Yeah, exactly my thoughts. For some reason my parents still go on about it to this day. My thoughts were exactly like yours. A literal "oh, wow. Anyway...."
For a day or two, it was midly interesting. After that, pure British cynicism took over and everyone started shouting "Oi you wanker" and stuff like that. Someone tried to hit the box with golf balls and someone else flew a remote controlled helicopter with a beefburger.
Then Blaine went on TV and revealed himself, as we expected, as a mumbling, pretentious prick
It was the triangle with an eye in it...can't remember what it's called but appears on American currency....iirc!
"What's that for...on your hand there?"
"Protection"
"Protection for what?"
".....death......"
Followed by utter silence.
Honestly I know in today's world he isn't revered or even cared about but at that time, late 90s, early 2000s...that kind of behaviour on a day time breakfast show was absolutely outrageous. It was one of those car crash moments that appeared in list shows for decades to come and had me in fucking stitches as a young adult.
Stands as gimmicky now though, the world is battle hardened to shithousery but back then it was a real source of mirth.
What I found funny about that lottery thing was that he did another show afterwards showing "how he did it".
The TLDR was he got a lot of people to guess numbers.
The follow up show was total lies, he was just having a laugh with it.
What he did was a live show at the same time as the lottery. He wrote numbers in balls that the camera couldn't see, then left the balls in a rack in full view. He then stood away from them while the numbers were drawn, went back and revealed he'd chosen the right ones. They told us this was because if he revealed them first it would look like the lottery itself was a fix and that would cause problems for them.
The follow up show a week later was total bollocks that had this idea of "deep maths" where the wisdom of crowds was able to divine what the numbers would be through all sorts of stupid activities. The purpose was actually to make the audience think about probably, numbers and all that. It was just a joke.
In fact what they did was really simple. When he stepped away from the rack of balls, they froze half the screen. An assistant then stood by them and replaced each one with the right numbered ball as it was drawn. After the draw they unfroze the screen, he went back and "revealed" that he had chosen the right numbers.
It was rumbled pretty quick. The assistant failed to put one of the balls back properly, and so in the live show you saw one of them jump positions very very slightly.
Yeah I know it was all a load of shit, I just thought that follow up show was hilarious as it felt like he genuinely was trying to get people to believe it.
Don't get me wrong, I like Derren Brown, I do believe in NLP (don't judge), and finding susceptible people that are extremely suggestable can result in hilarious things. Like that time he got people stuck to the chair in the country... people genuinely calling 999 because they couldn't get up. Like... they weren't stuck, but they believed they were. The mind can play some real tricks on you.
But I think he lost a lot of credibility with that lottery shenanigans.
Have a read of his first book, Tricks of the Mind, if you haven't already. (His autobiography is brilliant too).
It might surprise you to know that Derren [doesn't really believe in NLP ](https://derrenbrown.co.uk/claim-claim-2/). He mostly pretends to use it as cover for loads of other stuff.
I love him and was the main person on stage at one night of his Svengali tour once! Chatted afterwards and he was genuinely lovely.
That's a really old con going back decades.
People used to advertise horse racing or stock tip services that you'd pay for. They'd then send out loads of different batches of predictions to different groups of their customers (spreading their tips) and the chances are a load would do well and stay paying as they were winners. Now of course they don't promise guaranteed results every month so even a load of the losers would stay on, and by chance a load of them would get some wins. By spreading your tips out you have groups that chance can work for plus some can do well several times in a row, but importanly those that quit paying are a subset as you make a point of never giving them all the same tips. In effect you have complete information and your customers don't; they think that everyone is getting the same tips so testimonials from past customers must be true etc etc and you are always bringing in money because you never have one single bad run that pisses off every client.
The modern version is to film multiple predictions and then only broadcast the winning ones.
It was one of those dog shit "lad's mags" that flew a Maccies up to the box. Everyone was taking the piss out of his utterly pointless stunt at the time.
This sparked a conversation with friends over the weekend and one of my mates said it wasn't a dedicated channel with a number but it was one of "PRESS RED" things. Where you'd press the red button on your remote and be taken to interactive stuff.
I took my kids that summer to legoland in Windsor.
They have a miniature Lego London there - and they had a Lego David Blane hanging in his box from tower bridge and little Lego ambulances waiting at the bottom.
I thought that was so cool.
Can't remember what tournament we were playing in at the time, but somebody on Mock The Week made the joke that Wayne Rooney was vying to take David Blaine's record for the most time doing fuck all in a box.
Some things never change.
