Can a Magician FOOL Penn & Teller with SWORD + PHONE BOOKS?!

Infinity Magic
6 followers
Nov 7, 2025 #pennteller #foolus
I'm Wes Barker, and I'm a stunt magician.
Stunt magician is just a really cool term I made up,
just so I didn't sound like every other comedy magician.
I used to work on a road crew, filling potholes.
They eventually offered me a promotion,
and I just had this flash of 30 years in the future
of me still being there, and I quit on the spot,
and I said, I'm gonna be a magician.
My stuff isn't like fire, fire, dove.
It's not that kind of thing.
It's more like weird things like gymnastics and stunts
and party tricks, basically.
Wes Barker.
Hi, I'm Wes.
Normally I use a big, strong guy for this trick,
but we can just use Jonathan, I guess.
OK. OK.
You're on this side.
Oh, yeah, look at this.
You work out, right? You liking that?
Yeah, yeah. You look so bad yourself.
Thank you.
That's what we call firm hot cross buns down there in England.
I knew if I came to Vegas, something would happen.
What's this? That is a phone book.
It's a phone book. They're super irrelevant.
You guys are clapping for phone books. Thank you.
Phone books are super irrelevant,
but I made a magic trick out of it, because why not?
Have a look at this one.
Make sure it's, like, all, I don't know, a normal phone book.
It's a normal phone book.
Check. Make sure all the pages are different. That's gonna be very important.
They're all different, as far as I can see, certainly.
Cool, cool, cool. Yep, yep, yep.
You're gonna give me the phone book, and you're gonna grab the pen and paper.
What's gonna happen
is I'm gonna roll through the phone book like this, flip through.
You're gonna say stop wherever you want.
And then you're gonna write down the page number.
OK.
I'm not gonna look, so whenever you want to say stop... Stop!
Right there, you happy? You wanna go more?
No, no, I'm good. OK.
I'll try and hold it for you.
OK, got it. You got it? OK, good.
We'll put it down there. Yeah, put it down there, yeah.
OK. Now I need you to rip this in half.
OK.
But don't do it this way. Don't do, like, the spine.
OK, that's not the way.
And a lot of funny guys like to do it, like, well, they'll open it up in the middle
and they'll go like that. Don't do it that way, either.
That's not good. I want you to rip it top to bottom.
Try and rip it top to bottom? Yeah.
Really? Yeah.
I feel bad doing this in front of you.
I mean, it's kind of easy. Come on.
You know, well, here's the thing. You're vegan, aren't you?
You can't do it. I've weakened it for you.
Oh, yeah, no, you have, you have.
I just want to make sure that you know that this is fair, right?
I can't do that. This has been super fair so far,
and you can't do it. I can't do it.
So it's a real phone book, but I'm going to give it a go here.
I'm going to do it like this.
Come on. This is the part we need.
I'm scared of you right now.
What I'm going to get you to do is I'm going to get you to, like, fan them out in your hands.
Sure. And then in a minute, you're going to throw them in the air.
OK. Don't throw them like this, so they kind of stay in the clump.
Throw them, like, more on an angle,
and then they'll, you know... So they spread? Yeah.
Like confetti? Yeah, and you're going to stand right about there.
About here? Yeah, right there.
That'll do. Spread them out.
But you're going to face me a bit more, because you're going to throw them around this way.
I need my thing. Hang on. I need my thing.
I'm going to do...
Hold on.
So, like, I'm going to...
You're going to throw them, and I'm going to stab your page.
OK. Right?
Yeah, I'm this guy. Like, ah, you're that guy. Like that.
Right?
I'm going to do it from here. No, right? That's good.
I'm good at following. No, right? It'll be OK.
I'm really good at following. It'll be OK.
So, yeah, basically,
you're going to go like that. I'm going to go like that.
They're going to go like, ah, like that. OK, good.
All right. Are you good?
You've done this before. Oh, yeah.
OK. Oh, what?
It's not a sharp sword? OK.
If it wasn't a real sword, could I do this?
Huh?
I mean, I don't know. Probably, yeah, I could.
It doesn't matter.
I'll be honest. I'm more scared of getting one of your fingers in me.
OK. Here we go.
