Magic Should Be Funny

Love Boat produces several episodes with hypnotists and magicians. In one episode, the brother of the hired magician substitutes. The hired magician abandoned the gig and his lovely assistant to run off to Vegas with someone else. 

Naturally, the brother falls for the assistant. Although she is initially disappointed, she discovers--rather touchingly--that the brother is a great magician himself! (She admires proficiency.) 

And the brother (substitute magician) is funny. He refers to his "not so simple" dove. After he performs the classic cut-lady-in-two act, he pretends to walk off, leaving Julie in two boxes. He is amusing and self-effacing and rather delightful. 

All magic should be like this. Penn & Teller come to mind. I quite like magic tricks and I never try to figure them out but these days, the number of mystery-magician plots (and the fact that I was a magician's assistant when a teenager) means that few tricks hold any mystery for me. I'm not going to be surprised.

Humor and/or delight are the two alternate approaches.

One of my favorite humorous scenes occurs in CSI, Season 3 in the episode "Abra Cadaver". The Gothic-type magician realizes his persona is pushing the detectives too far; they are getting irritated. "It's just magic," he proclaims. "I'm from Orange County, dude." 

Delight occurs in the Numb3rs episode "Magic Show" (Teller guest stars). Charlie is rather dismissive of magic shows. Amita drags him to a shop and shows him the beauty of being afloat amid flowers. The camera doesn't disguise the wires. That's not the point. The point is to say, "Ahhh, now that's worth the show."