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4[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saw_a_woman_in_half.jpg]]]]
5[[caption-width-right:350:[[Music/TheBeatles Suddenly... she's half the woman she used to be.]]]]
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10
11->''"Sawing a lady in half is easy. Sawing a lady in half and then joining her up together again is less easy, but can be done with practice."''
12-->-- '''Dirk Gently''', ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency''
13
14Almost as famous as the PullARabbitOutOfMyHat trick, this death-defying StageMagician trick involves a pretty woman (usually the magician's LovelyAssistant) being placed into a coffin-sized lidded wooden box, with a neck-hole in the top and ankle-holes in the bottom. Then, producing a large floppy hand-saw, the magician proceeds to saw through the box, ''through the woman's midsection'', and through the table on which the box is resting. After that, the magician shoves in a pair of bizarre rectangular blades (sometimes called dividers) through the middle.
15
16Then, if nothing ''unseemly'' has happened at this point, the magician pushes away the two halves of the table, possibly rotates them around (but carefully not showing the sawn ends to the audience) and moves them together again. And then the woman steps out of the reunited box, all in one piece, to the relief and applause of the audience.
17
18Modern variants of the trick often skip the saw and use the rectangular blades instead, which are shoved in side by side. This has the advantage of allowing the magician to show the "cut" ends to the audience. Because it's a DiscreditedTrope by now (the secret has been explained on countless occasions), a Stage Magician who tries this is pretty much required to have some kind of special or unique variation if he wants to be taken seriously.
19
20Sometimes, the second rectangular blade can get stuck and the magician will pull on the head of the assistant, causing the blade to fall. This is used as a joke on several occasions. A few magicians who love their BlackComedy may have some 'unusual' embellishments to the act: The assistant may fake falling unconscious, shriek when the blades go through her, and on some rare occassions the blades they use have fake "bloodstains" on them when they are withdrawn from the boxes during the restoration. A few might even add fake blood fountains gushing out dramatically as part of the act. Sometimes the dividers get stuck, and the magician has to either take hold of her head or feet and pull, although this gimmick is usually considered tired and is often parodied instead of played straight (at least one version of this black comedy element has the girl able to force the dividers to rise in their slots by straining really hard out of indignation at the magician's rudeness at ''pulling her hair'' to get the dividers unstuck). Another uncommon embellishment is the girl complaining about the dividing blades "being cold" when they are driven into her box.
21
22The reasons for its notoriety are explained in detail by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawing_a_woman_in_half The Other Wiki.]]
23
24Other stage illusions closely related to this classic include the Zig-Zag Lady (Where the girl in the box is divided by having the box slide apart along several pre-determined division points, producing a signature zig-zag shape) and Mis-made Girl (Where the Girl goes into a box that is divided into four parts and the magician initially "accidentally" scrambles her during the first attempt at restoration). Another related trick is instead of cutting the box into pieces, the box is impaled with multiple swords to the point where it looks like it shouldn't be possible for the person inside to avoid all of them. Sometimes both tricks are done at the same time by cutting the box in half and then impaling the two halves.
25
26If this results in someone ''actually'' getting cut in half, then he's HalfTheManHeUsedToBe.
27
28----
29!!Examples:
30[[foldercontrol]]
31
32[[folder:Advertising]]
33* A {{Advertising/Geico}} commercial has an inept magician and his assistant in a hospital waiting room; her top half is in one seat, and her legs are in another seat.
34* Done in an [[Advertising/MAndMs M&M's]] commercial with Red as the magician and Yellow as the (unwilling) assistant. Ending with Yellow's lower torso walking off stage without the upper half.
35* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i_ZxNB4jXs This commercial]] for Shaw Cable on Demand has an Expy of Franchise/TheLittleMermaid as the LovelyAssistant after a wizard saws her in half. Only problem is, his movie is called "on demand" and he vanishes (unwillingly) before he can restore her.
36* An [[https://youtu.be/9TYc15XFZ0M?si=1AzdcN9jA8y3dl2J Advertisement]] for an El Salvador Shoe company called MD En Tiende features a female magician performing the illusion and chooses a woman from the audience to participate. Said volunteer is placed in the box with the the female magician holding the saw to begin the illusion. Just as she looks down at the woman in the box, she notices the shoes the volunteer is wearing and, overtaken by jealousy, the magician puts down the saw and picks up a chainsaw. The last shot we see is the magician starting the chainsaw with the volunteer and the Audience screaming in panic. A quick caption by the volunteer's squirming Feet reads “Puros Celos” which translates to “Pure Jealousy” in English
37* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FoNQygNHls&feature=emb_logo Christmas 2020 Argos advert]] has two small girls with an increasingly elaborate magic act, who at one point ''explode'' the family dog in half.
38* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX6qUFm1HsI This Concerned Children's Advertisers PSA]] about celebrating unique interests has a part where a kid is practicing magic tricks, including sawing his sister in half. Based on her reaction, this is a common occurrence:
39--> ''Mom! Aidan cut me in half again!''
40[[/folder]]
41
42[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
43* Done in ''Anime/CatSoup'' only that the magician [[spoiler:actually kills the woman and chops her into pieces before putting her together and reviving her with true magic]].
44* {{Implied|Trope}} in ''Anime/DigimonTheMovie''. Kari tells Tai she can't leave her friend's birthday party because she volunteered to be sawed in half by a magician. Tai warns her to tell the half with feet to hurry home.
45* ''Manga/CaseClosed'': DiscussedTrope, where the setup for the "insert blades into a vertical box from the side" version is explained as "it's actually three lovely assistants", and the existence of multiple suspects theorized as the solution for the mystery of the week.
46[[/folder]]
47
48[[folder:Comic Books]]
49* In ''ComicBook/LesFemmesEnBlanc'', a surgeon uses laser surgery to operate on his patient, but accidentally cuts his body in half. The patient, who is still alive, says his life is screwed up, and the last panel shows him as working as a magician's partner for this sawing magic trick.
50* ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'': In issue #26, Cain and Abel do a version of the trick to entertain Morpheus' guests; like all interactions between the two, it ends very badly for Abel.
51* ''ComicBook/WhatIf'': The non-serious 34th issue proposes an alternate reality where ComicBook/DoctorStrange and associates were this kind of magicians instead of arcane sorcerers. Baron Mordo's betrayal of the Ancient One is interpreted as him performing his latest trick -- sawing the Ancient One in half!
52* A single-panel cartoon in ''Plop!'' #23 depicts two paramedics walking alongside a morose-looking magician while carrying his assistant on a stretcher -- still inside the box, with the saw sticking out of the middle.
53* The title character in "The Mad Magician" in ''The Haunt of Fear'' #1 kidnaps people to use in his experiments on ''really'' sawing someone in half.
54[[/folder]]
55
56[[folder:Fanfiction]]
57* In ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/4663602/chapters/10643406 Charles Alexander Tompkins]]'' Remus mentions the time the Marauders did a Muggle magic show for a Hogwarts talent competition and sawed Peter in half. It took Madame Pomfrey two weeks to put him together again.
58[[/folder]]
59
60[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
61* In the opening of ''Film/KissKissBangBang'', Harmony starts screaming as she's cut in half, but when they open the box, she's fine. "I'm going to be an actress."
62* In ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'', one of the ghosts at the [[CelestialBureaucracy afterlife waiting room]] is a magician's assistant who did not survive being sawed in half.
63* In ''Film/{{Leprechaun 3}}'', the titular villain kills Fazio the magician (in front of a live audience) by doing this 'trick' (except for real, guts and all).
64* In ''Film/TheBananaSplitsMovie'', Fleegle traps social media personality Thad in a box and forces his fiancée Poppy to help as he saws Thad in half.
65* In the film ''Houdini'' ([[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory based very loosely]] on the life of Harry Houdini) Harry brings a "saw a woman in half" kit home, wakes his wife, and makes her get in. A JumpCut happens as he's sawing, so he didn't do any "trick"; he just sawed, and she was OK.
66* Attempted by the protagonists at the end of ''Film/RoadToZanzibar''.
67-->'''Music/BingCrosby:''' Are you sure you know what you're doing?\
68'''Creator/BobHope:''' If I don't, one of us is going back half fare.
69* In ''Follow the Boys'', Creator/OrsonWelles saws an upright Creator/MarleneDietrich in half through a small box, and her legs run off.
70* It's how one performer meets her end in the Joan Crawford vehicle ''{{Film/Berserk}}''.
71* This was old hat at least as far back as 1931 and ''Film/{{Skippy}}'', in which two kids put on a backyard variety show for the neighborhood kids. When they get to the saw-a-kid-in-half trick, the kid playing the legs gets scared of the blade and runs off, ruining the trick.
72* The 2000 movie ''Film/PickingUpThePieces'' has magician Tex (Creator/WoodyAllen) do this to his LovelyAssistant Candy (Creator/SharonStone, who played an unfaithful wife) and it's how she dies when it GoesHorriblyWrong.
73* This is one of the magician Montag's signature tricks in ''Film/TheWizardOfGore''. The effect was accomplished via creative use of a sheep carcass.
74* In ''Film/TheMadMagician'', Gallico the Great's trademark illusion 'The Lady and the Buzzsaw' is a variation of this, in which he appears to [[OffWithHerHead decapitate]] his LovelyAssistant.
75* Lampshaded in ''Film/Water1985'' when Dolores bemoans about her AwfulWeddedLife: "Where has the magic gone?" Her husband snarks, "If you want magic, I'll take you home and saw you in half!"
