A Kamloops magician is set to appear on a popular TV show with a pair of magic legends.
Clinton W. Gray was given the chance to be on "Fool Us," where he will perform a magic trick in hopes of fooling magicians Penn and Teller. Gray decided to apply for the show after his friend, also a magician, went on last year.
"On its surface, it's a show that's designed to supposedly be magicians from around the world trying to fool Penn and Teller..," said Gray. "The hook is will they fool them or not? The reality is you know, 'hey, you're on a national television show doing your magic act,' and you're going to have a shiny black stage and 150 crew members and all this kind of stuff."
"In November, a friend came to visit, we got talking about it, and it turned into me sending in a tape of my act. An act I thought that they might like, and they did. So they pretty much immediately said 'yup, you're in for this year.' It was actually very easy process as it turns out."
Gray explained that he has practiced magic and been a full-time pro since he was 12-years-old. He noted that his appearance on the show was exciting, though he expected to do it for some time now.
"I've been a full-time pro, no other job since I was 12-years-old. So this is my full-time living since I was a teenager. Whatever, I'm in my 40s now so you know, almost 30 years, actually probably more than 30 years now. Never been famous but always a working pro. I toured most of North America with my bag of tricks. I've always been primarily a corporate entertainer so conferences, trade shows, sales meetings, and business events, that kind of stuff where they need some sort of entertainment or motivational key-note speech."
"It's funny, in my little world of friends that I had, it felt like everybody had been on the show. It's not that there was, there just happened to be a lot of west-coast, predominantly Vancouver, magicians that had been on it and fooled them. Some of them had been back on multiple times in fact. It was weird because most guys it would be this huge deal like 'hey, look at me, I'm the one doing this,' and for me, I was like the one guy who hadn't done it."
The magician filmed his episode on March 12, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was starting to hit its stride. He mentioned that the virus has caused issues since he can't do as many shows, but it has given him the chance to further perfect his craft.
"The problem was it filmed in March, right when the pandemic was being announced, so then it was like, 'do I really want to go do this thing or not?' Going to the states in mid-march wasn't exactly my tea of a good time."
"Reality is right now, it's a good time to put a lot of things in the show that were always on the back-burner. I do 500 shows a year, in a good year, there's not a lot of time to practice and put new things in when you're doing that kind of schedule. You're just going from gig to gig, collapsing in some hotel in the middle of nowhere. At the end of the day, the last thing you want to do is write new material, so for that, it's been really good."
The episode is set to air on Aug. 17 at 9 pm on the CW Network. Gray didn't say if he was able to fool the pair, insisting residents had to watch to find out. His trick will feature a plastic guillotine that he will use to sever one of the magician's arms.
"I couldn't tell you if I wanted to!"
"What I call the arm chopper of doom... I basically chop of Allison's arm or attempt to chop off her arm. It's a comedy routine with a guillotine-like device."
Those looking to learn more about Gray or book him for events can do so through here.
