History Headscratchers / Mythbusters

* The myth was that two phone books interlaced were basically impossible to pull apart. After much trial and cavorting, Adam and Jamie finally get it apart by using a pair of [[TankGoodness frikkin' tanks]]! They then proceeded to label the myth busted. In reality, the only way anyone could actually replicate those results is if you controlled a military power and were VERY bored, if you're a RichIdiotWithNoDayJob, or if you're the frikkin' Mythbusters! Considering the staggeringly low percentage of the population those numbers actually represent, I'd say it fits the criteria for "basically impossible."

** Her artistic skills include putting together the zombie dog, branding the various vehicles they eventually crash. But in all reality her first job was to pose while they took a picture of her butt for the airplane toilet myth. She seems okay with being TheChick, and it is unlikely that Grant or Tory would be effective without Jamie and Adam around. That's part of the reason of a FiveManBand, everyone has their part even if it isn't a big role.

* The ''Hit The Ground Running'' Idiom Test really bugged me (bugs me, actually, since I'm watching it on DVD right now.) Suspending someone above the running surface and [[UncannyValley flailing their legs in an approximation of running]] doesn't prove anything, because there's no momentum from that. If I was testing the idiom, I'd have a runner running on a slightly elevated surface (something like a coffee table) that ends a small distance before the predesignated starting point. That way, the tester/runner lands at the starting point and keeps going. That way, they could compare between a person starting from a stationary position for the first test, and someone literally [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin hitting the ground at a running speed]].

** I'm pretty sure that much of his prior careers are noted on Wiki/TheOtherWiki, and are verified true.

*** According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, the criteria for "busted" is "when the myth's results cannot be replicated via either the described parameters, nor reasonably exaggerated ones". So in this case, because they couldn't replicate the 100ft range the myth was busted by their definition. But I agree that this probably should have been labeled plausible. The newspaper article could have easily exaggerated or misquoted the distance the corks flew, and the Mythbusters have made allowances like that in the past. Like in Exploding Pants where they declared the myth confirmed even though the pants didn't technically explode, just burned rapidly.

*** While the 'They're injecting us with mind control chips' conspiracy today (in 2020/2021) focuses around injections and vaccines, that doesn't mean it did back when the episode was filmed in 2003 - Conspiracy theories are always evolving, after all. To the second point, conspiracy theories have rarely been deterred by being illogical, impractical, or impossible, [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment and that's all that needs to be said on that topic]]. This meant the myth was less 'blood banks and mind control' and more 'can a stud finder detect a microchip?'

* I never liked the episode where they learn that a "jet pack" type of device is somewhere between impossible and suicidal: they never even mentioned the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Miller_(parachutist) Fan Man,]] whose method is far from impossible or suicidal (you're basically flying around in an open parachute).
** True, but they may not have considered powered paragliding a "jet pack type of device". Also, powered paragliding is still very impractical, it's just impractical for different reasons. It's extremely weather sensitive which means for most of the year it's too windy to do it. It's not as versatile as a jetpack-like device (i.e. no hovering, no VTOL, less maneuverability, etc.). It's ''very'' slow (up to 45 mph at most). And it's probably ''not'' something you want to do in residential or urban areas where there are things like power lines and tall buildings to snag your chute on.
** They did mention and even show military jet pack prototypes that were developed in the past. As far as the actual functionality they did what they were designed to do, but the very unstealthy noise and the general lack of a failsafe landed it squarely in the CoolButImpractical category. The myth was using consumer grade materials and an internet design to build your own jet pack, and when people think jet pack they think "strap it on and hover in the air" and nothing that requires a tricky take-off or landing.
*** What bothered me most is them using jet engines to power heli-turbine things, as if that's what ''anyone'' thinks of when they hear jetpack. It's supposed to be a pair of rocket engines!
*** Rocket engines might [[KillItWithFire hurt]].

