Episode 3 Help! My School Trip Is Magic

It's term time again

and our four magicians have left school on a brand-new mission.

But do you think you'd recognise them

if they were outside the classroom?

Do ya?

Now's your chance, cos they're going deeper under cover.

With new disguises, ambitious costumes and even taller tales.

This time we're taking unsuspecting kids out of school,

piling them on coaches and sending them on school trips.

They're off to visit some amazing locations where they'll

witness incredible magic.

I was like, "Oh, my gosh!"

And once again we're hiding secret cameras in every corner

so you don't miss a trick on any school trip.

-The magic is bigger than ever.

-Wow!

It might be term time, but school's out.

I can't believe our teachers did that.

How long will it take before the classes shout...

Hello, it's me, Ian. Welcome to "Help! My School Trip Is Magic"!

Our magicians are no longer supply teachers.

They're now impersonating staff in some popular attractions,

and because we know you know them, we've disguised them even more.

We've secretly filmed the results with special hidden cameras.

One of the places our magicians visit this week is a wildlife park.

I love wildlife. I love to be out in the open countryside. Peaceful.

Quiet. And most of all, none of Fergus's silly magic.

Oh. Yeah, very funny, Fergus. Fergus?

Fergus.

Here's what's coming up on today's show. Fergus!

Forget Deadly 60,

Fergus is deadly tricksy at the wildlife park.

They'll eat loads and loads of mice!

John has something surprising on his plate for Tricks Of The Trade.

You've been sending in clips of all your best magic tricks,

and later on I'll be picking my favourite.

It's the Wannabe Wizards.

And John also has some chair-raising tricks at the museum.

I know. It's marvellous, isn't it?

Do you think you'd be able to tell if your school trip was magic?

Do you?

It's a red letter day for magicians Fergus and Katherine.

A COURIER-defining moment.

However, Fergus is not so sure.

Katherine's digging deep. What's she got?

It's an OJ. OK.

This lot are going to be more than OK.

It's Year 4, and they're being herded onto a coach,

ready for a wild school trip.

They've been kept in the dark by their parents and teachers.

They don't know they're going to see

some animal magic at the Paradise Wildlife Park.

It's home to over 400 animals, including big cats

and our magicians will be lying through their teeth.

And so that our magical monkeys can break into the zoo,

they're getting made up to look like keepers.

You could say sa-FARi, so good. But that would be OTTER rubbish.

The kids think this bus journey is pretty tame, but they're

about to meet all kinds of animals, including this little fella.

Today we're at a wildlife park,

so I'm going to go for an Australian accent.

I'm going to be Steve Frontshall from the Never Never, which is

the outback, but we call it Never Never where I'm from.

And from his accent,

you'd never never believe he'd been there.

And out back at the park, here's the coach parking up.

No worries, though, cos Katherine's up for it.

John's in on this trick

but he won't be up to much as he's caught a nasty bug.

Meanwhile, Fergus is keeping an eye out for the kids,

and he's got some help.

Here they are now

and they're exploring the exotic animals.

And the crew have hidden the electronic kit.

The magicians are in position.

Here come the kids, and I don't mean baby goats.

-Hi guys.

-Hi.

-Hi.

Be good to see how well she can keep her accent from down under.

-My name is Cat Lions.

-Hmm, Cat Lions.

-I can see what you've done there.

-And I'm one of the zookeepers here.

In fact I love the big cats. I love all the big cats we've got here.

Cheetahs, lions, tigers, and that's my department.

That's what I look after.

Now you imagine going into an enclosure with big cats.

You have to be very careful.

And sometimes you might find a big cat's fallen asleep in front of

the entrance, so you're in a little bit of a sticky situation when

that happens, and you need to get out of the enclosure very safely.

So we have to come up with a quick exit strategy.

Hope Katherine's thought of her quick exit strategy

if the magic doesn't go right.

And I'm going to show you what we do here at the wildlife park.