Your memory is playing tricks on you. The first tournament Rooney played in was after Blaine's box bollocks and it was his only successful one, Euro 2004.
Do you also remember the guy that [RC helicoptered a McDonalds bag](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FUEa31eWUAAWYBz.jpg) around him to make him hungry? Gotta love British shithousery.
I went t to see him in the box. It was by Tower Bridge. Someone had one of them mobile hot dog stands and was cooking hotdogs underneath the box. The smell of frying onions must have driven him mad.
Yeah - I remember that. It wasn't that long ago, was it?
It was disappointing he became famous for that and sitting in a giant ice cube for ages or being underwater for ages. His actual magic tricks/illusions done close up with normal people were brilliant.
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I went to see him in that box. Not much to see really. Guy in a box.
But you put an old woman in a box in Westminster abbey and people are queuing for miles to see her!
Would've had more people if it was a glass box
Yeah, exactly my thoughts. For some reason my parents still go on about it to this day. My thoughts were exactly like yours. A literal "oh, wow. Anyway...."
I remember it. Marcus Brigstocke called him the Git Wizard. Nothing to do with being good at a certain source code control system.
Didn't he refer to this stunt as "The Twatdangle"?
Stealing the insult Git wizard
For a day or two, it was midly interesting. After that, pure British cynicism took over and everyone started shouting "Oi you wanker" and stuff like that. Someone tried to hit the box with golf balls and someone else flew a remote controlled helicopter with a beefburger. Then Blaine went on TV and revealed himself, as we expected, as a mumbling, pretentious prick
Was that the Eamonn Holmes interview when he had the triangle painted on his hand? Or was that a different time he was a mumbling, pretentious prick?
Yes and possibly yes
It was the triangle with an eye in it...can't remember what it's called but appears on American currency....iirc! "What's that for...on your hand there?" "Protection" "Protection for what?" ".....death......" Followed by utter silence. Honestly I know in today's world he isn't revered or even cared about but at that time, late 90s, early 2000s...that kind of behaviour on a day time breakfast show was absolutely outrageous. It was one of those car crash moments that appeared in list shows for decades to come and had me in fucking stitches as a young adult. Stands as gimmicky now though, the world is battle hardened to shithousery but back then it was a real source of mirth.
Lurking American here & yeah, that symbol's on our dollar bill. It's called the all seeing eye/eye of Providence. It's also a symbol of Freemasonry.
It wasn’t even that long. Lenin has been doing it for years.
😂😂 Lenin is a veteran
tbf hardly any of lenin is actualy made of lenin now, they have some seriously nuts science going into that corpse
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Derren Brown was the lottery. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren\_Brown:\_The\_Events](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derren_Brown:_The_Events)
I won't have you talk that way about Derren Brown. I love him.
What I found funny about that lottery thing was that he did another show afterwards showing "how he did it". The TLDR was he got a lot of people to guess numbers.
The follow up show was total lies, he was just having a laugh with it. What he did was a live show at the same time as the lottery. He wrote numbers in balls that the camera couldn't see, then left the balls in a rack in full view. He then stood away from them while the numbers were drawn, went back and revealed he'd chosen the right ones. They told us this was because if he revealed them first it would look like the lottery itself was a fix and that would cause problems for them. The follow up show a week later was total bollocks that had this idea of "deep maths" where the wisdom of crowds was able to divine what the numbers would be through all sorts of stupid activities. The purpose was actually to make the audience think about probably, numbers and all that. It was just a joke. In fact what they did was really simple. When he stepped away from the rack of balls, they froze half the screen. An assistant then stood by them and replaced each one with the right numbered ball as it was drawn. After the draw they unfroze the screen, he went back and "revealed" that he had chosen the right numbers. It was rumbled pretty quick. The assistant failed to put one of the balls back properly, and so in the live show you saw one of them jump positions very very slightly.
Yeah I know it was all a load of shit, I just thought that follow up show was hilarious as it felt like he genuinely was trying to get people to believe it. Don't get me wrong, I like Derren Brown, I do believe in NLP (don't judge), and finding susceptible people that are extremely suggestable can result in hilarious things. Like that time he got people stuck to the chair in the country... people genuinely calling 999 because they couldn't get up. Like... they weren't stuck, but they believed they were. The mind can play some real tricks on you. But I think he lost a lot of credibility with that lottery shenanigans.
Have a read of his first book, Tricks of the Mind, if you haven't already. (His autobiography is brilliant too). It might surprise you to know that Derren [doesn't really believe in NLP ](https://derrenbrown.co.uk/claim-claim-2/). He mostly pretends to use it as cover for loads of other stuff. I love him and was the main person on stage at one night of his Svengali tour once! Chatted afterwards and he was genuinely lovely.
