Pros and Cons
Anthony Riniti on Saturday, March 15th, 2014 Comments Off on Pros and Cons
PROS AND CONS
An original unscripted television format
Created by
Drew Levin and Tip McPartland
America’s top hustlers pull off and bust real-life stings at the pool table and on the streets
Executive Producers
Drew Levin
Hector Galán
TMC Mediaworks Ltd
Galán Inc.
Copyright © 2009
PROS AND CONS
There’s always been a certain romance associated with hustling pool and other forms of gambling-related cons. Operating on the fringes of the law, yet not breaking it, our stars are America’s top hustlers and their profession is the edgiest, and at times the most dangerous, job in America.
PROS AND CONS revolves around the world and friends of one of America’s top pool hustlers, Anthony “Chef Anton” Riniti. Anton literally wrote the book on separating marks from their money at the billiards table, “The Pool Hustler’s Handbook” and also happens to be a two-time national trick shot champion.
Joining him in pool hustling is his mentor, also a legendary pool shark, Frank “The Barber” Almanza who can always give a sucker a good haircut.
Running all the classic street cons using world-class sleight of hand skills is six-time Magic Castle magician of the year Whit Haydn. When he hits the streets it’s like Criss Angel magically turned into Criss Devil.
Rounding out the team is the winsome Kharlie Carlton, who combines blonde beauty with girl-next-door likability that gives her a very special skill set in the scamming world – the ability to charm just about anyone into doing just about anything.
Since 1996, Whit and Anton have taught the School for Scoundrels, a four-week course conducted once a year at the Magic Castle in Hollywood to teach magicians, gambling experts and law enforcement officers the history, psychology and methods of street scams such as Three-Card Monte, Fast and Loose, and the Shell Game.
Every episode features two actual classic scams brought to the screen with hidden camera and covert reality production techniques. But don’t worry, at the end of each scam the mark gets his money back, and shares a good laugh, or sometimes a good cry, with our team while benefitting from a well-learned lesson.
In the third and final segment our team turns from scammers into scam busters. They start by playing the mark and letting themselves get sucked into somebody else’s con game. As we see the scam unfold, every detail and nuance is revealed in voiceover commentary and close-up insert shots.
This could be a street hustle, business fraud, or an everyday rip-off like a crooked car repair shop. But whatever the scam, it’s something the viewer might encounter and fall for some day, but after watching our scam buster segment, they will be forewarned and forearmed.
Although they’re the best in the nation, and probably the world, at what they do, not each one their scams goes smoothly. Marks can become suspicious, confrontational and even violent, and getting a pool cue or a newspaper rack upside of the head from a mark’s drunken biker friend is just one of many occupational hazards our team faces on a daily basis. Like Chef Anton says, “You earn respect on the wrong end of a pool cue.”
Although not every scam is a pool hustle, our team operates at some of the Los Angeles area’s top pool halls and card rooms, where they draw in and work the over-confident and often cocky marks with studied subtlety and practiced patience while the audience savors every step of the sting.
Sometimes the con begins with Charlie’s irresistible flirting, using her aura of accessibility to make the mark think he’s getting really, really lucky.
Little does he know that his luck is seriously taking a turn for the worse when she introduces him to some of her fun-loving buddies – who just happen to be hanging around.
A few good-natured card games with Whit Haydn and the sucker’s been sucked dry and perhaps learned a little bit about his own limitations.
Other cons begin when a cocky “pool shark” is running the table while running off at the mouth about what an awesome hustler he is.
When he meets the unassuming-looking Anton and wins his first few games, he’s driven by greed and ego into the hands of our team, who make sure that his wallet is completely empty before they’re done, and more than likely they’ve also taken the watch right off his wrist without him even noticing, as Anton has done to the famous Minnesota Fats.
OUR TEAM
CHEF ANTON earned his handle not by cooking food, but by scamming $50 a day from a top New York chef day after day. It wasn’t just that Anton conned the chef, it was that he kept him coming back for more day after day. People said Anton would end up owning the restaurant and becoming a chef himself, and the name stuck.
