I love these and my kids who are a little obsessed with stage magic right now are at the perfect age for Penn & Teller videos so I need to stash these for the next time I have them. There’s definitely skill levels involved, even at the professional level (and Penn & Teller are definitely among the best out there). We’ve been to two professional magic shows in the last year, one in Wisconsin Dells, the other in Lake Geneva (both venues starring their owners) and it was apparent that the Dells guy was much better than the Lake Geneva guy (although the second magician the Lake Geneva guy had some impressive work to show).

Ricky Jay (RIP) is also extraordinary and has a handful of videos on YouTube. His stuff is mostly with cards and his humor is more aimed at adults. One of my favorites is his appearance on Arsenio Hall (I wish this was better quality):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jKuHiY397U

You gotta watch to the end. Arsenio bends a card when Ricky looks away and thinks he can follow it that way but... well, just watch. :-)

One of his shows (with some fancy card throwing):

https://youtu.be/z7InE1zXAY4

Documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWM4qQWwnu0

Yeah, Ricky Jay was the last of a breed (he was also a friend of a friend, something I only learned after both he and the friend had died). He was very schooled in a lot of the street con games and was also a scholar of historical frauds and cams. He published a small-circulation magazine with his researches in the latter.

And of course his appearances in various David Mamet–related properties were not to be missed.