"Wow!"

Here is a true fact about me: I love watching people responding to sleight-of-hand magic tricks! It's so fun! I am totally awed by "magicians" who excel at sleight-of-hand, and I loved watching other people be awed by it, too. And, say what you will about David Blaine's magic stunts (Personally, I will say many of them are very stupid! Sorry, David Blaine! Although I do appreciate very much how you ask people's permission to do magic with them when you approach them on the streets! Good job!), but he is a ridiculously talent sleight-of-hand artist. So great!

Anyway. David Blaine has some new magic special airing next week or whatever, and I love this promo with two of my favies: Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad.


Video Description: David Blaine, a thin mixed-race man of 40 wearing a blue t-shirt stands between Bryan Cranston, a thin white man of 57 wearing a grey t-shirt with white writing on it, and Aaron Paul, a thin white man of 34, wearing a plaid button-down shirt. There is a table in front of them, and a deck of cards sits divided into two halves on it, one half face-up and one half face-down. There is a single card to one side, which Blaine returns to the deck.

"Aaron," says Blaine, "what's gonna happen is: You're gonna shuffle—you're gonna shuffle the face-down into the face-up, and you're gonna make the whole deck go back to perfect. So shuffle the face-up into the face-down, mixing it altogether, just like that." Blaine handles the cards, not doing anything noticeable to the cards, and hands them to Paul for shuffling. "Good. And then you're gonna make the whole deck go back to perfect."

Cranston leans over and watches intently while Paul shuffles the cards. "Give it a good shuffle," says Blaine. "Come on, Aaron," urges Cranston. "With a good shuffle—you can do it!" As Paul shuffles the cards, Blaine tells him: "Good, perfect. Just push 'em in. Great. Turn 'em face-down." Paul turns the cards face-down and lays them on the table. Blaine handles the cards, not doing anything noticeable, while instructing Paul: "And—and let's do this: Can you—? You're gonna make the whole deck spread across the entire desk, the entire table." Cranston repeats Blaine's direction to Paul eagerly.

As Paul slowly fans out the cards across the table, some of the cards are turned upright, and of course Blaine pretends to be disappointed. Cranston and Paul don't know what to think. "You know what? The truth is, if I would've shuffled, maybe it would've been different," says Blaine, "but it doesn't... Huh." They all stare at the cards. "Although wait," says Blaine, pointing to the individual turned-up cards. "There's a two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. It's almost like a flush."

"Wow," says Paul. "Not quite though," says Cranston. Blaine totally winds them up by saying, "Well, it's still cool." They agree. They think they're being nice, lol. "It's a straight, though!"

"You know what?" says Blaine. "What's that game with the, uh—it's like poker, but it's on like a bill?"

"Liar's poker," says Cranston.

"Liar's poker!" exclaims Blaine, as if he really couldn't remember, lol. "And it's like—it's like you play with the bills—"

"Yeah," says Cranston. "With the serial numbers on the bills."

"The serial numbers," says Blaine. He turns to Paul. "You shuffled this deck."

"Mm-hmm," says Paul.

Blaine turns back to Cranston. "Where's that bill that you signed before this began?"

Cranston cracks a grin. "The hundred dollar bill?!" Paul says. "Yeah, the one that he signed," Blaine says. "You're not—no way," says Paul, as Cranston reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bill. "No no no no no," says Paul.

Cranston holds up the bill. "You're never seen this before I pulled it out of my pocket," he says to Blaine.

Blaine says, "Can you read me the numbers in between the letters, out loud? Can you read it out loud? The numbers?"

Reading the bill, Cranston says, "It's five, two, six, seven, eight, three, two, four." Paul puts his hands in his hair and makes a hilarious face of disbelief. Cranston drops the bill on the table, and Paul looks at it to confirm the numbers. "WHAT." Paul says. Cranston laughs and claps delightedly.

"Wow!" says Paul. "Wow! Wow! Holy [bleeeeeeeeep]!"

Cranston examines the bill closely. "And, Aaron, you shuffled that deck."

"I shuffled that!" Paul says, his hand on his forehead.

A young, thin white woman who has been off-screen says, "This is one of those moments where I feel like I've watched magic on TV and I'm like: Everyone's in on it, for sure. AND NO ONE IS IN ON IT! Like this is [bleep]ing [wild]! I mean [BLEEP]! Wow!"

Cranston stares at the bill, and Paul takes it from his hand. "I'm keeping this, too," he says. Everyone laughs.

[Via.]