Anton earned his reputation the old fashioned way, through years in the pool hall trenches, and ultimately cinching his status by defeating former World Champions at the Commerce Casino’s Legends of 9-Ball Tournament to become the first Two-Time United States Trick Shot Champion of Pool.
But Chef Anton is much more than a hustler and trick shot artist, he’s an entertainer.
Due to his unique blend of pool, magic, and comedy, The Magic Castle in Hollywood featured Chef Anton as its first ever billiard trick shot artist. Even the magicians were left saying, “How did he do that?” He has also been showcased on numerous television shows including: Crook & Chase, Prime Time Country, and Talk Soup. His appearance on ABC’s Monday Night Live was one of the highest rated programs of the season.
Besides being an entertainer, Chef Anton is also a popular and highly-regarded speaker. Through the knowledge gained on the streets of New York, Anton is internationally recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on hustling and con games. He is the co-teacher and co-founder of the 
Magic Castle’s School for Scoundrels. This unique four-week course teaches the history, theory, technique, and application to magic of the ancient street swindles the Shell Game, Three Card Monte, and Fast and Loose.
Furthermore, Anton is the creator of the award-winning video Chef Anton’s Magical Menu of Pool Ball Wizardry. This hour length performance tape was voted “The best billiard trick shot video” by Pool and Billiard Magazine.
Producers and network execs for NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox are no strangers to Chef Anton. Due to his unique expertise, Anton has been Technical 
Consultant for the production and choreography of pool hustling and scamming action on numerous hit television shows such as Will & Grace, Roseanne, Spin City, Boy Meets World, Malcolm and Eddie, Mr. Rhodes, The Steve Harvey Show, Meego, and Home Improvement.
Whether on stage in Las Vegas at Treasure Island or performing close-up at an elegant cocktail party for Hollywood’s top celebrities, mystified onlookers are always treated to one of the truly unique and most entertaining acts in prestidigitation. Just ask Minnesota Fats, Richard Pryor, Nicole Egert, and football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson who all had their watches surreptitiously removed from their wrists, only to appear in a sealed envelope, inside Anton’s zippered wallet.
WHIT “POP” HAYDN is the co-founder and co-teacher (with Chef Anton) of the School for Scoundrels. Since 1996, he has worked with Anton to teach magicians, gambling experts and law enforcement officers the history, psychology and methods of the classic street scams.
Many of the artful moves that make Whit a master hustler stem from his world-class skills as a magician.
The winner of six “Magician of the Year” performing awards from the Magic Castle, in February 2006 he also became Vice-President of that organization.
As a stage magician he has opened for Jerry Seinfeld, the Smothers Brothers, Loretta Lynn and others, and was one of the first acts chosen to open Caesar’s Magical Empire in Las Vegas.
He was the chief magic consultant on Norman Jewison‘s Bogus starring Whoopi Goldberg, Gerard Depardieu and Haley Joel Osment as well as a consultant on multiple television documentaries including the Discovery Channel’s Houdini, People Came to See Him Die and David Copperfield‘s television special, Orient Express.
He is known as an “original performer,” meaning that he is one of the members of the magic fraternity who actually creates new methods and routines for classic magic effects that are then performed by other magicians around the world.
Few things amuse Whit Haydn more than coming across a small-time card sharp running a back alley Three Card Monte hustle and falling into the man’s trap, well… sort of.
After Whit has lost a few hands, the cheap con man starts feeling his oats and begins to raise the stakes. That’s when Whit does his thing and teaches the wannabee grifter a valuable lesson about who’s who in the zoo.
FRANK “THE BARBER” ALMANZA has been involved in the game of billiards for nearly 50 years and has won many titles in his career including the Pacific Coast Championship. Considered a living legend, he also captained two teams to victory in the National Eight Ball Championship in the early nineties.
Born in Mexico, he can speak unaccented California English or fluent Spanish (as can Chef Anton), definitely a useful skill in the Southern California area.
