On Halloween morning, one hundred years to the day after Harry Houdini died, I was standing in Studio A at KARE 11 with a Houdini-themed illusion ready to go and no idea how fast the next ten minutes were about to move.

Here is the segment, if you want to see how it turned out. Then I will tell you what happened on the other side of the camera.

Video: KARE 11 Saturday, October 31, 2026

A hundred years to the day

Houdini died on October 31, 1926. That makes Halloween 2026 the centennial, and for magicians it has been a year-long tribute to him. Back in July I was one of more than two hundred magicians who locked ourselves in chains in the rain at Houdini Plaza in Appleton, Wisconsin, the town where he grew up.

So when I had the chance to appear on KARE 11 Saturday on Halloween morning, the idea was obvious. Mark the actual anniversary with an illusion built around Houdini himself.

The green room

TV mornings start the way most shows do: hurry up and wait. I was in the green room with my publicist, Mary Quinn McCallum, and by my math I had about five more minutes before I needed to get ready.

Live TV does not care about my math.

The door opened and the producer leaned in. “All right, come on in. Let’s go. Quick, quick, quick.”

One fast sip of water, grab the props, and I was walking into the studio.

Live TV in all its glory

A few surprises were waiting for me out there.

The first was the table. The one I was supposed to perform at was already spoken for, because the segment after mine was a cooking demonstration and it needed that space. The crew did not miss a beat. Someone found a different high-top table, someone else wiped it down, and it was in place before I had my props set.

The second was the clock. We had been scheduled for six minutes. That morning the show was running tight, and my six minutes became four. That left time for exactly one thing, and honestly, it was the right one. The Houdini illusion was the whole reason to be there on that particular day.

And on Halloween, a TV studio is not a quiet place. Somewhere in the building, thirty or forty kids were trick-or-treating for a segment that ran either just before mine or just after it. I never did find out which.

Ten seconds of small talk

The host that morning was Chris Hrapsky, and he was not a stranger.

We met at a KARE 11 holiday party, held right there at the studios, where I was performing. We got talking the moment he arrived, and then he stayed and watched my magic for about forty-five minutes before he finally headed back to the office.

He did not just watch, either. He kept bringing his coworkers over to the table where he was sitting, rallying more and more of the KARE 11 team to come see what was going on. Every performer should be lucky enough to have a cheerleader like that.

So on Halloween morning we had about ten seconds to say hello. Then he turned to the teleprompter and started reading, which is how you find out you are live.

The Houdini illusion

Before I knew it, I was performing the Houdini illusion for Chris, a hundred years to the day after Houdini’s final curtain.

I am not going to describe what happens. I would rather you watch his reaction, because it says it better than I could.

Four minutes, one illusion, and a reaction that speaks for itself.

It was a ton of fun. Getting to amaze the same person who had cheered me on at that holiday party, on that particular morning, with an illusion made for the occasion. I could not have scripted it better, mostly because nothing that morning went according to the script.

What live TV reminded me

Six minutes became four. The table disappeared. Five minutes of warning turned into none. None of that showed up on screen, and that is the point.

Events work the same way. Schedules shift, dinner runs long, the room changes at the last minute. Anyone who has planned a corporate event knows the plan you were handed is not always the plan you get. The job is to be ready anyway, so the audience only ever sees the magic.

Houdini understood that better than anyone.

David Farr is a professional magician and mentalist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, performing interactive magic, mentalism, and comedy for corporate and private events throughout Minnesota and the Upper Midwest since 1988.