Doing It with Moxie

This is an absolutely wonderful, even joyous segment from the TV show Penn & Teller:  Fool Us, where magicians try to fool Penn & Teller with a trick, and if they do, they get an appearance at a Penn & Teller show.  What makes this so special is that the surprise magician is Penn’s daughter, Moxie Jillette. And not only did he have no idea that she’d  be performing, but he thought she was in Scotland with her mother, and she’d been fooling him as she prepared for her appearance. 

But it’s even better than that because he’s clearly shocked by her being there and being fooled that she’s not in Scotland – and further, it’s so clear how proud he is of her and adores her – and she him.  And equally clear how nervous she is – in fact, at one point you can see her hands shaking, which is never a good thing for a magician.  And lovely too is how clear it is how close Teller is to the family and to her.  And everything all together here is just absolutely wonderful. 

Whether she actually fool them, well, of course that’s a separate matter – but secondary to the joy of the piece.  But it’s nonetheless important, since it’s the point of the show and handled well by everyone.

I should add that I found another, longer video of this, but it's now private, and I can't embed it.  But this below is still the bulk of the appearance and wonderful. (Though the other version was longer, that extra length was mostly before she appeared on stage, and viewers got a bit of background on her efforts to make sure her dad didn't know what she was up to.)

Two things to add -- the first is that a brief passage in this shorter version is edited out after the trick when Penn & Teller go back to their chairs, Moxie is interviewed on stage and mentions that, as part of her preparation to convince her dad that she was not in town, she lied to him about her video camera being broken -- at which point, he looks up from his consultation with Teller and shouts, "Wait, your camera isn't broken?!!"  And the second is that, near the end, in order to promote another video, the person posting this superimposed that promotion over the middle of the screen, so you annoyingly miss a lot of the final reaction between father and daughter.  But use  your imagination and know that you'll likely be right.

But all that aside, this is almost entirely the full appearance.  And it's a joy.