How Do Magicians Cut Someone in Half

"Sawing a lady in half is like shooting fish in a barrel. Sawing a lady in half and then joining her upward together again is less easy, but tin can be done with do."

Almost as famous every bit the Pull a Rabbit out of My Lid trick, this death-defying Stage Magician trick involves a pretty woman (unremarkably the magician's Lovely Assistant) being placed into a coffin-sized lidded wooden box, with a cervix-hole in the top and ankle-holes in the lesser. Then, producing a large floppy mitt-saw, the magician gain to saw through the box, through the woman's midsection, and through the table on which the box is resting. After that, the sorcerer shoves in a pair of bizarre rectangular blades (sometimes called dividers) through the middle.

Then, if nothing unseemly has happened at this point, the magician pushes away the ii halves of the table, possibly rotates them around (merely advisedly not showing the sawn ends to the audience) and moves them together again. And so the woman steps out of the reunited box, all in one slice, to the relief and applause of the audience.

Modern variants of the trick often skip the saw and use the rectangular blades instead, which are shoved in side by side. This has the advantage of assuasive the magician to show the "cut" ends to the audience. Considering it's a Discredited Trope by at present (the hugger-mugger has been explained on endless occasions), a Stage Wizard who tries this is pretty much required to have some kind of special or unique variation if he wants to be taken seriously.

Sometimes, the second rectangular bract tin become stuck and the wizard will pull on the head of the assistant, causing the bract to fall. This is used as a joke on several occasions. A few magicians who love their Blackness Comedy may have some 'unusual' embellishments to the act: The assistant may simulated falling unconscious, shriek when the blades go through her, and on some rare occassions the blades they use have faux "bloodstains" on them when they are withdrawn from the boxes during the restoration. A few might fifty-fifty add false blood fountains gushing out dramatically as part of the act. Sometimes the dividers get stuck, and the magician has to either have hold of her head or feet and pull, although this gimmick is commonly considered tired and is oft parodied instead of played straight (at least i version of this black comedy element has the daughter able to force the dividers to rise in their slots by straining really hard out of indignation at the magician's rudeness at pulling her hair to go the dividers unstuck).

The reasons for its notoriety are explained in detail past The Other Wiki.

Other stage illusions closely related to this classic include the Zig-Zag Lady (Where the girl in the box is divided by having the box slide apart along several pre-determined division points, producing a signature zig-zag shape) and Mis-made Girl (Where the Girl goes into a box that is divided into four parts and the magician initially "accidentally" scrambles her during the get-go attempt at restoration). Another related trick is instead of cutting the box into pieces, the box is impaled with multiple swords to the point where information technology looks like it shouldn't exist possible for the person inside to avert all of them. Sometimes both tricks are washed at the aforementioned fourth dimension by cut the box in half and so impaling the ii halves.

If this results in someone really getting cutting in half, then he's Half the Man He Used to Exist.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Done in Cat Soup but that the wizard actually kills the woman and chops her into pieces before putting her together and reviving her with true magic.
Unsaid in Digimon: The Picture show . Kari tells Tai she can't exit her friend's birthday party because she volunteered to exist sawed in one-half by a magician. Tai warns her to tell the half with feet to hurry habitation.
Example Closed : Discussed Trope, where the setup for the "insert blades into a vertical box from the side" version is explained as "it'southward actually three lovely assistants", and the existence of multiple suspects theorized as the solution for the mystery of the week.

Comic Books

In Les Femmes en blanc , a surgeon uses laser surgery to operate on his patient, but accidentally cuts his body in one-half. The patient, who is yet alive, says his life is screwed upwardly, and the last console shows him as working as a magician'southward partner for this sawing magic trick.
In The Sandman #26, Cain and Abel do a version of the trick to entertain Morpheus' guests; like all interactions betwixt the two, information technology ends very badly for Abel.
The not-serious 34th result of Marvel Comics' What If? series proposes an alternate reality where Doctor Strange and assembly were this kind of magicians instead of arcane sorcerers. Baron Mordo'southward expose of the Ancient Ane is interpreted as him performing his latest trick; sawing the Ancient One in one-half!
A single-panel cartoon in Plop! #23 depicts two paramedics walking aslope a morose-looking magician while carrying his assistant on a stretcher - still inside the box, with the saw sticking out of the centre.
The title character in "The Mad Magician" in The Haunt of Fearfulness #one kidnaps people to apply in his experiments on really sawing someone in half.

