Penn Jillette: Life coaches are like hookers, which is good, except you're renting their ears instead of their genitals… and you never get to cum.”Penn & Teller: Bullshit”
Ahh, it has been a little while, but I have once again inducted another post into Heafy’s House of Awesomeness. This week, as should be obvious from the quote above, I am inducting the comedy and magic duo Penn & Teller.
I first saw Penn & Teller on TV some years ago, and I think it was a clip from the Toronto comedy festival. They were performing a magic trick with Teller appearing in several different boxes on this stage – then they did it with glass boxes, and you could see Teller moving from box to box to perform the trick.
Besides being incredibly funny in their actions and enthusiasm, they also obviously showed how magic tricks were performed, which I like. Any time one of those crappy shows “Magic Secrets Revealed” or the like airs, I am a sucker for it.
Their TV specials have been shown in Australia from time to time, but I am unsure if they have ever toured their show to Australia – they probably have I suspect. Either way, I have never had the chance to see them live, and if I ever make it to Vegas one of these days, you can bet I’ll be getting tickets any way possible.
I can recall several of their little experiments from the TV shows, for example trying to get a free lunch by passing off ordinary salt as a miracle cure for blisters, that gave me a laugh. They are also responsible for one of the hammiest (and therefore brilliant) movies of all time, Penn & Teller Get Killed.
In more recent times, P&T have received a number of Emmy nominations for their new show, Bullshit. When this show isn’t funny, it is interesting. Some episodes leave you laughing at the gullible while others leave you disgusted at the attitudes and actions of the people presented.
I felt very world smart when they named who they considered the greatest person that ever lived – and I knew the answer (Norman Borlaug if you haven’t seen the show). The ending to that particular episode is just brilliant, and makes for a very good forum avatar as I have seen in many places.
Some of the episodes are really hard to watch, and others are a laugh right from the get go. Some of the episodes tell you what you should already know (like ouija boards are fake – no!) and others were down right amazing to learn (second hand smoke?).
Are they biased? Hell yeah – but at least they say so. In fact, that seems to be one of their biggest philosophies. When they talk crap, shill, lie, cheat, steal, whatever, they come out and say it openly and proudly.
And for crying out loud – Penn named his daughter Moxie CrimeFighter. When I first heard that, I just thought he was playing a joke with the media, but now it looks like it might be the truth. How fricken awesome is that! Naming your child that alone is good enough to be included in Heafy’s House of Awesomeness.
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