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Would it be fair to say that Ellusionist is just like the pop industry of the modern music world.?

I'm going to reserve my judgement until I've seen the show. It is getting some interesting attention in the magic world and some of the specifics of this should at least give you pause to think...

For example, it is going to be written up in Genii Magazine, takes place at The Magic Castle, two of the judges for this show (in my understanding) are Max Maven and Jeff McBride and one of the coaches is going to be David Regal. Now, that's some heavy fire power behind this show - at least enough to force me to hold my opinion until I see the show for myself.

I am apprehensive, of course, but when you have those kind of names behind it, well...

Mike.

It was mentioned in the March issue of Magic magazine and will be on VH1 in April.

McBride is quoted as saying; "Some of the technical stuff was stuff that I wouldn't even attempt onstage."

I think I will check it out and see what it is like.

Magic coaches will be ASi Wind, Murray, Rocco, Simon Lovell, David Kaye, David Regal and Derek Hughes.

Host is Jonathan Levit.

I'm getting kind of worried if it's going to be on VH1. We don't want a bunch of posers trying to attempt magic because the "celebrities" are doing it.

I seem to recall that Penn Jillette was a 'contestant' on the dancing stars thing recently, perhaps they could get a dancer to go and be taught magic - just to redress the balance a bit?!

The judges are: Jeff McBride, Jonathan Levit, and Max Maven. So... who knows .

Why be concerned about it, one way or the other? It's going to happen.

Being concerned about that is a bit like being concerned about the sun rising. It's going to happen and there's nothing you can do about it.

After all, dealers have been saying for years that anyone can do magic, and it can be done ("it" being virtually any trick) minutes after opening the box.

If you must blame someone, blame the dealers for their B.S.

I have watched the first installment of this reality show and I'm going to bring you the play by play action as the season moves on, just in case you're interested. Please note, if you haven't seen the program then you might want to avoid these posts, as there will be spoilers in my writing.

The line up is as follows:

• ANT teamed up with Asi Wind
• Hal Sparks teamed up with Rocco
• C. Thomas Howell teamed up with David Regal
• Carnie Wilson teamed up with Simon Lovell
• Kimberly Wyatt teamed up with Murray
• Lisa Ann Walter teamed up with Silly Billy
• Chris "Kid" Reid teamed up with Derek Hughes

Shows host: Jonathan Levit

This episodes judges: Jeff McBride, Franz Harary and Jonathan Levit

If you are unfamiliar with any of these names and you want to know who or what they are, then click here.

For the record, I think that reality shows are the lowest form of entertainment today. I find them to be a phenominal waste of time. When I first heard about this series, my reaction was, "Oh, no, here we go. An idiot show that will make magicians look like complete losers." Fortunately, my first reaction was wrong.

This series was shot at The Magic Castle and just looking at the judges and coaches names, you can see that chances are good that this will be handled with some class. Of course, the downside is that Ellusionist is the sponsor. If you thought for one moment that Ellusionist wasn't a powerhouse in the magic industry, then I would suggest that the $100,000.00 prize proves differently. No wonder Theory 11 is trying to emulate them in look and practice.

While I was apprehensive about the "B" list celebrities, they have all proven to be taking this very seriously and treating magic with reverence. In fact, they are doing their best and giving this their all. Of course, one hundred grand would make most anyone want to do their best, but the fact is that these celebs are showing a respect that I feel transcends the financial allure.

As is generally true of reality shows, one of the celebs is playing the bad guy. That'd be ANT, who is a complete jerk. He's responsible for the drama behind the scenes, trying to put together a coalition to screw anyone he can. Seriously, the guy is schmuck.

Episode one was entertaining and enjoyable to watch. They threw the celebs in at the deep end, getting them onto the streets for street magic (a baptism in fire). The strongest personality for this genre was Chris "Kid" Reid, a rapper, who shows an excellent talent for drawing and entertaining a crowd. A little over the top for my taste, he still has an aptitude for street magic performance. His main trick was "Ring to Shoelace."

Hal Sparks is definitely one to watch and I won't be at all surprised if he wins this competition. He is engaging and seems like a genuinely nice guy. This comes across in his presentations and he's doing full fledged routines, rather than single tricks, which seems to be the way that most of these celebs are doing things (single tricks/one-offs, that is). He did a very nice routine that culminated in producing a live mouse. It was a real crowd pleaser and he handled the live creature with care and respect.

Carnie Wilson was the loser in this episode and I fully agree that she was the one who was on the bottom. It wasn't a matter of her skill in my point of view, but her attitude. She performed a "Card through Window" effect and, upon making it work, she danced around gloating over the fact that she "got" the volunteer. She went so far as to get in the guy's kid's face and say, over and over, "I got your dad, I got him bad." Rather disgusting and the exact reason that a lot of people hate magic and magicians. We just don't need that.

