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Penn & Teller shine light on conniving opportunists
New series from magician-comedy team Penn & Teller shines a light on hucksters who make money from the suffering of others.
Date published: 1/19/2003
THOUGH IT HAS a few problems of its own, a new series from the magic-comedy duo Penn & Teller does a service debunking topics ranging from alternative medicine to pop psychics.
Titled "Bullshit!," the half-hour, 13-week series kicks off Friday night at 11 p.m. on Showtime.
Its first show is a strong one, setting out to show that pop psychics who help people communicate with dead relatives are really just conniving opportunists.
As he explains in an opening monologue, Penn Jillette says the pair's own experiences with carnival tricks and con-artistry puts them in the perfect position to find folks pulling similar things on various types of victims.
In a silly, needless moment, Jillette says they'll use lots of swearing and curse words to describe folks who take advantage of the public, especially pop psychics who prey on those who've lost loved ones in order to make big bucks.
"If we say they're lying or cheating, we could get sued," said Jillette. "If we call them [expletive deleted], we make the same point and stay out of court."
That doesn't add a lot of credibility to the series, nor does the general lack of direct questions to those Penn & Teller accuse of perpetuating "Bullshit!" on the American public.
But as the opening show on pop psychics demonstrates, the duo and the "experts" they enlist perform a service by showing how a canny conniver could dupe an audience into believing psychic connections.
In "Talking to the Dead," the series looks at three popular so-called psychics who get people on camera and claim to talk to their dead loved ones.
Penn & Teller's team, which includes a former psychic, explains how the con men use very general questions, pre-interviews and leading comments to get enough clues about the deceased to pull off the supposed links.
The comedy duo also notes that folks who appear on the shows of these professed psychics must sign long, rigid releases which forbid talking to anyone in the media.
Date published: 1/19/2003
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