Blake Vogt You and I have jammed before, but never formally on camera. But you frequently jam with other magicians, which is cool.
Michael Carbonaro That’s right, usually under pressure, which is not fun, although we have a timer, so I guess we’re under pressure again.
BV It’s not pressure as much as it’s a fun parameter, because I’m sure if you and I jam for two hours, we’d come up with something better than if we did one hour. What are you referring to, the pressure you’re used to?
MC I think I’ve got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from having to turn out so much so fast and creativity being put under the gun. That gets to a point where it’s just brutal and really not fun. In my touring show I love to get to jam on something and take time and explore it.
BV How much testing did you really have time for in your show?
MC In the magic room we would play with stuff and then give it a shot. Sometimes the producers would be mad, because it was a shoot day. I’m like, “This is how we’re gonna figure it out. I know it’s a shoot day, but we need today to figure this out.” There was one bit we did that we only got to shoot once because it took the entire day to just figure out how we were gonna do it. It was great.
BV Oh my God… much lower stakes today. This is nothing.
MC I was interested in doing this with you because you’re such a joyful, giving, creative person. It’s always positive, and it’s always exciting.
BV I think that the secret mission of this podcast is to show people how much fun this can be. Back to you, though, you’ve worked with really smart people. Do you work with the same crew that you did on the show for your live tour, or do you tour by yourself?
MC I call the same people to ask questions, but the live stuff is pretty much done by myself. I also jam with John Ferrentino, who’s a comedy magician from Long Island. He’s just got great ideas for practical stuff that works in the room.
BV With your show, you walk a fine line with it being hidden camera—the people at home watching knowing that you’re doing tricks and the people there not being sure. I would be worried that if you were too convincing, then you would get no reaction from the people live, but sometimes some of the funniest ones were when you clearly did a trick and the people were like, “OK, that’s cool.” Your show is so perfect, because you’re watching the one person have that feeling, thinking, “How does he not know this is a trick?”
MC Right? And then, still, the person at home is left not knowing how it’s done. That’s David Regal, who was the mega sorcerer king behind The Carbonaro Effect. He used to say, and it was really interesting, that the show would not suffer if we showed everything, how it was done. When I first started on The Tonight Show we would do this thing where someone would come into the store and I’d be standing there. I would drop something, and when I go to pick it up, I would duck down, and Handsome Jack [John Lovick] would pop up. The person would be like, “Am I on drugs? That’s not the guy that was just there….” But the whole crowd would see the switch and that was what was funny about it. It’s like the Paper Balls Over the Head, you know?
We also used to do these things where I would do a lot of lap ditching and stealing things from under the counter. We did some early on where we kept that in that shot, because it was really pretty. It was like a nice magic move. But then people on YouTube were saying, “That’s the thing,” and, “That’s what he switched.” So then we decided not to show that.
Some of them were really elegant, it was really fun to watch the misdirect of that. And if you knew, you knew, and it’s like, does it add? It was a weird thing, because I guess people get angry because, “What is it?” They really want to believe in magic, and then if they think they know how it’s done, they’re mad that it’s not really magic.
BV That’s why I love sucker tricks, or tricks where you do the trick, you’re explaining it, and then you get one more kicker. I love that premise. I did that with the newspaper trick for a long time, talking about how it used to fool my family. I would do it, and I would say, “The thing is, they all knew [that the paper was switched]. They just didn’t know where it went to.” And I’d show it [the switched piece], and then that one would go back together, too.
I had a trick where someone was at a table. They close their eyes while they’re hypnotized, and my assistant would run onstage and crawl under the table, and then the whole trick was happening because my assistant was signaling me. And then the kicker was that I whipped the sheet away and there was no assistant.
MC You’ve got to be careful with that. When you do the, let’s say, a Die Box for children, and you’re sliding it and they’re screaming, “It’s over there,” and then sliding and screaming, “It’s over there,” it’s different than walking through a trick with people. I’m thinking of Lance Burton doing the napkin on TV, it was so elegant. And it wasn’t like it was a sucker trick. It was more like he taught me how to do it, but then he was able to actually restore them [without doing the trick]. It wasn’t like, “Oh, he got me.” There’s something about the all-in kindness, the elegance of it.
We know how it’s done, and everything’s so clean that when that one’s restored, it’s just the only way it could have worked, the way he showed us. But now that the second one’s restored it couldn’t possibly have worked that same way. So it is like he is pulling the rug out from under our feet.