The only down side to getting rid of Wilson is that her coach is Simon Lovell and I would like to have had him on the show longer. I like Simon - he really is a nice guy and if you ever get the chance to meet him in real life, do so. You won't be disappointed.

One of the funniest moments came at the end, when McBride was critiquing one of the celebs and he said, "It's okay to have butterflies, but you have to teach them to fly in formation."

Disdainfully, ANT said, "I can't believe you just said that."

McBride shot ANT an indifferent look!

I had to agree with ANT, unfortunately. It really was a stupid thing to say. But, if you know McBride, it really wasn't surprising.

Anyway, even with the spoiler, if you're at all interested in this show, definitely watch it. There is a great deal that I haven't talked about above and you will enjoy the show.

Highly recommended.

Mike.

That was a very enjoyable post to read and whilst I've not seen the show I've certainly heard a lot about it. Views seem to vary but up until now they have been lay views.

Personally, I don't often watch reality shows and certainly in the UK these tend to get the biggest viewing audiences. Whilst I can't stand programmes such as Big Brother, I do like the 'talent' type shows even though the majority have the talent for making a fool of themselves. I'm not sure that these fit into the 'reality' bracket.

As for E, there's little doubt that they're in it for the money and I'm sure that their sales will explode but does this ultimetely do any damage? I suspect that the majority will give magic a brief trial and give up, possibly raising their appreciation for those who can. People have short memories so unless you're also performing the 'E' routines (I suspect that very few indeed on TM will be doing so), then will the actually recognise your well polished routine as being basicallythe same?

People's annoyance at 'E' seems to be dueto the hype that they use to sell and I'm also in this bracket. However, if you give this some thought then it's not hard to realise and find many examples of other companies doing exactly the same thing in other walks of life. We spot and use 'E' as an exaple simply because we're close to magic but if another company were hyping surf boards for example, we wouldn't give a jot about that.

Magicians are a minority of the general makup of the population but a much wider part of the population is interested in our art. I suspect that it is this larger group the 'E' is trying to reach and profit from and in full knowledge that real magician's aren't generally interested in what they are churning out.

I'm not supporting 'E' for what fro a business perspective they do appear to have a good business model and I bet that Brad's bank manager ust loves him.

Great post Mike, please keep 'em coming! Chances are one of the cable or satellite channels may pick this up at some future point so I'll keep fingers crossed.

Michael, can you comment on the way in which magic is portrayed in this? You've written a great post about the format of the show etc. but I still worry it's making magic out to be just another "skill" for people to try and learn quickly so they can cram it into a reality TV programme

I have to admit, that was one of my greatest concerns. I had originally intended to address this issue in my post, but during the typing I forgot all about that...

Honestly, I think that this is showing exactly how difficult it is to perform magic and perform it well. There were a couple of problems that were very rough for the celebs and the showed fully two performances that simply were blown and the embarassment that followed.

C. Thomas Howell attempted a bill levitation and the bill hit the ground. He came out looking like a schmuck and you could see that he was completely crestfallen with his result in front of a spectator. There was no exposure with the failure, so that is on the upside, but you couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy because he really was trying.

Also, Carnie Wison's first attempt at card through window failed miserably. The wrong card wound up on the other side of the window and she was absolutely shocked by it.

If anything, laymen watching this program will realize just how difficult what we do really is and should give them a healthy respect, particularly when watching a competent magician. It's hard to say with a completely unbiased point of view, but if I had never before performed magic I would think twice about doing it after watching these miserable failures. You can see just how embarassing it really is (especially since these poor folks have no idea how to cope with a trick going wrong in front of an audience).

Further, in practice of doing a card stab with a broken bottle, Murray had Kimberly Wyatt smashing beer bottles against a brick. They showed where her legs got cut up a bit from the flying shards. Nothing terrible where stitches would be required, but some blood dribbling down her leg from cuts that she sustained during practice.

No, I don't think anyone is going to watch this and think, "Geez, anyone can do this garbage..."

Mike.

Episode 2

The line up is as follows:

• ANT teamed up with Asi Wind
• Hal Sparks teamed up with Rocco
• C. Thomas Howell teamed up with David Regal
• Kimberly Wyatt teamed up with Murray
• Lisa Ann Walter teamed up with Silly Billy
• Chris "Kid" Reid teamed up with Derek Hughes

Shows host: Jonathan Levit

This episodes judges: Jeff McBride, Max Maven and Jonathan Levit

Last week the performers were expected to build and entertain a crowd in a street performance, this week was "Kid's Magic." In the words of Kimberly Wyatt, "This week IS more difficult than last week." Anyone who thinks that children's magicians don't have a real job will think twice after viewing this episode.