* The men vs. women pain tolerance test frustrated me greatly. There have been ''multiple'' independent scientific studies that have shown men to have a higher pain threshold than women. See [[http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/65/2/284 here]]. Now just to be clear, I don't question the Mythbuster's methodology or their data. Their experimental model was more or less identical to the study I just cited and I'm sure the test subjects kept their hands in the ice water for exactly as long as Jamie and Adam said they did. However, their conclusion (that the myth of women having a lower pain tolerance than men is busted) flies completely in the face of another independent experiment. Where I come from that's "myth inconclusive" not "myth busted".
** I dunno if they bothered to look at any other studies when they were researching the myth. If they didn't, then I suppose the only data they can be absolutely sure of is what they gathered themselves. Of course, if they ''did,'' then you're right.
** The reason I complain is they've shown in the past that they ''do'' look for things like this when researching myths. When they were testing the "taxi flipped over by jet engine" myth they uncovered a news report from Brazil where that very thing happened. When they were testing "bullets fired up" they brought in a medical doctor who had personally treated victims of falling bullets, and in their Top 25 Myths recap Adam said they dug up a bunch of research that the US military did on falling bullets between the two World Wars while researching the bullets fired up myth. I wouldn't mind if the study I posted above was only just published or was really obscure, but the study I posted was published in 2003 (the same year the pilot episode of Mythbusters first aired) and I found it by simply typing "pain tolerance" into Wikipedia. Oh well. They can always revisit it I guess.
** Pain is a subjective experience modulated by multiple external factors - in this subject area there are no doubt multiple studies that show women have a higher tolerance, men have a higher tolerance, or there is no difference between them. So I guess they could say as a ''fact'' it is busted - but the entire research area of pain tolerance is inconclusive.
*** But that's not the standard they've used in previous myths. "Busted" is supposed to be reserved for things that are absolutely not true under any circumstance. In previous myths if the Mythbusters' results conflict with the results of some other independent study, they either continue testing to try and explain the discrepancy (as with Bullets Fired Up) or they label the myth "Plausible" because it contradicts real-world evidence (as with the first test of the Jet Taxi myth). I am at a loss to explain why they did not do the same here.
** They were testing pain tolerance, not pain threshold. It may very well be that men have a higher pain threshold but lower pain tolerance, and women are the opposite.
*** Irrelevant. They were testing pain tolerance and their results contradicted an independent clinical study. Therefore it was inappropriate to call the myth "Busted".
*** And the comparison to the clinical study is irrelevant when the OP confused "tolerance" and "threshold". Move along.
*** Someone didn't bother to read the study. It found that men had both higher pain thresholds ''and'' a higher pain tolerance. ''You'' move along.
*** Basically, this argument has two things that need to be said 1) the idea that just because the mythbusters did a lot of research about a previous topic does not mean they ALWAYS do it. Yes, they did so for the taxi and bullet myth. Maybe they did for this one, but based on the conclusions they drew, maybe they didn't. 2) There are also plenty of studies indicating women have higher pain tolerances than men in some circumstances, some of which are cited in some relationship books, so if you want to find one stating just the opposite, look around. Regardless, the Mythbusters test shows that in at least one circumstance the fact is busted anyways, and it was 'A' study so if there is some reason you have to refute results I guess there would be some sort of point here, but as it stands, pain is subjective and there are obviously many facets to it's study.
*** In regard to point 1: I don't know how you could have missed this but the fact that they didn't do the proper research in this case ''is exactly the point of this JBM entry''. The Mythbusters have an entire team of researchers on staff who apparently do nothing else but research the crap out of every myth that crosses their desks. Yet they utterly failed to track down a study that I found through a simple Wikipedia search. That bugs me. Why doesn't it bug you? In regard to point 2: I'll take an ''actual'' clinical study over a "relationship book" any day. Relationship books can say anything the author wants them to say. Scientific studies have to stand the peer review test. Plus, their one, single, relatively informal sample is hardly enough to reach any conclusion. Certainly not enough to arbitrarily dismiss every other conflicting scientific study performed under rigorous laboratory conditions. So the point still remains. The Mythbusters inappropriately declared a myth "busted" when the correct conclusion was "myth inconclusive" or at best "myth plausible".
*** What makes you so sure that they ''didn't'' look this up, and ''find'' those studies you refer to, but ''also'' find all those other studies suggesting the exact opposite, and then someone in editing makes the decision that rather than spend time trying to explain a complicated scientific controversy (which studies are the most reliable? What are the confounding factors are how were they controlled? Does upbringing, culture, age, life-experience make a difference? Would women who have given birth have higher pain tolerances/thresholds than women who have not? Sample sizes? Are the various methods for measuring pain threshold and tolerance equivalent?) and getting bogged down in minutiae, they just drop the whole thing, not mention it and get on with the action? Also, the best interpretation of a highly conflicting data set like this is that ''neither'' men or women have higher pain tolerances and thresholds, that the ''variance'' in pain tolerance/threshold between individual men and women is so great that any tiny differences in the ''average'' pain tolerance/threshold between the groups that any particular study measures is ''clinically insignificant'', and essentially an ''artifact'' of random quirks in sample selection, which would make the myth ''busted''.
*** I didn't miss it, but you are still assuming they have an "entire team" of researchers. I've certainly never seen them. The one woman who used to do that sort of thing on camera hasn't been around since the beginning of season one. And even if they do, going into the details of other groups tests isn't really what Mythbusters is for. Open line of the show, "They don't just tell the myth, they put it to the test." There are no promises of outside research. And besides, what is the "proper" research for a team of non field experts looking to demonstrate an experiment for entertainment purposes on basic cable? The reason it doesn't bug me then, since you asked, is that I never expected nor cared if they looked at other studies because they aren't really an official group in any sense of the scientific community. It's like taking political advice from the daily show, it doesn't add up, it's for entertainment. They are a special effects team that dabbles in reasearch, getting up in arms because they didn't catch the details of another study, even if it is easy to find, doesn't make sense. Its not what they do. Most people watch Mythbusters to see what THEY come up with and how they got there. As for the relationship book, it didn't perform the test, it CITED it, and it WAS done by an actual clinical group. So we're back to studies on both sides. Inconclusive in the greater scientific community sure but Mythbusters has never had any stated criteria for result validity. There data supported a conclusion and they stated it. If you want a revisit fine.
*** They do have a team of researchers. They've stated several times that they have a team of researchers. They've even shown some of them on occasion (like during the Brown Note myth when Adam tested out that annoying siren thing). The woman you're referring to was just a folklorist who was hired to give some exposition on the historical and cultural significance of the myth, not a researcher. And there ARE promises of outside research. Have you not seen any of the myths where they specifically reference news articles and academic papers? It IS what they do. It's what they've done from the start of the show. But for some reason they completely failed to do it here. And you're completely misunderstanding the scientific process here. Even if the majority of studies agree with you, if just ONE credible scientific study contradicts your results, you must examine their study. Because it's entirely possible that the majority is wrong and the minority is right. Science does not work by consensus or popular vote.
** "''Science does not work by consensus or popular vote.''" Yeah, it kind of does. The point of experimentation is to test it, and if your results can be replicated, then there is consensus that that's how it works. If you do a test and get one result (say '[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion Electrolysis of heavy water with a palladium electrode generates excess heat, neutrons and tritium]]') but everyone else who ever does the same test gets the opposite result, the consensus is you did something wrong.
*** "Yeah, it kind of does." No, it kind of doesn't. ''Empirical evidence'' is science. "Everybody says so" is not science. Consensus is "everybody says so". Therefore, it is not science. QED.
*** Yeah, it really does. The dictionary definition of [[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/consensus?s=t consensus]], and Wiki/TheOtherWiki article on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus Scientific consensus]].
---> "Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity."
*** Read that article again.
---> "Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the scientific method."
*** "I'm totally unsatisfiable". Gotcha.
*** Yes, I am totally unsatisfied by arguments that are totally wrong. Consensus is ''not'' part of the scientific method. Full stop. Period. The end.
*** Might I remind you of this quote. "Please be cool when you edit. Rudeness is not cool." This may not be a highly strict wiki, but don't be a jerk.
** Just to add in, the studies could very well have different results, because the myth involves people. It's impossible to find a broad definition of on sex being more pain tolerant than another, because the people in each sex are different. There will be women with higher pain tolerances than men and men with higher pain tolerances than women. Trying to find a "blanket" answer of if one gender has a higher pain tolerance than another most likely cannot be proven.