76* In ''Film/NoKidding'', Catherine shrieks in horror seeing the children trying to do this trick to Eileen, only for her identical twin Margaret to pop out of the other end of the box with both girls unharmed:
77-->'''David''': Sawing a girl in two? That's a charming pastime for a happy holiday home, I must say. "Send your daughter to Chartham Place, where they do do things by heart".
78[[/folder]]
79
80[[folder:Literature]]
81* In ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', the coat-of-arms of the Guild of Conjurers shows a woman, with a saw-toothed bend dividing the image in half.
82* In ''Literature/ThePortableDoor'' by Creator/TomHolt, the head of a firm of (real) magicians does this to the assistant of a business rival at his son's birthday party. He then explains to his competitor that he'll leave her to die if he doesn't get his way.
83* The Creator/RobertBloch short story "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" has a magician's wife, who acts as his assistant, manipulate a mentally challenged young homeless man into murdering her husband by convincing him that the magic is real sorcery and the magician sold his soul to Satan, so there's no moral qualm about killing him. After the murder the young man decides to see if the magical power is still there in the magician's wand and decides to test it using the woman and the magician's buzzsaw finale... Adapted into an infamous episode of ''Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents'' (see below).
84* The Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''Literature/TheyDoItWithMirrors'' features a lot of discussion of this trick and how it is done. Although no one actually performs the trick during the novel, Literature/MissMarple realizes that the killer's method of murder used a very similar trick.
85* The first ''Literature/RedDwarf'' novel had Kryten do this to himself for the crew of the Nova 5 every week after the crash. Subverted in that he really does saw himself in half and takes 45 minutes to reconnect all his circuitry afterwards.
86* In "The Scrambled States of America Talent Show," Minnesota does this to South Dakota for his act. Near the end of the book, North Dakota explained to Montana and Wyoming how the trick really went: He was folded up in one half of the box, and South Dakota was folded up in the other.
87-->'''Wyoming:''' Genius!
88* The cover of some editions of Al Jaffee's ''{{Magazine/MAD}} Book of Magic and Other Stupid Tricks'' features an illustration of a magician sawing a woman in half. ''Lengthwise.''
89[[/folder]]
90
91[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
92* The ''[[Series/PennAndTellerBullshit Bullshit!]]'' version of this involved a large buzzsaw, followed by seemingly revealing the trick as they usually do: however, they then proceeded to double subvert it by "accidentally" sawing the woman in half with the safety methods disabled, complete with lots of fake blood and screaming.
93** For UK tropers, this version of the trick appeared on ''Series/PennAndTellerFoolUs''.
94** Penn and Teller have also performed the traditional version of the trick underwater for a magic special.
95* One of the contestants on ''Series/PennAndTellerFoolUs'', David Caserta, performs a version with two notable variations from the standard. One is that he cuts ''himself'' in half. The other is that instead of a wooden box, the trick is performed while he stands in an open-sided metal scaffold. It's still a safe bet that his detached lower half is a dummy, but it's a lot harder to figure out where his ''real'' lower half has gone.
96* Parodied in ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus''. "Last week I showed you how to saw a woman in half. This week I'll be showing you how to saw a woman in three pieces and hide the body."
97* An episode of ''Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents'' was made from the Robert Bloch story "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (see Literature above). Notably, this was the only episode the network refused to run (it turned up in syndication).
98* An episode of ''Series/{{Dinosaurs}}'' parodied the JudgmentOfSolomon, presenting the Solomon figure as a razzle-dazzle magician who cuts the baby in half using a version of this trick.
99* Done in an episode of ''Series/{{Quantum Leap}}''. Don't worry, Sam was told every step by the assistant.
100* ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' did this twice:
101** In one episode, Wanda sings the titular line of "You Do Something to Me" while Wayne saws the box she's occupying in half. Apparently, it cut...
102** In another, Fozzie attempts the trick with a substitute lady, namely, a comedy robot in a wig. The effect on Fozzie was rather [[{{Pun}} shocking]].
103* Harry Blackstone, during a guest appearance on ''Series/ReadingRainbow'', hypnotized [=LeVar Burton=] and cut through him, apparently without even severing one part of Burton from the other.
104* In ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'', Cousin Mortimer saws Hilda in half. Things go awry when Hilda's legs run off.
105* Mentioned and used on ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment.'' In this case, Gob explains how the trick works to his brother... [[DidIJustSayThatOutLoud and a nearby kid overhears it]].
106* The live-action version of ''Series/TheFlash1990'' has Creator/MarkHamill playing an AxCrazy version of one of the more prominent [[RoguesGallery Rogues]], the Trickster. Before adopting the Trickster identity, James Jesse (in the identity of a magician) kidnaps a woman and attempts to saw her in half...with a chainsaw.
107-->'''Jesse:''' Other magicians may give you the ''illusion'' of sawing a woman in half... ''(produces the chainsaw and slices through a nearby mannequin)'' ...but there's no substitute for the real thing!
