Penn and Teller: Fool Us is amazing. I went on a binge a year or so ago, watching everything there was to watch on YouTube (which is a lot).
I love how genuinely enthusiastic and encouraging of lesser known magicians they are. Always willing to celebrate their strengths instead of mocking them for their failures.
And they are excellent magicians, too.
My respect for Penn also went up after he realized his hardcore libertarian position was untenable. It was nice seeing him grow out of it.
I did the same a few years ago and it was one of the few series that kept me hooked, trying to figure out how the contestants try to fool Penn and Teller. I'll need to revisit for some newer episodes that I may have missed..
A bit off topic but no one else brought up Penn's great acting as Hal the system admin in Hackers (1995), a classic movie that everyone should be familiar with (and if not, worth checking out!).
My favorite episode had a magician do a great act about reading the paper, and all these terrible things spilled out and then he closed it, reopened it and good things spilled out. Penn and Teller of course recognized a zombie and a twilight seance but went out of their way to say how moving and entertaining they found the act.
I love how genuinely enthusiastic and encouraging of lesser known magicians they are. Always willing to celebrate their strengths instead of mocking them for their failures.
And they are excellent magicians, too.
My respect for Penn also went up after he realized his hardcore libertarian position was untenable. It was nice seeing him grow out of it.