Penn & Teller: A Guide Penn & Teller on Screen and Stage

Magicians Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller are a team of comedy illusionists who have been entertaining audiences for the last 40 years with their card tricks, sleight-of-hand, misdirection, and other confounding illusions. They started performing as a duo for the first time in 1981, and by 1985, had performed their first off-Broadway show. This was quickly followed by a series of six appearances on Saturday Night Live and over 20 performances on The Late Show with David Letterman. Since then, they have had national tours, two successful Broadway runs, hundreds of TV appearances, including several of their own TV specials and series in the United States and the UK, including Bullshit! and Fool Us, which is currently in its seventh season. Having performed at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino since 2001, they are now the longest-running headlining act in Las Vegas history. They have written three books that teach magic and have a popular magic kit called the Penn & Teller Fool Everyone Magic Kit. In 2003, they received their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Over the course of their magical career together, Penn and Teller have performed a number of high-profile stage shows and residencies. Here are some of those performances:

1. 1. Penn & Teller (1985): Penn and Teller opened their first off-Broadway show at the Westside Arts Theater in 1985. The show was an instant hit and led to multiple television appearances including multiple late-night talk show appearances and a guest spot on Saturday Night Live. The show would go on to win an Obie Award and moved to Broadway in 1987.
2. 2. Penn & Teller: Rot in Hell (1991): Penn and Teller’s second off-Broadway show would eventually go on the road for nearly 100 shows. In the act, they performed an array of their classic tricks including Teller attempting to escape from a phone booth full of water, or Penn’s recitation of “Casey at the Bat” while Teller attempts to escape from a straitjacket suspended over spikes.
3. 3. Penn & Teller Vegas Debut (1993): The magical duo made their Las Vegas debut with a show at Bally’s Casino in 1993.
4. 4. Penn & Teller at the Rio (2001): Penn and Teller are still performing in their Las Vegas Residency at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino which was established in 2001, making them the longest-running headliners at a single venue in the history of Las Vegas.
5. 5. Penn & Teller on Broadway (2015): In 2015, the duo returned to Broadway after thirty years for a six-week run of a magical stage show. They performed a series of old-school sleight-of-hand tricks—including pulling a rabbit out of a hat—in addition to surprising numbers involving audience participation.

Penn and Teller have appeared in a number of television series and programs. Some of their most notable appearances include:

1. 1. The Mike Douglas Show (1977): Penn and Teller made their television debut on this Philadelphia-based show, where they were living and performing at the time.
2. 2. Penn & Teller Go Public (1985): In this Emmy-award-winning TV movie, Penn and Teller perform a number of tricks and stunts from sleight of hand illusions to escaping a straitjacket. They also break down the differences between their stunts and the tricks that sideshow performers do like swallowing swords or eating fire.
3. 3. Late Night with David Letterman (1985): Over the course of their career, Penn and Teller have appeared on Late Night eighteen times. They made their second appearance on the show in 1985 to perform a series of “predictable” tricks set to cheesy music, including pulling a rabbit out of a hat. When Letterman claims that he prefers to be ‘surprised’ by magic, Teller lifts up the hat that previously housed the rabbit to reveal a pile of cockroaches beneath, shocking the host to the point where he flees his desk.
4. 4. Saturday Night Live (1986): In their memorable 1986 guest appearance on the famous comedy variety show, Penn and Teller perform a series of gravity-defying tricks only to reveal at the end that they have been hanging upside-down in front of the camera the whole time.
5. 5. Penn and Teller Get Killed (1989): Filmmaker Arthur Penn directed this satirical dark comedy starring the magician team as they attempt to escape from an assassin after Penn jokes that he wishes someone would try to kill him.
6. 6. The Simpsons and Futurama: Though Teller rarely speaks, the magic duo have made cameos as themselves in these two popular Matt Groening animated cartoons.
7. 7. Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (2003): This Emmy-nominated documentary television series ran for several seasons and aimed to unpack or debunk a wide array of mistruths, pseudoscience myths, or fads.
8. 8. Penn & Teller Tell a Lie (2011): In this limited TV series, Penn and Teller presented a collection of stories in which one is false but the rest are true, leaving it up to the viewer to decide which story was a lie.
9. 9. Penn & Teller: Fool Us (2015): In this reality television show competition, aspiring magicians perform tricks in front of Penn and Teller who try to guess how the trick was done. The magicians privately share how they believe the trick was executed with the contestant to avoid spoiling the “secret” of the magic with the rest of the audience. The TV show started filming its seventh season in October 2020.

Penn and Teller have collaborated to publish a few books about magic tricks, which include the following.

1. 1. Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends (1989): This comedic magic book weaves the magicians’ anecdotes with tutorials for simple, silly magic tricks you can use to mess with your friends and family.
2. 2. The Unpleasant Book of Penn & Teller or How to Play with Your Food (1992): Penn and Teller’s next comedy magic book breaks down a series of pranks, gags, and tricks that you can perform with your food.
3. 3. Penn & Teller's How to Play in Traffic (1997): This book is a series of essays and funny short stories based on Penn and Teller’s extensive travel experiences woven with guides on how to execute different practical jokes, stunts, and gags.

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