Celebracadabra: Carnievores

Hola, gasmii! After a couple months of recap vacation, I was itching to get back into the swing of things around these parts. When I first saw the commercials for Celebracadabra, I wondered who would ever watch that kind of show. I mean, really, you know? Then I realized: I would watch that kind of show! Once I accepted that, I knew nothing could ever make me happier than recapping it.

We start off by finding out a bit about Celebracadabra, which has a premise so complicated it’s going to blow your mind. Get this – it’s celebrities, see? Hanging out together. Doing wacky shit for cameras! God, I love it already! They’ll actually be learning magic tricks, a topic which reaches a special realm of badness, but at least they require some kind of skill. It has the potential to be a lot more interesting than Be My G-List Boyfriend.

In a preview of some things we’ll see this season, Hal Sparks asks his magician if a trick ever stops burning him, and the guy says Hal will get used to the pain. The next shot is of Kimberly Wyatt of Pussycat Dolls fame, which I feel is a little wink from the Celebracadabra editors. She knows a lot about a certain burning feeling.

Loosen up her buttons, babe.

One celebragician, which is the technical term, will disappear from the competition each week. The winner receives $100,000, a prize that manages to be both substantial and seriously lame at the same time. It would be a lot easier to just get fat and go on Celebrity Fit Club, you know? Still, before we can get to any prizes, we have to meet the competition!

The celebs gather in the Magic Castle, which is supposedy Hollywood’s exclusive club for professional magicians. In reality, it’s probably just Criss Angel’s basement. Jonathan Levitt, our fearless host, explains that the stars will be learning how to be world-class magicians. Then he does a trick that involves a flame, but it looks like a sad CGI effect more than anything. The stars clap even though it’s obvious they do not understand what’s happening.

Kimberly explains in confessional that she has no clue what she’s gotten herself into, but she’s going to try like hell. Sadly, I think she means she’ll try like hell to figure out where she is. Oh, Kim. No one will ever notice you’ve gone missing.

The first challenge will be street magic, and they’ll have one day to learn what people spend years studying. Hoorah! Before they can start, they must meet their new partner. Up first is Derek Hughes, a top comedy magician. Essentially that means Derek is a clown without the makeup. He makes some balls appear, compensating for the ones he lacks down below, and reveals he’ll be working with Chris “Kid” Reid of Kid ‘n Play. Chris looks impressed, but it’s only because someone knows his name. That’s a big milestone in Chris’ life!

Next we have Silly Billy, the world’s most famous children’s magician. Silly Billy is a legitimate clown, and Ant explains he’ll quit and/or piddle himself if they have to be partners. You kind of can’t blame him though, since grown men who choose to be clowns will totally rape you in your sleep. Also, if you’re not familiar with Ant, you should consider yourself blessed because I don’t think there’s any “comedian” more annoying. He’s like a queer Carrot Top, which is to say…Carrot Top.

Luckily for all of us, Ant will not be quitting just yet! Silly Billy will work with Lisa Ann Walter, who makes a huge blowjob face in faux excitement. I’ve never heard of Lisa but can assume this probably isn’t a big stretch for her. Our next magician is Rocco, who invented some kind of product that’s huge in magic. God bless Rocco for coming up with the string of colored scarves! His partner is Hal Sparks, from the show my 60-year-old father refers to as Queer as Fuck. Hal is stoked, but admittedly he’s stoked anytime he gets to leave the house for something other than a community college stand-up tour.

Murray the Magician is the master of CD manipulation, and he performs a trick with matches. Murray thinks he’s hot shit, like he’s the first person to ever burn a CD, you know? Sorry dude, my computer’s totally been doing this for years. His partner is Kimberly, who looks wildly unimpressed. She should feel lucky though, maybe he can help her shop a demo around. Hal hopes Kimberly and Murray will be distracted by each other’s prettiness and not get anything done. They’ll totally be banging, you can just tell Murray’s into the ladies.