Fanfiction

In Charles Alexander Tompkins Remus mentions the time the Marauders did a Muggle magic show for a Hogwarts talent competition and sawed Peter Pettigrew in one-half. Information technology took Madame Pomfrey two weeks to put him together again.

Motion picture

In the opening of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang , Harmony starts screaming as she's cut in half, but when they open the box, she's fine. "I'm going to be an extra."
In Beetlejuice , 1 of the ghosts at the afterlife waiting room is a magician's banana who did not survive existence sawed in half.
In Leprechaun 3 , the titular villain kills Fazio the wizard (in front end of a live audience) by doing this 'trick' (except for real, guts and all).
- A similar kill is done in The Banana Splits , with Fleegle trapping social media personality Thad in a box and forcing his fiancée Poppy to assistance equally he saws Thad in one-half.
In the moving-picture show Houdini (based very loosely on the life of Harry Houdini) Harry brings a "saw a woman in half" kit habitation, wakes his wife, and makes her make it. A Jump Cut happens as he'due south sawing, so he didn't do whatever "trick"; he just sawed, and she was OK.
Attempted past the protagonists at the end of Route to Zanzibar .
Bing Crosby: Are you lot sure you know what you're doing?
Bob Hope: If I don't, one of us is going back half fare.
In Follow the Boys, Orson Welles saws an upright Marlene Dietrich in one-half through a small box, and her legs run off.
It'south how one performer meets her end in the Joan Crawford vehicle Berserk .
This was erstwhile hat at least every bit far back as 1931 and Skippy , in which two kids put on a backyard variety show for the neighborhood kids. When they get to the saw-a-kid-in-half trick, the child playing the legs gets scared of the bract and runs off, ruining the flim-flam.
The 2000 pic Picking Up The Pieces has sorcerer Tex (Woody Allen) exercise this to his Lovely Assistant Candy (Sharon Stone, who played an unfaithful wife) and it'southward how she dies when information technology Goes Horribly Incorrect.
This is one of the magician Montag'south signature tricks in The Magician of Gore . The consequence was accomplished via artistic use of a sheep carcass.
In The Mad Magician , Gallico the Great's trademark illusion 'The Lady and the Buzzsaw' is a variation of this, in which he appears to decapitate his Lovely Assistant.
Lampshaded in Water (1985) when Dolores bemoans nigh her Awful Wedded Life: "Where has the magic gone?" Her husband snarks, "If yous want magic, I'll take you habitation and saw y'all in one-half!"

Literature

In Discworld , the glaze-of-artillery of the Gild of Conjurers shows a woman, with a saw-toothed curve dividing the epitome in half.
In The Portable Door by Tom Holt, the head of a firm of (real) magicians does this to the banana of a business rival at his son's birthday party. He then explains to his competitor that he'll exit her to dice if he doesn't get his way.
The Robert Bloch short story "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" has a sorcerer's wife, who acts equally his banana, manipulate a mentally challenged young homeless homo into murdering her husband by convincing him that the magic is real sorcery and the magician sold his soul to Satan, and so there's no moral qualm most killing him. After the murder the swain decides to see if the magical power is notwithstanding at that place in the magician'southward wand and decides to test it using the adult female and the wizard'due south buzzsaw finale... Adapted into an infamous episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (see below).
The Agatha Christie novel They Do Information technology With Mirrors features a lot of discussion of this trick and how it is done. Although no one really performs the trick during the novel, Miss Marple realizes that the killer's method of murder used a very similar trick.
The starting time Red Dwarf novel had Kryten do this to himself for the crew of the Nova 5 every week afterward the crash. Subverted in that he actually does saw himself in one-half and takes 45 minutes to reconnect all his circuitry afterward.
In "The Scrambled States of America Talent Bear witness," Minnesota does this to South Dakota for his act. Near the end of the volume, North Dakota explained to Montana and Wyoming how the trick actually went: He was folded up in one one-half of the box, and South Dakota was folded upwards in the other.
Wyoming: Genius!
The embrace of some editions of Al Jaffee's MAD Book of Magic and Other Stupid Tricks features an illustration of a magician sawing a woman in half. Lengthwise.