He continues to compete in Southern California pool tournaments and regularly wins, places or shows. He also frequently serves as tournament director when not competing himself.
Frank was Chef Anton’s mentor as his career and skills grew, and the two of them can often be seen frequenting their favorite pool hall haunts together.
Frank also has an incredible home game and entertainment room that will sometimes function as a location and possible home base for our show.
KHARLIE CARLTON rounds out the team, and is a key element in many of their hustles. She combines beauty with a likable and trustworthy face that belies her exceptional table magic skills, applicable in a wide variety of street scams.
But her primary skill is to con a mark into thinking that they’re getting somewhere with her, then using her MENSA 150+ IQ and street smarts to make them putty in her hands. She’s also a professional actress who can play any role to a “T,” is an exceptionally talented musician, and also has a modeling background. Her father was a famous pro wrestler named “Lord Carlton” who can be seen in epic matches on Youtube to this day.
STORIES FROM CHEF ANTON
Hustling Minnesota Fats
One day Frank and I were in a pool hall looking for a couple of suckers. In comes Minnesota Fats and a friend. While we had no intention on hustling old Fatty, we decided it would be fun to kill some time and play a match.
Fats, trying to hustle us, said he would only play pool if Frank would play a game of chess with his friend. We agreed, and later I was playing Minnesota in a race to 9 while Frank was playing his partner in a game of chess. Both matches were for $1,000.
I was beating Minnesota 8-2 and I asked Frank how the chess game was going. He said he lost his Queen early and has been running ever since and was certain to lose. Now we’ve been hustling together for so many years that we can communicate with a wink and a nod, so I nodded after his wink. The next time I was breaking the pool balls, he leaned back making way for the cue ball. It looked like a really sloppy break, but somehow the cue ball came flying about ten feet and landed dead center on the chessboard, scattering the pieces all over the floor. Since it was impossible to re-position the pieces, the game was a draw. Frank and I split the $1,000 I won in the pool game and we both had a good laugh
Chico from Chicago
One of the funniest and scariest story is when we went into a Chicago bar looking for a game. We did find one with a seedy looking character who went by Chico. He was big and round with a silver necklace. After a few hours of playing he said he was out of money and for us to wait a few minutes.
He excused himself to go to the bathroom and returned with a scarf over his face and with a gun. His rotund physique and silver necklace left no doubt as to who this masked man was though. We could sense it was as much by reputation and force of personality as by the gun that he held up everyone in the place including us.
He then returned to the bathroom and a couple of minutes later he came out with a smile on his face and said ok we can play some more, I’ve got more money. No one there said a thing. It turned out he was the baddest individual in town and did what he wanted. We quickly pulled out of that game. Sometime later we heard that he was killed execution style while sitting in his car.
Prince of Arabia Scam
A gentleman named Abdul “The King of Arabia” calls me one day to explain his only son is getting married in Long Beach in a month and they want to hire me for some entertainment. We agree on a price of $1500 for an hour’s work. Three days later a FedEx envelope appears with a check for $2105.
I am familiar with this scam as the next step is for me to deposit the check and them to ask me to send him back the difference. I hold onto the check and later in the week Abdul calls frantic because he no longer has airfare to go to his son’s wedding and requests I send him his $600. For the next two weeks, I had fun playing with this fish listening to him try to convince me to deposit the check while I kept giving him options for his lack of airline travel.
The Bum and the Diamond Ring
A rich looking woman drives up to a gas station in an expensive car. When she is done getting gas, she starts frantically looking on the ground. When the gas attendant offers assistance, she explains she lost a 5 carat diamond ring worth many thousands of dollars, not to mention that her fiancé just gave it to her when he proposed, so the sentimental value makes it irreplaceable. She told the attendant that she would gladly give a $5,000 reward for its safe return. She leaves him her cell phone number and drives off.
A couple of minutes later a bum walks by and picks up something from the ground and continues to walk away. The gas attendant runs after him, realizing that he found the ring. The only problem is that the bum won’t give it up.