* The Octopus Egg Pregnancy myth was censored down to almost nothing by the higher-ups. Um, if the sum total of the "allowed" footage was so short and (let's face it) incomplete in terms of shown experimentation, why bother? Just pull the whole thing (perhaps turning it into a DVD extra with a content warning) and add extra footage from the other myths!
** That was the American editors being stupid. The full version of the episode aired internationally, and is on the DVD release of the first season.

* In the ''Moonshiners'' special, why didn't they use the modified still Jamie acquired to test the scenario of shack explosion by pressure build-up? That still clearly was manufactured with commercial-level quality and thus was far less likely to allow a burn situation to develop the way Adam's handmade still did. It wouldn't have changed the verdict on the myth, but it would have been great to see both scenarios work instead of just the gas leak + open flame scenario.
* Completely bugged by the Busted verdict on the "Escaping a frontier jail by means of dynamite" myth in the Westerns episode. They positioned Buster right next to the wall where the dynamite went off in order to avoid shrapnel, so of course the outcome was that there was almost no shrapnel and Buster was killed by the shockwave. They should have repositioned Buster on the other side of the cell where the blast pressures would probably have been much lower/survivable and tried again!

* Three fairly serious issues with the [=MythBusters=]' testing of whether video games can serve as a teaching aid: 1) They chose a skill (golf) that is very complex and can be difficult to learn even in a conventional teaching environment, and might have had more success with a simpler skill like shooting a gun or swinging a baseball bat; 2) While they claim during the myth that neither of them had ever played a round of golf in their lives, Jamie actually states the opposite during the "Explosive Lighter" myth (which aired over seven years prior!); 3) To judge the myth based on a sample size of one test of one skill in one scemario, especially when learning proficiency is highly variant from person to person, is completely unfair.

* Throughout "Curving Bullets" I was waiting for them to give a detailed explanations of the physics involved and why simply flinging the gun wouldn't affect the bullet's trajectory. They never did. I understand the basic reasons, but I still would've liked to have them spell it out for me.
** It bugs me too, considering they did often cut to "Warning: Science Content" segments to explain stuff like that.
** This troper was more annoyed with the fact that they said that they would explore "every minute detail down to the bullets' rifling". Thing is, they NEVER spoke on the bullets' rifling during their experiments to the point where this troper wound up interpreting that they didn't even take a gander. Why? Anyone who read the comic would know that it's not JUST the superhuman reflexes and strength of the Fraternity that caused the bullets' curving, but also the fact that the bullets are rifled in such a way that their aerodynamics were changed to allow that phenomenon. The comic explores the bullets' rifling at one point, IIRC.
** In fact, the guns the Fraternity used were Smoothbore handguns, whereas the pistols used by the team had rifled bores.
*** Except, they did test that. They said flat out, they removed the rifling on the pistols for the 3rd round of testing. And messed with the aerodynamics. And the weight of the bullet. All the bullets did was tumble and go way off target. They never curved at all.
* Nerd Rage time: in Series/{{MacGyver|1985}} Myths, the narrator claims that the "classic airfoil shape [...] makes flying possible". Flat airfoils work just fine, they're just a bit heavy on the drag. That's...that's a research mistake, on Mythbusters. Gah!
** For one, it does make flying possible. The fact that flat airfoils ''also'' make flying possible does not detract from the truth of the first statement. Second, without Bernoulli and, by proxy, the classic airfoil shape, it's safe to assume that aviation would not be where it is today.
*** They're built the way they are because a convex lower surface would be significantly less aerodynamic. The Bernoulli effect is just a happy coincidence.

