“Penn & Teller: Fool Us” Series Renewed on the CW

By Scott Roeben, on June 11 2024
3 min read 2 comments
Las Vegas

A TV series featuring Rio’s Penn Jillette and Raymond Teller, “Penn & Teller: Fool Us,” has been renewed for an impressive 11th season.

On the show, magicians do their best to fool the longtime Vegas fixtures.

The show appears on the CW Network, which is not an insult, despite it sounding that way.

Penn & Teller
Penn and Teller’s relationship is like a marriage. They, too, don’t talk to each other very much.

Magic is a dying art, so it’s awesome to see a TV show devoted to practitioners of prestidigitation. We were a magician in middle school, so we have a soft spot in our heart for this dysfunctional family of gloriously awkward incels, the cabal of conjurers, society of sorcerers, syndicate of spellbinders, confederation of confounders, the brotherhood (yes, they’re mostly men) of bamboozlers. Um, hello, ChatGPT could not whip those up. Our job is secure for another week or two.

Oh, all right, here are the ones ChatGPT came up with: Illusionists’ League, Mystic Circle, Enchanters’ Enclave, Conjurors’ Collective, Spellbinders’ Society, Tricksters’ Troupe, Wizards’ Whirl, Sleight of Hand Society, The Hocus Focus Group, Abracadabra Alliance, Magic Mingle, Prestidigitation Posse, Enchantment Ensemble, Sorcerers’ Syndicate, Mystery Masters Guild, Wand Wielders’ Union, The Magic Makers Mob, Miracle Workers’ Network, Conjuror’s Consortium and The Spell Crafters’ Clan. Terrible! Then again, it took three hours to come up with ours, and ChatGPT cranked these out in 30 seconds. Yeah, we’re definitely fired.

Anyway, we have been a fan of Penn and Teller (that’s his legal name, we threw in his birth name just to mess with him) for decades, and their show remains one of the best in Las Vegas, comedy-magic or otherwise.

The duo first performed in Las Vegas in 1993. They began their run at Rio in 2001, where they continue to have strong ticket sales despite the off-Strip location.

Rio was recently purchased by Dreamscape from Caesars Entertainment, and many were surprised Penn and Teller decided to stay at Rio, especially given their long history with Caesars. The answer, as always, is the money. Specifically, mo’.

The president of CW says “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” is a “surprisingly consistent performer.”

The show gets around 600,000 viewers for each episode (or .631 million in TV ratings speak), which wouldn’t move the needle at a major network, but for the CW, it’s solid. Even the most popular cable shows get 2-3 million viewers. Many shows on the CW don’t get enough viewers to fill a standard blackjack table.

Prior to the impressive run of “Penn & Teller: Fool Us,” Penn and Teller had another TV show inspired by an e-mail from us to their manager. The show was “Penn & Teller Tell a Lie” on the Discovery Channel.

When we did the Pulse of Vegas blog for Caesars Entertainment, we came up with the idea of sharing real stories about Penn and Teller, with a fake one in the mix to make it a guessing game for readers (and to promote the show, of course). We sent an e-mail to Penn and Teller’s manager, Glenn Alai, to see if they’d be up for participating. We never heard anything back and didn’t think much of it.

Until the announcement of a new TV show, “Penn & Teller Tell a Lie.” In that show, Penn and Teller shared six or seven stories, one of them false. Viewers would have to guess which story was a lie.

We were very excited to hear our idea had been turned into a TV series, and couldn’t wait to receive flowers or candy for our ingenious contribution to the show. A decade later, no dark chocolate with almonds. Or Red Vines. Twizzler people have something wrong with them, for the record.

Yes, it’s a Vegas sign made from licorice. Do you know this blog at all?

Oh, well, the show only lasted six episodes. One of the great things about not being credited for an idea is if it tanks, you don’t get the blame.

Anyway, we’re thrilled for Penn and Teller and the renewal of “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” because anything that’s good for them is good for Las Vegas.

Season 11 of the show, that made its debut in 2011, is expected to launch in 2025.

If you’d like to see a taping of “Penn & Teller: Fool Us,” there’s a service for that.

You can also see Penn and Teller at Rio, at least through 2026.

If you haven’t been to Rio recently, there’s a lot going on. The rebound of Rio is set to be one of the greatest magic tricks, ever.