Not thinking about cockrings at all!

David Regal is a trick inventor and TV writer, aka the profession of every unemployed dude in LA. He uses an Etch-a-Sketch to reveal he’s working with C. Thomas Howell, and Ant immediately queens out about how that trick sucks. Lisa asks why he’s so hateful, but if she were any kind of comedian, she’d ask about his greatest trick, deepthroating. (I have no idea if Lisa is actually a comedian, but she’s totally comedian-pretty!)

Asi Wind is a world-renowned close-up performer, and he’s assigned to work with Ant, who splooges with delight. The last magician is a former con-man named Simon Lovell, which is sort of amazingly awesome. David Blaine must not have answered VH1′s calls, so they just found some hobo off the street. His partner is Carnie Wilson, and she is none too pleased to be working with a homeless person. In her defense, she’s afraid he’s too skinny to slice up for eatings.

The pairs meet up to rehearse, and Lisa couldn’t be more excited to work with a pro. Lisa is used to entertaining in the lobby of her apartment building, so meeting someone successful is baffling! Hal isn’t worried because he says he’s good at everything. That’s funny, he doesn’t seem to be very good at getting a job these days, but what can ya do. Kimberly says she doesn’t deal with failure very well, so she’s super determined in this competition. I love when really unknown celebrities say things like that, by the way. She doesn’t deal with failure, but she’s that Pussycat Doll whose name you don’t know. You know, that one? Yeah, her! Great talent. Kimberly assures us losing is not an option.

Nor is good lighting.

She sits down with Murray to learn a card trick that involves her mouth, shock of all shocks. He instructs her not to kiss the card, just to suck on it. Then they both nod knowingly because dude, you can’t even imagine how many times they’ve used their mouths for that before.

Simon, who I’d rather call Hobie the Hobo, starts teaching Carnie how to spring the cards. This is just a dumbed-down way of saying “shuffle,” and she still can’t understand it. The cards all fall out of her hands and she starts whining about how she really tried. Blind babies in incubators know how to shuffle a deck of cards, but Carnie is just puzzled! She immediately complains that she’s nervous and this is not gonna work, and in her next attempt, she sends the cards flying across the table. Sadly that’s not the spring effect Hobie was going for, but Carnie eats a Cornish game hen to celebrate anyway.

Elsewhere in the Magic Castle, C. Thomas Howell is hard at work with David, who pulls a fake hand out of his jacket and beats it against a table. C. Thomas Howell is not pleased. Also, his name is one of those where you just have to call him by first and last name constantly, you know? You can’t help it.

Mayhaps we should call him Mr. Spock instead.

Back in Kimberly’s den of oral sex, Murray tries to teach her a trick using a light bulb, since she’s as bright as one. She’s understandably confused, and then the bulb shatters in her hand. This is why she’s a Pussycat Doll as opposed to a hooker, she squeezes things a little too hard. Murray moves onto a beer bottle trick next, and I swear, there has never been a more perfect match on any reality show. Murray knows all the things Kimberly loves! All the trick entails is smashing a beer bottle over a brick, which she happily participates in after draining a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Only the classiest for this gal! She winds up giving herself huge gashes from the shards of glass, making this one of the saddest bar fights ever.

Meanwhile, Rocco explains that Hal’s performance will reflect back on Rocco. I love that he’s supposed to be one of the greatest magicians ever, but he’s still like, “If you fuck this up, my career is over.” Magic is such a fickle little game.

Silly Billy tells Lisa he has an amazing ability to heal himself, and then he starts fucking slicing through his finger. Through his fucking finger, and he doesn’t even flinch! This talent will prove to be a problem when he inevitably tries to slit his wrists, as all clowns do. Lisa freaks out but yells, “I know it’s a trick!” which is really fabulous insight. Didn’t see that one coming! She says she needs a Xanax, which she probably says quite often.

