I've seen stage shows many times featuring people who are supposedly in a trance and doing silly things at the request of a hypnotist and then having no memory of it afterwards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXdPYSrVk Are the people on stage just acting? Or are they really under a trance and powerless?
I don't know about this particular performance, but stage magicians, because of the "people skills" that make them so good at their jobs, are very good at hypnosis. They know how to make the connection necessary to lower the barriers to hypnosis.
