With dozens of episodes and hundreds of tricks under its belt, The Carbonaro Effect must
have fans wondering: how does this show pull it off? Let's stick our hand into this top
hat, here are some things you might not know about The Carbonaro Effect.
In 2013 on The Tonight Show, a young magician named Michael Carbonaro posed as a convenience
store clerk in order to trick unwitting customers into believing the unbelievable. Starting
with a special Easter skit, the first Magic Clerk sketch quickly went viral and eventually
led to Carbonaro's regular appearances on Jay Leno's late-night talk show. Talking to
HuffPost about the Magic Clerk skits, Carbonaro's magician peers Penn & Teller said,
"What makes it great is not just the ingenuity of the stunts, which are amazing, but Carbonaro's
sweet, sly style."
It isn't just Carbonaro's charm, charisma, and photogenic presence that helps him pull
off the skits, it's also the highly detailed backstage and under-the-table preparation
that makes these illusions visually stunning.
"Just give it a little spritz and then it'll make it floppy."
In the same interview with HuffPost, Carbonaro said,
"In doing the Magic Clerk segments, I'm always reminded of that line from The Usual Suspects,
'The best trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.'"
Thankfully, Carbonaro's best tricks don't involve anything truly devilish, even though
there is the occasional bit of mayhem. And after just one year on Leno's show, a newly
renamed The Carbonaro Effect was picked up by TruTV and an entire season was ordered
even before the first episode aired.
The Magic Clerk skits exceeded all expectations by getting picked up by TruTV as The Carbonaro
Effect after just a year on The Tonight Show, but unfortunately, there was trouble in magician's
paradise. According to TMZ, Carbonaro was sued in 2015 by Tonight Show producer Beth
Einhorn, who alleged they had entered into a 50/50 verbal contract in 2012 to create
a spinoff show of Magic Clerk tentatively titled TrickShow.
Einhorn claimed that The Carbonaro Effect is exactly the premise of the show she and
Carbonaro had discussed, and she sued him for damages, fraud, fiduciary duty breach,
unfair competition, and conversion. As of 2020, Einhorn is credited as a Carbonaro Effect
producer, which suggests that the incident was settled out of court.
Sometimes the most interesting aspect of a trick is how it's accomplished, even if that
might take the magic out of the moment. Because the illusions on The Carbonaro Effect are
often so confounding, many viewers can't help but wonder if these acts are coordinated.
According to Reality Blurred, the truth is the illusions and pranks are actually staged,
but only to an extent. The Carbonaro Effect has a team of 30 people, and for each trick
uses six cameras picking up a variety of angles that are later edited frame by frame to show
the trick taking place in almost real time. The editing process is extensive and requires
incredible attention to detail in order to show the trick as seamlessly as possible.
The Carbonaro Effect uses gentle suggestions, like footprint markings on the floor, that
subtly encourages a participant to stand in an optimal spot for both the trick and the
cameras. If bystanders begin to accumulate, Carbonaro's team will come out of the woodwork
posed as people who work in the same space and effectively block the gawkers' view. If
by chance someone recognizes the show's host, he simply moves on to the next customer.
According to Interrobang, Carbonaro also uses an improvisation technique that involves saying
"Yes" to anything a participant might suggest to get them further invested and engaged in
the event. He uses these techniques to exploit what he calls the "wedge of belief," which
is that small space where an individual has left themselves room to imagine the impossible
is true.
To fully capture the trick from all perspectives, including the pranked person, Carbonaro uses
his training to plant a microphone on the unwitting participants using sleight of hand.
As Reality Blurred points out, Carbonaro calls this a "reverse pick-pocket" and it's extremely
effective in capturing the shock and awe that inevitably arises as the trick unfolds. In
other cases where appropriate, Carbonaro's team will plant a mic in an object like a
heart rate monitor or clothing for the participant to try on.
"We sneak 'em everywhere, on vests, jackets, or in this common everyday upper chest pulse
regulator we used at the golf course."
Many of the participants are shocked to realize their reactions have been getting recorded
all along, and not just by the cameras. Because of all this, even though aspects of The Carbonaro
Effect are staged, the human reactions are not. That aspect is enchanting all on its
own.
"Ah! Are you kidding me, oh my god. Are you serious?"
"What! Where do you play?"
"Oh my god!"
Carbonaro is also sensitive to the nature of his trickery, and makes sure that the joke
doesn't enter into scary or bullying territory. If a participant starts to get uncomfortable
or feels they're being made fun of, Carbonaro will stop the prank, reset, and move on to
the next person.
Carbonaro also understands that sometimes it's more than just vanity that makes people
hesitant to agree to appear on camera. Carbonaro totally respects that, and their privacy.
In these cases, he simply moves on to the next mark.
Three is the magic number for the main elements in a Carbonaro Effect trick in order to achieve
its maximum potential, which Carbonaro calls "The Perfect Triad," according to Interrobang.
First is the trick, which needs to strike a fine balance between being simple as well
as appearing incredibly complicated, the quantum physics of magic. Carbonaro returns to magic
basics, "Magic 101," that relies on sleight of hand, since this is a most effective aspect.
Second, Carbonaro needs a solid story to complement the Magic 101 going on behind the scenes.
