After a decade, hilarious Penn & Teller magic still does the trick

Maybe you have to see some of the other 100 to appreciate the effort that Penn & Teller put into their show. The two pack more bright ideas into their comedy-magic in their 10th year at the Rio than they did in their third or fourth.

There was a stretch there when it seemed the lads were starting to doze off in the poppy field of Vegas inertia. The show lapsed into a “greatest hits” mode, as the two channeled their separate energies into side projects, and audiences thinned in kind.

The big smart-aleck and the little guy who speaks with his face are still as busy as ever beyond the Rio’s walls. Penn Jillette is all over the cable news arguin’ shows and Teller directs the new “Play Dead” off-Broadway. But the bread-and-butter gig is folded right into this burst of productivity, and attendance counts are said to have perked up in response.

The new stuff taps current fascinations, with a great show opener involving cell phone gadgetry. An audience member’s phone is locked into video mode, then goes on a journey that ends inside a fish. Specifically, a tilapia, because Penn & Teller is the only Vegas show with patter letting you know it was “originally an African fish, but it’s now aqua-farmed quite a bit.”

A sequence with an airport security scanner is more topical on this holiday travel week than ever. Penn explains how to trick a metal detector and argues “they only work on good people,” as Teller produces a shovel, a fire extinguisher and a flaming skillet from his drab business suit.

Encouraging fans to become “a freedom-fighting performance artist” by displaying metal copies of the Bill of Rights at the airport is a funny way to air their Libertarian views, without dipping into partisan politics.

The airport bit expands upon a still-effective segment involving the flag and Bill of Rights. Both segments move — as middle-age men probably should — beyond the original mission of skewering old-fashioned stage magic and show-business affectation.

They’re still good at that, when it comes time for a hilariously dark twist on sawing a woman in half — “the only trick in our show that is right off the rack” — or a “cold reading” to prove how easy it is for psychics to swindle people.

And they still do it with a post-modern tone of self-effacing commentary. Perhaps the other shows freeze their Blue Men into a nightly “Groundhog Day” of repetition because they worry that new material might not live up to what it’s replacing.

Penn & Teller have an answer for that: disclaimers.

A new bit with Teller escaping from a giant helium balloon might come off as “pretty stupid,” Jillette confides to the audience, because helium is “a funny gas” and it’s “hard to pass it off as dangerous.”

But big-city cynicism is only camouflage for the childlike fun of punking audience members (though the second one, with a home video camera, turns the joke on us), or the wide-eyed wonders of Teller with a piece of thread or a bowl of fish.

It’s a combination as durable as those mock-serious three-piece suits. And as the duo begin their 11th year at the Rio in January, this idea factory should be compulsory viewing for those who would still bring the hack stuff to town.

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.