-The Chief Wizard of Lizards, he's celebrating 10 years of performing on the Las Vegas Strip.

Piff the Magic Dragon is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

He grew up in London as an evangelical Christian, and when he told his parents he wanted to pursue a career in magic, they suggested a backup career in computer science.

But a couple of years into an IT job, he got pancreatitis and a wake-up call to live life on his own terms.

He's gone on to tour the world and is in his 10th year at the Flamingo on the Las Vegas Strip.

Comedy Magician John van der Put, also known as Piff the Magic Dragon-- -Hello.

- --thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thanks for having us, Amber.

I brought me and Mr.

Piffles, II.

-Mr.

Piffles, II.

And in total, there are how many living Mr.

Piffles?

[laughter] -There are 3 living and 87 dead ones.

-No!

-No.

There's just one that's passed away, the OG, who him and I were together for 15 years.

And we did over 5,000 shows together.

Here's the crazy part, he got paid for none of them.

-Oh.

-What a legend.

-Did the Labor Board come down on you for that?

-They did not.

-Okay.

-No.

We went under the radar, thankfully.

-Yes.

So he was your longtime partner and passed away last year.

How have you been dealing with that?

-Terrible.

It's like, you know, death has a finality that is anything but pleasant.

One of the ways that it's being softened is with these three cloned chihuahuas, because they have the essence.

They're not the same; they're the essence of the original Piffles.

-And I can imagine our viewers going, Huh?

Cloned?

-Me, too.

-Yeah.

-I couldn't believe it.

-You decided to do this before Mr.

Piffles passed.

-Well, we got, we got-- When Mr.

Piffles was about eight, we got him an understudy, and he looks exactly like Mr.

Piffles.

He's a rescue dog, too, rescue Chihuahua, and he has terrible anxiety, which we only found out once we adopted him.

So he can't be on stage, so he's in charge of security.

Then we got this dog from a breeder, because we said-- We wrote to all these rescue charities all over the country and said, this is what we're looking for.

Nobody could ever find one.

So we found a breeder who had a very similar looking Chihuahua, and we got this little puppy who was amazing and then got bigger and bigger and kept getting bigger.

-Oh.

-Mr.

Piffles was 5 pounds.

This dog is now 16 pounds and too heavy to hold.

-Do you still own him?

-Oh, yeah.

He's in charge of morale.

He was out, and then I was-- and then I read, in South Korea the bomb detecting dogs, bomb detectors are the most difficult ones to train, so they cloned some and they trained some and they had an 85% success rate compared to 5%.

So I was like, let's give it a go.

And this is the result.

-Hi.

And this is what you were looking for, a Chihuahua that kind of just sits-- -Yeah.

- --and is deadpan?

-Yeah.

Also we wanted one that looks the same, so we didn't have to change all the marketing.

-Ah, that makes sense.

Now, do you have different names for them at home?

-Yes.

They have off-stage names.

-Okay.

-This one's Fortune, because he's my fourth dog and he cost a fortune.

-Your real name is John van der Put.

-Yeah.

-But I wonder how different is John van der Put from the personality of Piff.

-Well, here's the truth: The truth is, is that, essentially, Piff is my authentic self, and I got fired everywhere before I was Piff.

People-- I did a wedding, and this guy came up to me.

He said, What is your problem?

You're the Eeyore of magic.

And then he fired me, because he was the groom.

And then one day-- -Did you make fun of him?

-No.

I was just trying to be, you know, polite.

And this is my face, so I can't do anything about that.

-Okay.

-And then one day I went to a costume party in a dragon outfit.

No one else was in costume.

And my friend says, You should do this in your act.

You could be Puff the Magic Dragon.

I was like, wait, I could be Piff the Magic Dragon.

You might have heard of my older brother, Steve.

And I was like, that's funny enough to try.

And it was an instant hit, never looked back.

-Wow.

So you needed the costume.

What did it provide, do you believe?

-I think, like, it's very difficult to be insulted by a guy in a dragon outfit, very difficult to take that seriously.

So it gave me-- It sort of lowered my status appropriately enough.

-But then at the same time, there was a point where you thought you needed a dog?

-Yeah.

I needed a gimmick.

-Yeah.

What happened that made you think that?

-Well, it was I did an hour-long show, and it was funny for 20 minutes.

But it's like, you always want to change the dynamics.

You don't want to get used to that dynamic for too long.

So I was like, how do I change this up?

And the girl who was running the venue, she had a Chihuahua.

And we put him in the show, and it was an instant hit.

So I said, let's go and adopt.

And that was the original Mr.

Piffles.

He was a rescued dog from Scotland.

-Do you think he liked it?

-Yeah.

He got a lot of treats.

-Yeah.

Well, that helps.

-Yeah.

And a lot of adoration from people.

You know, most people come for the dog, stay for the dragon.

-Let's go back to you being an evangelical Christian growing up.

How was magic viewed among your congregation?

-Well, there was-- It's mixed, mixed reviews, because some people think it's from the devil.

-Mm-hmm.

-But Daniel in the Bible was actually a magician.

If you look in the Bible, it says Daniel was a magician, because magician means wise man.

Magi is wisdom.

So I never really worried too much about any sort of conflict.

-Okay.

And did your parents worry about-- -No.

-No?

-It's card tricks.

If I could really use the dark arts, I'd be doing something other than finding the 4 of Diamonds.

[laughter] -You got your first breakout after being on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, the very first season.

-That's what made my career.

-Yeah.

Penn is so complimentary of you.

How do you take that?

-Oh, you can't think too much about that stuff.

-No?

-No, because it's like Penn and Teller are probably top five magicians who ever lived, ever.

