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Penn Jillette has always been outspoken. He and his silent partner in magic, Teller, have more than three decades showing audiences the secrets behind their most spectacular tricks. And on Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, which is about to enter its sixth season on Showtime, the pair debunk commonly-held beliefs about everything from the Bible and people who claim to speak to the dead to gun control and what the 9/11 conspiracy movement.

But those two platforms aren't enough for Penn. Up until recently, he hosted a syndicated talk radio show, which he gave up in part to concentrate on his stint on Dancing with the Stars this season. But he hasn't stayed silent; in January, Jillette started posting a series of short videos called Penn Says, which can be seen on the C Spot portion of Crackle, a Sony Entertainment website that has a number of exclusive video series. In these shorts, Penn turns on the camera and speaks extemporaneously about a topic that comes to mind, from Thomas Jefferson to the shelf life of calling Hillary Clinton a "bitch."

I spoke to Penn about Penn Says, the Hillary joke, Bullshit! and what he got out of being on Dancing with the Stars. The interview is after the jump.

Joel Keller: How did you get started with Penn Says?

Penn Jillette: Sony came to me and said that they loved my radio show and asked if I could do something in short formats and I thought about it -- not long, a couple of hours -- and then came to them and said that what I like about doing the radio was when I was sitting in front of the microphone and had an idea, and what I hated about doing the radio was that I was sitting in front of the microphone and didn't have an idea. It seems that it'd be pretty easy to only talk when I had an idea and just carry a video camera around and do that, and it turned out to be very very different than anything else I've done and I've really enjoyed it quite a bit.

JK: When you're doing the videos, is it something where you go, "Oh something's come to mind so I am just going to turn the camera on and start talking?" Or do you plan the topics out a bit more?

Penn: I have some real rules on this and one of them is that I do not like to do retakes. I'm knocking on 100 of these and I think I've done retakes on maybe four or maybe five. The other thing is, on Bullshit! and on the live (Vegas) show everything is written out and written out very carefully, and even when I do TV appearances I pretty much have a very good idea of what I'm going to say. I want the feeling of this to be informal and like you're sitting over coffee talking. I try very hard that when I start running it over in my head two or three times I try to stop and actually turn the camera on.

JK: We know obviously that you like to speak about all sorts of different topics; you like to debunk common knowledge about what people think about things. What has been the topic that you've discussed on these videos that you think has gotten the most surprising response?

Penn: I would say that Maureen Dowd in the New York Times doing an editorial that talked about (one of my videos) was way beyond anything I expected. It was the one I did about, a joke I did on the show about Hillary Clinton and my shock at the audience reaction. The joke didn't mean much to me but the audience reaction was so astounding that I did one about that and it ended up being talked about quite a bit and Maureen Dowd commented on it in a way that was also surprising, and mostly it was surprising because she agreed so much with me and I thought that was fascinating. That's sort of surprising for the New York Times.

JK: What was the joke?

Penn: I did a joke about Hillary Clinton being unlikeable ,right? Kind of a straight pun surprise turn that's in the middle of another bit in our show where I just throw in about a minute in the show I throw in a topical reference or two and I have to throw it in and the reaction I got was positive and screaming and applause.

(It was) a joke that was just kind of mean-spirited about Hillary, not even very interesting, and I just said it's amazing because even the people that want to vote for Hillary don't like her. We haven't really had that unlikeable a person in the public eye since Nixon, who nobody liked but yet became president because he was so smart. I think that with Hillary, nobody likes her but she keeps going because she's so ruthless and I found that fascinating and I didn't expect with Obama, everybody likes him including the people who are against him. You know?

It's so interesting that we have, we haven't had this since Kennedy-Nixon. You know, likeable and unlikeable going up against each other. And it was pretty interesting and it just shocked me that reaction and then of course once I did the video it shocked me that other people would notice this. Dave Barry wrote me a great email and said "I had the exact same experience. You threw in a Hillary joke and got this response all out of quality of joke." That's what I found fascinating.

