Piff the Magic Dragon was a contestant on the just-ended season of America's Got Talent. He was in the competition almost to the very end. Your diarist this evening would have been happy if Piff had won the whole thing.
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If you've seen Piff on stage, you know he loves snacks, and I'm sure he would love orange croissants. Help yourself to one before he grabs them all.
Piff the Magic Dragon is the stage name of John van der Put, a comedian/magician born in London, England. He appears on stage in an arguably silly dragon costume, carrying his "assistant", a chihuahua by the name of Mr. Piffles.
Piff first came to our attention (well, mine, anyway), on a 2011 episode of the British series Penn & Teller: Fool Us. The premise of this show is that professional magicians who might not yet be well known present their act in front of a studio audience, and the watchful eyes of Penn & Teller. Any magician able to "fool" Penn & Teller as to how the magic trick was actually accomplished, would be invited to be on stage with them at their home base at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.
The first season of 8 or 9 or 10 episodes (it depends how you count) of Fool Us was produced in a 10-day shooting session at a studio in London. Then the show was essentially in limbo for 4 years until it was revived for a second season, this time based at Penn & Teller's own theater at the Rio. As of right now, 10 episodes of Season 2 have aired on The CW. Another one airs this very night, and the season finale next week.
Anyway. Piff.
Piff's first appearance on the Fool Us stage all those years ago begins with Piff and Mr. Piffles, in costume, walking out to the microphone:
Good evening. My name's Piff the Magic Dragon. You may have heard of my older brother, ... [pause] ... Steve.
Oh, so it's going to be that kind of act.
I love this style. Piff mixes humor with magic, and his humor is dry, dry, dry. Almost Steven Wright kind of dry in his presentation. It's the sort of thing that you tend to either love or hate. And I love it, as already noted. Piff moves between dry disinterested boredom in the proceedings, terrible (in a good way) jokes and puns, weird sound effects, stopping for a snack or a sandwich, disrespecting his hosts (Teller leaps out of his chair with joy), and actually doing decent magic tricks. He plays a bit of an incompetent bumbler. He has a female audience member pick a card from a deck, then reveals his prediction of the card she would pick...the wrong one. Piff blames it on her for picking the wrong card. Then, the sleight of hand magic begins, and he transforms her card into the predicted one. There have been variations on this trick, but Penn said that they had never seen it done exactly in this format. Piff didn't fool Penn & Teller, but they appeared to love his act, and the skill that went into it. Piff's exit from the stage demonstrates his style of humor one last time.
Piff is already well known in the U.K. and Australia, where he has been performing sold-out shows for the last several years, including opening for the U.K. tour of Mumford & Sons. More recently, he spent 6 months working at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. He now lives in Vegas.
Piff is a member of Britain's The Magic Circle, an association of professional and amateur magicians. Acceptance into the Magic Circle involves an apprenticeship, sponsorship by two existing members, and either a written thesis or a performance piece.
Another notable member of the Magic Circle is Prince Charles. Yes, that Prince Charles. I can imagine the conversation at Buckingham Palace circa 1975:
Charles: Mummy, would you like to see my cups and balls?
The Queen: I should certainly think not!
Anyway. Piff.
Here's his debut on American's Got Talent:
Neither host Nick Cannon, nor the four celebrity judges quite knew what to make of Piff's initial appearance. But they soon warmed up to him, and got what he was doing. This is basically the same act that he did for Penn & Teller in 2011, but with Heidi Klum as the card chooser.
As Piff advanced through the rounds of the competition, he got to steal a kiss from Heidi, and Neil Patrick Harris (a magic fan and amateur performer himself) hit the Golden Buzzer, putting Piff right through to the Radio City Music Hall stage.
Next time around, Piff gets judge Howie Mandell to join a game of Dog or No Dog, a play on Howie's game show Deal or No Deal. Howie is tasked with choosing which of 4 boxes does not contain Mr. Piffles...the wrong choice presumably leads to the demise of Mr. Piffles.
Unfortunately, Piff's final contest performance on the show seemed a bit off to me; disjointed and rambling. It was somewhat difficult to follow exactly where the act was going, to get to the payoff at the end. Judge Howard Stern had similar remarks. Although the magic trick itself was fine, this was not his best presentation and the trick got lost in the process.
There was one more performance during the finale, which was not part of the competition. Piff was reunited with Penn & Teller plus others. Penn & Teller performed admirably as Piff's assistants. It starts about 4 minutes into the clip below:
Piff didn't make the Top 5 of America's Got Talent. But that's OK. He's done alright for himself in the last few years, and I think he still has a great career ahead of him. Plus, he occasionally gets to perform with Penn & Teller. Not too shabby.
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September 20, 2015
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