She's a bit of a CHEETAH now,

cos this is not what they really do with big cats.

It's big magic.

We use something called the Stirling Safety Glass System.

-And I've got my mates here, Stewie and Stevie.

-It's John and Fergus.

-What do they look like?

-He's going to help me demonstrate it.

Come on, guys.

The class haven't realised the zookeepers are keeping

a magical secret.

So if you could just bring that over here.

Now, this is just a training unit, so I want you to imagine this

is going to be attached to the side of the glass, inside the enclosure.

-OK?

-So let me get this straight.

Katherine's going to go straight through this glass?

-What's your name?

-Denis.

-Great, Denis.

Could you pop up here a moment, mate?

I just want you just to bang the glass here and just verify

for all your friends that that is completely solid.

It's definitely solid. How on earth is she going to pass through it?

-Yup, and down here too. Yeah, that's fair dinkum.

-Fair dinkum.

Well, if they weren't convinced she was Australian before,

they certainly are now.

And if we can just attach the safety guards here too,

which helps me travel right through the glass.

Mate, I'm with you, totally perplexed.

So, I'm going to demonstrate how you get from inside an enclosure

to outside of an enclosure safely and quickly.

But the class haven't seen through her story.

We're just going to attach the rails too.

Now, these rails are used to support the board that goes on top, which

just helps me travel all the way through, and get out the other side.

Thanks, Stevie. So he's just going to pop that on top for me.

That's great. Thank you, Stevie.

So what I'd like you to imagine, guys,

is that I'm inside an enclosure now, with some big cats.

And I can't get out, so what I have to do is use this.

John, we get it. It's solid all the way.

What we do is, we lie down on the board like this.

And you just have to lie down, and you have to be very still cos

there's a little bit of pressure as you travel through the glass.

And this is where Katherine's under pressure to get this trick right.

Here we go.

No way. She's melting right through it.

And it didn't even tickle.

Like that, and you come out straight out the other side really safely.

They can't believe it.

Now, this little device has got me out of a lot of sticky situations.

Recently I found myself cornered by a mob of angry meerkats.

Nobody wants to be cornered by a mob of angry meerkats.

The adults can be up to 30cm tall.

And it was this that allowed me to get out nice and quickly and safely.

Here we go.

And if we just take off the safety guards, we can just have a

bang on that, and you can see that there is no way that a big cat can

travel through the class there, so you get to exit quickly and safely.

A big cat can't get through the glass but magical Katherine can.

Let's get a rewind. Though not back into the lion's cage.

Katherine literally goes through the glass. It's a trick with pure class.

Like that, and you come out straight out the other side really safely.

And although that was food for thought,

it's time to throw some more magic out there.

Can Fergus zoo-keep his tricky secret?

They'll eat loads and loads of mice.

Now John is going to set you a magical

challenge in Tricks Of The Trade.

If you fancy yourselves a magician,

here's a trick you can try on your family at the breakfast table.

First, get a plate or a bowl and pour some water into it.

Then sprinkle some fine black pepper over the top of the water.

John is going to show you how to move the pepper to the

edge of the plate by only touching the pepper once.

Can you work out how to sort our pepper trick?

Keep watching and you'll find out later in the show.

It's going to blow your mind, if not your nose.

It's back to the wildlife park where

ranger Katherine re-arranged the truth.

Now it's time for Fergus to feed their imaginations further.

My name's Steve Frontshall and I work here at the park.

Wow, that takes some front, Fergus,

to call yourself after the famous Steve Backshall.

The difficulty with having so many animals is having to feed all

these guys, and that's why I have my mouldy food feeding bucket.

Helps me to feed all the animals.

Hopefully he said multi-food feeding bucket, rather than mouldy.

I like to start my day going to the big guys here at the park.

I always remember to start with the elephants, and I never forget.

Boom, boom!

-Do you know what they eat? Have a guess.

-Peanuts?

-Peanuts.

I should be learning from you right now. That's awesome.