108* Spoofed by Ernie Kovacs in a 1950s appearance as Matzoh Heppelwhite, the inept magician. He asks the visible model whether she is ready, and she chirpily responds, "Ready!" -- but is quickly followed by a second, muffled "Ready!" from within the lower half of the box.
109* In ''{{Series/CSINY}}'', a serial murderer magician, played by Criss Angel, commits his crimes in mockery of magic tricks. He kills one of his victims by sawing her in half for real.
110* This was Fran and Gracie's talent performance for the mother/daughter pageant in ''Series/TheNanny''. Due to a bad initial run (Fran was stuck for hours), they changed it to a puppet show.
111* ''Series/BykerGrove'' has two girls get sawn in half on the same box with the girl's feet sticking right beside the other girl's head.
112* Happens for real with Trish by her brother in the ''Series/AustinAndAlly'' episode "Club Owners & Quinceaneras".
113* ''Series/MockTheWeek'', "Unlikely Things to Hear on a TV Talent Show"
114--> '''Hugh Dennis:''' When you - when you said you were gonna saw a woman in half...I thought you were a magician.
115* A lumberjack once tried to hit ''Series/ElChapulinColorado'' with an axe but a witch interfered. Until he was made one again, his legs walked around while the rest of him kept floating in air.
116* Israeli sitcom ''Quickie'', a sitcom about (mostly) EthicalSlut Roni and timid NiceGuy Ya'ir living together, featured an episode with this as a recurring theme. Roni's [[GirlOfTheWeek new boyfriend]], a magician, agrees to tell her how to pull this trick, despite this meaning going against the Magicians' Union (which, according to the LocalHangout bar's [[BunnyEarsLawyer owner]], are '[[LethalJokeCharacter worse]] than the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Bet Shabak]]'). She proceeds to tell Ya'ir, who later tells his boss, who was always baffled by it, when she says that he can keep his job in the round of layoffs the company is going through. [[RunningGag Every time]] someone explains it, [[TheUnreveal there is some sort of background noise obscuring the explanation]], but the camera shows their lips moving and their hands gesturing (so [[BilingualBonus you can read their lips]] if you can lip-read in Hebrew). At the end of the episode, representatives of the Magicians' Union show up and gravely ask to see Roni's loose-lipped lover.
117* On the ''Series/{{QI}}'' series H Christmas special "Hocus Pocus", Alan Davies saws fellow panelist Lee Mack in half, [[ActorAllusion referencing his long-running role]] as a [[Series/JonathanCreek magician's assistant]].
118* The opening credits for each episode of ''Series/ResidentAlien'' are done in the style of an [[FurnitureAssemblyGag Ikea how-to-guide]]. The credits for "[[Recap/ResidentAlienS2E4RadioHarry Radio Harry]]" depict two magic tricks. The first depicts Harry pulling a flowers out of a magician's hat and gets the red check-mark for being correct. The second gets the red X, as it's the woman sawed in half, but badly bleeding and apparently dead.
119* On ''Series/{{Hollyoaks}}'' to boost his nephew's confidence and help impress his crush Ella, Ethan begrudgingly agrees to be Mason's assistant in "The Sawing in Half" trick for a viral video. Unfortunately this backfires, as while the trick works and the video does go viral, to save face, Ethan chose to do the trick shirtless so he could be "[[MrFanservice The Sexy Assistant]]", which leads to many comments on how handsome Ethan is. After seeing all the comments about Ethan, it only hurts Mason all the more, as he begins to believe the video went viral not because of Mason performing the trick, but because of his hunky uncle.
120* On the French game show ''Series/FortBoyard'', one of the challenges involved one of the players to saw a woman in half to separate the box enough to get the key from the panel on top of the box, all while the woman screams in pain and blood splatters everywhere.
121** The Halloween special took it to another level, as after sawing her in half, the challenger would have to guide the top half of the box over to the lock on the other side of the room.
122* From ''Series/MagicForHumans'' in the episode "Home", Justin did an entire skit in which he asked some volunteers outside Ikea if they would help him test out his new "table" before taking it home. Handing the volunteers [[FurnitureAssemblyGag the instructions]] they would proceed to perform the trick, slicing Justin in half and separating him, with him asking for the volunteers to put him back together, only for the final panel to be blank. Justin then would ask if they would go inside Ikea and grab somebody to help them. The episode ended with Justin, still cut in half outside Ikea, asking for help and that he wanted to go home.
123* ''Series/TheGoodies Rule -- OK?'' has Graeme sawing Tim in half. First his legs go walking off by themselves, then it's revealed that Graeme reattached them the wrong way round when Tim starts walking backwards.