So the golden age of magic was like in 1920s, around there.

All of these people, everyone who's ever done magic, they're like top five.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine being top five of all time saying all of this crazy complimentary stuff about you?

So I think it's very kind, but, and I love it, but I don't think about it because it would blow my mind.

-Have you thought about the fact that you are going to be performing a show with Penn Jillette?

This is going to be one of his very few times that he does not perform without Teller.

-Right.

-This is going to be in the UK, your first time back in like 10 years.

-Piff & Pop's Magic Shoppe.

-How do you rationalize all that?

-Not only am I performing with Penn, he'll be in a dragon outfit, playing the role of my dad, Pop the Magic Dragon.

-So you get your breakout, I guess, on that show, Penn & Teller: Fool Us.

That led to you coming to the U.S., correct?

-Yeah.

I got a small part in a big show at the Cosmopolitan, and it was a 10-year contract.

And the show lasted seven months.

-Oh.

-And then it closed and I had no job.

-So then, as you told another outlet, you were left jobless and with a green card in the U.S., and so you decided to get on America's Got Talent.

-Yeah.

I tried everything for a year, and the thing that worked was America's Got Talent.

-How big of a deal was that?

-Well, I didn't know at the time it was going to work.

-No?

-I had to go to the UK to do a show, and I said-- I kept turning it down.

And then-- -Really?

-Yeah.

And then, like, two hours before the last flight I could get, they convinced me to do it, so I had to, like, run home, pack, get a red-eye.

I was just like, half asleep when I did the audition.

And I sort of knew it went well, but I didn't know how life changing it was.

-Any life lesson in that?

-When I, like, make too big of a deal of things and I start getting nervous and second guessing myself, it's like, that's-- that doesn't really fit that well with show business.

You got to just go out there and try and, like, get into the groove, find some flow and, and have a good time.

-Okay.

So during this time that you are about to get famous on America's Got Talent, you meet your future wife.

-Fiance.

-Fiance.

-Fiance.

It took me 10 minutes-- 10 minutes?

--10 years to get to propose to her, and that was last year.

-Okay.

-So hopefully it's going to be quicker to get married.

But, yeah, I met Jade at a show when I was broke and living in my friend's garage.

And we had a great time.

And she had this amazing apartment at the Palms.

And so I sort of stealth moved into her apartment and had a much nicer life than before I met her.

And then, as I was with her, everything kind of exploded, and we ended up buying a house together.

-And she's part of your show.

-She's part of the show.

She's the showgirl with the dragon to-do list.

-A couple questions about your show here.

Mike, the Vegas Guy on YouTube, do you know him?

-Yes.

-He gave you a 4.5 rating.

-What?

-Out of five.

-What happened to the .5, Mike?

-He said Piff is one of the biggest rising stars in the magic world right now, but he's not for everyone.

-Well, that's true.

All right, I agree with Mike, minus .5 stars.

I don't like things where it's like everyone likes them, you know?

I like things where some people love it, you know?

-Some people love it.

-Yeah.

-So who should come to your show?

Who should not?

-Well, everyone should come to see if they love it, because that's the whole point of life is to try as much different things as you like.

You know, we've got the magic performing Chihuahua.

We've got this amazing high kicking jump, splitting showgirl.

So there's something for most people in the show.

But yeah, I like to have a bit of an edge on it just so that people either love it or hate it.

-Do you want families to come to your show?

-Yeah, but not like-- We say eight-plus.

Like kids eight and below probably not gonna have the best time.

-Okay.

-Eight-plus.

But I love things where, like, a family can come together and have a good time, you know, like, I love, like, giving a good night out to the whole family, because that's kind of rare these days.

-One more topic, The Magic Circle is this magic society based in London?

How long has it been around?

-It's one of the oldest in the world.

-They named you Magician of the Year.

-No, that's The Magic Castle.

-Magic Castle.

-Yeah.

-Okay.

-That was last year they named us Magician of the Year.

Magic Circle, they-- I won like, their Stage Magician of the Year and their Close-Up Magician of the Year.

-Which is the one where you made history as one of the youngest?

-That's The Magic Circle.

-Magic Circle, okay.

Very prestigious, right?

-Yeah.

-And that is also the same group that had denied Penn & Teller induction into The Magic Circle.

-No.

They refused to have them as members.

-Members, okay.

-They weren't allowed in.

-Okay.

And it was because they said that Penn & Teller revealed their secrets, and that's a big no-no.

-Well, it's like, you want-- and I say this to Penn all the time.

I'm like, why do you want to be in this club?

Because they have the whole thing about not revealing secrets, and you love revealing secrets, you know?

It's like, why do you want to be in a club that you disagree with?

And he's like, Well, they should let us in.

So we have this whole argument about it.

And finally, The Magic Circle have caved.

Now, hopefully-- I trust Penn.

Now, hopefully he'll change his ways and he'll stop revealing secrets.

-Really?

-Well, otherwise he should be kicked out again.

[laughter] -You shouldn't be in the club, Penn, if you don't agree with the rules.

-Fifty years they were denied.

-Fifty years they gave away secrets.

-Okay.

-Well, so then I know where you stand on, you do not think that you should reveal your secrets.

-It's like if you have a club and the rule is you can't eat cake and you love eating cake and all you want to do is go to the club and eat cake, you can't be in that club.

It's a no-cake club.

-But at one time, this same club didn't allow women.

-Well, I can't defend that, okay?

The magic secrets, I'm happy to go out on a limb.

That, no, they should have allowed women.

There's lots of things from the past that shouldn't have happened.

-Certainly.

Piff the Magic Dragon, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thanks for having me.

♪♪