History NightmareFuel / Mythbusters

** Made 100 times worse when you find out ''[[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin someone actually sied a similar way.]]''

* The "Stinky Car" myth, in which two pig carcasses were left to decompose for multiple months inside of a car in order to test if it would be possible to clean the resulting stench out of the car. During the attempted clean-up, we don't get to see much of the car's interior thanks to GoryDiscretionShot, and only have the {{squick}}ed-out reactions of the crew to go by, but this arguably invokes NothingIsScarier as to what the inside of the car and the pigs' remains looked like.

* While the catastrophic failure of a water heater is spectacular to behold, the end result of what several hundred pounds of steel propelled by superheated water is capable of doing to a house, much less any poor bastard in the flight path, is made more disturbing by the fact that ''[[http://www.combustionsafety.com/secured/pdf/safetyalerts/star_spencer_lesson.pdf its actually happened.]]''

* While the catastrophic failure of a water heater is spectacular to behold, the end result of what several hundred pounds of steel propelled by superheated water is capable of doing to a house, much less any poor bastard in the flight path, is made more disturbing by the fact it's actually ''[[http://www.combustionsafety.com/secured/pdf/safetyalerts/star_spencer_lesson.pdf happened]].''

* [[https://youtu.be/ziQWDnFSPt8 In an interview session with fans]], someone asked about myths they couldn't show, specifically the most disturbing one. Adam then begins telling about the time they decided to test the old adage "The cardboard box has more nutrition than the [insert sugary cereal's name here]." The experiment was simple enough: they had their control rats with normal rat pellets, Group 2 which got Fruit Loops cereal and Group 3 got pellets made of cardboard. Each group had 3 rats. They proceeded to leave the rats with their food with plans to come back and test their health stats after a set period. After said period was over, they came back and discovered Group 3 now consisted of one rat and 2 skeletons! College students who saw this had absolute fits in horror and absolutely ''no one'' wanted to air this experiment (although [[NightmareFetishist Adam apparently found it hilarious]]).

* ''Everything about the Underwater Car myth, '''especially''' the Inverted revisit.'' Just watching Adam go down with the car is uncomfortable by itself. Imagining yourself in Adam's place, in a car that's sinking for real, is some serious nightmare fuel. Taken UpToEleven with the Turn Turtle revisit. Just watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-eK_cpTsOw this video]] of Adam detailing his experience. (Also keep in mind that Adam technically "died" in the experiment. He had to use an emergency air supply, which someone in a real-life situation wouldn't have.)

* At a con, a fan asked Adam about the biggest disaster the team had behind the scenes. Adam revealed that at one point, Kari, Grant, and Tori were investigating the potential explosive properties of some common material, and what they found was so explosive and so easy to make that they destroyed the footage and [[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain agreed to never disclose what they learned]].

** It gets worse, it turns out Adam failed partly because there was an unexpected variable that nobody had anticipated; the car originally belonged to a smoker and the residue made the water acidic, ''blinding'' Adam on top of everything else. Congratulations smokers, the mythbusters have officially discovered a new way for your secondhand smoke to horribly, ''horribly'' kill you and those close to you.

** The standout was the Bamboo Torture Myth.
** The Chinese Water Torture myth is this as well.[[labelnote:*]]For reference, this "myth" was to figure out whether the water torture really works as described, as it normally sounds so innocuous. In it, the prisoner is held down on a flat surface and restrained with a water dropper apparatus positioned directly above their forehead. At random intervals, a drop of water would fall and land on their forehead. Sounds simple enough, right? Even harmless. But the idea behind it is that it takes a combination of things to be effective: Prolonged exposure, usually several hours; restraints that become more uncomfortable to be in over time; a head restraint that ensures that the prisoner cannot turn away or reposition herself from the drops hitting the exact same place every time; and the randomness of the drops' timing make it impossible for the mind to anticipate the drops falling and "brace" itself for the impact; and finally that while the water itself won't cause any physical harm, the forehead has many nerve endings that make it sensitive to touch, all the more so over time as the prisoner has no choice but to focus on it, like one not feeling a mosquito bite until they notice it and it becoming aggravating and unable to be ignored once they do; all of these combined are what will make it effective.[[/labelnote]] Seeing Kari break down like that was brutal. Made worse because we all knew she was with friends who would get her out of there the moment she made the slightest noise. [[ColdBloodedTorture Imagine if it were real, and the people surrounding her didn't give a withered crap about her?]]
*** Possibly even more disturbing is the reaction of [[CloudCuckoolander Tory]]. Seeing such a [[OOCISseriousBusiness normally goofy and fun-loving guy so deadly serious and obviously concerned]] really drives home how unpleasant the situation must have been. When poor Kari started crying, Tory IMMEDIATELY gave the order for her to be released.