Alive-Activeness Television

The Bullshit! version of this involved a large buzzsaw, followed past seemingly revealing the fox equally they usually exercise: however, they then proceeded to double subvert information technology by "accidentally" sawing the woman in half with the safety methods disabled, consummate with lots of fake blood and screaming.
- For Uk tropers, this version of the play a joke on appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us .
- Penn and Teller have also performed the traditional version of the fob underwater for a magic special.
I of the contestants on Penn & Teller: Fool Us , David Caserta, performs a version with two notable variations from the standard. One is that he cuts himself in half. The other is that instead of a wooden box, the fox is performed while he stands in an open-sided metallic scaffold. It'due south yet a safety bet that his detached lower half is a dummy, merely it's a lot harder to figure out where his real lower half has gone.
Parodied in Monty Python's Flying Circus . "Last calendar week I showed you lot how to saw a woman in one-half. This week I'll be showing yous how to saw a woman in iii pieces and hide the trunk."
An episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was made from the Robert Bloch story "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (run into Literature in a higher place). Notably, this was the only episode the network refused to run (it turned upwards in syndication).
An episode of Dinosaurs parodied the Judgment of Solomon, presenting the Solomon effigy as a razzle-dazzle magician who cuts the baby in one-half using a version of this trick.
Done in an episode of Breakthrough Jump . Don't worry, Sam was told every step by the assistant.
The Muppet Show did this twice:
- In one episode, Wanda sings the titular line of "You Practice Something to Me" while Wayne saws the box she'southward occupying in one-half. Apparently, it cutting...
- In some other, Fozzie attempts the play a trick on with a substitute lady, namely, a comedy robot in a wig. The effect on Fozzie was rather shocking.
Harry Blackstone, during a guest appearance on Reading Rainbow , hypnotized LeVar Burton and cut through him, apparently without fifty-fifty severing one part of Burton from the other.
In Sabrina the Teenage Witch , Cousin Mortimer saws Hilda in half. Things become awry when Hilda's legs run off.
Mentioned and used on Arrested Development. In this instance, Gob explains how the pull a fast one on works to his brother... and a nearby kid overhears information technology.
The alive-activeness version of The Flash (1990) has Mark Hamill playing an Ax-Crazy version of one of the more prominent Rogues, the Trickster. Before adopting the Trickster identity, James Jesse (in the identity of a magician) kidnaps a woman and attempts to saw her in half...with a chainsaw.
Jesse: Other magicians may give you the illusion of sawing a woman in half... (produces the chainsaw and slices through a nearby mannequin) ...but there'southward no substitute for the existent affair!
Spoofed by Ernie Kovacs in a 1950s appearance every bit Matzoh Heppelwhite, the inept magician. He asks the visible model whether she is ready, and she chirpily responds, "Ready!" — but is quickly followed by a second, muffled "Fix!" from within the lower half of the box.
In CSI: NY , a serial murderer magician, played past Criss Angel, commits his crimes in mockery of magic tricks. He kills one of his victims by sawing her in half for real.
This was Fran and Gracie's talent performance for the mother/girl pageant in The Nanny . Due to a bad initial run (Fran was stuck for hours), they changed it to a boob bear witness.
Byker Grove has two girls get sawn in one-half on the aforementioned box with the girl'due south feet sticking right beside the other daughter'due south head.
Happens for real with Trish by her blood brother in the Austin & Ally episode "Social club Owners & Quinceaneras".
Mock the Week , "Unlikely Things to Hear on a Telly Talent Show"
Hugh Dennis: When you - when you said you lot were gonna saw a woman in half...I thought you were a sorcerer.
A lumberjack once tried to hit El Chapulín Colorado with an axe just a witch interfered. Until he was fabricated one again, his legs walked around while the rest of him kept floating in air.
Israeli sitcom Quickie, a sitcom about (more often than not) Upstanding Slut Roni and timid Nice Guy Ya'ir living together, featured an episode with this as a recurring theme. Roni's new boyfriend, a sorcerer, agrees to tell her how to pull this trick, despite this meaning going against the Magicians' Wedlock (which, according to the Local Hangout bar's owner, are 'worse than the Shabak '). She gain to tell Ya'ir, who later tells his boss, who was ever baffled by it, when she says that he tin can keep his chore in the round of layoffs the company is going through. Every time someone explains it, there is some sort of background noise obscuring the explanation, but the camera shows their lips moving and their easily gesturing (and so you lot tin read their lips if y'all can lip-read in Hebrew). At the end of the episode, representatives of the Magicians' Union evidence upward and gravely ask to see Roni's loose-lipped lover.
On the QI serial H Christmas special "Hocus Pocus", Alan Davies saws fellow panelist Lee Mack in half, referencing his long-running function as a magician'southward assistant.
The opening credits for each episode of Resident Alien are done in the fashion of an Ikea how-to-guide. The credits for "Radio Harry" depict two magic tricks. The first depicts Harry pulling a flowers out of a magician's hat and gets the cherry check-marking for existence correct. The second gets the red X, as it's the woman sawed in half, but badly bleeding and apparently expressionless.

Music

Warren Zevon's For my Side by side Fox I'll Need a Volunteer compares the vocalizer's unlucky in love romantic history with that of a stage magician, including a centrally placed Saw A Woman In Half reference:
"I tin can saw a woman in two
Merely you won't want to await in the box when I'yard through
I can make beloved disappear
For my next fox I'll need a volunteer"
Alice Cooper has a variant of this fox involving his ain head and a guillotine. When he performed this on stage in Uk in 1974, incorporating a variant of the "getting it tragically wrong" gambit, excitable British Newspapers ran with the story that he'd killed himself on stage.

Newspaper Comics

Played for Laughs in a Garfield strip, where Jon holds up a kitty munchie and tells Garfield to do a trick; Garfield quickly puts on a magician'south lid and cape and prepares to perform this play a joke on on Odie.
Jon: Tin can't you ever be normal?
Garfield: What, you've seen this one?

Pinball

I of the illusions in Theatre of Magic is the "Tiger Saw", a buzzsaw that is used to piece a woman and a pinball auto in half.
This is used every bit the "score match" sequence at the finish of Pinball Magic .

Radio

This particular fox was discussed on Martin/Molloy after a TV special where sorcerer David Copperfield seemingly cut himself in half, with the hosts noting how David Copperfield'due south lower half seemed much shorter than it should take been. This was followed past a discussion of the poor homo scrunched upward in the bottom of the box, and what a terrible job being David Copperfield's arse would be, eventually describing it as "the worst job in show business".
In Radio 4's Just a Minute , there was this dialogue between Clement Freud, and Victoria Wood (wife of a stage magician), which referenced a previous discipline "The Three Bears":
Clement Freud: When my husband sawed three bears in half, he did information technology vertically instead of horizontally, and so in that location were six bears.

Victoria Wood: You don't get six bears from sawing three bears in half, you only get six $.25.

Tabletop Games

The 1975 It's Magic! Magic! Magic! Game by Remco has the players equally phase magicians, who must perform with their Lovely Assistant the Saw A Woman in half Illusion, as well every bit the Disappearing Box and Levitating Banana illusions.

Theatre

Animal Crackers :
Spaulding: Nosotros will at present saw a woman in one-half. Did you ever saw a woman in half?
Ravelli: No, but I saw a woman in strange quarters.
Spaulding: Well, that's another department. Now, Mrs. Rittenhouse, if you'll kindly step this way, we will go on to sever you from head to toe.
In Celebration, at the end of the first act, Potekmin reminisces on his onetime career as a Phase Magician, working for nearly vii years with 23 dissimilar partners on the routine of sawing a adult female in half, which would have given his act the large finish it desperately needed. What he learned was that the sawing part was easy, only the second one-half, putting her back together, was hard.
One of the live performances of Bottom has Richie and Eddie recounting their brusk lived variety act, The Smashing Arsehole and Norman wherein they sawed a "volunteer" in one-half. Of course, Richie overlooked the joining back together once more.
Israeli playwright Khanokh Levin wrote a skit about a homo demanding that the wizard who sawed his married woman in one-half put her back together, while the magician claims it's not his job. Finally, the man says that of course it is, because:
Morty The Magnificent : Morty gains the ability to perform phase tricks perfectly. He tries to go his girlfriend Daphne to be the lady, only she refuses considering she doesn't trust him with the saw. Morty ropes the seamstress into playing the part instead. Information technology goes mostly well...until her legs run off without her.