This week's offering was more entertaining than the last and I found myself laughing through this entire episode. This is one not to be missed.

Last week, Hal Sparks was the highest marked of the magicians, so he was given "special powers" for this episode. I thought that was going to be really lame, but it turned out quite interesting. Sparks had the choice of swapping his coach (Rocco) for any other coach - Silly Billy being the natural choice of coach for the kids show challenge - or picking out the costume that another contestant would be required to wear in front of the kids.

Sparks chose to keep Rocco and decided to choose the costume for Lisa Ann Walter (two reasons for his choice: first, she has kids and bragged how easy this challenge would be and second, she has Silly Billy as an "ace in the hole" as it were). I thought Sparks was being a nice guy by offering her a choice of three relatively lame costumes, but she snubbed them, so he picked out another and gave her no choice - she had to perform as a ketchup bottle (one of those squeeze ones like you find in bar and grills).

Silly Billy couldn't stop laughing as she tried on the costume. She broke down in tears. I hate to say it, but I think I would have broken into tears, too - there's no way I could pull off a kids show dressed so absurdly. With Silly Billy at her side, though, I must admit that she pulled off her performance for the kids with panache. She definitely overcame a severe handicap.

Rapper/comedian Chris "Kid" Reid decided to go, unsurprisingly, with choosing the stage persona of a rapper. He did very well with getting the kids involved in the show - he is a showman, after all. However, he used the words "hell" and "damn" in his presentation, which no doubt lost him points because it was noted by the judges.

C. Thomas Howell played a cowboy and was the superior kids entertainer. He opened the afternoon show for these kids and was the winner by points in this week's competition.

Sparks made a bad choice of using a bunch of butterflies in his act. After his presentation, he said, "That'd be a great trick to do in a park, for kids, but trapped in an auditorium with a bunch of kids on the bleachers? Not so much." Several of the kids were frightened by the insects, of which there were quite a lot. During his critique of Sparks, Levit questioned his choice of tricks, "Setting free a swarm of insects on elementary school kids? Freaked them out a bit!" However, Sparks' strong character, which was a Harry Potter/intellectual type presentation, saved him in the end.

But the overwhelmingly worst thing that happened is that ANT performed in a candy suit (roughly 60 pounds of candy strapped to his body). After his lackluster performance, he told the kids, "Come and get it." It was pandemonium. Kids got trampled and one girl got her glasses knocked off of her face and destroyed. They decended on the guy like a plague of locusts!

During the judging, ANT got confrontational with the judges and that was enough to push Maven over the edge - he immediately sent ANT packing and McBride (already having been insulted in the previous episode) concurred. Insults and vendettas aside, ANT was definitely the one who should have been sent home and even his coach, Asi Wind, agreed. Wind was sick to death of dealing with ANT and relieved not to have to coach him anymore.

I say, good riddance.

When you get the chance, watch this episode. It will be playing all week long in different time slots on VH1. Trust me, you'll be entertained, you'll laugh and you'll find yourself wanting more by the end of the program. Ellusionist has a winner on its hands here and they are getting huge advertising from it. In fact, they are hawking goods during the comercial breaks and have the celebs as spokesmen. Fair play, though, as they are putting up $100,000.00 for first prize.

Finally, I'd like to tip my hat to Christopher Martin, who is credited with coming up with the original concept for this program. I'm not familiar with the name, but I appreciate what I'm seeing, so I felt that he should be given credit in this post.

Mike.

Jay, you b******, I feel like a prime idiot after clicking that link

I might actually try and see this, it's sounding less damaging by the week. Even so, surely this is a bit of a sell-out for Maven?! And as for Ellusionist flogging their wares during the break... meh. Teenagers with more money than sense are welcome to waste their money, it's all exposed on YouTube anyway.

Farlsborough wrote:Jay, you b******, I feel like a prime idiot after clicking that link

Good to know that I got someone with that!

You know, I don't think it's a sell out for Maven, Regal or any of the others, really. Consider this:

You are approached to be on the set and play a part in this project. Do you turn it down taking the chance that someone else will take it and handle it poorly or do you take part in it, doing your best to ensure that artistic integrity is first and foremost? Maybe you won't be able to do anything at all about problems that you feel should be avoided, but unless you are there, there is nothing you can do at all.

This was what sparked my interest to begin with...The fact that it is shot at The Magic Castle and the names involved. If it weren't for this, I wouldn't even have taken the time to watch it or have cared about it in the least (other than to ridicule it!).

Let's see what episode 3 brings, which will be aired this Sunday and posted, more than likely, Monday.

Mike.