* A minor annoyance coming out of the ''Star Wars'' special: It's stated by Tory as part of the justification for the verdict of Plausible on the ''Return of the Jedi'' log-smashing rig that luck was needed for the Ewoks to have known how high to position the logs in order to hit the AT-ST. A true ''Star Wars'' fan/geek would have known that the Empire spent '''years''' in the Endor system setting up infrastructure and working on construction for the second Death Star, so there would have been more than enough time for the Ewoks to observe an AT-ST and get the height on the logs right without luck being involved.
** Yeah, that bothered me as well. It's not as if AT-STs vary in height. If you've seen one you've seen them all. And the Ewoks are clearly intelligent, industrious, and imaginative. It wouldn't take them very long at all to figure out how tall the walkers are and build traps to exploit their weaknesses.
** With regards to the Star Wars EU, which has had thirty years and some of the most dedicated fans to ever walk the face of the Earth to patch every major and minor plothole with at least three books worth of backstory, they may have simply decided to go with what was seen on screen so as to not get bogged down by EU details the average viewer probably wouldn't know, and because it wouldn't seem like an AssPull.
** They also made it plausible on the fact that it would take an enormous amount of time and energy to put into place and they would have to know where the AT-STs were going to be traveling beforehand. If the Empire decided to take a different route or blast a new road, [[AwesomeButImpractical its another thirty hours to set it up again.]]

[[folder: Production Procedures/Behind the Scenes]]