JK: Now that your fans have heard your radio show and they've seen Bullshit!, they think they have your politics figured out. If they see your videos are they kind of surprised at the turn it takes?

Penn: I like to think that... anybody likes to think they're not that easy to figure out. But yeah, it seems that people are still a little bit surprised on my take on certain things. And of course I'm also wrong on stuff, so that makes it easier to be surprised.

JK: What was one of the moments where you were wrong?

Penn: I was wrong on a big Thomas Jefferson quote about education. My entire knowledge of Thomas Jefferson's view on education was wrong. And now because of doing a Penn Says on it, people have been doing more research and I'm just learning a huge amount. It's a funny way to get information but it's been working for me (laughs).

JK: Are the people who point out your mistakes nice about it or are they condescending?

Penn: Well, they probably do if I'm wrong but I don't perceive it as condescending. People are very polite. They're wonderful.

JK: Is another season of Bullshit! coming up?

Penn: I was writing it all day today and we start shooting next week.

JK: Do you find that there are endless amounts of topics to do on Bullshit!? Or are you as time has gone on that you've been finding things harder and harder to examine?

Penn: I have found no shortage whatsoever. There seems to be less intellectual bull, more intellectual bullshit than there is literal bullshit. There's plenty.

JK: What are some of the topics you are going to take on this season?

Penn: This year: World peace. Dolphins. Stranger danger. The good old days. NASA. Natural healing. And others. (laughs)

JK: You debunk magic in your act with Teller. You do a lot of debunking on Bullshit!. Why do you like doing that?

Penn: I'm afraid the answer I'm going to give may appear to be to saccharin, but I think truth matters. I really do. That phase you go through in junior high where truth really really matters? We never outgrew it (laughs). It matters to me a lot. I love being corrected when I'm wrong. I don't like when people are disingenuous and I think that truth is always beautiful and is always good.

JK: What was the episode of Bullshit that got you guys the most flak?

Penn: You know, this is the surprising one. Everybody wants me to answer the Bible one, the creationists one, the Christian ones... and they were very polite and very good. The one that got us the most flak, the one that the police was called in, was the 9/11 truthers.

JK: Oh really? You're talking about the conspiracy people, the ones that are saying that the Israelis blew up the Twin Towers or the Americans blew it up or something like that?

Penn: Yeah, it seems like the most controversial think we've said on Bullshit! is that the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists. (laughs)

JK: That's interesting. What happened? Did they leave death threats?

Penn: Well there's always that, but they're pretty few and far between. What really crossed the line on this was one of the 9/11 truthers called up crew members of ours at home. Somehow, as the figurehead, I expect to get the flak. People that work on the show shouldn't.

JK: Is it interesting then that Teller's gone off and done some solo things here and there lately. I think he did some Shakespeare stuff.

Penn: Well, he did Macbeth.

JK: Right! I know he did it in New Jersey recently.

Penn: Greatest production of Macbeth probably ever. We've always done stuff on our own. We have never been a monogamous partnership. I went and saw Macbeth and it's breathtaking. I don't know if you've seen it yet but it's perfect.

JK: Would you be willing to do something like Dancing with the Stars again? Was that a good experience for you?

Penn: Oh sure. I love to learn stuff and I think I'm rather... most of the people on Dancing with the Stars seem to be shocked that they were learning something new, whereas I took up bebop bass, upright bass when I was 45 years old. I'm always learning new shit. I just love it more than anything. So I didn't like... doing the show kind of meant nothing to me but learning something new was good.

JK: Do you dance with your wife at this point now?

Penn: Not much, she's taken a few little lessons and we might, but because it's been very busy lately because we're writing Bullshit! and keeping that going, and we've got Letterman on Monday (note: Penn and Teller's segment aired on Friday), so there's not a lot of time for dancing around.