The Magic Prank Show with Justin Willman 2024 Tv Series Review Trailer

 Sam contacts magician and comedian Justin Willman with a problem: “I love my boyfriend but his driving terrifies me!” Her “kind and very funny” boyfriend, Ryan, terrifies her by watching Twitch videos while she drives.

Sitting in the driver's seat of a car, talking to Justin, Sam offers a solution: "What if we faked an accident and he thought he'd killed someone?"

Star: Kimberly Congdon, Simon Taylor, Justin Willman

Justin looks at her blankly and finally says, “Pretty dark. Possibly illegal.”

But that's effectively what they do: put Ryan in a fake carpool driven by Willman, who runs over sidewalks and even hits a construction worker.

Yes, The Magic Prank Show takes real problems and interpersonal history and turns them into immersive revenge. During another prank, a man watches his brother on a monitor and says, "Welcome to hell, brother."

Then I read Tara Ariano's interview with Justin Willman, in which she said she agreed: “What I don't like about prank shows is giving people who don't deserve it a traumatic experience. It's a bit embarrassing, so I came up with the idea of, 'What if I did a magic prank show only for deserving people?'”

She also intrigued me that the show didn't film about magic tricks or secrets: “what we would do is film flies on the wall and we wouldn't censor each other's conversations; We wouldn't hide certain things from the camera. “We made those decisions in editing about how much we thought the viewer would be pleased to be able to participate and how much it would be better to leave it as a surprise,” she said.

The result is a great show: a window into the process that results in scenes that are often tremendously funny.

I haven't laughed so much at a Netflix show since I Think You Should Leave. One setup that made me roll my eyes (a public proposal, ugh) had such a wild moment I thought I was going to pass out from laughing.

What makes this good television is not just the joke itself, but the time spent setting it up with Justin Willman and his team.

That includes Stuart MacLeod, the “head of magic”; Kyle Marlett, spin expert; Kim Congdon, comedian; and Austin Janik, who identifies himself as a “magician/intern” even though he starred in Penn and Teller Fool Us.

We see them talk about possibilities, doing some tricks for each other as they work out the premise. From time to time, the team tries a trick on each other before settling on another approach. Once they decide on a stunt, we see them booking venues and hiring actors. This is all filmed in a casual, verité manner that may be for our benefit, but it doesn't seem entirely false.

The teams' best discussions (and therefore their best jokes) get to the root of what happened to the victim and attempt to recreate that emotional experience for the victim. Without that justification, some may lean toward cruelty.

We've got a bit of Penn & Teller as the team shares some of their methodology, from disorienting to convincing, and shows us how some tricks are done. There's also some magical history along the way.

Crucially, key parts of the pranks are hidden from us, allowing us to experience them alongside the target. Most of them seem genuinely delighted and recognize that they have received compensation for their own pranks or behavior.

The second prank of that episode is for unsuspecting people in a grocery store parking lot who don't return their carts, and Willman literally slams a remote-controlled cart into people's cars. That's a bit embarrassing.

Justin Willman stars in most of the jokes, and even with bad wigs and fake mustaches, he still looks and sounds like the famous Netflix comedian, but the fact that no one immediately recognizes him is a testament to the world the team builds.

Watch The Magic Prank Show with Justin Willman 2024 Tv Series Trailer