* How did it take this long for a show about blowing stuff up in the name of truth and science to come about? Why wasn't this happening in 1995?
** Back then we called it ''Series/BillNyeTheScienceGuy'' and didn't need quite so many explosions.
*** Who ever said the Mythbusters '''[[RuleOfCool need]]''' them?
** Realistic answer? Funding and the television production process; thousands of ideas pitches, hundreds of pilots produced, tens of shows make it to the air. ''Series/MythBusters'' on paper is everything TV execs hate: lots of liability risk, "ugly" people hosting (read not young, hot, and hip), no proven "four-quadrant" appeal, etc. If you watch the shows in order, you can see how little faith they had at first.
* In season 8 episode 5, Adam tells us how much money it takes to blur their mouths when they swear. ARE YOU BLURRING KIDDING ME. The show clearly uses digital graphics extensively, but even before desktop editing, blurring a specific area has been a simple procedure since the 1980s at least. Either he lied to have an excuse to build the swear blocking rig, or the editing team apparently is using the only NLE out there that can't blur a specific area.
** Okay, see, there's this obscure thing called a "joke," and when people are trying to be funny, they tell them. The purpose is to make the audience do something called "laugh," which is, generally speaking, the positive reaction to a "joke." Now here's the tricky part: These "jokes," while often grounded in some form of truth, usually rely on some form of exaggeration to be "funnier," and occasionally are in fact blatant un-truths. I know, shocking.
*** I know what a joke is. But it's not an Adam style joke. It seemed he honestly believed that to be the case.
*** Because it's true: as noted below, editors can charge triple figures per hour, they've got strict deadlines to get their deliverables in to Discovery (which can involve footage being shipped across the country several times; Discovery subcontracts out work to production houses in L.A., San Francisco, Boston, and New York), and blurring is an annoying, lengthy task, especially in a situation where people's mouths move around the frame, which is most of the time. It's essentially doing a small, crude animation that has to be rendered (which means editing stations are offline and/or you have to pay for a rendering infrastructure), and depending on their production process, it probably has to be done on ''all'' the footage, not just what makes it to air.
** It's not that the process is SIMPLE, but consider the time it takes for the video editors/techs to go through each show and blur out every little thing that needs blurred. If they're hourly, that can get rather expensive.
*** Considering the production schedule can be months for any given myth/episode, maybe the joke was that between the time of filming and the time of post-production and the time of air, it can be months for the blur to occur in a technical sense.
** Regardless of the actual time and effort, regular sound effect bleeps and mouth blurrings happen only when it is done by accident during the normal course of filming. There are times they go almost a whole season without having to do it once. The trope being tested (whether you have a greater pain tolerance when swearing) would require a great deal of careful editing, blurring and sound bleeping for the entirety of the myth, and likely make a lot of the footage worthless or "controversial" to use. Blurring is the most expensive, however cheap it may be, but I'm certain a 20 dollar headset that took Adam 20 minutes to rig up was cheaper.
** I do wonder if people are aware of how expensive anything can be in the television business. This isn't someone goofing around on their laptop, it's a professional who charges for their time regardless of the project to be done. 150 dollars per man hour for something like that is not unheard of. It might be cheaper if they lived anywhere other than California, which is why shows filmed in remote areas are able to save money despite having to transport cast and crew in.
* How do they not accidentally film another build progressing in the background? Jamie's workshop can't be that big.
** Jamie is a [[Series/DoctorWho Time Lord]] and the workshop is his TARDIS.
*** Looks like someone is doing a poor job of hiding the truth.
** They do, from time to time. Adam's attempted smoke bomb prank in the Mentos and Coke episode interrupted the black powder test, the air cannon is occasionally visible (in its various forms), and I'd have to buy the [=DVDs=] to cite anything else.
*** Speaking of that prank, when is Adam going to properly get his own back for the electric shock? Or has he done that and I've missed it?
*** I haven't seen the electric shock so don't know if this applies (who did what to whom?) but Adam did light Jamie's arm on fire in the Discovery Channel "Boom-de-yadda" video.
*** Side note, from Adam's twitter: http://twitter.com/donttrythis/status/1382196275
*** I think this is a reference to an incident in some static-electricity myth in which a build team member or two (I'm sure Kari was involved, and equally sure she had an accomplice, but I don't remember who) talked Adam into touching an object that had a much higher electrical charge than he was aware it did. As I recall, he was (quite justifiably) seriously [=POed=] about that one, but was gracious about accepting very sincere apologies.
*** Yes, that was during the testing of the ancient battery claims where Kari and Tory got him to touch the electrified gold angel thing. Adam's releasing of the smoke bomb mentioned above was his attempt to get his revenge, but it didn't really work, and I was just wondering if he was ever going to get proper payback.
*** In a Q&A, Adam pointed out that the electric fence incident wasn't the Build Team's idea, one of the producers made them do it. He also pointed out that that producer is no longer working with Mythbusters. I'd say that Adam has gotten closure on the guy who ''deserved'' it, and his talk about payback with the smoke bomb was just him joking around.
*** I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one to suggest the bus ride home from South Carolina if they didn't beat the lie detector.
*** If he was, he probably liked that Grant beat the test, since he wasn't involved with the test (or the show at that point).
** Also, when they did the myth that you remember more stuff under hypnosis they interrupted one of the motion sickness tests. When they had those two actors come in dressed like delivery men and pretend to give Jamie some guff you can clearly see Grant sitting in that spinny-chair thing that makes you puke.
** They've also gotten the production company to spring for a second shop location. Most of the "build team" segments are filmed at M7, separate from Jamie's M5.
** The Solar Propane Wheel from "Free Energy" is visible in the background when Adam undergoes Chinese water torture. Also, the Stone Roller (to see if they gathered moss) was visible from time to time in other episodes from the same season (it was, after all, a long-term experiment).
* So why do they tell you "Do not try this at home" and yet they are giving you step by step instructions on how to do their things?
** It's not like they're a cooking show. And they leave out, or are vague when it comes to really dangerous stuff. But I seem to recall hearing something about them wanting people who ''know what they are doing'' to try it at home. Also, there are times when they do omit the exact steps involved.
--> "You should never mix blur with blur, or things might blow up."
** It's a legal thing. I have a book from a scientist called Theodore Gray who made a coffee table of the periodic table and filled it with samples - and I mean of all the elements he can feasibly get. The book is called ''Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do At Home...But Probably Shouldn't.'' Gray tells you you CAN do these at home but you should be sensible enough to wear eye/ear/skin/etc protection by rote, and if you promise to he will tell you what the real dangers are. Also some of the more dangerous experiments are missing certain points in the instructions, and some of them require equation-balancing - but if you do know what you're doing, well, the experiments are awesome. Who wants to go to the titanium-coated Guggenheim Bilbao Building in Spain with some coke and a battery?
*** I also imagine that most people trying to replicate myths would probably have enough sense to know that some stuff is pretty much ''impossible'' to replicate unless they had access to as much equipment and stuff as the [=MythBusters=] crew did, anyways. Of course there are some like the grease fire myth that actually ''could'' be replicated with household materials. (And they aren't even benign like the Mentos and Diet Coke.) Stuff like the firearms myths? You'd have to be ''really'' stupid to try to replicate some of those, and if there are ''kids'' attempting to replicate some of those myths, then there are some ''really'' irresponsible and/or stupid adults around. (Really? Even the walking stereotype NRA people I know are sensible enough to not let kids get ahold of ''actual'' loaded weapons - especially not military-grade or stuff made for hunting big-game.)
** It's an experiment-driven science show. The whole point is to explain why and a how a theory is true or false, and to do that you have to fully explain the experiment.
** You're not the only one who thought that - Remember the You Spoof Discovery thing? One of the spoofs had Jamie saying, "Remember kids, don't try this at home - even though it's ''really cool'' and we're giving you step-by-step instructions on how to do it." They probably also say it as a disclaimer since avoiding liabilities is the name of the game.
** Let's not forget that most of the myths involved usually require a whole crapload of paperwork, specialized licenses, and often a lot of cooperation from local, state, and even federal authorities. Jamie and Adam at the very least have heavy equipment certifications, firearms certifications, pyrotechnician certifications, and a commercial driver's license.
** Not to mention *where* they are filming most of this show. California has some of the country's toughest laws concerning firearms and explosives. In many other states, it is far easier to get some of the stuff they require for their bigger myths (an example: to get a .50BMG rifle in Montana, you need the money to buy it and about five minutes for a background check). It's likely a concern of the producers that someone in a state where it is easier to perform some of the more dangerous myths might actually try it and get harmed, and are protecting themselves from lawsuits stemming from those accidents.
* This one really is a Headscratcher, it doesn't really bug me. Why do they keep making huge water tanks in the shop? I know they like to film there to seem all rough and all, but that's a ''lot'' of water that could possibly (with the Mythbusters, make that ''probably'') leak and/or burst onto not only the electrical equipment, but the props, supplies, etc. that Jamie has collected and they still use. Why can't they rig up a separate watertight room with a variety of cameras, etc. to do their water tank tests in?
** All those props and supplies are in plastic bins set into shelves making it damn near impossible to accidentally splash water on them. Unless their whole shop comically fills up with water like a Looney Toons cartoon, I don't see this becoming a real danger.
*** When the tank ruptured during "Bulletproof Water", there was a real chance water would have gotten onto the power cords strung around for filming. But I think the reason they don't add on a waterproof filming chamber is lack of room. Maybe if one of Jamie's neighbors moves out ....
*** The Build Team now has their own workshop called M7. They still don't have room for a watertight room?
* In every episode they say something along the lines of: "There was a bunch of stuff that didn't make it to the show, go online and check it out". Fair enough but the reason it couldn't be on the show is that they are limited to 43-44 minutes. That said, why the hell are they always repeating every fucking thing to the extreme? They explain the myth twenty times, they explain what they have already done two or three times and you have already watched it and re-watched it. Other shows from The Discovery Channel and The History Channel also do this past its logical sense, while BBC's Horizon and other BBC science shows are quite moderate in repetitiveness. I try to avoid the stereotypical american being fat, illiterate with severe case of ADD but Mythbusters do not help with the latter two.
** They're making it so viewers can start watching at any point without too much confusion. Wasn't it obvious?
*** Well, no. No it wasn't bloody obvious. The cartoony re-capped explanations after every commercial break make perfect sense but explaining a simple compression chamber three times in less than ten minutes, no commercials mind you, is just draining my willingness to watch this otherwise highly enjoyable show.
*** You're forgetting that this is a pop science show. A big part of its intended audience are kids and people who aren't scientifically inclined by nature. Exactly the sort of people who would appreciate regular recaps.
*** There's also a good dose of ViewersAreIdiots at work here. You'll notice as it went from cult show to semi-mainstream phenomenon these bits became a lot more common.
** I agree with you. I like the Buster's Cut versions of episodes they've been doing lately, precisely because there's more action and less of that repetition garbage. Also seems to be slightly less annoying narrator.
** In one of their Behind the Scenes specials, (if I recall correctly) they say that they operate under the idea that if someone is flipping through channels, and they see that a bunch of guys are dumping a car into a swimming pool or dropping toast off a building or launching a water heater through a roof or whatever, the viewer would want to find out what the heck they're doing. Therefore, they need to have explanations every so often so anyone just tuning in will understand immediately and keep watching to see what happens.
* The opening narration. "They don't just tell the myths, they put them to the test." No.. they don't tell the myths at all. They go right to the testing. Sometimes they ask 'have you heard the myth..?' but that's not the same as using the myth as an ostensibly true statement. ''this drives me insane.''
** Then that's your problem. "Telling the myth" doesn't mean the same as "using the myth as an ostensibly true statement." It means ''telling you what the myth is'', and that's what they do. The show is science, not story time.
** This is mainly to distance themselves from shows that ''do'' simply tell the myths and leave it at that.
** TheArtifact from when exposition lady was part of the show.
** "''This is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put''".
** You're parsing the statement wrong. It's not "They don't just tell the myths, they ''also'' put them to the test," but more like "They don't ''merely'' tell the myths; on the contrary, they put them to the test."
*** The statement is: "They don't JUST tell the myths,...(emphasis mine)" infering that they do tell the myths. Ok, well, when they tell you what myth they are going to test, they usually do a bit of elaboration. So they do in fact tell the myths.
* They stated in their official forum that they won't test any 9/11-related myth and it's pretty understandable, but they tested myths related to Titanic and Hindenburg disasters which also took lots of human lives and left lots of families without parents and children, isn't it the same thing?
** DistancedFromCurrentEvents, perhaps? The last survivor of the Titanic died in 2009, and there probably aren't all ''that'' many Hindenburg survivors or witnesses still around, since that event was in 1937. On the other hand, an event in 2001 still has a ''lot'' of remaining survivors, witnesses, families, and so forth.
** This also has something to do with the fact that at least nine out of ten 9/11 Myths are based around the whole event being faked by the government to justify a war on terrorism. Everything from demolitions being used to implode the towers to the terrorists from the planes all being actors/government agents has been bandied about by various theorists. I think general reasoning is that, aside from being disrespectful it would also be a case of 'way too soon' for a show that involves so much comedy to go into excruciating detail debunking various myths about how things didn't happen the way the government and news say it did. Personally, I'd be tempted to agree with their wishes on the subject.
** Also most of them are easily untrue, like the [[MemeticMutation ever popular]] "jet fuel can't melt steal beams" which don't even require physical tests; you can point out the faulty logic in it with a simple engineering book. It would likely make for dull television on top of being insensitive, not to mention ridiculously difficult if not impossible to test in scale.
[[/folder]]