Since The Carbonaro Effect often takes place in retail scenarios, Carbonaro needs to sell
himself not as a celebrity magician, but as an everyday Joe who's giving out free samples
or doing a demonstration.
"This is the thing, my boss is, like, crazy superstitious."
Without this narrative background, it would be impossible to get people to believe they're
witnessing a miracle, especially since they actually aren't!
The third, and arguably the most important, aspect of a trick is the participant's reaction
to it. Carbonaro told Interrobang,
"What I think is at the heart of [the show] is the joy of watching people react to bizarre
situations. I could be great, but the reaction is the super star...If the trick is really
great, the silly story that I tell along with it is really great, and the person that I
am lucky enough to have wandered into this scenario is also an awesome person; if those
three things are lined up, it's golden."
Impractical Jokers is another hidden camera prank show featured on TruTV that involves
a group of four friends daring each other into increasingly ridiculous and personally
embarrassing situations. The person who refuses loses, and is faced with an even more absurd
dare to close out each episode. While Impractical Jokers isn't nearly as finessed as The Carbonaro
Effect in either theme or execution, pairing the two popular shows still makes perfect
sense.
In a hilarious crossover event, Impractical Jokers stars joined Carbonaro in a coffee
shop to prank some unsuspecting New Yorkers. But as to be expected with The Carbonaro Effect,
the joke ended up on the Jokers who were supposed to be helping prank customers.
By the time the Jokers get involved, Carbonaro switches the prank and the Jokers end up stunned
themselves as Carbonaro's smooth magic takes place right in front of them without them
even realizing.
Growing up, Carbonaro was inspired by the prank show Candid Camera and first got into
magic by imitating his hero David Copperfield. In an interview with Newsday, Carbonaro recalled,
"I learned how to be a performer by emulating him as a kid, his formula of just talking
to people onstage, being free to improvise, being charming and witty with a crowd, together
with great, beautiful magic."
After summers attending Tannen's Magic Camp, he went on to teach himself a variety of magic
tricks and sleight of hand through relentless practice in front of a mirror until the illusions
were seamless. Once he was able to fool his family, they joined forces to help him to
branch out and get paid for his performances starting when he was just 13. Encouraged by
his electrician dad who would help build sets for his tricks, and his nurse mom who took
on the role of both booker and manager for her son, Carbonaro's flair for both magic
and performing flourished. He made so much money performing magic tricks during high
school that he saved enough to put himself through the prestigious, and expensive, NYU,
where he studied acting professionally.
In an interview with Interrobang about his magical training, Carbonaro said,
"I had this love/hate relationship with magic; magic can sometimes be a bad word...A lot
of people, they think of their dumb uncle or some stupid clown that they saw. They don't
really know that magic can be super skilled and super wonderful."
The way The Carbonaro Effect approaches magic is absolutely both of those things, super
skilled and super wonderful.
Inspired by the practical special effects of horror movies, as well as Steven Spielberg
films like Jaws and Jurassic Park, Carbonaro insists that the tricks must be doable in
real time. They don't even use camera tricks.
Carbonaro and his writing room use an unconventional reverse method in conceiving their tricks.
Instead of thinking about what they can do, they think about something impossible to do,
and then work out the details of how to accomplish it successfully on camera. He likens some
of their concepts to episodes of The Twilight Zone, explaining that they think of something
that might be considered terrifying or creepy and turn it into a magic trick that leaves
people stunned more than frightened.
Carbonaro has 30 people on his team who help with the various aspects of each trick, and
a portion of them are involved with the six cameras being used. This means that there's
always at least one camera that catches the illusion in the act, which of course gets
edited out before the episode airs.
The Carbonaro Effect team even includes people with whom Carbonaro went to magic camp, who
continue helping him design and execute these "magical moments," as Carbonaro likes to call
his tricks.
As much as Carbonaro would love to practice and hone his tricks more with participants,
The Carbonaro Effect has a limited timeline to film ten episodes in a mere 13 weeks. This
amounts to upwards of 140 tricks that he and his team must not only design, but rehearse
without the beautiful human reactions that really bring the magic home. For example,
the stunning Everlasting Juicer trick was shot a grand total of two times.
"What the world!?"
The level of creativity displayed here is as stunning as the magic and Carbonaro's performances
themselves.
"Are you kidding me, is this like, am I being punked right now?"
The Carbonaro Effect host might be born and raised in Long Island, but his show has been
filmed in Georgia and Chicago to capitalize off of a potentially less cynical population,
as Carbonaro told AM New York. Locations are also easier to disguise far from a well-photographed
New York landscape that might alert people to Carbonaro's presence and upstage the tricks
with participants who know too much about him already.
That said, Carbonaro already knows exactly what trick he would do if given the chance
to bring The Carbonaro Effect to his home state, and of course it involves the subway.
He hasn't revealed a lot of detail, only that it would rely on a subway platform, a moving
train, and Carbonaro being, in his words, "a nutjob." The focus would be on the subway
riders' faces as they watched the scenario unfold. Carbonaro also thinks filming around
New York would be great because of all the swearing that would inevitably need bleeping
out as his tricks unfold.
"No, f--- that, no, I'm sorry, mm-mm, mm-mm…mmm-MMMM!"
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