Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends is a straight-to-video release by magicians Penn & Teller on Lorimar Home Video in 1987. The tape features seven different swindles or tricks that the home viewer can use to fool their friends. The tape was a companion piece to their best selling book of the same name. All of the tricks involve using a portion of the videotape.
Direction
Wolff frames each swindle with gleeful theatrical precision
Writing
Penn's narration drips with delicious contempt for marks
Director
Art Wolff
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Lydia Lunch appears in the opening sequence before her noise rock career fully exploded—she was already infamous in NYC underground circles.
This hit shelves at peak VHS culture, when 'interactive' media meant literally pausing tapes to trick people—a delightfully analog predecessor to modern ARGs.
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