124[[/folder]]
125
126[[folder:Music]]
127* Music/WarrenZevon's ''For my Next Trick I'll Need a Volunteer'' compares the singer's poor romantic history with that of a stage magician, including a centrally placed Saw A Woman In Half reference:
128-->"I can saw a woman in two\
129But you won't want to look in the box when I'm through\
130I can make love disappear\
131For my next trick I'll need a volunteer"
132* Music/AliceCooper has a variant of this trick involving his own head and a guillotine. When he performed this on stage in Britain in 1974, incorporating a variant of the "getting it tragically wrong" gambit, excitable UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers ran with the story that he'd killed himself on stage.
133[[/folder]]
134
135[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
136* PlayedForLaughs in a ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' strip, where Jon holds up a kitty munchie and tells Garfield to do a trick; Garfield quickly puts on a magician's hat and cape and prepares to perform this trick on Odie.
137-->'''Jon:''' Can't you ever be normal?\
138'''Garfield:''' What, you've seen this one?
139[[/folder]]
140
141[[folder:Pinball]]
142* One of the illusions in ''Pinball/TheatreOfMagic'' is the "Tiger Saw", a buzzsaw that is used to slice a woman and a pinball machine in half.
143* This is used as the "score match" sequence at the end of ''Pinball/PinballMagic''.
144[[/folder]]
145
146[[folder:Radio]]
147* This particular trick was discussed on ''Radio/MartinMolloy'' after a TV special where magician David Copperfield seemingly cut himself in half, with the hosts noting how David Copperfield's lower half seemed much shorter than it should have been. This was followed by a discussion of the poor man scrunched up in the bottom of the box, and what a terrible job being David Copperfield's arse would be, eventually describing it as "the worst job in show business".
148* In Radio 4's ''Radio/JustAMinute'', there was this dialogue between Clement Freud, and Victoria Wood (wife of a stage magician), which referenced a previous subject "The Three Bears":
149--> '''Clement Freud''': When my husband sawed three bears in half, he did it vertically instead of horizontally, so there were six bears.
150--> '''Victoria Wood''': You don't get six bears from sawing three bears in half, you only get six bits.
151[[/folder]]
152
153[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
154* The 1975 ''It's Magic! Magic! Magic! Game'' by Remco has the players as stage magicians, who must perform with their LovelyAssistant the Saw A Woman in half Illusion, as well as the DisappearingBox and Levitating Assistant illusions.
155[[/folder]]
156
157[[folder:Theatre]]
158* ''Theatre/AnimalCrackers'':
159-->'''Spaulding''': We will now saw a woman in half. Did you ever saw a woman in half?\
160'''Ravelli''': No, but I saw a woman in strange quarters.\
161'''Spaulding''': Well, that's another section. Now, Mrs. Rittenhouse, if you'll kindly step this way, we will proceed to sever you from head to toe.
162* In ''Celebration'', at the end of the first act, Potemkin reminisces on his former career as a StageMagician, working for nearly seven years with 23 different partners on the routine of sawing a woman in half, which would have given his act the big finish it desperately needed. What he learned was that the sawing part was easy, but the second half, putting her back together, was hard.
163* One of the live performances of ''Series/{{Bottom}}'' has Richie and Eddie recounting their short lived variety act, ''The Great Arsehole and Norman'' wherein they sawed a "volunteer" in half. Of course, Richie overlooked the joining back together again.
164* Israeli playwright [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanoch_Levin Khanokh Levin]] wrote a skit about a man demanding that the magician who sawed his wife in half put her back together, while the magician claims it's not his job. Finally, the man says that of course it is, because:
165-->'''Man:''' I can saw my wife in half, too!\
166'''Magician:''' [[ComicallyMissingThePoint No need to, I already did.]]
167* ''Theatre/MortyTheMagnificent'': Morty gains the ability to perform stage tricks perfectly. He tries to get his girlfriend Daphne to be the lady, but she refuses because she doesn't trust him with the saw. Morty ropes the seamstress into playing the part instead. It goes mostly well...until her legs run off without her.
168[[/folder]]
169
170[[folder:Video Games]]
171* Rank 4 in ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' is a stage magician who fights Travis at his show; before the fight, one of the two tricks he does involves cutting a woman in half -- ''with a buzzsaw''. He later uses the saw in an attempt to bisect Travis vertically [[spoiler:and it plays a role in his own demise]].
172* ''VideoGame/TheTaleOfOrpheosCurse'', a point-and-click adventure game, has one ghost who has suffered from the trick and now has a wandering bottom half as a result.
173* In ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge'', if you close the coffin on Stan and try to use the saw on the coffin, Guybrush will say, "I'm no magician."
174* In ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Season One'', the season finale takes place in a magician's lair with various tricks around the place. Saving the day involves taking the saw from the saw-a-woman-in-half trick and using it to saw through something else instead.
175* In ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'', there are a pair of magicians attempting to perfect this trick. They have a giant circular saw, a woman strapped to a table, and a complete misunderstanding of how the trick is supposed to work. It doesn't end well.