He's got the class eating out the palm of his hand.

So they eat peanuts, and they'll have loads.

They'll have absolutely loads. Like an entire bucketful.

No magic yet. He just poured some peanuts on the table,

and they're already impressed!

Now, obviously, it's not just worrying about the big guys.

I need to make my way over to our next enclosure

and feed some other animals.

Check it out. Fergus's feeding bucket is now empty. Nothing there.

Nada.

So what we do is we go over to the squirrel monkeys first, right?

So they're like a cross between sort of like a squirrel

-and a monkey.

-Clue's in the name.

We call those squirrel monkeys, we call them squonkeys.

So what do you think they might eat? Anyone? It's a tricky one, that.

-It's grapes.

-Remember, the bucket was empty.

So, like, squirrel monkeys will eat themselves some nice grapes.

Where did that come from?

That Fergus is a whole bunch of trouble.

In fact, they'll carry on eating grapes,

and, in fact - me, I love a grape too.

Mm, the difficulty is I'm going to make my way now to the next

enclosure, and the next enclosure is the penguins.

Now, obviously, the penguins, they're not going to eat grapes,

are they?

Observe. The bucket is empty again. No grapes. Nothing.

They'll just float about.

So I've got to go back to the storage

-and collect myself some...

-Fish.

Fish.

So when I make my way back to the penguin enclosure,

I give them a load of fish.

They can't get enough of this, these guys.

I'll just be chucking them in, giving them loads and loads.

Ice cool trick, but it's a bit fishy.

So that's all in the water.

And from now, I'm going to make my way back on land,

and I'm going to go to the lizards.

Now, these guys are always so hungry.

-And I can't just go from fish into the lizards.

-Zilch in that bucket.

-Zero. Zip.

-So I've got to find them another type of food.

They eat themselves some insects. Specifically, some bugs.

So they'll eat a whole load of bugs,

all like these nasty little guys here.

-The best kind of grub? Witchety grub.

-Horrible.

We've got loads more, and loads more.

Those bugs are plastic, but where did they come from?

They'll eat a lot. These are small things, and, like, the legs aren't

particularly nice, so you want to just make sure you eat the body.

That's a little tip there for any of you guys that be eating bugs.

Gross. Do not eat bugs, unless you're a celebrity in a jungle.

-Anyone hungry?

-No!

-I told you they're not celebrities.

And you have to keep them in there.

Fine - that's just more for me, then. Anyway...

At the end of the day I've got to make my way to the snake enclosure.

-Now, they are on a totally different SCALE.

-Scale. Oh, Fergus!

They're my favourite here at the park.

Now, they don't mind a bug or two.

Sure, they'll eat a bug, but what's their favourite food, do you think?

-Mice.

-Mice. Absolutely, mate. Mice.

There's no way there's more food in there. Is there?

-Now, of course, like I said, they're not going to eat bugs.

-See? No mice.

But the class are beginning to smell a rat.

So what I have to do is go back to the storage compartment

and collect myself some mice.

And I have to bring them back to them.

So I bring a load of these little guys in here.

Can you see that?

-That's a little mouse.

-They are toys, but how did they get in there?

-It was empty.

-They'll eat loads of them.

In fact, they'll eat loads and loads of mice. THEY SCREAM

I love it. They knew they were toys but they still screamed.

And they won't stop. It's only when I run out.

The class have gone wild and Fergus is about to unleash

the elephant in the room, by which I mean his magical secret.

Me and Kat have actually got a tiny weenie little confession to

make here.

-You wouldn't believe it if I told you.

-Try them.

-But I'm not actually Australian.

-I know, that is a stretch(!)

-And my name is not actually Steve.

-What?

-I'm Fergus.

-And I'm not Kat Lions. I'm Katherine.

-And we are magicians.

And you've been set up by your parents, your teachers, and you

are all being filmed now by cameras there, cameras there, cameras there.

You're going to be on CBBC's "Help! My School Trip Is Magic"!

