The Top 20 Magic Posts of 2015

As we turn the calendar over to a new year we thought we would look back at the 20 Most Popular Magic Stories of 2015. Of course for us, one of our biggest stories was launching The Magic Compass. Since launching the service on April 3rd we have published hundreds of posts featuring Magic News, Viral Videos, Exclusive Offers and Specials, Magic in the Media, Links to Hot Topic Blogs, Podcasts, Regular Webcasts Contests and Polls. Our story however, did not make the top 20 list. Here are the stories that did…

20. The 20th biggest magic related story of 2015 came from The Mirror as it related the horrifying moment magician Criss Angel battled to save the life of America’s Got Talent escapologist Spencer Horsman after an illusion went horribly wrong. Dramatic footage shows Horsman unconscious and trapped in a box filled with water dangling 30 feet above a stage. Read the full story here.

19. The actor and magician Jason Alexander appeared on LIVE with Kelly and Michael and performed a magic trick using nothing more than the cap of his Chapstick. He explained that it took him six months to get the moves down. There was also video of Jason performing magic with rubber bands after the cameras stopped rolling! You can watch that video here on The Magic Compass.

18.  The Montreal Gazette published our next most popular post. They said that there are two things that really irritate magicians. They don’t like to see secrets given away, and more significantly, they don’t like to see their craft turned toward perpetrating fraud. We believe that there are many more things that irritate magicians but this is all they mentioned in the article. Read it here.

17.  It was a surprise that our next story made it into the Top 20. First of all, it was shared only on the S.A.M. Facebook Page and not in The Magic Compass. Secondly, it is one of the most recent stories so there wasn’t much time for it to build an audience but again, this list was built not from what we think but from the response of our thousands of readers and we can only assume that all of you appreciate Emory Williams. He is a legend in the history of magic in Arizona. His Williams Magic Shop was a gathering place for magicians in and visiting Tucson for years. He no longer has his “brick and mortar” store but he is still introducing people to the art of magic and supplying the pros with the tools they need. Check out the story from The Arizona Republic.

16. 2015 was a F.I.S.M. year and there were tons of stories about the events that happened in Rimini, Italy. There were contests, lectures and shows featuring the biggest names in magic from all over the world. As always, there was also a lot of controversy. You can check out Michael Perovich’s review of the event here.

15. Our next story is one that we almost didn’t hear about. It is about David Copperfield and a 10-year-old boy named Aiden. The young boy was battling a rare illness and had just a few months left to live. He had a few wishes: to have a party with his fourth grade class, to have his friend Dylan sleepover, and to see David Copperfield live in Las Vegas. In February Copperfield flew Aiden’s family across the country and surprised them not just with tickets to his show, but also by spending the whole day with Aiden. Jonathan Bayme, Homer Liwag, Chris Kenner, Stacy DeRosa, and David’s whole crew helped coordinate to make this happen. While David and his crew made this video, he did not publicize the good thing that he had done for the boy and his family. He made this video for Aiden and his family and Aiden’s family shared the video when Aiden passed away in July. David then gave us permission to share the video with the magic community. This is just one of the reasons why David Copperfield is one of the S.A.M. Ambassadors of Magic. You can read the full story here.

14.  Magic is an art and Shin Lim is one of magic’s great young artists. After the terror attacks in Paris, Shin created a video tribute to those who lost their lives, were injured and all of the people that were affected by the tragic attacks. This article got tons of response and was shared hundreds of times on people’s Facebook Pages, Twitter Feeds, blogs and every other type of social media you can imagine. You can read about it here.

13.  Kostya Kimlat totally destroyed Penn & Teller on their show Fool Us. In fact, Penn was so fooled by the performance that he picked up his chair, held it over his head and almost threw it across the stage in frustrating. It was fun to watch the pair get totally fooled with nothing more that sleight of hand skill. You can watch the segment here and also browse several interviews Kostya did that explains his choices for the show.

