'MythBusters' Q&A: Taking On MacGyver

Entertainment Weekly ^ | 2/20/08 | Mandi Bierly

[Sloth]

‘Smash Lab’ is such a lame rip-off of Mythbusters. Discovery seems to think that the reason for the latter’s success is ‘blowing stuff up’, when it’s actually also dependent on having likeable, interesting people doing the work.

[Digital Sniper]

Just wouldn't want to be the soup kitchen that got the carcasses from the Corpse in the Corvetee segment.

Coffee -> Nose -> Keyboard

Ow. Thanks. ;~)

[Digital Sniper]

I concur. I only watch bits of “Smash Lab” on the DVR. I fast-forward through everything until they get to the actual test. This pares the showing down to 10 minutes. Usually less.

[Young Werther]

Nice beakers!

[johnthebaptistmoore]

The “Ejection Seat” episode was the funniest episode so far, IMHO, and the episode that ends with a cement truck completely exploding into almost nothing was one of the most amazing episodes. The sound of that cement truck as it exploded was intense.

[Doomonyou]

Just wouldn't want to be the soup kitchen that got the carcasses from the Corpse in the Corvetee segment.

LOL! That was pretty nasty!

[Ditto]

You got to love a girl who knows how to handle power tools.

[Hegemony Cricket]

BFLR

[Steve Van Doorn]

I used to like that show when it first came out.

Then I realized they do NOT do their home work before starting their show.

For example: In one show they ‘busted’ a myth that fire dropping equipment could not have sucked up a scuba diver. If they just did a search on the net they would have found it was from So. California and the superscooper Bombardier 415 on a fire detail in Calabasas a few years back.

This is Superscoooper just about to fill its tanks.
They never even looked at this plane in their show as a possible source of what took place when the scuba diver was sucked up and spit out on he fire.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Oh, I have one. It was called ''Killer Cable Snaps.'' It's the idea that if a cable gets stretched to its breaking point [say, on an aircraft carrier], that as it whips when it snaps, it can slice you in half. And to cut to the chase, we got a bunch of pigs and cables stretched to their breaking point, and the pigs weren't being sliced in half. We started the day thinking we were going to prove this, and we ended the day busting it. And I will admit that I was really hoping to see high-speed shots of cable slicing through pig carcasses, and I would have rather seen that than the dents that we ended up making in the pigs.

You mean the Navy training film about "synthetic snap-back" was total bravo sierra?

[lowbridge]

You will notice of course that “Mythbusters” has NEVER taken on the facts of Chuck Norris.

[Oztrich Boy]

In one show they ‘busted’ a myth that fire dropping equipment could not have sucked up a scuba diver. If they just did a search on the net they would have found it was from So. California and the superscooper Bombardier 415 on a fire detail in Calabasas a few years back.

Dude. it's a myth - the story gets told as occuring everwhere - details change.

"the superscooper Bombardier 415 on a fire detail in Calabasas a few years back." couldn't be the origin becuase the myth goes back to 1987 - before Bombardier 415 was flying

And they measured the intake scoops on another scooper aircraft (a Catalina as I recall) - size is similar on all scooper type flying boast - and decided no way a diver is going to fit through a 4" wide slot - MYTH BUSTED

[grey_whiskers]

You will notice of course that “Mythbusters” has NEVER taken on the facts of Chuck Norris.

They can't, now that Ed Parker has passed on.

Cheers!

[Steve Van Doorn]

The only time I heard the story it was body parts not a whole body.

[Steve Van Doorn]

Either if the story is true or not why don’t they at least put some kind of warning out before skimming over the water at 80 kts?

[supercat]

Sometimes the show is okay, but some of their tests are pretty silly.

In the Hindenberg show, for example, they should have done a test with a dirigible (not a balloon) made of rubber cloth and filled with pure hydrogen. Pumping hydrogen into a burning dirigible full of air is hardly the same thing.

Further, they should have undertaken some effort to determine what would be required to trigger the thermite reaction. It's not meaningful to time how long it takes for the dirigible to burn all the way, if the dirigible burns slowly for most of the time and then most of the dirigible goes up quickly.

Also, on a different show, while I was impressed with their "paper machée crossbows", a spear gun would have been a much more effective and practical weapon. Is it plausible that a convict made a crossbow out of paper machée? No, it isn't. On the other hand, it is documented that a convict did build a spear gun out of paper machée. So what's the real "myth"?