Holiday blues have vanished! Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on December 27th, 2017 From the opening gag, this special kept getting better and better. The Jeopardy parody and seeing Bizzaro's imitation as AJ was the topper and I rate this as the best Holiday Special to date (these holiday specials have all been great). I look forward to it every year. Thank you, Scott (you are an excellent writer), Dan, Bizzaro and Puck. Merry Christmas! 5 of 5 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 5 of 5 magicians found this helpful.

difficult to Watch but worth the time and money Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on January 27th, 2018 The video starts off well but it kinda becomes annoying with so many interruptions and silly stuff. I honestly expected something more christmas like. Most of the video is like they decided to film a party. However it's still worth the money, if you managed to get it for free, lucky you. Dan Harlan's effects are great. and his secret revelation (not even mentioned in the description) is something i wished he'd revealed before. Just because of that, this video is worth every penny and deserves a 5 star. 3 of 3 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 3 of 3 magicians found this helpful.

Fantastic Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on December 27th, 2017 I got this for free and it was literally the only Christmas present I got. Lucky for me, this was a fantastic lecture and worth it! They had some really funny skits, and some absolutely fantastic magic routines taught too! 3 of 3 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 3 of 3 magicians found this helpful.

2017 live holiday Spectacular Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on December 26th, 2017 I have been a penguin fan for a while now. hope to meet you guys someday soon. Here is a quick version of my crazy life in magic.

Illusionist 20 years, never Vegas but did well. A tragic series of events took me out of the magic business.



Many years later (2016) my wife and I decided after all we have been through (which includes living under a bridge in the winter and hearing diabeaties and cancer in the same month) we are going back to magic. We are storage managers who make little money and started from not rock bottom, but under the rock. I gave you that history so you would know when I say Penguin magic and Dan have greatly helped us, both with Dans Tarbell series and with lastnight, you could feel how much we mean it!

All goes well, we will have a great parlor and mentalist show by the spring of 2018... thank you Dan and penguine 3 of 3 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 3 of 3 magicians found this helpful.

Scott and Dan Review Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on December 28th, 2017 Both Dan and Scott worked hard and were very well prepared, as was Bazaro. I think however, that I would have preferred more magic and less silliness, but maybe that's just me, and am in the minority. My preferences would be magic tutorials, magic history, and stories about magicians and shows. We all want to be better magicians, and in my opinion, most of the show was not structured to that end.

Thank you,

Gabe Auerbach 3 of 4 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 3 of 4 magicians found this helpful.

It's fun to watch Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on December 26th, 2017 A LOT of work goes into this. And there are some cool tricks to learn along with fun conversations.



It is so cool that they can create a 3 hour presentation like this and pull it off.



I enjoyed it and found a few fun tricks for a corp gig I have.

I'll look forward to next year.



Why 4 stars? Well...some skits could be a bit shorter oh look a bunny gotta go. 2 of 2 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 2 of 2 magicians found this helpful.

Fun, but I could have done without the ..... Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on December 26th, 2017 It seems churlish to be critical of anything that's a free gift, and I only offer my thoughts because I was invited to do so. Normally I don't look a gift horse in the mouth. As a freebie it is a must, there is some good magic to be found and if you only get one idea you have made a profit.

The format of the the Spectacular is for Scott Alexander and Dan Harlan to alternate in showing the performance and then explain the working of an effect, and interspersed with this magic are songs, production numbers and various attempts at humour. It is all very much at the level of scout jamboree or college end of term spoof and to be honest all a bit unnecessary. My criticism isn't that they attempted to add some comedy and fun as a leavening to the magic, but that the calibre of this humour was inappropriate. It tended to have too many "dick" or "blowing" references, too many "in-jokes" and too much that was childish. I have no objection to risque jokes providing they are very witty and genuinely funny and this sadly wasn't the case. Also I do wonder at the necessity for their inclusion in this show since magic surely has quite a large juvenile following. I know adolescents are not strangers to locker room crudity - but older men resorting to adolescent sniggering is a bit disturbing.

I do appreciate that a great deal of work had gone into the creation of this show, and a great deal of enthusiasm and energy was apparent throughout the performance.

The magic shown by Scott and Dan was generally good, as also that shown by guest artists Bizaro and Puck.

There was quite a lot of bitchy comedy spoofs aimed at other dealers, for example Daniel Maddison, Shin Lim and Sans Minds. This was mildly funny, it could have been much more so if it had used more subtlety.

I am sure that most people will find the download entertaining and will find among the magic things they can use. I made a few notes , but for me the one thing I determined to use was a versatile production box that Scott introduced and which can be constructed with the minumum of materials and craft ability. I also loved Dan's presentation of the Dominoe trick.

I think perhaps what the show lacked is a producer and an editor - since the ideas, the material, the energy and enthusiasms were all there but the whole didn't quite deserve five stars. A bit of critical cutting, tightening and refining would have probably made all the difference. 2 of 3 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 2 of 3 magicians found this helpful.

Mediocre at Best Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on January 25th, 2018 I'm glad this was a free lecture at Christmas time because I definitely wouldn't have a paid for this. In my opinion, there was WAY too much just plain screwing around being slap happy and wasted time that could have been spent on demonstrating/sharing magic. I guess I expected a bit more, but oh well. I was able to take away some tid bits here and there that I may use. Here's hoping next year's Christmas lecture tries a bit harder. 1 of 1 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 1 of 1 magicians found this helpful.

2017 penguin Live Holiday Spectacular Report this review Verified buyer Pro Privacy ON (login to see reviewer names) on January 10th, 2018 This is very a informative show for the magic explained. Thank you. 1 of 1 magicians found this helpful. Do you want to Did this review help you?Do you want to respond to this review? 1 of 1 magicians found this helpful.