Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed

Did You Know?

• Valentino began performing magic as a child after receiving his first magic kit at the age of eight.
• His identity was revealed in the final episode of the original 1997–1998 run, which led to significant controversy, including blacklisting, threats, and the revocation of his Magic Castle membership.

Episodes

The 1997–1998 specials were shot inside a warehouse at 516 South Anderson Street in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The show’s opening credits show the former Van de Kamp Bakery Building in Glassell Park as the exterior of the “secret warehouse,” but all indoor footage came from the Anderson Street location. For those early specials, three large outdoor illusions—Vanishing Tank, Buried Alive, and Death Trap—were staged in the rear industrial yard of the Van de Kamp site. The 2002 special also used the Van de Kamp building for exterior shots, while all interior filming again took place at 516 South Anderson Street. That 2002 installment was narrated by Mark Thompson instead of Mitch Pileggi, and the Masked Magician was played by a different, never-identified performer, not Val Valentino. In 2007, a spin-off called Secrets of Street Magic Revealed was produced by the same company but was not part of the Breaking the Magician’s Code series. It focused solely on street magic and close-up tricks. For this special, Mitch Pileggi did not narrate, and the Masked Magician was recast with yet another performer, distinct from both Valentino and the 2002 magician. This is the only franchise installment where the Masked Magician speaks on camera, using a voice altered to hide the performer’s identity.

Production

Produced by Nash Entertainment, the series took its name from the magician’s code—the unwritten rule that working magicians must not expose how their tricks work, or they risk being shunned by their peers. The first special aired on Fox in November 1997 and became the network’s highest-rated special up to that time. Three more specials followed through 1998. Fox revived the concept on May 15, 2002, with a fifth installment. This episode featured a new masked magician whose mask included artificial hair that left part of the face visible, paired with a shiny purple costume. The performer’s identity was never disclosed. In fall 2008, MyNetworkTV acquired thirteen new episodes, starting October 2. Assistants learned each illusion on the same day it was filmed, and the crew shot four to six illusions daily. These episodes later aired on TVB Pearl in Hong Kong from June 13, 2010. Valentino was credited as a producer, and Mitch Pileggi returned as narrator, though he did not appear on camera as in the original specials. The show also aired on ITV4 in the UK and on Australia’s 7Two with new narration by Grant Denyer. An Australian version, nearly identical to the U.S. version with minor tweaks, debuted on Network Seven on June 14, 2010, at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, then moved to Sundays at 6:30 on 7Two. It later began airing on Australian pay-TV channel Fox8 on September 21, 2011. Since its first run, the series has been rerun many times on Sundays on Channel 7. A Portuguese adaptation aired on the public channel SIC, essentially duplicating the American version with a different Portuguese narrator. Most warehouse-based illusions for both the original 1997 series and the 2008 revival were filmed at 516 South Anderson Street in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. The industrial interior provided overhead catwalks, open timber framing, and heavy crane supports, enabling high-angle camera shots that revealed the mechanics behind large illusions like false floors, escape doors, and mirror setups.

Legal responses and community backlash

The Fox specials sparked significant backlash from the magic community, with several performers taking legal action against Valentino. Kevin Spencer, a touring magician from Lynchburg, Virginia who worked alongside his wife Cindy, said the show forced them to abandon two illusions. Each trick had cost roughly $50,000 to produce, leading the Spencers to sue Valentino as part of a wave of litigation. Another lawsuit came from Andre Kole, who tried and failed to block Fox from broadcasting the secret behind his "Table of Death" illusion. Kole had licensed that trick to seven of the world’s top ten magicians and claimed over $500,000 in lost revenue. His lawyer acknowledged the difficulty of suing over a magic secret, since such knowledge is not typically covered by copyright, but noted that magicians have historically relied on trust and handshake agreements. Magician Robert Rice also filed an unsuccessful copyright suit, arguing that his earlier masked character "the Mystery Magician" was the basis for Valentino’s act. The judge dismissed the case, finding the performances not substantially similar and the concept of a masked exposure act uncopyrightable. Beyond the lawsuits, several performers accused Valentino of giving sloppy or inaccurate explanations. Mark Wilson, host of the 1960s show The Magic Land of Allakazam, stated publicly that some of the revealed methods were dangerous and rarely used by working magicians.

Val Valentino

Val Valentino, born Leonard Montano on June 14, 1956, is an American illusionist best known for his role in a television series. In these specials, he performed under the alias the Masked Magician, hiding his face behind a kabuki-style mask with a squid-like design. He did this because he knew the magic community looked down on publicly revealing secrets. At the end of the final special, Valentino took off the mask and showed who he really was, which earned him some infamy among other magicians. Over two years, from 1997 to 1999, Valentino appeared uncredited and disguised as the Masked Magician in four Fox Network specials titled Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed, which gave away closely guarded illusions. His first experience with magic came at age five, when his father gave him a trick called "the ball and vase." As a teenager, he performed for more than a million students through the International Cultural Awareness Program in school systems, often revealing magic secrets to inspire others to become magicians. By the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Valentino had moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he performed in casino shows like Viva Las Vegas and Splash. He also appeared on The Merv Griffin Show and PM Magazine, as well as in the music video for Herb Alpert's "Magic Man," and produced his own show, "Valentino's Magical Extravaganza." In October 2017, Valentino announced he had terminal prostate cancer and was given a year to live. He chose not to undergo conventional treatment. In June 2020, he told the Brazilian show Domingo Espetacular on RecordTV that he was cured and was working on a project in Brazil, where he was quarantined due to the COVID-19 pandemic while staying at the home of Clown Rogério.