* You know what bugs me? How rarely the full team works together anymore. This last season especially, they're treating Adam and Jamie as a separate unit from the Build Team. Does anyone else miss when all five (or at least some) were involved as a team effort? Now it feels less like a FiveManBand and more like TwoLinesNoWaiting with completely separate casts.
** On the other hand, two separate teams allows them to tackle far more myths. If all the cast members are occupied testing one single myth they won't have time to test any others. And realistically, they don't actually ''need'' all five Mythbusters to test a single myth most of the time. If you put all five of them on, say, the myth of the paper crossbow, you'd have a lot of people with nothing to do but stand around.
*** I'm not saying do it ALL the time, but every once in a while (enough so it doesn't feel like an actual CrossOver, which at this point it would) would be nice, you know?
** The Seesaw Saga was cool. That required all of them, and it was only last season.
*** Although there was a new episode that had the entire team to attempt for the third time to bust the JATO rocket car myth. So yeah.
*** They called it successful, too, even though the car faceplanted 50 feet from the ramp and bounced...
*** It was a successful ''test''. They got the car to jump off the ramp with the rockets, as opposed to the last test, where it just exploded. They said the myth was definitively busted.
* It just bugs me when they waste an episode testing something obviously false on the face of it, or which is only testable through ludicrous means, or just flat out uninteresting. Case in point, Knocks Your Socks Off. Does anyone really care if you can punch someone out of their socks? Worse, a second episode to answer fan griping.
** The little white mouse and his pal the elephant would like to say hello.
** [[RuleOfCool They just really like having an excuse to break things in hilariously over the top ways]].
*** Exactly my point. It amounts to {{Flanderization}} of a science show. The majority of myths tested are still great but some of them amount to an ExcusePlot to blow something up or hit it with a remote controlled car.
*** And you're complaining...why? These guys are FX engineers, not research scientists (and ''[=MythBusters=]'' isn't a science show). It would be entirely surprising if their interests didn't veer toward destroying things.
** It was a massively viewer-requested myth, so yeah, a lot of people DO seem to care if you can punch someone out of their socks. And knock your socks off is just an outgrowth from previous myths where they tested common idioms, like needle in a haystack, bull in a china shop, hit the ground running, and polishing a turd. Plus, think about this for a minute. Couldn't you say the same thing about ''almost all'' the myths they test? Was anyone really aching to find out whether cheese fired from a cannon could pierce a ship's sail? Was anyone really being kept up at night wondering whether Hungarian archers get twice the penetration when firing from horseback? Did you really care whether Beatrix Kiddo could have really punched her way out of a coffin and dug herself out of her own grave?
*** You'll notice a trend that nearly all of those are b-grade build team "myths." Occasionally they test something then at the end of the episode reveal that it wasn't even necessary to test it because previous research already proved one way or another. That certainly doesn't qualify as "almost all" the myths tested, especially when you compare to the myths tested by Adam and Jamie or earlier seasons. At least a few of them qualify as genuinely cool, or pack enough quickies into a show to maintain pace (such as ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'' episodes, where you often know it will be busted but at least they do a dozen myths in one show).
*** Fair enough, but you're still left with the same problem. Was anyone really that interested to learn whether it really is hard to find a needle in a haystack? Did anyone really care whether a duck's quack can echo? Was anyone frantically puzzling over how easy it is to shoot fish in a barrel? Probably not, but it all made for good tv. If you're complaint is that this particular myth was boring, I'm right there with you. But just because ''you'' don't care about something doesn't make it automatically not worth caring about.
*** That's the beauty of science. It is the pursuit of knowledge, no matter how trivial or stupid or obvious it may be. It's there for you no matter what you ask. The fact is that they knew more at the end than they did at the beginning of the episode, and that is science in action.
** Also, they've been on for [[LongRunner eight seasons]]. They might not always be able to find the coolest, most uber myths evar. This is part of why they request suggestions from viewers.
** Also, if they only test things that they think or feel are obviously false, that's not good scientific inquiry. It would also result some myths never getting confirmed/plausible because they seem initially very silly (or vice versa). As well, by testing the crazier myths, they can also retain a level of impartiality and professionalism - you can't say they edit things to make the show look good or to get a lot of busted results. And, if you're only testing what you know, you're not really figuring anything out anyway... which is, in part, the whole point of the show (figuring out new stuff no matter how silly it is).
** The team often snarks or complains if given what they call an 'oogie-boogie' myth, like Pyramid Power, Free Energy, or Anti-Gravity.
* In the episode where they visit the JATO rocket car myth for the third and final time, they put weight on the front of the car in order to balance the weight of the rockets they put in the back. My problem is that if they didn't put that weight on the front, the car might have gone further.
** There may have been an actual rocket science reason for that. For stable flight, you need to have your center of gravity in front of the calculated center of pressure, else the rocket is unstable. The mass of the car and the fact that it isn't aerodynamic may have left them no choice.
*** Essentially this. If they hadn't balanced the weight correctly then the lighter front would be lifted up more than the heavier back, pointing the rockets at the ground and causing the car to do backflips. Well, more than it did anyway.

