Voodoo, mind reading, levitation and teleportation are all in a day's work for illusionist Mike Super. Since he first started dabbling in magic at the age of six, he has earned a number of awards including winning NBC's show, "Phenomenon," in 2007.
Yet his best tricks may be those preformed off stage.
"My favorite wasn't even in the public eye," Super said. "We were touring and we were driving and the police pulled me over for speeding."
Having already accumulated a number of speeding tickets in various states, he resorted to magic.
"I was like, 'Hey, if I can read your mind, would you consider giving me a warning?'" recounts Super with a smirk.
"I said, 'Well, just pick a number like one through one hundred and I told him the number. He's like, 'Hold on a minute,' and another car comes, and next thing you know, I'm standing on the side of the road doing slide hand magic for police and they totally let me go. They were totally like putting handcuffs on me and I'd turn around and get out of them."
When he is not evading speeding tickets, Super spends his time touring. He visited Virginia Tech last night, where he preformed in Burruss Hall.
The Collegiate Times sat down with Super before the show yesterday.
COLLEGIATE TIMES: You began magic at the age of six. How did you get started?
MIKE SUPER: I did. Went to Walt Disney World, actually this sounds really cheesy, but I went to Walt Disney World to this little magic shop that used to be on Main Street, U.S.A., it's not there anymore, but I saw this old guy doing little magic tricks that children torture their parents with, and I was one of those kids. I didn't want to ride anything, so my mother had to make a deal, I just wanted to watch the magic tricks, so she said, we've spent too much money just being in here, so if you ride, at the end you can buy something and that's how I got started.
CT: How did you progress from being in school and being a kid to actually being an illusionist?
MS: Oh my God, I well I've always done magic and I started doing little kids birthday parties so I was like nine years old and would be doing like, I was the older magician at seven-year-old 's birthday parties and they would like pay me to do that, and so I did that for a little while and then in high school, I would do restaurants. ... I would go around and do table magic. I'd just walk around and kind of repeat what I did at the other tables and people would come back and see me ... and then in college I started touring the college circuit and doing really well there, by the time I was getting interviewed for a position, I was making more money doing magic than what they were going to start me off you know, in a position doing (Computer Science) and I couldn't take the pay cut. So I just kept building the show and building the show and I'm just very lucky, I've been really, really blessed, so that's sort of like the progression and then I started doing arts shows and theaters, I was working on a couple TV shows when NBC called ... and I did (the TV show) "Phenomenon." ... We are working on other TV projects, but they won't air until, like 2010.
CT: When you got involved with the TV show "Phenomenon," did you go into it thinking, "Oh, I'm going to win?"
MS: I absolutely no, I didn't. I didn't even want to do "Phenomenon." I was executive producing my own TV series, but it was on a cable channel, you know, that's a lot less viewers than network TV, and I had managers going, "I think you should do it," but I think everyone's first fear is, "Well I don't want to go on and be the first one voted off, you know?"
... And then I wanted to be on the show, like down the road, I started seeing the TV promos running for it on NBC ... and everyone's going like, "Why aren't you doing the show?" So then I was going to do the show, and then by that time they wanted to be very real and mysterious, and like claim you have these powers and ... that's not at all my personality. ... They wanted me to be a character kind of thing, and I didn't want to do that, so then I became the alternate ... and then we decided to ... change the contract and then it was done ... I was very lucky.
CT: So what is the difference between a magician and an illusionist?
MS: Some people say that an Illusionist does things with boxes and things of that nature and a magician you know, doesn't do-to me it's all interchangeable, really, to me it is. Magician, illusionist, I actually always call myself a "mystifier" ... I can read minds, I can do an escape, I can do an illusion, I can do close up magic, you know.
CT: You got to work with mentalist Uri Geller and illusionist Criss Angel on "Phenomenon." How was working with them?
MS: ... It was an interesting dichotomy because Criss ... is very "nothing is real," and I agree, I'm the same way. And then you have Uri Geller who is actually from like the '70s, he's the one who created "spoon bending" like in "The Matrix" ... and magicians don't typically like him because he claims to be real even though, in our opinion, he is not, you know. So it was interesting having those two as sort of like, commentary judges because Criss thinks nothing is and Uri thinks everything he does is real and Criss wants to expose it. ... I didn't think I would like Uri Geller at all. ... I thought I would hate this guy because I thought he was a sham on this but I honestly, after weeks of being around him ... I don't believe anything he does is real, but I think he really believes what he does is real, like he's somehow convinced. He's the nicest guy ever, you know. Now Criss, a little closed off.
CT: Did you study with an apprentice at some point?
MS: Kind of, that' a good way of putting it. Yeah, there's no "Magician State." You know what I mean, to go and take classes, so a lot of books and videotapes of magicians, and watching, trying to learn. And there's lots of magic clubs. ... You get around other magicians and you share ideas. Magic is a lot like an instrument you learn basic principles, for instruments, that would be a scale, if you learn a scale on any instrument, you have the potential to play any song in the world. Some of them are more difficult than the others ... but the basics of deception are the same. ... You start trying your own stuff or take something traditional and try to change it just a little bit.
CT: How often do you introduce new tricks?
MS: It's been hard because the last couple months I haven't been able to, and I really love working on new stuff. ... You never know what's going to slow you down but, I'm always creating new stuff like all the time, or trying to change an idea, but every couple months you know, maybe two or three new things go in the show. Or sometimes I'll try to bring something old back that I haven't done for a few years. ... I get a lot of requests now to do what I did on "Phenomenon" and stuff, like the voodoo magic where I control someone's body. ... It's almost like a being a musician; some people will want to see your greatest hits.
CT: You do voodoo and these dangerous things, and Houdini lost his life to magic. Where do you draw the line?
MS: It's very funny because a lot of people see like an escape on stage and everybody kind of just sits there, and honestly nobody, not even me thinks that like, the danger is real, or that anything could really go wrong. But what's funny about that is even in things that are considered safe ... it can be more dangerous than the audience actually thinks. ... While it's pretty safe, there's always that, "How many times can you do something and then that freak thing happens?"
... I've done the risky stuff, for like publicity stunts, but it's more of a one-time thing.
CT: What's been your favorite stunt that you have pulled off?
MS: I haven't done the whole, David Blaine frozen in ice ... but I was doing a bunch of radio station action in Pittsburgh ... and they were doing this whole "Challenge Mike Super" thing. ... They had a banker bring all these bills, they selected one the bills, I had to sign it, I had to teleport it from there to their destination of their choice, but they couldn't tell me, I couldn't know where it was going to be before I did the trick, and I actually ended up teleporting it, and it freaked them out because they were trying to get me.
... And I'll call up for a morning radio show, and I'll call up and possess one of the DJs live on air and it's intriguing that they love doing it and they are always like "this is going to be stupid" and then when I do what I do, they freak out. ... I possess the DJ's body through the phone, I'm not even in the studio.
CT: You did something here where you sent ahead the headlines of the newspaper for the day.
MS: I did, and I love doing that too. ... I'll send them the prediction ... they keep it secure and I don't touch anything, there's no switches, it's not a magic trick, and yet I have no special powers, it has nothing to do with that.
CT: So you truly can predict it?
MS: No, it's not. ... It's all a physiological thing. ... it's all very real, it's all very legit, but I'm not a "see-er," I have no psychic abilities or anything like that ... but if I am wrong, I always refund the tickets to everybody who pre-bought tickets to the show. ... It's always like a little bet I do with the community.
... I've had newspapers print half a headline, that makes no sense ... but I got it, which is good. And it freaks the newspaper editors out ... and they are the ones who knows no one is in on it, so it freaks them out.