The gas attendant starts by offering $20, but the bum won’t do it. Fired by greed for a sure-thing big score, the attendant finally maxes his ATM card and gets the ring for $500, thinking he totally ripped off the stupid bum.
The attendant calls the woman and finds the number is disconnected. He then goes to a jeweler and finds out the ring is cubic zirconium and worth about $10.
Drive a Golf Ball 500 yards
I had a standing bet that I could drive a golf ball over 500 yards. The conditions were that it had to be on a golf course of my choosing at a time I wanted.
Moreover, the ball could go out of bounds. One day a guy accepted my challenge. We both gave $5000 to a third person to hold.
A week later, on the coldest day of a cold New York Winter, I called the mark and said, “Meet me at the Riverwalk Golf Course.” We stepped onto the tee box of the 13th hole which was a 525 yard par 5.
You should have seen the look on his face when instead of hitting the ball into the fairway, I turned around and hit the ball onto the frozen river behind us.
For all I know, the ball bounced down the river til Spring
Got a $10 for ten ones?
A buddy and I were in a Chinese Restaurant when I was approached by a guy who asked if I had a $10 for ten ones. I reached into my wallet and handed him the $10 bill and he dropped the ones into my lap. I scooped them up and he said “Wait a second, you gave me a $1 bill, not a $10.” He then took his singles back and handed me the $1.
As he was walking away, I said “Stop.” Now he probably thought I was gonna scream about how he robbed me. Instead I said, “That was a great move. I will give you $20 to show me what you just did.”
Drew Levin
Executive Producer
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
TMC Mediaworks
Mr. Levin is an entertainment industry veteran and company leader with more than 25 years of proven international production, distribution, financial, marketing and management experience and has produced and distributed all forms of media properties to more than 100 countries worldwide.
He is an Emmy Award- and Cable Ace-winning producer who has executive produced more than 3,000 hours of critically acclaimed documentary, reality and dramatic television series and specials, movies-of-the-week and miniseries, live events, game shows, and animated and live‑action children’s programming for US networks, cable and satellite outlets and international broadcast venues.
Over the course of his illustrious entertainment career, Mr. Levin has successfully built private and publicly traded media companies in the US and Europe and has raised more than $100,000,000 for his companies and projects.
Mr. Levin’s extensive reality-based and documentary credits include Future Quest for the PBS Network, for which he received an Emmy; Cosmos: A Special Edition, a critically acclaimed miniseries for the Chris Craft Station Group, hosted by the Nobel Prize-winning astronomer, Carl Sagan, and based upon the award-winning PBS series; Shadow Theater, hosted by Robert England (of Freddy Kruger fame), for USA Network; Hollywood Stuntmakers, FX Masters, Superstars of Action, Mysterious Forces Beyond and World’s Most Mysterious Places for the Discovery Networks; and Stephen King’s World of Horror for MTV.
His entertainment series and specials include the long-running BBC hit series, Top of the Pops, which he produced for the CBS Network; A Very Special Christmas, starring Madonna, also for the CBS Network; The Montreux Rock Festivals for the BBC, MTV and Showtime Networks; and the BRIT Awards for the BBC and MTV.
Mr. Levin’s dramatic-series credits include Total Recall 2070, adapted from the blockbuster feature film and produced for Showtime Networks and Polygram TV for syndication in the US, for Sky TV in the UK and for ProSieben in Germany; his well-received adaptation of Jack London’s classic novel, Call of the Wild, for Animal Planet; and MTV Network’s first drama series, Live Through This.
Among Mr. Levin’s numerous movie-of-the-week credits are Earthquake in New York, one of the Fox Family Channel’s highest-rated original movies; The Matthew Shepard Story for the MTV Network; and Final Jeopardy for the ABC Network.
In his current position as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TMC Mediaworks, S.A., Mr. Levin has aligned his company with exceptional independent producers spanning the globe. He has also been instrumental in developing the company’s slate of global documentaries, specialty reality series and primetime network competition programs.
