The best part is that that kind of trick usually becomes more, rather than less, impressive when its inner working is revealed. I recently got to see them perform live, and my favorite trick by far was one of that kind.

Penn only agreed to the "Red Ball" trick after Teller hit on the idea to tell the audience how it works at the start.

https://lasvegasweekly.com/news/2008/nov/20/man-ball-hoop-be...

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/619/transcript

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhnATlPdG6A

Here they are showing how they do ball & cups by using clear cups and it's no less amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8osRaFTtgHo

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.

There was a video of a magic trick I saw where the trick was almost certainly accomplished by false shuffles. I know how to do a few false shuffles, in theory, but, the magician (Ricky Jay, I think?) was just so good at the false shuffles that I was more impressed than if I didn't know how it was done.

Watching Teller do the cups and balls trick with transparent cups is mesmerizing.

Yes, you can see everything. No, you still can't follow it.

Sure, you can see that "something changed" after the fact when it is stable. However, Teller is so damn smooth and fast that any active change looks like teleportation.