CHEERING

Keep the noise down. The sloths are sleeping next door.

Fergus, you little snake in the grass.

It was a feeding-time trick but the class ate it all up.

-I think it was outstanding.

-Katherine wasn't outstanding.

She was lying down when she melted right through

the glass of that giant cat flap.

-Like that.

-She went through the glass but it was closed.

I didn't understand it.

It got even harder to fathom

when Fergus showed the class his bottomless bucket.

The bucket was empty and then

when he did the next animal, the bucket was full

of lots of different... Like grapes and then peanuts

and then rats and then insects.

Where did all that stuff come from?

He always emptied the bucket, but his magic knew no bounds.

-Loads and loads of mice!

-It was awesome.

The feeding trick had them all in a frenzy.

The school trip had no idea Katherine and Fergus were magicians.

How long would it take for you to shout?

Still to come, John serves up the secret in Tricks of the Trade.

Have you worked it out yet?

And James is flat-out at the museum.

Will the pupils be upstanding, or will

they realise their school trip is magic?

It was so incredible.

But first, we asked

you to send in clips of yourself performing your best magic tricks.

We received loads of clips from all over the country.

Each week I'll be choosing a favourite Wannabe Wizard

and showing them to you guys.

My Wannabe Wizard this time is Freya from Braintree

and I predict her trick will be amazing.

The trick I'm going to do today is called the 8s.

So I'm going to pick a prediction card.

I'm just going to pick that card cos it's on the top.

-So, no-one's allowed to look at that card.

-We don't know what it is.

OK, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to deal out a few

cards down here and you've got to tell me when to stop.

-Whenever you like.

-Stop.

-Thanks, Dad.

-OK.

-Now I'm going to turn over this card, which is an

-8. Got it.

That means we have to deal down eight cards here.

So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

This card is also an 8.

-No, what are the chances?

-This card is an 8 as well.

-No way.

-My prediction card was an

-8. Wow!

-That's the four 8s.

-Thank you for listening.

-That trick was great!

Other sugary cereals are available.

Step forward, magicians John and James.

James is a glass-half-empty kind of guy. Yeah, that is surprising, John.

John's a glass-half-full guy. That fooled you.

Year 5 are full of beans and are quickly filling up this coach.

They've been set up by their parents and teachers.

Those cheeky so and so's.

The pupils know where they're going

but they don't know this school trip will be magic.

Here's their destination. The Design Museum.

It's devoted to contemporary design, ranging from industrial to the home.

From architecture to furniture.

And our magicians had to devise some clever disguises.

Our school trip isn't here yet,

so that's given the make-up department all the time they need.

They've got me dressed up as an ageing Geordie rocker.

Obviously the ageing bit was quite a struggle for them to do

but they've used a lot of make up to get me there.

I have a little bit of an accent like, you know?

Talk like that. Got all the bits, all the bobs.

Even got some tattoos, you know what I mean?

I've got love and I've got hats, cos I love hats, me. I love hats.

Our very own hairy biker isn't lying. He really does love hats.

The kids are on site ready to look at some

iconic exhibits.

Here's a red phone box, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

A good place to hide.

Time for some last-minute checks on our hidden cameras.

John got to the room before the kids with enough time to

perform his pre-trick rituals.

GUITAR PLAYS

I'm glad he got that out the system. Anyway. Here comes the class now.

They've already learnt about some great ideas

but they have no idea they're about to witness clever magic.

-Hello, boys and girls.

-ALL: Hello.

Hello and welcome to the Design Museum.

My name's Dave and I'm one of the curators here at the Design Museum.

Have you had a look around?

John is clearly channelling his inner hairy biker.

But you know, design's a very important thing.

I'm going to talk to you about a couple of things about design.

I'm going to talk about packaging.

Packaging is all about a product and how it's wrapped up.

You see, a package won't sell unless it's wrapped up properly.

And it's not just making it sell.

