‘Sin’-sational!

Scott Dickensheets

Friday, July 31, 1998 | 10:33 a.m.

It's big! That's the first thing they want you to notice about "Penn & Teller's Sin City Spectacular," debuting Aug. 10 on the fx network: Compared to the smallish desk-and-chair principalities of Letterman, Leno and similar heirs of the variety show tradition, Penn & Teller are tapin' large.

"When I see it on video," Teller says, "it surprises me -- it looks like the biggest show on TV, with the possible exception of the Academy Awards." For their first TV series in their 24-year partnership, Penn Jillette and Teller have built a show intentionally reminiscent of variety shows of a more Ed Sullivanian and Milton Berlesque vintage.

Conceptually, too, it's a rilly big shew. In grand variety show style, it gleefully mixes celebrity guests (Drew Carey, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed), offbeat acts (trained housecats), views of the weird (Jerry Springer singing country), the Eight Deadly Sins dancers and, of course, a man walking through a cow, which is to say, lots of that singular Penn & Teller fizz. Rest assured that lovely women will indeed stab a portly comic magician to bloody death. Yes, Englebert Humperdinck will duet with ska's-the-limit band Smashmouth. And we're not kidding about that cow!

This, then, is a show that wants to be all things to all people, to stand against the trend of show business tightening into demographically targeted niche entertainments. "It's a big, splendiferous variety show," Teller enthuses. "It's an unoriginal, completely ripped-off idea," Penn Jillette enthuses. "It's evocative of Vegas grandeur, Vegas theatricality," Teller gushes. "We're doing some pretty goofy things," Penn gushes.

For instance: "The Assistants' Revenge." In a segment demonstrating their spirit of fair play, Penn & Teller allow the magicians' assistants -- those handmaidens of magic shtick who are normally disappeared, sawed in half or otherwise made to look silly -- to perform the old swords-in-the-box trick on them.

"They humiliate us, shove us into boxes and end up murdering Penn," Teller says.

"They're not content with symbolic dismemberment," Penn adds. "So the swords go in again, and there's just this huge amount of blood. Then they go after Teller with chainsaws ..."

"It's a glorious sight," Teller adds, "all those assistants triumphantly covered with the blood of a dead magician."

"It came out really beautifully," Penn says. (Since the segments are being filmed out of order and will be spliced into finished shows, the guys didn't know on which show "The Assistants' Revenge" would air.)

The network has given the boys a long leash, then apparently let go of it. "fx says 'No' to nothing," Teller says, hardly surprising from a network that airs "Bobcat's Big Ass Show." "We tell them what we want to do, they say great, go ahead. So it will have our usual complement of blasphemy and blood."

And, naturally, funny tricks with livestock. "Cow Dancing," a mock hoedown segment complete with pickin' and grinnin', will end with Teller walking through a live cow. Does he make it? Does the cow? Hey, this is cable -- anything can happen!

"What I hope the viewer notices is how stupid a trick it is," Penn says, "and only later thinks, 'that was pretty good,' too."

The duo allows guests to attempt any offbeat gag or act they haven't previously had a venue for. Example: Comic actor Rob Schneider has apparently been aching to do a Dean Martin-style production number. So P&T let him. "He did an absolutely killer number with that," Teller says.

Penn & Teller taped much of the first few shows while performing nightly at Bally's. The two schedules didn't clash, Teller says. "We're working a lot. But even if you're working 14 hours a day, that still leaves you with eight hours to sleep and two to eat, so it's not that bad." Anyway, he's got a decent job. "Anytime your day involves cow dancing, it's a pretty good day."

TV represents a gear change for P&T. "In live theater," Teller explains, "you can depend a little bit on a mystery element to provide entertainment." Not on TV. Viewers jaded by "When Animals Attack," "World's Funniest Videos of Men Being Hit in the Groin" and "Caroline in the City" have seen it all. "They're not going to be impressed if something moves by itself, or floats, or if someone turns into someone else." Tricks have to have a narrative arc or a strange twist to keep thumbs from pressing remotes.

Television also represents a new way of working for the duo. Until now your basic two-man pop 'n' pop shop, Penn & Teller have for the first time hired writers, producers and creative consultants to come up with new material.

"We were initially uneasy about whether people who weren't us could come up with material that was up to our standards," Teller says, "but I'm finding this is a very satisfactory way to work." In part, no doubt, because other people do some of the work! "They come in with things that are already in the vein of what we do." Brainstorming with their team, P&T came up with 32 new stageworthy bits. Look for "a visit from a fork and spoon named Ziegmund and Leroy. They perform astonishing feats using their assistants, salt shakers and mice."

Then there's "Magic in Bed": While Penn intones a Barry Whitish love number, Teller in black pajamas puts the moves on a lovely woman in the "briefest possible" outfit. "It's a bedroom seduction, romantic scene," Teller says. "But instead of sex, they do a card trick. As she waves the magic wand over the deck of cards, they shoot upwards ... It's wonderful."

"It's very much in our style," Penn says of the show. "It just has 10 people onstage instead of two. It's very odd to be out there and to have dancers, a band, doing a very big show. It's a whole different scale than we've ever worked in."

So forget Bobcat, kids -- this is one big ass show!