get off of here.
This is the first time you guys are seeing my hands are completely tied together.
- Angela: I say we cut them off.
- Yes, let's cut me off.
- Cut off this here.
- Don't be afraid.
- All right, good.
- You're free? - I'm free! - He's a free man! - Thank you very much! - Welcome to the party! I continue the black and white theme with the salt and pepper.
- Hello.
What is your name? - I'm Julia.
Julia, we're going to do something pretty incredible.
It's going to happen up close.
I want you to open your hand for me.
Good.
We're going to put some salt and I'm going to put some pepper.
Yes? That's a lot of pepper.
But with the other hand just go like this for me.
Yeah.
Just go like this and put it on top.
I want you to choose salt or pepper.
- Which one would you like? - Pepper.
I'm going to try to make all the pepper grains, the grains themself, disappear.
Okay.
Slowly.
We can see your left-- only salt! It's good luck, throw it behind you.
Thank you, guys.
And of course, what's a party without some board games, right? I think we should play a full game of chess! I'll help you out.
You're welcome.
All right, so here's the thing.
We've all been to parties and there's so many different things in parties.
One of the things that we have in parties, just one of the things, is fortune tellers.
Angela here is a mentalist.
When you play a game of chess with somebody, you have to know what's the next move they're going to make in order to win.
So I tried something.
I wrote a note for the next move and I put it inside the drawer.
And it's my job now to influence you guys to make that move.
So to start off, would you like white or would you like black? I'll take white to make it easy.
What type of piece would you like, Penn? - I will go with a knight.
- With a knight.
- All right.
- Very good.
Teller, would you please take the knight and just place it on any empty spot on the board? Very good.
Yeah? Let's open the drawer.
Go ahead.
Can you take out the note for me? "I knew you would choose white and you pick up the knight.
" Teller, decided to place that knight on A6.
'Cause we didn't finish reading the whole note.
If you can see right over here, it says I knew that you would put it on A6.
What a party? Yes! Thank you guys very much! Thank you so much! Shimshi and Angela! Let's see what the judges thought.
We're to start with Christen.
First off, I love watching you guys perform.
Shimshi, you're so funny.
Your delivery is great.
And, Angela, I love the confidence that you have onstage as a female performer.
It's fantastic.
Shimshi, the salt and pepper thing, most people think to use the shakers themselves.
I like that you actually made a trick with the salt and the pepper.
I thought that was really cool.
Thank you for a great performance.
I loved how you guys played to your skills.
Using the chessboard as a prediction and using Angela for that? Great idea.
The salt and pepper, I think that's beautiful.
It's in their hands.
That's about as magical as it gets.
I think you guys did a great job.
The salt and pepper trick was wonderful.
The chess trick is really, really nice.
It's a really nice prediction.
The problem with the spirit cabinet thing-- the spirit cabinet thing is when he's tied to the chair and then has the pirate costume on-- is that the people that do that the best are people who do it for years and years and years.
And that's one of the things that seconds make a huge difference on doing that.
I think they were very deceptive, very great.
A wonderful job.
Will the challengers take the $10,000 prize or will the Wizards win out in the end? We'll find out right after this.
Ellen: Welcome back to Wizard Wars.
This is the moment of truth.
Which team is the winner of tonight's Wizard War? Penn? Well, you know, Shimshi and Angela, they seemed to come up with tricks that you could really use.
I mean, a walk-around magician could use that salt and pepper thing.
It's a beautiful, beautiful trick.
The chess thing is beautiful.
These are all real performable things.
Blake and Adam seemed to come up with stuff that is really in the situation.
There's more of an improvisational quality and more of a classic quality over here.
It's always hard to choose between those two.
But in this case, let's go through the individuals.
The salt and pepper? Shimshi and Angela.
You guys used the salt and pepper better than they did by quite a bit.
The chess pieces, it's kind of a wash.
A great prediction trick.
You set up the whole thing with your chess pieces.
It was really nice.
But it all comes down to-- to me, the rocking chair.
You guys, it was something to sit in.
You guys, it was something to make us scream.
So I think, winning by just a rocking chair, are the challengers.
Congratulations, Blake and Adam.
You've just won the Wizard War and $10,000.
Thank you all for a spectacular evening.
Good night from Wizard Wars.