Howie Mandel cracks an egg into a glass and finds a note inside. It reads “drowning,” the fear he wrote down during a chicken’s supposed mind-reading act. Simon Cowell has already confirmed his fear of giant spiders; Sofia Vergara has identified hers as dark oceans. The hen, Curry, has helped her handler turn a judges’ desk into a magic stage.
In The CRAZIEST Animal Auditions on America’s Got Talent!, handlers spend nearly 49 minutes asking cats to hang upside down, pigs to play sports and dogs to perform acrobatics with human partners. Some animals deliver on cue. Others leave their humans filling the silence. The pleasure comes from watching both, especially when a carefully introduced trick must wait until its performer is ready.
The cats set the terms
Marina and her mother, Svetlana, introduce themselves with a statement that draws immediate questions from the panel: they train cats. Their household includes 10 cats and one dog. “That poor dog,” comes the reply.
The women then demonstrate what “train cats” means. A fluffy cat leaps through a handheld hoop. A black-and-white cat hangs beneath a horizontal bar and crawls along it upside down. Another slides down a tall wooden pole before dropping into a fabric target. For each feat, the audience can see exactly what the cat must do: cross a gap, traverse a bar or reach a landing.
“They do what they want, those cats,” someone remarks before the routine gets underway. Throughout the compilation, trainers build the equipment, rehearse the sequence and offer encouragement. Onstage, they still have to wait for an animal to act.
Two chickens, two very different jobs
The piano-playing chicken arrives with a claim the judges want clarified. Will the people play the keyboard? No, the chicken will. Her handler describes her as intelligent and quick to learn. Then the bird pecks at the toy piano’s keys to play a tune.
“I mean, I’ve never seen that before,” a judge says. On the small keyboard, the audience can follow each peck and hear the corresponding note. The handler needs little explanation to establish what the bird is doing.
Curry’s act requires far more setup. Her handler asks the judges to write down their fears and pass the papers to Simon, who mixes them. Earlier, the white hen appears to lay an egg directly into Howie’s cupped hands. He has been instructed to hold still, whatever happens.
The handler presents Curry as a mind reader, asking Simon to think about his fear and look into her eyes. When the exchange gets awkward, the handler tells him to concentrate less intensely. Curry eventually indicates giant spiders, and Simon confirms the answer. Sofia’s dark oceans follow.
Howie’s answer comes from the egg. He opens it, retrieves the note and confirms that drowning matches his card. The judges can check each answer before Howie discovers the final note inside an object he has already handled. The video does not explain the method. The handler finishes his magic act with four yeses.
A rabbit makes everyone wait
Shai, who moved from Israel to Los Angeles about five years before his audition, introduces Binnie the Bunny with enormous confidence. He says the rabbit can comb his hair, play instruments and paint. At home, Binnie has a fridge stocked with vegetables and the run of the house.
Shai also has a purpose beyond the tricks. He wants people to understand that rabbits are intelligent and “deserve more respect.” Asked whether Binnie could win AGT, he answers, “I know that Binnie is going to win AGT.”
The routine begins promisingly. Binnie turns around, then rolls a blue bowling ball down a miniature wooden ramp toward pins. Shai celebrates the near-strike and introduces a basketball dunk. Binnie does not dunk on demand.
“We will get back to this,” Shai says. He moves through other promised skills, including musical instruments and taking notes like Simon. Again, he has to pause or move on. He fills the gaps with cheerful commentary while the rabbit declines to follow the planned pace.
Then Binnie rises onto his hind legs and dunks the tiny basketball. After all those postponements, the audience finally gets to see the promised trick. Shai has spent much of the act explaining what his rabbit can do; at the hoop, Binnie follows through.
The dogs bring speed and a reason to dance
Alexandra’s introduction explains why performing with a dog means so much to her. Growing up shy, she had few friends. She got Gizmo at 14, taught him tricks and tried a dog-dancing show. Though she was nervous, working with him helped her enjoy herself.
Gizmo died at eight. “Gizmo gave me confidence,” she says, adding that her life would have been different without him. Now she has Tesla. She arrives from Quebec, Canada, with a dream of opening a dog training center and the hope that Tesla will help her through another nervous performance.
Onstage, a border collie leaps into her arms. As she performs a one-handed cartwheel, a dog vaults over her. Two border collies jump together over her outstretched legs. She and the dogs must reach the right places together, with her own movement part of every obstacle.
Elsewhere, a dog steps onto a scooter and pushes across the floor, balances all four paws on a narrow metal bar, then launches from a trainer’s chest into a backward flip. A tiny chihuahua balances on a gymnast’s shoes while he holds a handstand on blocks. Later, the chihuahua climbs into the miniature cockpit of a model jet fighter.
In one act, performers in hyper-realistic dog masks sit at the judges’ desk while recorded voices imitate the familiar judging exchanges. A small brown dog leaps past them over the desk. The performers also joke about Simon’s reputation for rejection: “Even dog Simon is mean,” comes the response.
A dance partner who divides the panel
Jose Fuentes, 58, offers a less acrobatic partnership with his dog, Carrie. He says he danced as a boy, but his ex-wife would not dance with him. Carrie, he tells the judges, is his best dance partner.
Wearing a frilly black dress, the golden retriever dances upright with him. Afterward, Jose explains that they learned together. One judge praises the choreography and Carrie’s ability to follow it; another says the fun wore off after the first 15 seconds. Heidi Klum votes no. Jose and Carrie still collect the three yeses needed to advance, and Nick Cannon joins the dog for a hand-in-paw slow dance.
The judges disagree about how long they want to watch Carrie dance. Her ability to follow Jose’s choreography wins praise, but one judge tires of it within seconds. Jose holds enough of the panel’s attention to continue, even though Heidi remains unconvinced.
The engineer and the trick pig
John Vincent has spent 22 years working with trick pigs. He also tells the judges he is an aerospace engineer working on NASA’s Orion project. The judges have plenty to discuss before Mudslinger touches a prop.
The pig opens by pulling a cord with his snout to raise a miniature American flag. John then sets out a putting hole and introduces golf, joking that practice might make Mudslinger as good as Tiger Woods. The pig nudges the ball into the hole.
For soccer, John asks for more than a shot at an open goal. Mudslinger must dribble around three cones before putting the ball into the net. He completes the route. Later, Heidi kneels onstage and offers the pig a biscuit directly from her lips.
Other pigs handle their own stage business. A spotted pig unrolls a long red carpet with its snout. A smaller pig clears miniature hurdles. A large sow stands on her hind legs and pushes a red baby stroller. The audience can judge each attempt by watching the ball reach the putting hole or the pig clear the hurdle.
Near the end, a giant tortoise moves slowly toward an outstretched strawberry. Watch the full video to compare its pace with the dogs flying through coordinated jumps. Stay with Binnie through the delayed attempts, too, to see the basketball finally go through the hoop.