It started with an episode of “Howdy Doody.”
Raymond Joseph Teller was watching the show on his brand-new TV when Clarabell the Clown, Howdy’s mute partner, advertised a Howdy Doody magic set.
He sent away 15 cents and two Mars bar wrappers for the promise of real magic.
A few weeks later it arrived in a flat envelope. Inside was a piece of perforated cardboard for him to punch out the pieces and build the set himself.
That was when he stopped believing.
Penn Jillette was 12 years old when he saw an advertisement for an ESP set. He ordered it and got back a box with a pendulum and a few other odds and ends that he used for tricks on his buddies. They all thought it was real. Even him.
Later that week in the school library, Penn was glancing through a book about magic when he saw his trick dissected and explained right there on the page. That did it for him.
“I swore that I hated magic and I hated scientists more than anything,” he said.
These were two of the slough of reasons the magician duo gave Wednesday night at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts as to why they don’t believe in magic, holistic medicine or God.
The magicians greeted the crowd wearing orange and blue Gator baseball caps as they walked on stage.
As they sat down for the moderated Q-and-A session, they were asked their first question, offered by a student before the show: “Will Teller speak tonight?”
Teller, known for seldom or never speaking on their show, “Penn & Teller: Bullshit!,” nodded his head, then opened his mouth.
“I just like the idea of lying without talking,” he said.
For their first act, Teller’s hands flew through the movements of a ball-and-cup trick using red Solo cups and aluminum foil balls while Penn dissected and explained the whole thing.
To prove the point, they did the trick again — with clear cups.
For another trick, Teller picked an audience member and handed the volunteer an apple stuck with 100 sewing needles.
The magician plucked them from the apple about 20 at a time and swallowed them.
Teller wound up about 6 feet of twine and gulped that down, too.
After a massaging his belly and flashing discomforted looks to the audience, he coughed, gagged and produced the string from his mouth with all the needles threaded on it.
Before the show, a line of about 1,800 people wrapped around the Phillips Center to see the show, hosted by Accent.
A packed house, said Corey Portnoy, Accent’s chief of staff. Tickets were sold out 20 minutes after the box office opened.
Accent paid Penn and Teller $57,000.
