The World's Most Dangerous Magic

The World's Most Dangerous Magic was the title of two American television specials showcasing illusion and escapology acts, which were made for the NBC network. The first was originally broadcast on 27 April 1998^[1] and the second, titled The World's Most Dangerous Magic 2, was initially aired on 2 May 1999.^[2][3]

The shows were the brainchild of producer Gary Ouellet and were made by the Gary L Pudney Company.^[2] They featured a combination of famous performers and lesser-known magicians, each performing stunts or illusions that were claimed to involve the risk of death or serious injury. While some stunts clearly involved genuine life-threatening danger should anything have gone wrong, the risk of injury in others was open to question. In the first show, The Pendragons performed the illusion Impaled, which was described as a "balancing feat" in which Charlotte Pendragon risked fatal impalement should it go wrong. However this is a well known illusion in the general repertoire of stage magic in which the performer is not actually in danger of genuine impalement (although if performed clumsily or with poor quality apparatus there is some risk of back injury to the assistant). The Pendragons' presentation of this illusion is nevertheless rated by many magicians as possibly the best ever version of the trick.