Criss Angel Mindfreak
Black shag haircut, eyeliner, chain wallet — and a man apparently floating between Las Vegas rooftops. Mindfreak made Criss Angel the definitive 2000s magician: half goth rock star, half street illusionist, all catchphrase.
Criss Angel Mindfreak ran on A&E from July 20, 2005, to September 8, 2010 — six seasons and 96 episodes of illusions and endurance stunts staged largely on and around the Las Vegas Strip, with the show based at the Aladdin resort for its first two seasons and at the Luxor for its third.
Created by and starring Angel — born Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos — the series alternated between close-up street magic filmed among gawking bystanders and enormous set-piece spectacles: walking on water, floating from one building to another, walking up the side of the Luxor pyramid, making a Lamborghini vanish, surviving inside an exploding crate of C4, and lying on broken glass while a steamroller ran him over. The aesthetic was pure mid-2000s mall-goth — the jewelry, the guyliner, the all-black wardrobe — and "Mindfreak" itself became a one-word brand.
The TV run turned Angel into a Las Vegas institution. In September 2008, he premiered Believe at the Luxor in partnership with Cirque du Soleil, a residency that ran until 2016, and the International Magicians Society named him Magician of the Decade in 2009 and Magician of the Century in 2010. He got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017.
Mindfreak bottled a very specific moment — when magic's public face swapped the tuxedo for black nail polish, and every middle schooler tried levitating off a curb like the guy on A&E. Say the name in the right company and watch someone instinctively strike the arms-out levitation pose.
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