Penn & Teller: Fool Us
He fooled Penn and Teller on national television. Then he wrote it all down.
In 2015 Kostya Kimlat performed a card trick of his own invention on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and fooled them both. He was invited back for Season 5 in 2018. Both videos are below, along with everything he wrote at the time.
Season 2 · August 2015
The trick that made Penn pick up a chair.
7:50 · The CW
What was said
What Penn and the press said.
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I’m gonna break your hands!
Penn Jillette
On air, holding a chair, immediately after the trick.
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One of the best magicians we have in the world today.
Penn Jillette
Orlando Sentinel
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The best fooler yet.
Entertainment Weekly
On the second season of Fool Us.
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It’s just that good.
Penn Jillette
On his podcast, after finding out how the trick worked.
What happened next
The prize is that you close their show.
The clip has passed fourteen million views. Kostya has said the comments he likes best are the ones from people who watched it five or ten times with their family.
The prize for fooling Penn and Teller is a booking at their own theater in Las Vegas. On November 15, 2015, Kostya closed the Penn & Teller Show at the Rio, bringing them back on stage for his own magic. Halfway through their show Penn stopped and told the room: “By the way, we’re the opening act tonight.”
Kostya has said that until then, he assumed he’d spend his whole career as an anonymous local magician, and he was happy with that.
Within weeks of the episode airing, he was getting emails and calls from around the world, and his career stopped being local.
Season 5 · 2018
Four months of practice for one second of magic.
The second appearance
Invited back for the fifth season, Kostya chose the hardest thing he does: catching a named card out of a falling cascade, a move magicians call a dribble. He had stopped performing it a decade earlier because it made him too anxious.
He had one chance to do it live. It didn’t fool them.
Two days later he published a video teaching the method himself, because he’d rather explain his own work than let an exposure channel do it badly. He picked the trick partly for that reason: knowing how it’s done only makes it harder to believe.
On camera
Eight more videos about those two nights.
Kostya filmed the run-up and the aftermath of both appearances. The two performances are above, and these videos cover everything around them.
Written at the time
He wrote it down as it happened.
Twelve posts Kostya wrote between 2015 and 2020, before and after both appearances.
- 01 August 6, 2015 Appearing on Penn & Teller: Fool Us Tune in to CW on August 17 at 8pm to see me perform for the Las Vegas duo, Penn & Teller. Here is the trailer where I get to introduce this amazing duo onto the stage. Read it
- 02 August 13, 2015 Why I Performed for Penn & Teller At the beginning of this year I received an e-mail invitation to perform on Penn & Teller’s hit TV show on the CW network, “Penn & Teller: Fool Us.” A dozen thoughts went through my head. How do I respond? What do I perform? Read it
- 03 August 18, 2015 The time I made Penn mad (and Teller giggle) Read it
- 04 August 20, 2015 “Did you really get Penn high?” And Other Frequently Asked Questions I’m overwhelmed by the positive response to my performance on Penn & Teller: Fool Us. I’ve received emails and calls from around the world from friends and clients and have been following the fascinating online comments and posts from strangers on YouTube, reddit and twitter! Read it
- 05 November 22, 2015 Live in Vegas with Penn & Teller On Sunday, November 15th, I received my prize for successfully fooling Penn & Teller on their TV show, “Penn & Teller: Fool Us.” I got to perform at their live show in Vegas. And not just perform, but close their show. Read it
- 06 June 14, 2018 Back with Penn & Teller: Fool Us - Season 5! I’m beyond excited to share with you that I will be back on “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” this year, performing on the fifth season of their amazing show. The video of my first performance has almost 10 million views and nearly 4,000 comments. Read it
- 07 June 25, 2018 How Fooling Penn and Teller Changed My Life Performing for Penn and Teller changed my life in one way I never expected. Up until then I had assumed I was going to remain, for the rest of my life, an anonymous, local magician. And this wasn’t a bad thing. Read it
- 08 July 9, 2018 How A Magician Prepares for Penn & Teller: Fool Us While viewers of “Fool Us” see 5-8 minutes of a particular magician’s performance, let me tell you about the 3 days each of us spends in Las Vegas getting ready for the showtime/showdown with Penn & Teller. Our first morning began bright and early, with filming for the “bio package.” Read it
- 09 July 13, 2018 After retiring this trick for a decade, I brought it back for Penn & Teller Without giving away too much, let me tell you a little bit about the trick I decided to perform this time, on Season 5 of “Fool Us.” The effect is catching a selected playing card while the cards are falling down in a cascade that magicians call a "dribble." It's the hardest trick I do. Read it
- 10 July 18, 2018 Fool Us: No Tricks, I Just Do It In Season 2 of "Penn & Teller: Fool Us" I fooled Penn & Teller and made Penn pretty mad about it. The performance video went viral and made a huge difference in my life. Invited back for Season 5, I decided to do something different. Here’s the full video. Read it
- 11 July 20, 2018 How To Catch a Playing Card In Mid Air Want to learn to catch a playing card from a deck of playing cards that are flying by? I'm happy to teach you. Anyone can do this. It just takes practice. I decided to reveal the method myself because I think "revealed" videos that are prevalent on YouTube are just terrible. Read it
- 12 June 29, 2020 Why You Want To Watch The New Season of "Penn & Teller: Fool Us" “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” is probably your favorite magic show on TV and it’s my favorite TV show, period. Thanks to the show, just like people know there are different genres of music and different styles of comedians, now they know there are different genres and styles of magic. Read it
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