176* Played for laughs at Sullah's Sideshow in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. Two [=NPCs=] are practicing the trick with a box containing two pygmies. When the first saws too slowly, the other attacks with a flashy blow, shattering the box and killing both pygmies.
177* In ''Midnight Mysteries: Haunted Houdini'' Bess Houdini's ghost is the subject of the trick.
178* In ''VideoGame/MySims Agents'', if you send Beebee on the "The Prominence" mission, The Amazing Darryl wants to do this trick with her, and you can advise for or against it. Apparently, it tickles her.
179* In ''VideoGame/SakuraWars 3'', Coquelicot performs this trick, which she calls the "frightening human bisecting magic," using Erica Fontaine. Rather than a handsaw, Coquelicot uses an electric buzzsaw to do so; Erica is unsurprisingly freaked.
180** Note: It's never explained whether it was a trick done on Erica or if Erica really was sawn in half and just got better.
181* In one of the rooms in the Twisted Suites in ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion3'', you can find a box with a saw sticking out of it. Using the Poltergust to move the saw down will cause two Gold Goobs to come out- though there was no indication of there ever being a Gold Goob inside before, it's still an easy way to get some money.
182* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', one of the two Dark Brotherhood sanctuaries asks you the question "What is life's greatest illusion?" before you can enter. One of the options you can answer with is "Um....the one where you saw a lady in half?"
183* In ''Renegade Brainwave'' an inscription in the Bide-A-Wee Cemetery for Circus Folk reads:
184-->Here lies Mimi Madley,\
185The magician's assistant.\
186The saw was sticking badly,\
187The magician was persistent.
188[[/folder]]
189
190[[folder:Web Animation]]
191* ''Animation/{{Pucca}}'': In one episode this happened to Clown, who was showing just as much skepticism as Daffy did.
192* ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': In the ''WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail'' [[Recap/StrongBadEmailE198MagicTrick "magic trick"]], Strong Bad is asked to do a magic trick, like putting Homestar himself in a box and taking a saw to him. As enthusiastic as he is about it, however, he doesn't ''quite'' seem to recognize the reference to the classic trick; when he finally attempts to take a saw to Homestar, he's got him standing upright, wearing a cardboard box with a pair of unconvincing fake arms attached to it. The arms fall off prematurely, interrupting whatever he had in mind, but it's enough to convince Coach Z that he's "a Level 3 Dark Wizard" all the same.
193-->'''Coach Z:''' That saw didn't even touch him! He's pure evil!
194* In the ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' episode "[[Recap/HTFGetATrickOutOfYou I Get a Trick Out of You]]", Lumpy attempts to pull off this trick on Cuddles, but unfortunately... it doesn't end well.
195* In ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'', this is how [[spoiler: Zatanna lands the killing blow on the Scarlet Witch. And even with the visceral gore of this act, Zatanna convinces her audience that it was AllPartOfTheShow.]]
196[[/folder]]
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198[[folder:Webcomics]]
199* In ''Webcomic/FauxPas'', [[http://www.ozfoxes.net/cgi/pl-fp1.cgi?554 sawing him in half is one technique Brisbaine suggests for getting out of the well.]]
200* ''Webcomic/{{minus}}'': One strip has minus using her RealityWarper powers to be a stage magician and ripping a woman in half. The woman ''dies'', even after minus puts her back together. It's okay though, because she brings her back to life again.
201* ''Webcomic/{{Precocious}}'': Tiffany does the single [[http://www.precociouscomic.com/archive/comic/2017/03/24 most unconvincing version]] in history, featuring one of her younger siblings, who is less than half the height of the box their feet are supposed to be sticking out of the bottom of.
202* Riff from ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' tries this using inter-dimensional portals to make the trick work. [[http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=070813 Things don't go exactly as planned.]]
203* Gynette from ''Webcomic/StubbleTrouble'' did this trick in a magic show, the real trick being that she can separate her body parts at will.
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206[[folder:Western Animation]]
207* ''Series/TheBigGarage'': In the living tools’ segment of “You Better Believe It”, the Saw’s magic act naturally includes doing this, with the Ruler as the victi- erm, participant. Ruler does end up getting literally cut in half, and Saw’s attempt to make her whole again fails- fortunately for Ruler, her being an AnimateInanimateObject means that WhoNeedsTheirWholeBody is firmly in effect here, and she’s [[SnapBack back to normal in the next episode]].
208* Used hilariously in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "WesternAnimation/ShowBizBugs", in which Daffy Duck is not intimidated by the whole scenario because [[TemptingFate he thinks it's all a trick]] (in fact, he even ''describes the trick's mechanics to the audience'' in the process). [[RuleOfFunny Cue Daffy's upper body detaching from his lower body.]] "It's a good thing I got Blue Cross."
209** Another Creator/WarnerBros cartoon had Egghead (a precursor to Elmer Fudd) going on about how fake the trick was as he volunteered for it. At the end of the trick, Egghead jumps out and walks away... with his upper and lower halves going in opposite directions.