* The Cesium myth just bugs me. You know the viral video where the Cesium made such a big boom? Yeah, guess what it was in? A ''bathtub''. They tested it in a ''toilet''. Why didn't they use a Bathtub to replicate that myth?!
** Because it wasn't about what the Cesium was contained in, it was about whether a Cesium explosion is comparable to a hand grenade explosion. It doesn't matter what container they use so long as their control (the grenade) is in the same container as the Cesium. Also, [[RuleOfFunny exploding toilets are funnier than exploding bathtubs]].
*** Also, they did blow up a few bathtubs. One with a couple kilograms of sodium, one with another huge bunch of a different alkali metal, and one with a grenade's worth of C4. The grenade made a far, far bigger boom than any amount of alkali metal did.
* In the "Greased Lightning" episode, they did ''one test'' with flaming peanut oil to see if pouring water on it could create a 30-foot fireball. After this one test, they called the myth unequivocally busted because the fireball only reached 25 feet.
** No, they ''aired'' one test. They've said on many occasions that they always perform many tests but most of them don't make it on the air.
*** I'm pretty sure they even said it on '''that''' occasion. Something along the lines of "We've tried several times, and the highest this has gotten was 25 feet. Which is high, but not the 30 feet of the myth. So the specific myth is Busted, but this is definitely not something you want happening in your home." Not a direct quote, but they do say things like this a lot.
** The point of the myth was that the oil and water would create a big-ass fireball, and the 30 feet was obviously just some random but plausible number thrown out there. They focused on the 30 feet figure and ignored the fact that it did create a big-ass fireball.
*** The point of the myth was that ''eight ounces'' of water would make a thirty foot fireball. It didn't. The highest the fire got was twenty-five feet, and even that was a maybe since the fire was obscured by smoke. They tested other ratios of water to oil and got much higher fireballs, but the specifics of the myth were not met, so it was busted.