* The high-speed camera also counts, particularly when showing anything biological. Unless it's Adam being slapped in the face, ''that'''s just plain hilarious.
* There are two words guaranteed to make long-time fans cringe: "Chicken Hand": several chicken thighs sewn together to mimic a human hand -- which is disturbing in itself -- to test the results of an improper grip on a revolver (holding one's thumb against the cylinder gap). It nearly severed the thigh. Worse, this was based on a real incident, the results of which they see in a photo they weren't allowed to show to the camera.
* Also ''smashing quick-frozen heads'' to see if they would shatter like glass (as shown in ''Film/JasonX''). They brought out their trusty ballistics gel again, used a similar substance for brains...and used ''actual human skulls''. Then for even more added realism, they used ''pigs' heads''.
** They even said in the show that they couldn't show the original clip just because it was so disturbing, and had to substitute with a cheesy cartoon re-enactment.
* '''Everything about the Underwater Car myth, ''especially'' the Inverted revisit.''' Just watching Adam go down with the car can be uncomfortable by itself. Imagining yourself in Adam's place, in a car that's sinking for real is some serious nightmare fuel. Taken UpToEleven with the Turn Turtle revisit. Just watch [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-eK_cpTsOw this video]] of Adam detailing his experience. (Also keep in mind that Adam technically "died" in the experiment. He had to use an emergency air supply, which someone in a real-life situation wouldn't have.)
** In the second day of testing of the ''first'' experiment, Jamie told Adam that the image of him going underwater in the car [[http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/adam-savage-on-underwater-car/ didn't let him sleep the previous night]].
** Adam has stated several times that the Inverted Underwater Car is the scariest and most dangerous stunt he's ever done, as in this particular situation, him not panicking was the only reason the test went without incident.
* Likewise, Jamie's time being buried alive...and the coffin started buckling.

* Though it was never actually aired, during filming of the Build Team's test of decapitating heads (using goats' heads as stand-ins), Tory mentioned he found how easy decapitation is particularly disturbing.
* The explosive decompression myth was proven "Busted" but as a measuring stick, they did explosively decompress an airplane and blew a huge hole out of the top of it. It gave Jamie a rude reminder of how bad something like that could be if the plane was in mid-flight.
* When testing that a human voice could shatter glass, they were first doing tests with speakers and Jamie attempted to mimic the tone that the glass made to shatter it and it came out as this frightening, metallic noise. Adam said he had a nightmare with this kind of noise in it once.
* The "bomb baby" DIY bomb robot that Jamie built for the "Fire in the Hole" myth. I mean, look at the thing!
* Jamie's "Lawnmower from Hell". So over-the-top crazy that it actually ''sheared its own blade off'' before they could get the high-spectacle ending they wanted. When was the last time that happened?

* Attempts at testing the "Killer Ceiling Fan" myth started out fairly innocuously, with the tests involving a household fan showing that it wouldn't do much more to a person than just give them a few bruises. Then they tested an industrial fan, showing that if you jumped into it from below it'd practically scalp you, and if you jumped into it head-on it'd slice your neck open, both of which were graphically demonstrated by the ballistics gel dummy they tested the fan on. And ''then'' they tried to replicate the result of the myth -- that a fan could actually decapitate a person -- by building the "Fan o' Death", a set of razor-sharp blades attached to a lawnmower engine, which utterly mangled (albeit still failed to decapitate) another dummy, and was deemed by Adam "one of the most upsettingly lethal things" they'd ever created on the show.
* A malfunction during a scale test for the "border slingshot" myth resulted in the catapult throwing the 2kg test weight they were using back towards Jamie, Adam, and the crew, leading to Adam remarking about how bad it could have been had that happened with the '''10kg''' bowling ball they intended to use for the second half of the scale test. As if to illustrate Adam's point, said malfunction happened again when they actually did move onto testing with the bowling ball. Fortunately, after the first incident they had reconfigured the slingshot so they could set it off from a distance, but the danger they could have been in was amply demonstrated when the bowling ball was launched backwards into a camera, destroying it.

** The Chinese Water Torture myth is this as well[[labelnote:*]]For reference, this "myth" was to figure out whether the water torture really works as described, as it normally sounds so innocuous. In it, the prisoner is held down on a flat surface and restrained with a water dropper apparatus positioned directly above their forehead. At random intervals, a drop of water would fall and land on their forehead. Sounds simple enough, right? Even harmless. But the idea behind it is that it takes a combination of things to be effective: Prolonged exposure, usually several hours; restraints that become more uncomfortable to be in over time; a head restraint that ensures that the prisoner cannot turn away or reposition herself from the drops hitting the exact same place every time; and the randomness of the drops' timing make it impossible for the mind to anticipate the drops falling and "brace" itself for the impact; and finally that while the water itself won't cause any physical harm, the forehead has many nerve endings that make it sensitive to touch, all the more so over time as the prisoner has no choice but to focus on it, like one not feeling a mosquito bite until they notice it and it becoming aggravating and unable to be ignored once they do; all of these combined are what will make it effective.[[/labelnote]] . Seeing Kari break down like that was brutal. Made worse because we all knew she was with friends who would get her out of there the moment she made the slightest noise. [[ColdBloodedTorture Imagine if it were real, and the people surrounding her didn't give a withered crap about her?]]

** The Chinese Water Torture myth is this as well. Seeing Kari break down like that was brutal. Made worse because we all knew she was with friends who would get her out of there the moment she made the slightest noise. [[ColdBloodedTorture Imagine if it were real, and the people surrounding her didn't give a withered crap about her?]]