You know, it's got to be wrapped up so that it looks good.

So that people like it, and also so it would be protected.

Cos you don't want anything to get broken and so you've got

to think about all these things when you're designing a package.

It's almost as important as the design itself,

you know what I'm saying?

He's talking about packaging and he's got them

wrapped around his little finger.

Now, there's been a lot of new developments in packaging.

Some of these developments are magic but they don't know it yet.

And one of the latest developments in packaging is a thing

called inverse technology.

Now, put your hand up if you think you've heard of inverse technology.

If it's inverse, surely they should put their hands down.

Inverse technology is a thing that can turn things the right way up.

Now, if you have an iPhone or an ordinary phone or a Blackberry,

or you know, an Orangeberry, whatever berry you've got

or maybe you have one of those tablet things, you know?

Have you ever been looking at a picture?

-And you go like that with it. What happens?

-It switches.

-The picture turns around, doesn't it?

-They're with him

but he's soon going to turn their school trip upside down.

Sometimes you've got to keep products the right way up

because if you get them upside down, right,

what's going to happen is it's going to get damaged.

You might have a fluid in there, or a delicate object in there.

You might have some eggs in there. And it might get ruined,

so you have to also remember to keep things the right way up.

-That's why they have these signs.

-John, that's... That's wrong.

If you had an idiot, who you know, didn't know,

what he was doing, he'd get it the wrong way round,

so we have these signs to make sure everything's the right way up.

Now, I'm going to show you how inverse technology works

and we're going to use a chair.

I've got a beautiful chair here. This is a Bauhaus chair, right?

He's made that up.

German design, and we're going to use some of the inverse packaging.

I'll show you what I'm going to do.

We're just going to put the chair like that

and I'm going to cover it up with the inverse packaging.

-It's just a box.

-Notice it's empty.

But it's lined with the inverse packaging technology.

Now, if I put this over there like that, everything is all well

and good but you can see the arrows pointing the wrong way.

The arrow's pointing down,

so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the chair out.

I'm going to point it where the arrow's going

so the arrow's now pointing down like that.

And my chair's pointing down, but with inverse technology,

this is marvellous.

All right? Remember, the arrow is down and so is the chair.

If we take the arrow and we point it up like that

inverse technology turns it around

just like your pictures on your computers and things.

And so what you can do is you can take that out.

Wow, the chair's the right way up.

-All he did was turn that arrow around.

-It's marvellous, isn't it?

It's like inverse technology reversing what you want to do.

Now, here I'll show you again how it works.

Watch, we'll cover that.

We'll cover that chair up again like that. OK.

But this time we'll turn the chair upside down.

OK, so the chair is going the right way up.

John's turned the arrow down.

...back in the air, so that now what happens is your chair...

The chair's pointing down just like the arrow.

That's amazing. They don't know if they're coming or going.

I need to see that again. Can I get a rewind?

John put the chair in upside down, then turned the arrow

and the chair was the right way up.

He then put the chair in the right way up, turned the arrow

and it came out the other way round.

I can't get my head around it.

Let's have a look at the future of this trick.

John has the class on the edge of their seats as James is

-lying down on the job.

-I know.

Before he does, John will reveal

the secret in Tricks Of The Trade.

John will show you how to move the pepper in this water to the

edge of the plate by only touching it once.

Do you use a spoon? No. You have to use your hand.

Do you do it very quickly? Nah, won't wash.

But the secret will wash, cos you need soap.

Just dab a bit of liquid soap on your finger,

then simply touch the surface of the pepper.

The pepper separates away from where you touch it.

Now you've got a great trick to impress your family

with at the breakfast table.

Compliments and condiments to the magician.

HE SNEEZES

Back to the museum, where John's already

furnished the class with magical fibs,

and now it's time for a lie-down.

It's marvellous, isn't it?

Everybody judges good design on a chair design.

We've got some beautiful chair designs here.

We had a look at that, the German Bauhaus one.