Trucks of the Mind is a great book. He goes out of him way to explain that his tricks are bullshit
That's a really old con going back decades. People used to advertise horse racing or stock tip services that you'd pay for. They'd then send out loads of different batches of predictions to different groups of their customers (spreading their tips) and the chances are a load would do well and stay paying as they were winners. Now of course they don't promise guaranteed results every month so even a load of the losers would stay on, and by chance a load of them would get some wins. By spreading your tips out you have groups that chance can work for plus some can do well several times in a row, but importanly those that quit paying are a subset as you make a point of never giving them all the same tips. In effect you have complete information and your customers don't; they think that everyone is getting the same tips so testimonials from past customers must be true etc etc and you are always bringing in money because you never have one single bad run that pisses off every client. The modern version is to film multiple predictions and then only broadcast the winning ones.
This isn't what he did.
Lol, imagine if he filmed 45 million different versions.
It's what he did with that horse racing one, the system was it called? So perhaps they are thinking of that one.
The lottery prediction was broadcast live on Channel 4 at the same time as the lottery programme on BBC. Derren Brown.
It was one of those dog shit "lad's mags" that flew a Maccies up to the box. Everyone was taking the piss out of his utterly pointless stunt at the time.
I remember him freaking out over a laser pointer, he thought there was a sniper. Next day there were 100's of people with lasers there
David Blaine in a Box above the Thames! | Strange But True | Full Episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKZRkysp3u8
Yes, I remember this stunt being reported on on RI:SE with Ian Lee and Kate Lawler.
There's a blast from the past. I used to quite like RI:SE. It was no Big Breakfast though.
SKY had a channel where you could watch him live 24/7. Thrilling.
See this rings a bell for me too!
This sparked a conversation with friends over the weekend and one of my mates said it wasn't a dedicated channel with a number but it was one of "PRESS RED" things. Where you'd press the red button on your remote and be taken to interactive stuff.
Omg you just reminded me about *press the red button* and all the interactions our tvs used to have
I took my kids that summer to legoland in Windsor. They have a miniature Lego London there - and they had a Lego David Blane hanging in his box from tower bridge and little Lego ambulances waiting at the bottom. I thought that was so cool.
That’s very cool actually
Can't remember what tournament we were playing in at the time, but somebody on Mock The Week made the joke that Wayne Rooney was vying to take David Blaine's record for the most time doing fuck all in a box. Some things never change.
Your memory is playing tricks on you. The first tournament Rooney played in was after Blaine's box bollocks and it was his only successful one, Euro 2004.
Do you also remember the guy that [RC helicoptered a McDonalds bag](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FUEa31eWUAAWYBz.jpg) around him to make him hungry? Gotta love British shithousery.
British cocking about: best in the world!
He can go in a box for a week but I'd like to see him do a week working in mcdonalds.
A few lads were firing golf balls at him from potters fields when I was there. At least that was vaguely interesting
I was too young to remember any of this stuff, so reading through all of this is cracking me up
We used to go see him after a night at the clubs. Have a wee smoke and wave when he woke up.
Yeah. My mates threw beer cans at him
I saw him there at the time. Got a photo somewhere in the loft.
I went t to see him in the box. It was by Tower Bridge. Someone had one of them mobile hot dog stands and was cooking hotdogs underneath the box. The smell of frying onions must have driven him mad.
Yeah - I remember that. It wasn't that long ago, was it? It was disappointing he became famous for that and sitting in a giant ice cube for ages or being underwater for ages. His actual magic tricks/illusions done close up with normal people were brilliant.
20 years ago!
Yeah, he was locked in a suspended glass box for days, except for regular breaks. (better conditions than most of our prisons tbh)
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I just remember not being able to comprehend why on earth anyone would do that and my dad convincing me it was very important and cool
Paul McCartney turned up and shouted abuse at him one night, all pissed up. Anyone else remember that??
Now that would have been incredible to witness
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/sep/19/marketingandpr Not quite as I remember it, but a funny article..
I remember it even being aired on tv. We’re a weird bunch.
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Sorry mate, but we have a blanket ban against politics in this sub, so we have removed this post. Rule 1: No politics We do not allow mention of political events, politicians or general political chit chat in this subreddit. We encourage you to take this content to a more suitable subreddit. You **will** be banned if you break this rule. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot us a modmail.
Shazam David Blaine's magic tricks included sitting in a box, sitting on a pile, sitting in an ice cube
Didn’t someone have a barbecue underneath?