Chris is hard at work with his magician, too. He’s busy sliding a ring on and off his finger, which is apparently a skill. He thinks Derek wanted him to familiarize himself with the ring and the trick itself. So, wait, Chris won’t be going out on the street having never done this before? That is just odd. Derek tells him that even if the trick fails, he’ll have to remain confident. Chris probably has a lot of experience acting brave even though he looks super lame, so I’m not too worried about him.

All of Hal’s confessionals are him telling unfunny jokes, but he actually makes a good one when he says Asi is a great magician and it’s a shame he’s stuck with Ant. There’s a point on the joke board! Asi is busy trying to teach Ant how to shuffle a deck of cards, and Ant suddenly queens out and is like, “That would make me feel really small! Why would you do that?” This isn’t the time to mention that he’s got a tiny rod, but all right.

Lisa explains that she’s known Ant for years, which is one of the reasons she did this show. I would think that’s a reason you get the hell out of dodge, but maybe Lisa’s not so quick. Anyway, Ant tells us he’s got a strategy. Of course it’s not to, like, be good at magic. No, it’s to “ally” with people. Apparently this is an actual verb, but who talks that way? “Make an alliance,” sure. “Be allies,” yes, but using that word as a verb makes Ant sound marvelously retarded. Let’s just go with that, dude is a moron!

Seriously, you guys, my junk is this big.

Using his expert strategery, he approaches Carnie and suggests they work together to psych out the competition. From the way Carnie flips her shit, you would think he suggested they boycott food. She rants about how only one person can win, so he’s trying to sabotage her by suggesting this. Ant says they’ll part ways as the competition narrows down, but Carnie will have none of this. Meanwhile, Hobie the Hobo is grinning like this is the greatest day of his life. Considering he’s warm and indoors, it probably is. Ant says Carnie is either with him or against him, and she flat-out tells him she’s against him. In return, he promises to do his part to make sure she looks like a complete asshole on this show. He’s doing a bang-up job making himself look like one, so I have faith in his plan! Also, here’s a thought: considering he and Lisa have been buds for eons, wouldn’t it have been smart to ask her first? Sounds like his brain did not ally with common sense.

The next day, it’s time to perform! The celebs head out to LA to meet the judges, who are all massively sexy. One is Jeff McBride, creator of McBride’s Magic and Mystery School, and the other is Franz Harary, who performs in the world’s largest illusion show. Hold on, I’m having an orgasm.

Ladies, try to control yourselves.

The judges will grade on technical ability, showmanship, and audience reaction. Ant immediately wishes his fellow contestants luck and says they’re going to need it. Ant is so qualified in everything he does, you see. That’s why he won Last Comic Standing. Wait, no, he didn’t.

The celebs set off to find victims for their tricks, and unsurprisingly no one will stop to hang out with Carnie. They’re all afraid she’ll sit on them. One guy tries to turn Kimberly down, but she squeals, “You can’t say no! Come on!” Welcome to every night in Kimberly’s bedroom! She eventually nabs him, and even C. Thomas Howell gets a viewer by saying, “I don’t know magic, but, uh….” People should say that before every project, it instills a lot of confidence. Understandably, the businessman he grabbed is like, “Are you going to steal my wallet?” Then C. Thomas Howell asks for a dollar, and it would be so very awesome if he just walked away with it. Hobie the Hobo would be so proud! Unfortunately he just tries to make the dollar bill levitate in his hand, and instead it falls to the floor. Give him back his money, you schlub.

It’s Kimberly’s turn to perform afterwards, but she says she shakes like a leaf when she’s in front of a crowd of people she doesn’t know. No wonder she’s so famous. She decides to do the bottle trick first, as she is a drunken whore, and she tells a volunteer that she will “riffle” through this deck. This time I was sure that’s not a fucking word, but…I’m sure you know where this is going. Anyway, she riffles and has the guy pick a card. Then she pours out the bottle of beer, and honestly, Kimberly giving up beer? That could’ve been the whole damn trick right there. Surprisingly there’s more to it! She breaks the bottle over the brick, tosses the deck of cards in the air, and manages to stab his card with a piece of broken glass. The judges are shocked she can even string a sentence together, let alone a whole magic trick.