This one here, this is very nice. This... This is a stile stool.

Easy for you to say.

It was designed by a fella at the Royal College of Art, right?

And it looks a bit like, you know when you

go for a walk in the country and you have to climb over a fence?

There's maybe some sheep or cows in the field, so they can't have

a gate and have a little stile that you step on and you climb over.

-That's what this is based on. The stile stool.

-That's all true.

And the class are liking John's STYLE,

but he's about to step it up a gear.

Most important thing about a chair is that it's strong.

Now, I've got a folding chair here, and this is the Geardenbloom 1973.

-It's a beautiful design.

-John's making it up again.

This chair is no design classic but it will be memorable.

Possibly one of the strongest chairs that was ever designed.

Now, I'm going to ask my colleague Malcolm.

Malc, would you come here?

It's James with a wig on, about to get his magic on.

We're just going to demonstrate how strong the chairs are under

tensile stress and mean stress, over the main cordial points.

Now, if you can just get that board and put it on.

Obviously, if the chair's not strong, what's going to happen?

-It will get broken.

-It will get broken, and worse still,

if you're sat on it when it gets broken

you fall flat on your... You fall flat on your behind.

You don't want that to happen, especially

if you're in a busy meeting, you know?

Now, Malcolm is sat here on the chair, and the two chairs,

what they're doing is they're distributing the weight.

They're sitting comfortably now

but the rug will soon be pulled from under them.

What happens? The weight goes away down there

and then down there, and then it comes down there,

so what you've got is his weight spread four times.

You know, so he's safe as houses now.

You can lie down for me, Malcolm.

James is reclining, but the class aren't suspiciously inclined.

-Cannot wait to see this.

-What makes this chair remarkable?

It's not only that two chairs can support his weight.

If you're very clever... And don't do this with your chairs at home -

you need a Geardenbloom 1973. If you're clever,

what you can do is you can actually remove one of the chairs like that.

Wow, that's incredible.

James is balancing on one chair and floating in the air.

Marvellous, isn't it? What happens now, I'm going to show you.

I'll get down here. The weight is going, it's going under here.

Right, can you see that? The weight's going underneath there.

And when it gets here, what's happening?

All the weight over here, right, all the weight over here is now moved.

Moved, not literally. Not literally. Bionically, and steadfastly.

-And then...

-That looks impossible. James is still horizontal.

I happen to know this is his favourite trick.

Mostly cos he gets to chill out.

One of the best design features of the Geardenbloom 1973...

Can they work it out?

-The magic's in the balance.

-Give Malcolm a big round of applause.

-There he is. Wonderful.

-Getting a clap for lying down. Good work.

The class believed it. They were sitting ducks for John's magic.

I must admit, boys and girls,

I've got a little bit of a confession to make.

You see, me and Malcolm, we don't work here.

And I don't even talk like this.

-I talk like this.

-Pretty similar though, isn't it, John?

Because really we're magicians, and your teachers

and your parents have set you up and there's a hidden camera over there

and there's a hidden camera over here, and there's one at the back.

You're all going to appear on CBBC's "Help! My School Trip Is Magic"!

THEY CHEER AND SCREAM

Three cheers for the magical chairs.

But did they think this trick with seats was truly sweet?

That was epic-tastic.

John played a topsy-turvy trick with his inverse packaging design.

It's marvellous, isn't it?

He changed the arrow

and then he took the box off and the chair was standing right way.

There was more magic on the horizon when James got horizontal.

He took one chair off and the wood was still on there.

The guy did not fall off. It was so incredible.

-The weight is going, it's going under here...

-James was

the CHAIRMAN of the board.

John got underneath and the class couldn't understand.

I think that trick was brilliant.

The class were off their seats

and they didn't suspect their school trip was magic.

I can do that trick. With a table. See, easy. See you later.

But until then, if you're on a school trip and you think

something magic's going on, maybe you'll find yourself shouting

"Help! My school trip is magic!"