Could you guess the name of someone’s childhood pet just by asking them a few questions about colors and numbers?
“Black-ish” co-stars Anthony Anderson and Marsai Martin found out during Monday’s episode of National Geographic’s “Brain Games” hosted by Keegan Michael Key — and the mind-reading exercise left Anderson utterly mystified.
Watch the exclusive clip from tonight’s episode obtained by TheWrap above.
Using only a series of simple questions secretly whispered into her ear by the world-renowned Israeli mentalist Lior Suchard, Martin was able to correctly guess the name of the first dog Anderson had as a child.
“You a witch!” Anderson says to Martin in disbelief, thinking that she’d guessed the dog’s name all on her own. “We ain’t friends no more. How did you do that?”
Just based on Anderson’s favorite color (red), a randomly picked number (seven), a stick-figure drawing of the dog, another randomly chosen color (green), and the knowledge that the dog had died years ago, Suchard was able to deduce that Anderson’s beloved late pooch’s name was Champ.
“It’s very difficult to read minds, so she needed a little bit of help from me,” Suchard said after Key revealed that he was the man behind the curtain all along.
Throughout the rest of the episode, Martin and Anderson will face off in other challenges along with Key involving language, reflexes and reaction times, risk-taking and even mind control in order to explore to differences between kids’ and adults’ brains. At the end, they face off in the Gauntlet’s mental obstacle course. Field correspondent Cara Santa Maria will also use neuroscience to explain why either teens or adults perform better when using reversed controls to drive a go-cart.
Monday’s episode of “Brain Games” airs at 9/8c on Nat Geo.