Huzzah! Penn & Teller to Celebrate 50th Year at Minnesota Renaissance Festival

They're coming back to where it all began -- the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.

Magicians, entertainers, skeptics and provacateurs Penn Jillette and Ray Teller performed for the first time together at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival back on August 19, 1975.

In 2011, Jillette tweeted on the anniversary of that perfomance.

In the comments of that post, @Coach_Victorson asked:

"As someone from Minnesota I've gotta know - how did you two end performing your first show at the fair?!?"

Jillette responded:

"I went to Clown College with the guy who booked it and I brought Teller with me to do shows."

Penn and Teller met through a mutual friend, Wier Chrisemer.

The three of them worked as a trio called "The Asparagus Valley Cultural Society" with 965 shows in San Francisco.

Chrisemer quit show business in 1981, leaving Penn and Teller to work as a duo called "Mrs. Lonsberry's Seance of Horror."

From there, they honed their craft as on-stage comic magicians in a quirky act where Teller doesn't speak.

In the mid-80s they were playing Off-Broadway and doing TV specials and music videos. Three Broadway shows. Then the late night TV appearances. And the national tours. And guest shots on TV episodes. And a long, ongoing residency at The Rio in Las Vegas.

All with their brand of quirky magic and lots of comedy.

By the early 2000s, their Showtime television show "Bullshit!" took on all sorts of topics with a skeptic's eye.

And now they're going on a 50th Anniversary Tour -- "Penn & Teller: 50 Years of Magic."

One of those stops happens at 7 pm, August 16th at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival in Shakopee -- just 3 days short of the 50th Anniversary of Penn and Teller's first performance there on August 19, 1975.

Tickets aren't yet available to the general public, but you can set a reminder on their ticketing site.