Because Why Not? Ranking the Top 18 Illusions of David Copperfield

David Copperfield was my childhood.

Ever since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by magic shows. That fascination continues to this day. Simple sleight of hand, some misdirection, it’s all wonderful to me.

I enjoy watching “Fool Us” with Penn & Teller these days. David Blaine can still wow me from time to time.

But to this day, nobody can match David Copperfield.

When David Copperfield was “The Man”

In the mid to late 1970s, a magician named David Copperfield began producing and starring in magic specials — first on ABC, then on CBS for the remainder of his run.

His big illusions became the talk of households across the nation. It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when everybody pretty much knew Copperfield’s big illusions. Even if they hadn’t seen them, they heard of them:

• Levitating a sports car
• Making a jet plane disappear
• Floating across the Grand Canyon
• Walking through the Great Wall of China
• and most famously, making the Statue of Liberty disappear

All of those great illusions were actually before I even became aware of Copperfield. I was born in 1985, and many of his biggest tricks had already been done.

But the late 1980s were a time of reinvention for the magician, which I’ll talk about in a moment. This, to me, is when he peaked: mixing performance and music with incredible illusions that stand up to repeat viewing to this day.

Copperfield largely disappeared (ahem) from TV after 1995’s Unexplained Forces special. He resurfaced in a one-off return in the underrated Tornado of Fire special in 2001, but that was it.

As his specials have never been released on DVD or VHS in any complete format, I had a worn-out recording of 1994’s 15 Years of Magic highlights special that kept me going the rest of the decade.

His DVD, Illusion, was just that highlights special repackaged with a few tricks from the Unexplained Forces special. It was fine, and it has a very entertaining commentary track from…