Like a bag of microwave popcorn, Criss Angel’s reach is expanding

This little popcorn commercial is, um, blowing up.

We speak of the ad promoting Orville Redenbacher’s Pop Up Bowl popcorn innovation. It’s the unusual marriage of a Midwestern-based snack manufacturer and a Strip illusionist who also happens to star in his own TV show.

He would be Criss Angel, saw-blade wielder, strait-jacket inhabitant and occasional TV commercial foil.

In the new TV ad, the man whose image graces billboard and print ads and who stars on A&E’s “Mindfreak” appears through glass sliding doors of a residence you’d find in any American suburb. Summerlin, even. The magician produces a flattened package, shoves it into a microwave oven and -- voila! -- a quickie snack.

Angel doesn’t actually say “voila!” But that is the effect, as the couple comes away wowed at the self-contained foodstuff.

The heating-of-popcorn-as-illusion concept is Angel’s way of showing he can joke about himself and his art. Oh, and popcorn, too.

“It was very cool,” Angel, speaking of the idea in general and not the temperature of the heated popcorn, said in a phone conversation this afternoon. “We came in with a very, very loose concept, and they gave me the freedom to put it together and lay it out and create it. We were able to have my shop build the stuff, and it turned out great.”

The commercial, filmed in January and reported by my colleague Robin Leach in March, began airing in late April and has been providing the Luxor headliner national TV and YouTube exposure beyond his “Mindfreak” and talk show appearances. It’s Angel’s latest move in a concerted effort to show that he can do the funny along with the 40-some illusions featured in his live show.

“I kind of poke fun at myself,” he said. “I wanted to show I don’t take myself too seriously.”

Beyond the quick commercial pop, Angel is prepping for the launch of his own cable network and Web site, the MBN.tv, this summer. The outlet will be devoted to celebrities, magic and celebrities who perform magic. He’s taped spots with Lance Burton (magician), Ke$ha (also a magician), Flavor Flav (not really a magician) and teen YouTube sensation Keenan Cahill (not a magician, but who has turned lip synching into an art form).

MBN.tv’s headquarters are Angel’s fully furnished, 30,000-square-foot warehouse in Las Vegas, which he says is outfitted with enough broadcast equipment to resemble CNN.

“It’s coming together really well,” he said. “I guess what I’m trying to do is get into other ventures, explore other opportunities, whether it’s on TV or the Internet, to reach people with magic.”

Even if it means making light of pop culture with a bag of Orville Redenbacher.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow "Kats With the Dish" at twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.