OK, so fan it out.
Don't tie around me. Yeah, yeah, OK.
Angle a bit more to me. OK.
There you go. You're good.
Ready? Yep.
Throw the pages! On the count of three!
You're kidding me.
Everything's on the count of three.
You're holding a sword.
I'm just doing what you say as soon as you say it.
Everything's on the count of three.
One, two, three, lift. One, two, three, go.
Sex, one, two, three, right?
I've been married 28 years.
When my wife says do something, I do it straight away.
All right.
I have...
one more phone book.
This is the last phone book in the whole building, I'm sure.
You want to rip it for me?
You know what? Why don't you just go straight ahead?
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Son of a...
I call this one Jonathan.
There's a lot of anger coming out there.
Two in the night, two in the one night.
Now, I should have told you to count to three.
That's my fault.
But that was a horrible toss.
I'm standing over here.
Well, it's the first time I've ever seen a phone book ripped in half by a human man.
This is our last try.
Take those.
You did good with the...
Try and throw it more straight up.
Because it was a good spray.
Spread them out a bit.
I'm doing my best.
You'll be great.
You can't mess this up, it's fine.
In fact, I'll even let you count.
You count to three, you throw it.
And then just around me, straight up.
One, two, three, go.
Whatever you want, because I'm going to watch you.
I'm just going to watch you this time.
One, two, three, go.
Wouldn't that be crazy?
I have 520 and 521.
What do you have?
Show the audience.
520.
Thank you.
That was awesome.
Two of them in one night.
We'll let Ben and Teller talk about what they just saw.
I know they enjoyed it very much.
That was incredible.
Now, here's the thing.
I know you had some early days.
Your early days, they were working hard days for you as a magician.
Oh, yeah.
This is a far cry from the $50 gigs I used to do at old age homes.
Well, not that far, necessarily, because I'm a pedant now.
A pedant ain't getting any younger, either.
But you wouldn't do this act in an old people's home, would you?
Oh, yeah, I will.
So you would get an old man in an old people's home
and ask him to rip a phone book in half?
And I would ridicule him when he couldn't do it.
I think the guys are ready now,
so I'm going to go to Pen
and hear his verdict on what you just performed for us.
Well, I'll tell you,
that was amazing.
It has been a very, very long time
since we've seen a phone book.
I know, dramatically,
that you hung a little lantern on that
and said it was irrelevant,
but still, it's a hard time
for strong men now
tearing a phone book in half
because tearing an iPhone in half
is much more difficult.
It takes a lot more energy.
And in your phone book,
I don't know what city that was.
Is that a Vegas phone book?
No, I think it's from where I live, Vancouver.
Vancouver.
So you wouldn't have Luke Skywalker's number
in that phone book, would you?
I don't think so.
But that would have helped you do the trick a lot, wouldn't it?
When you say Luke Skywalker,
are you suggesting that he's famous
for something in particular?
Yes, I am.
Did that thing in particular feature in this
at the end there?
Oh, sorry, it took me a while there.
No.
No?
No, it did not.
Ladies and gentlemen,
we'll explain some of this in a minute
once they explain it to me, okay?
I was missing what you were saying,
but I totally am on your page now.
This could be, I think,
rather remarkably
one of those moments
where Penn and Teller
don't quite know how it's done.
What they're saying is awesome.
You totally did the trick that way.
This is not how I did it.
But if you're saying it's absolutely
not a force,
then it had to be a holding a break
and a peak afterwards.
And then you would have to have
some sort of index there
after you held the break and did a peak.
No index.
And it's not the second phone book you're using.
Boom, boom, take that, Penn!
Sorry.
I didn't enjoy that moment too much, but man, I enjoyed this moment.
We have taken...
This is just ridiculous.
We've taken two runs
at this.
It almost seems like we're about to cross
into unfair.
It almost seems like we're cheating.
Magicians are supposed to cheat.
You have cheated
better than us.
You, sir, have fooled us!
This is amazing.
So from the road crew, how long ago since you started learning magic?
Eight years.
Eight years ago from the road crew, ladies and gentlemen,
working out there, entertaining his friends,
to fooling Penn and Teller
here on the big stage in Las Vegas.