Judge Jeff says the women are doing better than the men so far. Cut to Chris’ performance, where he’ll try to make a ring disappear and then reappear attached to his shoelace. It’s going to be marvelous if he just loses it altogether, someone’s beloved wedding ring! Somehow though, even though Judge Jeff set this clip up to fail, Chris does an amazing job. It’s a little hard to describe the tricks since there are no explanations, but I guess that’s the joy of magic, right?

For Carnie’s turn, she asks a kid to write his name on a card. He puts the card back in the deck, shuffles ‘em up nice and good, and then ducks as she throws them against a window. A card sticks to the glass and…it’s not his card! She ends the trick by yelling, “Fuck me!” The child runs away in horror, making it a successful disappearing act. Not to worry, Ant assures her that she pretty much fucked it up and that people hate Americans even more because of her. It would be one thing if the kid in the trick was foreign or something, but he wasn’t, so this is just delightfully mean.

Ant promptly steals Carnie’s crowd, and he performs a trick where he tears a dollar bill in half. Then he tears it again and holds the four pieces together, blows on them, and suddenly they’re all put back together in odd ways. It’s about as impressive as it sounds, which is not at all. Ant gleefully explains that’s how real magic is done, and his trick victim makes a face like, “My dollar is ruined.” Poor puppy!

Carnie asks Ant if he’s noticed one person in the show who’s come around to sabotage everyone else. Let’s be honest, Ant pays so much attention to himself, he has no idea what the fuck is going on elsewhere. She scolds him anyway, but he’s like, “How would you react if someone was dangling $100,000 in front of you?” I love that – this is like the lowest reality show prize ever, and he’s totally creaming his jeans over it. Hobie the Hobo encourages Carnie to try the trick again, don’t cry over spilled marinara sauce, etc. Most importantly, he tells Carnie to “ignore that asshole,” which means Hobie is my new best friend.

I’m assuming everyone hated their lives too much to continue, because now we cut to the next day of performances. Chris says it’s lot more intense, which is Ant’s cue to glare evilly at Kimberly, who is functionally retarded. Dude’s got his finger on the pulse of this competition! He starts heckling her but she sasses him back, which blows his feeble mind. He decides they should ally, and then they’ll riffle through their other friends, I guess. Kimberly says he proposed “a magical alliance,” and for some reason this delights me so much. It’s magical!

Kimberly is terrified Ant will send the Gay Mafia after her, so she agrees to team up. He asks Lisa next, which – duh. She doesn’t want to heckle other people, probably because that happens to her on stage all the time, but she decides to join the alliance anyway. They’re going to sabotage all the other magicians, which is Carnie’s cue to fart around the streets and ask people to watch a trick. Methinks her best trick is whipping up dinner.

Hot dogs for everyone!

Since Lisa has nice tits, she gets a crowd together super quickly. She racks them up, if you will. Hal compliments her on achieving her stocking trick, in which a strapping young man tears open her stockings to reveal his card tucked against her loins. It’s best to just listen to Lisa do her tricks because she sounds hilariously like Amy Poehler’s Kaitlin character from Saturday Night Live. That’s entertaining until Lisa says, “Magic happens at the lift of a lady’s hem,” which just makes the whole shebang creepy.

Hal has a pretty huge crowd for his trick, which isn’t terribly surprising. He totally has an unfair advantage in this, being that he’s at least marginally famous. I’m not saying I could spot Hal in the middle of Times Square, but he’s a little more recognizable than C. Thomas Howell, ya dig? Hal rambles about God knows what, something with newspaper and marshmallows, and ultimately a tiny mouse crawls out from his hands. To me, this just makes Hal look like he doesn’t bathe and shit’s living on him, but what do I know! Judge Franz says there’s no way Hal can go wrong though, so it looks like I lose this round.

