The April 19 episode of TODAY was more magical than usual.
Magician Dan White stopped by the show to perform a mind-blowing trick that stunned Al Roker, Craig Melvin and Carson Daly.
The trick began with White asking the trio to each pick a deck of cards, with one left over. White then asked them to pull the cards out of each of their respective decks while keeping them down and placing their hands under the table in front of them.
They then had to cut the deck wherever they wanted and turn those cards face-up at the top of the deck without showing White, who asked them to remember the card they cut to. He told Craig and Al to take their cards and put it in their pocket, but asked Carson simply to remember his card.
White then had them turn the cards that had been facing up back down and cut the decks again before putting them back on the table and asking them to shuffle them yet again.
White, who has appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and stars multiple times a week in a show at New York City’s Fotografiska, took Craig’s cards and Al’s cards and appeared a little confused. He asked Al if he chose a red card, which he didn’t. He then guessed five of clubs, which was wrong. Al took his card — the four of clubs — out of his pocket.
Moving to Craig, he asked if he selected a red card that was a nine. Craig said it wasn’t a nine and pulled out the five of diamonds from his pocket.
“It’s OK. It’s all right,” White said, while it looked like the trick was a total bust. “This was all about Carson. See, I made a prediction. I made a prediction of sort of what would happen here today.”
White then had Al and Craig remind him what cards they chose.
“There’s no way I could’ve known that,” White said. “But I made a prediction and I placed it in a place that we all could see it.”
Carson said his card was the king of diamonds and White said his prediction was on Instagram. Al, Craig and Carson whipped out their phones and pulled up White’s account, while he asked viewers to do the same.
This was when things really got good.
White directed them to a photo from a few days ago featuring him holding the deck of cards they didn’t use that sat on the table in front of them. He asked Carson to take out the cards from that deck, keeping them face-down. He then pointed out that in his Instagram photo, he’s standing on West 26th Street and asked Carson to deal 26 cards from the unused deck. He again asked Carson to tell him that he had chosen the king of diamonds during the trick and instructed him to turn over the 26th card, which was — of course — the king of diamonds.
Amazing, right? It didn’t end there, though.
White pointed out the caption to his photo.
“NYC 5 of diamonds and 4 of clubs will be picked too,” he wrote, alluding to the cards Al and Craig had picked.
“It’s like it’s too good, Dan,” Carson said.
“Now we got to burn him at the stake,” deadpanned Craig.
“This is like Instagram magic,” Carson said.
Craig was stunned and asked Carson if he was in on it, but Carson said he wasn’t.
In the end, Al, Craig and Carson were shocked at how White pulled it off.
“Dan, that’s amazing,” Al said.