Magic Show (aka: David Blaine's rip-off)

[ugadevil]

Did anyone else just watch the magic show on ABC about David Blaine? It was hosted by John Saunders and most of the show was pretty entertaining. However, the feature event of the whole show just happened and I'm completely lost about what he did. Apparently, he'd been hanging upside down for 3 days and then he was going to take the dive of death, or something like that. He was supposed jump 44 feet down from the air and it was unsure whether his body would be able to handle the jump. All I saw in his dive was that he jumped off and was held by some spiderman wires and then they hauled him off into the air. Did anyone else just watch this? I was basically sitting there thinking..WTF!

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Did anyone else just watch the magic show on ABC about David Blaine? It was hosted by John Saunders and most of the show was pretty entertaining. However, the feature event of the whole show just happened and I'm completely lost about what he did. Apparently, he'd been hanging upside down for 3 days and then he was going to take the dive of death, or something like that. He was supposed jump 44 feet down from the air and it was unsure whether his body would be able to handle the jump. All I saw in his dive was that he jumped off and was held by some spiderman wires and then they hauled him off into the air. Did anyone else just watch this? I was basically sitting there thinking..WTF!

Didn't see it but it sounds like he's channeling Chris Angel... who's a total loser.

[DukeUsul]

I think David Blaine's biggest magic trick is getting attention. The guy's a waste of good oxygen.

[JasonEvans]

It was ridiculous. I watched a tiny bit of it here and there. As always, the strolling street magic was cool (though a couple of the card and coin tricks were obvious and silly), but the "Dive of Death" was the most absurd and insulting thing ever. If I was ABC, I would be really angry as he clearly did not tell them he was going to fake the stunt at the end.

Here is a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqRi4QAcJWI) of it from some sucker who was in the crowd. Go to the 1:45 mark to see it happen.

-Jason "the dude totally insulted everyone watching-- it was like they all got punk'd" Evans

[ugadevil]

It seemed like John Saunders didn't even know what to say so he just decided to act all excited. In reality, I'm guessing he was probably wondering why the trick sucked so bad. I rewinded and played the "Dive of Death" back a couple times (no, I was not recording it!) and I still sat there stunned that it was that lame. I guess they got what they wanted from me though since I actually watched it.

[2535Miles]

Is it possible that the Dive of Death was a "magic trick" gone wrong? It might've been more entertaining if he had been hurled into space the minute he jumped. Instead, he just kinda dangled there for a bit before slowly ascending to the heavens. I say, this is a trick gone bad.

Either way, it was lame on the grandest scale.

[aimo]

Here is a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqRi4QAcJWI) of it from some sucker who was in the crowd. Go to the 1:45 mark to see it happen.

-Jason "the dude totally insulted everyone watching-- it was like they all got punk'd" Evans

I love the remarks from the crowd! He is pretty pathetic. I bet his next "stunt" won't get nearly as much publicity.

[Bluedog]

Didn't watch it, but seeing the clip online, it looked stupid. However, Blaine has done some impressive things in the past (e.g. "buried alive" for 7 days eating nothing and drinking 2-3 tablespoons of water a day in a coffin with only six inches of headroom and 2 inches on each side; encased in a box of ice for over 63 hrs with a tube for air and water and to remove his urine), so I still have to give the guy his props as an "endurance master" and he's also a good street magician. But, I admit, that this particular "stunt" was not a stunt at all and was incredibly stupid.

[JasonEvans]

Didn't watch it, but seeing the clip online, it looked stupid. However, Blaine has done some impressive things in the past (e.g. "buried alive" for 7 days eating nothing and drinking 2-3 tablespoons of water a day in a coffin with only six inches of headroom and 2 inches on each side; encased in a box of ice for over 63 hrs with a tube for air and water and to remove his urine), so I still have to give the guy his props as an "endurance master" and he's also a good street magician. But, I admit, that this particular "stunt" was not a stunt at all and was incredibly stupid.

Several of his endurance stunts are tricks of a sort and are not recognized by Guiness as "records" because there is no way to verify he was actually doing what he claimed to be doing. For example, he did not spend all that time in that ice cube.

I am not sure what was supposed to happen last night. I think that maybe they miscalculated exactly how high to have the balloons or whatever were holding him up. I think the plan may have been to have it appear that Blaine made it all the way to the platform and hoped that we would not notice how taut the wires got as he reached the bottom -- sorta a bungee jump where he reaches the bottom and stays there. Does that make sense? That might have seemed sorta cool.

Whatever it was, it did not work. It came off so poorly, I think the guy really killed his credibility.

--Jason "John Saunders did sound clueless as to how to react" Evans

[weezie]

It seemed like John Saunders didn't even know what to say so he just decided to act all excited.



Or maybe Saunders was just hypoxic from his few minutes of hanging upside down. All dizzy and silly.
That's all I saw as I was cleaning out my closet.