Breaking the Magician's Code

Fox developed the concept of a masked magician who would perform classic stage illusions and then reveal the method behind each one. The title refers to the magician's code, the working magician's promise never to expose a trick. The producer was Nash Entertainment, the narrator was actor Mitch Pileggi, and the man in the mask was Val Valentino, born Leonard Montano in East Los Angeles in 1956, a Las Vegas showroom performer whom Fox approached after other magicians had turned the job down. He agreed on the condition that only older, traditional illusions would be revealed, arguing that exposing outdated methods would push magicians to innovate.

The first special aired on November 24, 1997 and scored the highest ratings of any Fox special to that point; three more followed on March 3, May 5 and October 29, 1998. The reveals were filmed inside a warehouse at 516 South Anderson Street in Boyle Heights, with overhead camera angles showing the false floors, escape doors and mirrors, while the opening credits showed a different building entirely, the old Van de Kamp bakery across town. His assistants worked as living props, walking through each mechanism after the performance.

The backlash was immediate. Touring magician Kevin Spencer said the specials forced him to scrap two illusions that had cost as much as $50,000 each, and sued; Andre Kole tried and failed to stop Fox from exposing his "Table of Death"; a third suit, from a performer who claimed to have invented a similar masked persona, was dismissed. Valentino's identity was revealed in the final special of the run, and he was blacklisted, threatened and stripped of his membership at the Magic Castle. He later found a second career in Brazil as "Mister M."

Fox brought the format back in 2002 with a different magician under the mask, a street-magic spinoff followed in 2007, and MyNetworkTV aired thirteen new episodes with Valentino in 2008 and 2009. For kids of the 90s the originals are the ones that count: the night the whole family learned how the illusions worked and never quite watched a magic show the same way again.