If you spent the weekend binging season two of Stranger Things, you probably have a little hole in your heart where Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, should go. This clip with mentalist Paul Draper is from last year’s Salt Lake Comic Con, but Brown’s charm is utterly timeless. She even shows off her telekinetic prowess by bending a fork on demand.
In case you’ve yet to become obsessed with the Netflix series, it’s about a group of kids in the tiny town of Hawkins who meet Eleven, a girl who’s recently escaped from the mysterious lab she’s spent her entire life in. Elle, as the boys come to call her, has a host of powers that make her a highly-desired asset for the US government, which will do anything to get her back. Stranger Things perfectly captures the look and feel of its 80s time period, and the kids are impossible not to love. Season two released October 27, so if this is all news to you, your Halloween plans are set.
There are magicians who take the craft to new levels, creating delight and wonder in even the crankiest and crustiest of audiences. Performers who take us back to that wonderful time and place in our lives when we believed anything was possible, and that the world still had mysteries for us to discover. And then…there are the magicians who sound a lot like this video by Paul Draper and Jason Andrews.
To be fair, I’m not sure how many creative ways there are to introduce a playing card or coin to a spectator without saying it’s “ordinary,” but I think we can agree the world would be a better place if nobody ever made a “deck” joke ever again. (Avoiding patter like this is why Teller decided to stop talking, by the way.)
Their follow-up video, comprised of suggestions made by folks who watched Part 1, is below. Now, I don’t think “for my next trick” meets their definition of a line that was stolen from its originator, but there are more elegant ways to get from one illusion to the next. Be sure to stick around for the moment that Paul realizes he’s guilty of using the line he’s poking fun at.