We won't name names here, but I saw a magician at the Riviera in 1992 whose flash powder was so clumsily used that a permanent cloud of flimsy smoke hung over the stage, causing a reflection whenever an "invisible" wire was used--and there were quite a few. Audiences hate this so much that they go into denial. They're so anxious to have a good time that they try to convince themselves they're not seeing what they know they are seeing. The applause was polite and forced, as though they were saying, "We like you even though--alas!--we weren't tricked."

You might be interested to know, then, that the favorite Las Vegas magician among other Las Vegas magicians is not Lance Burton--although he's considered brilliant--and not Penn & Teller-- although you have to go back 130 years to Harrigan & Hart to find a comedy team that original--and certainly not Siegfried & Roy, whose official portraits make them look increasingly like pasty-faced cryonic cyborgs, preserved from 1936 Berlin. (So they did save Hitler's brain!)

No, the magician's magician in Las Vegas is the guy who does the afternoon show at Harrah's, and his name is Mac King.

"Who comes to an afternoon show in Vegas?" I ask as I settle in for my complimentary cocktail.

"Is this a trick question?! Where are you?" booms Penn Jillette, of the aforementioned Penn & Teller.

Yes, we were at the same table, and Penn was genuinely as excited as a schoolboy to see Mac King's show.

"I mean who are these people? What kind of audience?" I say, lamely trying to keep up with Penn's ability to banter. (Don't try it.)

"People like us!" says Penn with impeccable logic.

A few moments later we're all singing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands"--the improbably goofy introduction to Mac's show--and everyone is already happy and knowing it and clapping those hands. Penn's hands clap louder than anyone else's.

And then, trudging onto the stage with his battered suitcase, a flaxen-haired open-faced guy in a plaid travelling salesman's suit that might have been worn by Stan Laurel, the man of the hour says, "Hi. I'm Mac King."

"Do you like my suit?"

"I'm from Kentucky."

All with such deadpan earnestness that he already has the crowd won over. He follows that with a six-minute rope trick that has us all grinning like idiots in spite of the universal hatred of the average person for rope tricks. And the rest of the show is screamingly funny and so wholesomely clean that when he does the slightest off-color move--like finding the "missing" card in the fly of his pants--it's all the more hysterical. He swallows earthworms, makes goldfish appear, works a Fig Newton into almost every routine, does a trick involving the burning of a hundred dollar bill that is so elaborate it resolves five or six times, and works with a newlywed couple--three-fourths of his act involves audience participation--while doing a trick with an old poncho he calls The Cloak of Invisibility. I can't even describe the Cloak of Invisibility. It's pure genius. He ends with a Siegfried and Roy parody in which he makes his own head disappear.

Penn Jillette was laughing like a hyena, but so were we all. After the show Mac stands out front and shakes hands and signs T-shirts and chats with the audience members, most of whom had no idea what they were in for when they wandered in as part of a casino promotion. After spending almost two decades on the road, Mac King has found a home for now in a small Vegas lounge where, already, the crowds are not just showing up, they're coming back a second and a third time. There's something about the guy, and I think it's called being an original.

© Copyright 2001 United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs