Monday 21 May 2012

John Van Der Put's excellent reply to his act being stolen

Today John Van Der Put, aka Piff The Magic Dragon, posted this video on YouTube. It's an excellent rebuff to the man who stole Van Der Put's act.




I am told that the woman in the video who criticises the imitator looks like Kate Medvedeva, an accomplished magician, and so recognised the act as being an imitation. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other sites contain a huge number of supportive comments and messages for Van Der Put, as well as a great deal of condemnation for Chekanyuk.   


You can find out more about Van Der Put at this link http://www.piffthemagicdragon.com/

Sunday 20 May 2012

Stealing in Magic

John Van Der Put has spent many years building an act around his comedy magic creation Piff The Magic Dragon. Last year Van Der Put appeared on Penn and Teller Fool Us performing his act. Today on Facebook I saw a post from the The Magic Review Blog showing a video posted this month on YouTube. A 22 year old man from Kiev, named Andrew Chekanyuk has appeared on a television program called Surprise Me and he performs, almost exactly, all of John Van Der Put's act from Penn and Teller Fool Us right down to eating a banana while the judges talk. Below are two videos. One is John Van Der Put performing on Penn and Teller Fool Us and the second is Andrew Chekanyuk stealing Van Der Put's act (from 1 minute and 50 seconds into the video). I am not sure but I think the person who posted the video on YouTube is Andrew Chekanyuk. How on earth he thought no one would notice it was the same act as the video of Van Der Put, which has been all over YouTube for over a year, I simply don't know! If anyone can translate what Chekanyuk says in the first part of the video about this act, or provide more information abut him, it would be helpful.