Video Games

Rank four in No More Heroes is a stage magician who fights Travis at his show; earlier the fight, 1 of the 2 tricks he does involves cutting a woman in half — with a buzzsaw. He later uses the saw in an try to bifurcate Travis vertically and information technology plays a role in his own demise.
The Tale of Orpheo's Curse , a point-and-click adventure game, has one ghost who has suffered from the flim-flam and now has a wandering bottom half equally a result.
In Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge , if you close the coffin on Stan and try to use the saw on the coffin, Guybrush volition say, "I'm no magician."
In Sam & Max: Freelance Constabulary Season Ane, the flavor finale takes place in a magician'southward lair with various tricks around the place. Saving the twenty-four hour period involves taking the saw from the saw-a-adult female-in-half trick and using it to saw through something else instead.
In Dead Rising two , at that place are a pair of magicians attempting to perfect this play a joke on. They take a giant circular saw, a woman strapped to a tabular array, and a complete misunderstanding of how the fob is supposed to work. It doesn't end well.
Played for laughs at Sullah's Sideshow in World of Warcraft . Two NPCs are practicing the trick with a box containing two pygmies. When the first saws too slowly, the other attacks with a flashy blow, shattering the box and killing both pygmies.
In Midnight Mysteries: Haunted Houdini Bess Houdini's ghost is the bailiwick of the trick.
In MySims Agents, if yous ship Beebee on the "The Prominence" mission, The Amazing Darryl wants to practice this fox with her, and you lot can advise for or confronting it. Apparently, it tickles her.
In Sakura Wars 3, Coquelicot performs this trick, which she calls the "frightening man bisecting magic," using Erica Fontaine. Rather than a handsaw, Coquelicot uses an electric buzzsaw to practice so; Erica is unsurprisingly freaked.
- Note: It'southward never explained whether it was a trick done on Erica or if Erica actually was sawn in one-half and just got better.
In 1 of the rooms in the Twisted Suites in Luigi'due south Mansion 3 , y'all tin can discover a box with a saw sticking out of it. Using the Poltergust to move the saw downwardly will cause two Golden Goobs to come out- though in that location was no indication of there ever being a Gold Goob inside before, information technology's even so an like shooting fish in a barrel way to get some money.
In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim , one of the ii Dark Brotherhood sanctuaries asks you the question "What is life'south greatest illusion?" before you can enter. One of the options you can answer with is "Um....the i where you saw a lady in half?"

Spider web Animation

Pucca : In one episode this happened to Clown, who was showing just as much skepticism as Daffy did.
Homestar Runner : In the Strong Bad Email "magic fox", Strong Bad is asked to do a magic trick, like putting Homestar himself in a box and taking a saw to him. As enthusiastic equally he is virtually it, notwithstanding, he doesn't quite seem to recognize the reference to the archetype trick; when he finally attempts to take a saw to Homestar, he'south got him standing upright, wearing a cardboard box with a pair of unconvincing fake arms attached to information technology. The artillery autumn off prematurely, interrupting whatever he had in mind, but it's plenty to convince Coach Z that he's "a Level 3 Dark Magician" all the same.
Coach Z: That saw didn't fifty-fifty touch on him! He'southward pure evil!
In the Happy Tree Friends episode "I Get a Trick Out of Y'all", Lumpy attempts to pull off this trick on Cuddles, but unfortunately... information technology doesn't end well.

