Although Maven did not consider himself a comedian, he spent much of the 1980s performing and headlining in comedy clubs throughout the United States. His one man show,
Thinking in Person, ran for two months at the
Beverly Hills Playhouse in 1988, Maven occasionally played a magician character (often as himself) on various television series, such as
Magic,
The Art of Magic and
The MAXimum Dimension. He appeared in television series in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Portugal, and Chile. which toured in science museums in cities such as Los Angeles and Boston. He performed often in Japan and spoke Japanese. Maven starred as the title role in
FOX's 1992 Halloween special ''Count DeClues' Mystery Castle
. His performed his interactive magic on The World's Greatest Magic'', NBC's highest rated special of 1994. He was a judge for a number of episodes of the 2008
reality TV series
Celebracadabra. Maven appeared in
sitcoms and television dramas, including as "The Great Mentos" in the 1995
Fresh Prince of Bel Air episode "Save the Last Trance for Me", the 1982 episode of
Mork & Mindy entitled "Drive, She Said", and episodes of
General Hospital and
Top Chef. In 2019, he appeared on screen in the documentary about
The Amazing Johnathan directed by Ben Berman and was interviewed by the
Los Angeles Times about recent developments at the
Magic Castle. The well-reviewed feature documentary entitled
Max Maven: A Fabulous Monster was released in 2007 by Reel Time Images. It is available for streaming on Amazon Prime. == Awards and recognition ==