Name: Penn & Teller's Shocking Surprise | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2026-01-30T16:01:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Penn & Teller's Shocking Surprise | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-30. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Penn & Teller's Shocking Surprise | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-01-30. Transcript available.

This is me for now.
This is you?
Yes.
Now, help me out again.
You're Penn.
I'm Penn.
You're Penn.
And your friend Teller is not here.
He's not here.
He's getting set for some magic thing we're going to do.
Okay.
Because I'm going to kind of ask you a favor, because we've got, like you said,
we've got
the public TV thing coming up.
We're going to be on Saturday Night Live.
Saturday Night Live.
And we've been doing live stuff for like 11 years, but very little television.
And we kind of wanted to ask you a favor.
We've got a work in progress thing.
So this is a new illusion?
A brand new thing.
It's really a combination of a lot of things we've been working on.
And that's what Teller's setting up.
And we're hoping that you could just kind of critique it.
You know, we're going to do it for you.
And then you tell us.
No, just we want you to be honest.
My honest reaction to this.
But usually when people are performing, you play with your notes and stuff.
And I'd like you to really watch the whole thing.
And, you know, I really want you to pay attention.
You'll have my undivided attention.
And then we're going to kind of critique it.
It's illusion and it's music.
It's mostly Teller, but we're working me in slowly.
And we've got the band here.
Work in progress, okay?
Work in progress.
Keep this in mind.
So I'll watch from over here.
Okay, I think we're set to go.
Okay.
One, two, three.
Teller.
Do you believe in magic?
Magic.
Magic. Magic. Magic. You believe in magic. Magic.
Magic. You believe in magic. Magic. Magic. Magic.
Magic. Do you believe in magic?
Magic. Magic. Magic.
It's a card on there.
It's a card on there.
You believe in magic. Magic.
Magic.
We didn't really learn the whole song. The song--
So normally you'd be singing there?
Well, we're going to rewrite the words because--
Oh, yeah.
Stellar got the bunny.
Yeah.
He's going to rewrite--
Is the bunny okay?
Yeah, the bunny's fine. That's loaf dish, David. That's the bunny loaf dish.
Okay.
See, David, the song is about love and young girls.
Yeah.
It's about young--
Nice job.
--love and young girls and stuff, and we want it to be more about flowers and
birds and things.
Yeah.
So we've got some categories here. We've got style, execution, clarity of
themes, relevance,
unity, overall visual beauty, and originality. What did you think of the style?
Tell us to get a pencil here.
Um, well, you know, I don't know that much about style of magicians, but I just,
um, you know, the word lame comes to mind.
I don't. I don't. I don't. I just, you know, just off the top of my head, I
thought it'd be a little, I expected something a little more dynamic from the
two of you.
Seems, seems funny when someone comes out and asks for help, and then you kind
of give a joke.
What are you, didn't you ask for my--
Yeah, I, right down lame, then.
Okay, what can we do to improve it, then?
Uh, well, just a little, you know, uh, cutie.
Okay, a little bit cutie. Right down cutie.
Execution, could you see him stealing the stuff out of his pocket?
I saw, I saw a lot of stuff taped to the back of his suit.
Well, there's not, okay, there's only two things taped to the back of his suit.
Well, I did, I saw two things.
Okay, because the rabbit, what do you think, we taped low fish to the back of
his suit?
No, no, I didn't see a rabbit taped to the back of his suit.
I saw kind of like hydraulic things back there.
It wasn't hydraulic, it was a little safety pin with a, with a--
Now, clarity of themes, did you notice that there was a, uh, the silk had a
picture of a card on it, and then there was a card after that?
No, I didn't see that, no.
I didn't see that, no.
And he had, the silk was a bird, and then he produced the bird.
Yeah.
Do you have any idea how much that stuff cost, David?
Mmm, like under seven bucks, I guess.
No, no, wrong.
No, I'm telling you, we went to Tannen's Magic Store, the little bird cage was
$129.
Each one of the silks is over 20, the little card castle is like $28.
Yeah, but I mean, it should come as no surprise to you that this is the sort of
thing you see at PTA functions and, and shirt stuffers.
Okay, okay, but the thing is--
This is not, you know, I was thinking like David Copperfield, something, you
know, whammo, big stuff and gorillas or something.
You expect us to come on your show and vanish the Statue of Liberty at $390?
Well, no.
No.
But you know, I mean, you fellows have sort of a reputation to live up to, that's
all I'm saying.
Okay, well, what's the next?
Reputation to live up to.
Relevance.
You know, you had Phil Donahue out here, and he was talking about the human
animal, and we have an animal here.
Yeah, that's right.
And we have a bird.
We had a bird.
It's not a real bird.
Not a real bird, no.
And I want you to point out also that there was animal, vegetable, and mineral.
We first produced the flowers, which are vegetable, and we produced the cards,
which are mineral, and then the bird, which is animal, and then, of course,
loaf dish at the end.
Well, I'd have to say in the category of relevance, non-existent.
Just didn't seem to be any there.
Thank you, David.
Um, okay.
No relevance, he says.
Uh, okay.
Now, Unity, I guess you're covered in that.
You didn't think that the animal, vegetable, mineral held it together?
No, but Unity have matching suits.
They're pretty nice.
Yep, they were.
Thanks.
Okay.
That's great.
And, uh, and overall?
Visual beauty.
Overall visual beauty, um, um, you know, it was, um, it was all right.
All right.
All right.
Did you notice that we started out with the drab of the, the black, and the
gold, and the gray, and then it kind of gets very colorful into 80s primaries?
No, I didn't.
You gotta look like Conrad's for a moment.
But then I, then I'm bad with color, so I didn't, uh, yeah.
You didn't notice that.
That was lost on me, I'm sorry.
Oh, but there was, there was a certain amount of, you know, originality is what
happened.
Originality.
But, you know, I guess the thing that I missed most out of the whole deal was
it just didn't seem to be an element of, uh, of real surprise.
There just didn't seem to be any, any surprise to the whole deal.
You want some surprise out of us, David?
Okay, okay.
Thank you, Father.
Show them some surprise, would you please?
Oh!
I'd like to point out that these, uh, no, come on now.
These animals are not being hurt in any way.
Oh!
Oh!
Oh!
Now we cleared this. We cleared this for the SPCA, David.
Now the bunny is eating them. No, no, that's it. That's it.
These are not being hurt. These insects are not being hurt in any way.
Oh, my. Oh, my.
He just wanted to give you a little surprise. These, David, these here, they'll
hiss at you.
Yeah. They'll hiss at you. These here.
Don't you boys own any raid at your place?
These are. Oh, gosh.
Okay, gosh, it was nice to have you gentlemen back with us.
Great to be on here. Thank you very much.
Ken and Keller. Thank you, folks. Very nice.
We'll be right back.