Mr. Levin has spear-headed the launch of the company, TMC Mediaworks, with new documentary and reality-based productions ready for worldwide distribution in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 broadcast seasons. Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses, based on the New York Times bestseller by award-winning author Bruce Feiler, aired during primetime on the 357 member stations of the PBS Network in January 2006, achieving phenomenal ratings in the top 50 metered markets.
TMC’s creative team is in preproduction on the company’s continuing historical/archeological/travel programming with its upcoming ten-hour primetime series The Route to Christianity for the PBS Network.
Mr. Levin will also executive produce Latin Rhythms with Hector Galan directing for the PBS Network, his company’s exciting new three-hour rockumentary series to be hosted by Carlos Santana, which traces the growing diversity and influence of Latin music over the last century and will be broadcast in conjunction with a two‑hour live concert featuring a very “today” collection of the world’s favorite Latin bands.
Hector Galán
Executive Producer – Director President
Galán Inc.
Hector Galán has been creating documentary films for over twenty years. He has produced and directed eleven films for the PBS series FRONTLINE, two films for THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, and many critically acclaimed and award-winning independent films such as feature documentaries, music documentaries, and documentary series. Galán founded his independent production company, the Austin Texas based Galán Inc. Television/Film in 1984. For more on Hector Galán, see the biography link above.
Galán Inc. productions include the series Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, New Harvest, Old Shame, Shakedown in Santa Fe, Cuba:Personal Journey, Los Mineros, The Hunt for Pancho Villa, Songs of the Homeland, Forgotten Americans, Vaquero The Forgotten Cowboy, Accordion Dreams, Los Lonely Boys Cottonfields and Crossroads and many more. Check out the catalog lnk above for films available on DVD.
Most recently, Galan Inc. completed production on The Big Squeeze and is at work on The War Within, a two hour PBS Film that will the story of Latinos in America’s Wars Check out the complete filmography on the link above and featured film clips below.
Tip McPartland
Sr. Vice President, Production and Development
TMC Mediaworks
Currently Vice President, Production and Development, for TMC Mediaworks, Mr. McPartland was previously head writer for Budd Friedman Digital (BFD) where he co‑wrote and developed National Lampoon’s Funny Money, which garnered a 65-episode buy on GSN. During his tenure with BFD, the company also produced the primetime ratings winner, 40 Years of Laughter at the Improv for NBC and Comedians Unleashed for Animal Planet.
Mr. McPartland’s credits while at BFD also include co-writing and co-producing the Paul Rodriguez pilot, So You Think You’re Funny!? for Team Entertainment and Pearson Television; writing and producing the Kevin Meaney pilot, In My House, and scripting/producing Budd Friedman’s Cooking With Comics segments for Donny & Marie.
He also wrote and produced the definitive Carmel/Pebble Beach lifestyle TV show, Carmel Magazine, which aired daily in that region on Fox Channel 2 for two successful seasons. Mr. McPartland wrote and co-produced the sci-fi feature Baberellas now in release with Xenon Entertainment and internationally with Vision Films. In August of 2007 a clip from Baberellas was featured on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He recently penned a for-hire feature script for Todd Stevens (Co-Executive Producer of Friends and Producer of Joey) and has optioned or written-for-hire numerous other feature scripts.
Mr. McPartland’s recent work also includes comedy writing for Planet Hollywood’s Planet TV and penning a series of dramatized marketing videos for Canon Corporation. He has written music reviews for LA Jazz Scene and countless magazine articles, including five recent cover stories.
Also an accomplished DP, Mr. McPartland holds that credit on director Rob Bowman’s (X-Files, Reign of Fire) America We Stand As One which had the distinction of being the most downloaded Web video in the world.
In his current position as Sr. Vice President Production and Development for TMC Mediaworks, Mr. McPartland co-created TMC’s global documentary The Journeys of Paul, the first two hours of the six-hour, historical documentary, The Route to Christianity. He also and rewrote and repackaged the other four hours. Mr. McPartland also created the upcoming Showtime 90-minute special, Green Collar Comedy, and he is in development or preproduction on several other upcoming TMC projects.
TMC Mediaworks