12.  We were confident that Justin Willman would make this Top 20 list but we thought that his wedding dance or any of his other viral videos would to be the most popular on our sites. We were surprised that when we tallied up the numbers, the most popular post about Justin was when he did magic for Jim Gaffigan’s kids on The Late Late Show. Among other things he performed Overstuft by Bizzaro. This performance was awkward and wonderful at the same time. Since it came out before The Magic Compass was launched the data from this post came entirely from Facebook. You can check out the post here.

11.  About a week before The Magic Compass was launched, PNP Dal Sanders and Jason Van Sickle released their first webisode from their upcoming epic documentary “The World Needs Magic”. The premiere episode featured S.A.M. National President Kenrick “Ice” McDonald.

10.  It seems that Penn & Teller were in the news every week in 2015. Between their hit show Fool Us, their return to Broadway, Teller producing The Tempest, Penn losing weight and everything else that the the duo did there was no shortage of P&T posts. One of their most popular posts was when they appeared on the CBS news show; Sunday Morning. On the program they discussed their careers and returning to Broadway after 23 years. Watch it here.

9.  The ninth most popular post of 2015 was also from Penn & Teller but it was a car commercial for Mazda. You can watch it on the S.A.M. Facebook Page.

8.  Ed Alonzo appeared on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson many times and he was also one of the many magicians that was featured on the show during the interim programs before James Corden took over the hosting duties. There hasn’t been much magic on the show since Corden took over but we hope that will change. You can watch that video here.

7.  In January ABC started promoting The Oscars with this Neil Patrick Harris commercial. NPH did a great job as host and he even performed a little magic on the show.

6.  Number six on our list of The Most Popular Posts of 2015 is when Penn & Teller appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

They also did some magic backstage.

5.  The fifth most popular post was about Chad Juros, a magician that survived childhood leukemia at age 3. He went on to start the “Spread the Magic Foundation” and bring magic to children with cancer in hospitals nationwide. If that isn’t enough of a “feel Good” story, David Copperfield jumps in to help Chad continue his work. Get your tissues ready for this one.

4.  The Art of Magic lost two giants on February 7th. Dean Dill was a wonderful man and a great close up magician who had been battling cancer for quite a while. He passed away with his wife at his side. The news of his passing spread quickly across the S.A.M. Facebook Fan Pages as almost 40,000 people commented and shared the post about his death.  Here is Dean’s story.

3.  The same day that Dean Dill passed we also learned about the death of the magician known as The Maestro, René Levand who passed away at age 86 in a clinic in Buenos Aires. Despite having only one arm, he was an expert in handling cards and performing other amazing feats of magic. Of Greek origin, Lavand became famous in the 60s when he took his art to theater stages which at that time was very unusual for close up workers.  Here is a video of René.

2. After being viewed almost 42,000 times, The Illusionists interview for the “documentary The World Needs Magic” is the second most popular post of 2015.  In 2015 The Illusionists shattered box office records across the globe and dazzled audiences of all ages with a powerful mix of the most outrageous and astonishing acts ever to be seen on stage. They even had their own NBC Network special in The United States. This non-stop show is packed with thrilling and sophisticated magic of unprecedented proportions. In this webisode the cast discusses their influences and what they are contributing to the art of magic.

1. What was the most popular post of 2015? It wasn’t even close. with over 80,000 views on the S.A.M. Facebook page alone, the absolute most popular post came from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. They did a segment on the future of magic that featured several prominent magicians including S.A.M. National President Kenrick Ice McDonald and S.A.M. Ambassador of Magic David Copperfield.

Well that’s it for 2015. Remember, these are not necessarily the biggest magic news stories of 2015. These were the most popular posts from the S.A.M. Facebook pages, the S.A.M. YouTube site,  Twitter Feed, The Magic Compass and other social media. What do you think we missed? What should we cover for 2016? We can’t wait to hear what you think.