210** The Daffy version of the gag ends up being redone on ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'', but this time with Montana Max.
211* ''WesternAnimation/RazzberryJazzberryJam'': One of Tesla’s magic tricks in “Disappearing Act” is to fake-saw Louis in half.
212* The ''WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker'' short "The Great Who-Dood-it" opens with Woody cutting a woman in half with a two-man crosscut saw, and stopping in horror when the woman screams.
213* ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'':
214** When Garfield and Jon visit a magic shop, the shop owner's dog, Merlin, chases Garfield while Jon is looking for a trick. At one point, Merlin is tricked into entering such a box, and Garfield sets to sawing the box in half. Sure enough, despite fretting on the part of Merlin, the box and Merlin are halved without injury to the latter.
215** In the episode focused on Garfield doing shows at the fence, he asked Nermal to enter a box. Nermal was afraid Garfield would do this trick but Garfield wouldn't want "two" Nermals. Garfield just sent him to Abu Dhabi as usual.
216* ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'': The Mask gets sawn, even having the guts to walk out of the box in two.
217* This was also done by ''WesternAnimation/ThePinkPanther'' in one of the skits of "Pink Outs".
218** There is another instance where the Pink Panther botches up the trick by himself. (e.g., seen in the trailer for the German edition)
219* ''WesternAnimation/TheScoobyDooShow'':
220** In "Scared a Lot in Camelot", Shaggy and Scooby volunteered for one of these tricks after the magician offered them two free dinners.
221** In the Creator/PhyllisDiller episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheNewScoobyDooMovies'', Shaggy and Scooby were hiding in one of these boxes when the magician did this trick. When Shaggy's head comes out, so do Scooby's feet. Then they switch ends.
222** "Hassle in the Castle" has Velma freaking out as she sees Shaggy in a crate being sawed in half with the lower half walking out. But she then sees the head is a dummy and Shaggy himself was scrunched down in the other half.
223* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E7JurassicBark Jurassic Bark]]", where Bender tries to become a magician, he saws Zoidberg in half with human feet sticking out of the opposite end whereupon he opens the case, and reveals that he has not been really sawn in half, much to Bender's detriment, and to the disappointment of the rest of the crew.
224* Used by ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans2003'' villain Mumbo in his barrage of magic tricks-turned-deadly. He actually calls for a lovely assistant from the audience and yanks Starfire down with a cane. As he prepares to perform the "trick", he adds:
225-->'''Mumbo:''' It's only fair to warn you... IHaveNoIdeaWhatImDoing.
226* Invoked in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'', where the Warners end up in Transylvania, which of course means an encounter with a vampire. Toward the end of the short, he's sealed himself in his coffin, and Wakko uses a ''{{chainsaw|Good}}'' to get him out. After Wakko cuts the coffin in half, the vampire's head pokes out of one half, and his feet from the other. Embarrassed, Wakko quickly slaps the halves back together.
227* The plot of an episode of ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'' is that the titular pair are separated by this trick, but the magician is pulled away before he can reunite them. The pair at first enjoy their newfound freedom before trying to find a way to re-attach themselves. The episode ended with the magician revealing that they weren't separated at all, and the Cat half was just an inflated balloon (who somehow talked?). Then they [[RealAfterAll separate for real]] in the last second.
228* This is done to Barney Rubble on ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' while he's hypnotized. The magician doing the trick shows Fred (and the audience) how it's done -- Barney is in the top half bent in two, and the bottom half has fake legs.
229* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/RubyGloom'' had Skull Boy doing this to Iris. She spends most of the rest of the episode in two halves because Skull Boy gets amnesia and forgets the combination for the lock.
230* ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'' once wondered whether evil magician Gambini would do it to him.
231* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS3E5HomerDefined Homer Defined]]", Milhouse is forbidden to see Bart because Bart's a bad influence on him and Bart looks back on some old photos of them together. One of them has Bart preparing to saw Milhouse in half; the next shows Milhouse with a scar in his chest.
232* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleRascals'' episode "Alfalfakazam!", this is one of the acts in Spanky's magic show. His "assistant" is actually Buckwheat and Porky in a TotemPoleTrench.
233* In a ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold'' episode, Arnold tries doing this to Gerald during a montage of trying to come up with an act they can perform in the talent show. As Arnold is sawing, a ripping sound is heard, and once Gerald is out of the box, he shows a big tear in his shirt.
234* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs1981'', King Jerard was holding auditions for a new court magician (to replace [[EvilChancellor the one he threw in jail]] in a previous episode); the applicant shown ("the Amazing Manfred") did this trick during his interview, but wasn't able to put his assistant back together. Naturally, he didn't get the job, and as he was kicked out, his angry -- and still cut in two -- assistant told him she was quitting.
235* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'' episode "Let's Play Magicians", [[CatsAreMean Mr. Cat]] finds a new way to torment [[NighInvulnerable Quack Quack]] while putting on a magic show: picking him as an assistant for this trick. After sawing Quack Quack in half, he also sticks a bunch of knives into him. When asked how he did the trick, he responds with "There is no trick!".
236* The ComicStrip/LittleLulu short ''Hullaba-Lulu'' features a circus ringmaster sawing a woman in half. Lulu tickles the feet on the bottom half, and the top half reacts accordingly.
237* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E24UncommonBond Uncommon Bond]]", Trixie attempts to practice this trick on herself, but the legs sticking out of the box clearly belong to a dummy.
238* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'': In the episode "[[Recap/ThePowerpuffGirlsS1E5BoogieFrightsAbracadaver Abracadaver]]", the titular villain traps some people in saw-in-half boxes complete with saws hovering over the boxes, cutting them. He soon uses this on Buttercup in retaliation for punching him into a wall.
239* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'': Principal Haney plans to do a magic show for the school carnival and tries to rope in his secretary Ms. Tingley to be his assistant for this magic trick. She demurs, and he tries to demonstrate by putting a board in the box.
240-->'''Haney:''' It only looks like I'm cutting it, but in reality-- ''[board falls out of the box in two pieces]'' Oops! ''[Tingley runs for it]'' Ms. Tingley, wait!
241* In ''The Four Tasks of WesternAnimation/DangerMouse'', Count Duckula enters such a box and gets DM to saw him in half. DM does so, only the cutline on Duckula goes vertical from head to tail.
242* ''WesternAnimation/GravedaleHigh'': In "Night of the Living Dad", J.P. Ghastly III intends to participate in the school talent show as a stage magician. He attempts the saw-in-half trick on a zombie cat named Clawford, but Clawford gets distracted by the hunchbacked rat who always pesters him before J.P. can complete the trick.
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245[[folder:Real Life]]
246* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.T._Selbit P.T. Selbit]] is credited as the first magician to saw a woman in half. The page picture is referred as a classic "thin model" sawing.
247* Legless performer Johnny Eck (who was also one of the most memorable characters in ''Film/{{Freaks}}'') participated in a variant of this act where his nearly identical twin brother (''who had legs'') would be the ringer called up for the trick -- and during the act, Johnny and a dwarf in pants would be substituted so that the "volunteer" would fall into two pieces ''on stage''. Freaked audiences out, you bet!
248** Criss Angel has since done a variant of the same trick with a legless woman. And himself.
249* Creator/DavidCopperfield did a version where he cut himself in half with a giant circular saw. The trick was set-up as an escape stunt gone wrong--he was supposed to escape from the box ''before'' the saw cuts through it, but the saw malfunctions, drops prematurely, and cuts him in half. For further variation, his top half then completes the escape, before seemingly making the box close up again on its own and reversing the cutting sequence, with no assistants involved in any stage save locking him in to begin with. He also did a ''lengthwise'' sawing of a lady.
250** This particular trick was discussed on an episode of the ''Radio/MartinMolloy'' radio show, with the hosts noting how David Copperfield's lower half seemed much shorter than it should have bee. This was followed by a discussion of the poor man scrunched up in the bottom of the box, and what a terrible job being David Copperfield's arse would be.
251* ''Series/NightOf100Stars'': Doug Henning does this to two beautiful assistants (Florence Henderson and Priscilla Lopez) within the same segment. When it comes time to put them back together again, Henning gives the ladies each other's bottom halves. (Henderson is white and Lopez is Puerto Rican, and the two were wearing different colored outfits to boot.)
252* [[Creator/PennAndTeller Penn Jillette]] once expressed disdain for this trick since it apparently doesn't require any actual skill, "you just stand behind the machine and don't fuck up." In the same breath he stated what the hardest magic trick was: [[SimpleYetOpulent card tricks in a t-shirt]].
253** Their take on the trick, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PoDhuIp3I0 Blast Off/Liff Off of Love]]", runs through it twice: first conventionally, then with transparent boxes to show the amount of dexterity and misdirection needed to make it work.
254* There are a few stage magicians who frame this trick as a kind of operation or surgery. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXN-PYvsDP0 One of these routines]] has it where the magician has to take some foreign object out of his assistant, so after he divides her in two, he removes the dividing blade and "roots around" inside her ribcage. At first he accidentally removes her "heart" briefly before quickly replacing it, and then he removes a noisemaking horn that somehow got stuck inside her, making her unable to stop 'honking' when she was talking to him before the trick began.
255* ''Magic Tricks'' by Norman Hunter has a version that doesn't require complicated props, suitable for kids to do: the magician loops a rope around the woman, which they and a second assistant then pull taut, the rope supposedly passing through the woman like a cheesewire. [[spoiler: In fact, the two ends of the rope double back behind her back, with her holding them in place until the pull.]]
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