Webcomics

Western Animation

Used hilariously in the Looney Tunes short "Show Biz Bugs", in which Daffy Duck is non intimidated by the whole scenario because he thinks information technology'southward all a play tricks (in fact, he even describes the play a joke on's mechanics to the audition in the process). Cue Daffy's upper torso detaching from his lower body. "It'south a practiced thing I have Blueish Cross."
- Another Warner Bros. cartoon had Egghead (a precursor to Elmer Fudd) going on about how fake the trick was as he volunteered for information technology. At the end of the fox, Egghead jumps out and walks away... with his upper and lower halves going in opposite directions.
- The Daffy version of the gag ends upwards beingness redone on Tiny Toon Adventures , but this time with Montana Max.
The Woody Woodpecker short, "The Slap-up Who-Dood-it", opened with Woody cut a adult female in half with a 2-man crosscut saw, and stopping in horror when the woman screams.
When Garfield and Jon visit a magic store, the shop owner's domestic dog, Merlin, chases Garfield while Jon is looking for a trick. At one betoken, Merlin is tricked into entering such a box, and Garfield sets to sawing the box in half. Sure enough, despite fretting on the part of Merlin, the box and Merlin are halved without injury to the latter.
- In the episode focused on Garfield doing shows at the fence, he asked Nermal to enter a box. Nermal was afraid Garfield would practise this trick but Garfield wouldn't want "two" Nermals. Garfield but sent him to Abu Dhabi every bit usual.
The Mask : The Mask gets sawn, even having the guts to walk out of the box in two.
This was too done by The Pink Panther in one of the skits of "Pinkish Outs".
- At that place is another example where the Pinkish Panther botches up the trick by himself. (e.g., seen in the trailer for the German edition)
The Scooby-Doo Show :
- In "Scared a Lot in Camelot", Shaggy and Scooby volunteered for 1 of these tricks after the magician offered them two complimentary dinners.
- In the Phyllis Diller episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies , Shaggy and Scooby were hiding in one of these boxes when the magician did this play a trick on. When Shaggy's head comes out, so practice Scooby'southward anxiety. Then they switch ends.
- "Hassle in the Castle" has Velma freaking out equally she sees Shaggy in a crate being sawed in half with the lower half walking out. But she so sees the caput is a dummy and Shaggy himself was scrunched downwardly in the other half.
In Futurama , where Bender tries to go a magician, he saws Zoidberg in half with human feet sticking out of the opposite stop whereupon he opens the instance, and reveals that he has not been really sawn in one-half, much to Bender'southward detriment, and to the thwarting of the rest of the crew.
Used past Teen Titans villain Mumbo in his barrage of magic tricks-turned-deadly. He actually calls for a lovely assistant from the audience and yanks Starfire down with a cane. As he prepares to perform the "trick", he adds:
Invoked in an episode of Animaniacs , where the Warners end up in Transylvania, which of course ways an encounter with a vampire. Toward the end of the short, he's sealed himself in his coffin, and Wakko uses a chainsaw to go him out. After Wakko cuts the coffin in half, the vampire's caput pokes out of 1 one-half, and his feet from the other. Embarrassed, Wakko quickly slaps the halves back together.
The plot of an episode of CatDog is that the titular pair are separated by this flim-flam, but the magician is pulled abroad before he tin can reunite them. The pair at first relish their newfound liberty before trying to find a way to re-attach themselves. The episode ended with the magician revealing that they weren't separated at all, and the Cat half was just an inflated airship (who somehow talked?). Then they separate for real in the last 2nd.
This is washed to Barney Rubble on The Flintstones while he's hypnotized. The magician doing the flim-flam shows Fred (and the audition) how it's done — Barney is in the summit one-half aptitude in two, and the lesser half has imitation legs.
An episode of Ruby Gloom had Skull Male child doing this to Iris. She spends nigh of the residuum of the episode in 2 halves because Skull Male child gets amnesia and forgets the combination for the lock.
Inspector Gadget once wondered whether evil magician Gambini would do it to him.
In The Simpsons episode "Homer Defined", Milhouse is forbidden to encounter Bart because Bart's a bad influence on him and Bart looks dorsum on some former photos of them together. One of them has Bart preparing to saw Milhouse in half; the next shows Milhouse with a scar in his chest.
In The Footling Rascals episode "Alfalfakazam!", this is one of the acts in Spanky's magic show. His "banana" is actually Buckwheat and Porky in a Totem Pole Trench.
In a Hey Arnold! episode, Arnold tries doing this to Gerald during a montage of trying to come up up with an deed they can perform in the talent bear witness. As Arnold is sawing, a ripping sound is heard, and once Gerald is out of the box, he shows a large tear in his shirt.
In an episode of The Smurfs , King Jerard was belongings auditions for a new court magician (to replace the one he threw in jail in a previous episode); the applicant shown ("the Amazing Manfred") did this play a joke on during his interview, but wasn't able to put his assistant back together. Naturally, he didn't go the job, and as he was kicked out, his angry — and however cutting in ii — assistant told him she was quitting.
In the Kaeloo episode "Permit's Play Magicians", Mr. Cat finds a new fashion to torment Quack Quack while putting on a magic show: picking him every bit an banana for this play a trick on. Afterward sawing Dishonest Quack in half, he besides sticks a bunch of knives into him. When asked how he did the trick, he responds with "There is no trick!".
The Piffling Lulu short Hullaba-Lulu features a circus ringmaster sawing a woman in half. Lulu tickles the anxiety on the bottom half, and the top one-half reacts accordingly.
My Piffling Pony: Friendship Is Magic : In "Uncommon Bond", Trixie attempts to practice this flim-flam on herself, but the legs sticking out of the box clearly vest to a dummy.
In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Abracadaver", the titular villain traps some people in saw-in-half boxes complete with saws hovering over the boxes, cutting them. He soon uses this on Buttercup in retaliation for punching him into a wall.
Arthur : Principal Haney plans to do a magic show for the school carnival and tries to rope in his secretarial assistant Ms. Tingley to exist his assistant for this magic fox. She demurs, and he tries to demonstrate past putting a board in the box.
Haney: It only looks similar I'm cut it, but in reality— (board falls out of the box in two pieces) Oops! (Tingley runs for it) Ms. Tingley, expect!
In The Four Tasks of Danger Mouse , Count Duckula enters such a box and gets DM to saw him in half. DM does so, only the cutline on Duckula goes vertical from head to tail.