Carnie decides to give it another go, and Hobie the Hobo is like, “Kick ass out there, rock and roll kid! The Carnienator is here!” When a homeless guy is your biggest supporter, shit is going rough. She does the same trick as the day before, and this guy actually does appear to be foreign, so it’s a risky one. It works out though! Either that or the dude doesn’t speak any English and doesn’t know what just happened. Definitely one or the other.

C. Thomas Howell, never one to give up, also tries again. Suddenly he says his trick is about communicating with the dead, so if it doesn’t work, it’s because the spirits are against him. I’m going to make that my excuse for everything in my life now. Sorry I wrecked your car, but the spirits were against me! It’s actually impressive when he pulls it off, so even though I’m tempted to say the producers were probably making the dollar bill levitate by pulling on it with a string, I will refrain.

Then it’s time to gather at the Magic Castle for judging! The celebs line up on stage, and in honor of the festivities, Kimberly does not appear to be wearing pants. Charming! C. Thomas Howell says he would be shocked if Hal or Kimberly went home, but he thinks anyone else is fair game. Carnie says it won’t be her, of course. She put on a great show, especially when she stomped her feet and cried like a baby. Who doesn’t love that?

Jonathan tells the celebs that only some of them are good enough to continue on the magical journey. Kimberly has to sell her tricks more next time, but she’s safe. Awesomely, she says, “Thank God for Murray. He’s like my secret weapon!” Uh, no shit. Next, even though his technique is a little heavy-handed, Chris is safe. He reacts by transforming himself into a SpongeBob SquarePants character.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

This next person wasn’t the best, but she wasn’t the worst, so Lisa gets to stick around with ol’ Silly Billy. Thank God for that one! Ant gets to move on, for which he feigns total shock, and Carnie pitches a shit-fit about how this is soooo unfaaaair. No one gives a shit, so the judges move on to Hal and praise him for doing the best out of every category. As a reward, he gets special powers for the next challenge! Hal assumes they mean super powers, however, so he is a little confused.

That means the bottom two are Carnie and C. Thomas Howell. Everyone calls him Tommy but I just can’t bring myself to do that, sorry folks! Carnie doesn’t think she deserves to go home, and C. Thomas Howell says he wouldn’t be shocked if he leaves.

Judge Jeff says C. Thomas Howell’s weakness was letting his dollar bill hit the ground due to nervousness. For the second show, however, he turned his nervous energy into a great performance. Then he says, “It’s ok to have butterflies in your stomach, if you can teach those butterflies to fly in formation.” Ant replies, “Did you just say that out loud?” I swear this will be the only time Ant makes me laugh all season, but that one was legitimately awesome. Judge Franz mostly agrees with Jeff, and then the host chimes in with opinions that mean nothing. What the hell are his credentials, you know? Having him as a judge is like letting some moron with no magic training write a recap about… wait, never mind.

Judge Franz says street magic is the most difficult magic to do, and Carnie’s not hardcore enough for it. She shouts about how he’s wrong, and that’s pretty convincing. A good way to get someone on your side is to bellow in their face. Judge Jeff tells her that part of magic is creating the illusion of confidence, and ugh, he runs his mouth too much for someone wearing a samurai outfit.

Street magic meets Street Fighter.

Ultimately Carnie did her best, but she was too insecure about what she was doing. For that reason, Carnie’s gotta go! Jonathan breaks her magic wand in half, covers her with a sheet, and then makes her disappear. That sounds like I’m exaggerating, but the beauty of VH1 is that this actually happened. Hobie the Hobo traipses back to his cardboard box, and now we must wait ’til next week, when the celebs will perform in front of kids.

Did Carnie deserve to go home? Is this the worst show you’ve ever seen? Was Hobie really a hobo? Leave your thoughts!