Existent Life

P.T. Selbit is credited as the first magician to saw a adult female in half. The page film is referred equally a classic "thin model" sawing.
Legless performer Johnny Eck (who was as well i of the most memorable characters in Freaks ) participated in a variant of this human action where his nigh identical twin brother (who had legs) would be the ringer called upwardly for the flim-flam — and during the human action, Johnny and a dwarf in pants would be substituted so that the "volunteer" would fall into ii pieces on stage. Freaked audiences out, you bet!
- Criss Angel has since done a variant of the same play a joke on with a legless woman. And himself.
David Copperfield did a version where he cut himself in half with a behemothic circular saw. The trick was set-up as an escape stunt gone wrong—he was supposed to escape from the box before the saw cuts through it, only the saw malfunctions, drops prematurely, and cuts him in one-half. For farther variation, his top half then completes the escape, before seemingly making the box shut up again on its own and reversing the cutting sequence, with no assistants involved in any stage save locking him in to brainstorm with. He also did a lengthwise sawing of a lady.
- This particular fob was discussed on an episode of the Martin/Molloy radio show, with the hosts noting how David Copperfield's lower half seemed much shorter than it should have bee. This was followed by a give-and-take of the poor human scrunched upwards in the bottom of the box, and what a terrible job being David Copperfield'southward arse would be.
The 1982 Night of 100 Stars gave us an interesting spin on this trope. Doug Henning did this to two cute assistants (Florence Henderson and Priscilla Lopez) within the same segment. When it came time to put them back together again, Henning gave the ladies each other's lesser halves. (Henderson is white and Lopez is Puerto Rican, and the two were wearing different colored outfits to boot.)
Penn Jillette once expressed disdain for this play a joke on since it plain doesn't crave any actual skill, "you simply stand up behind the machine and don't fuck up." In the same breath he stated what the hardest magic play a joke on was: card tricks in a t-shirt.
- Their have on the trick, "Boom Off/Liff Off of Dearest ", runs through it twice: first conventionally, and so with transparent boxes to show the amount of dexterity and misdirection needed to make information technology piece of work.
There are a few stage magicians who frame this fox as a kind of operation or surgery. 1 of these routines has information technology where the wizard has to take some foreign object out of his assistant, and so after he divides her in 2, he removes the dividing blade and "roots around" within her ribcage. At offset he accidentally removes her "heart" briefly before chop-chop replacing it, and and then he removes a noisemaking horn that somehow got stuck inside her, making her unable to stop 'honking' when she was talking to him before the fox began.
Magic Tricks by Norman Hunter has a version that doesn't require complicated props, suitable for kids to do: the magician loops a rope effectually the woman, which they and a 2d banana then pull taut, the rope supposedly passing through the woman like a cheesewire. In fact, the two ends of the rope double back backside her dorsum, with her holding them in identify until the pull.