* They make a rain rig to test the "do you get wetter running or walking" question. Then they fill the thing with water dyed ''red.'' Why red? Why not blue dye, or orange dye, or something that doesn't look like it's raining blood?
** It'd be pretty out of character for them to miss the opportunity to make it rain blood.

* It just bugs me when they trot out an urban myth or idiom that sounds like a variant they made up to make things more entertaining. The "You Can't Shine Shit" thing might be passable (although I'd always heard the term as "You can't polish a turd" - which would seem to preclude shaping said scat). But the version of the "One-Inch Punch" (from Ninja Special II) I'm familiar with said that Bruce Lee could throw a punch and ''stop'' and inch away from his target and still knock them down. And I'd always heard a hurricane could drive straw ''into'' a tree trunk (which they did, BTW), not clean through. Whether it's me being ignorant of idioms or the Mythbusters putting a thumb on the metaphorical scale, it bugs me.
** It's you being ignorant, dude. Sorry.
** First of all, there's a lot more to the One-Inch Punch than just punching something from really close up. To quote [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-inch_punch the other Wiki]], "When performing this one inch punch the practitioner stands with his fist very close to the target (the distance depends on the skill of the practitioner, usually from 0-6 inches). Then in one explosive burst, the legs root, the waist turns, the ribs expand and the arm extends through the target. '''It is crucial that the entire body move in unison, or else the power will be limited.'''" Lying down horizontally in the ''extremely'' confined space of a coffin would make it extremely difficult to perform a proper One-Inch Punch. Secondly, even after dialing the rig up to the highest recorded windspeed at ground level, they only got the straw to penetrate a quarter of an inch. Not nearly deep enough for the straw to stick into the tree, the wind would probably rip it right back out again.
*** Yeah, but unfortunately for the Mythbusters crew, one of my grandmother's prized possessions is a chunk of fence with a piece of straw through it from a 1940-ish twister in Monroe, Wisconsin. It's in a case in her living room where it's sat for years. Just because they couldn't replicate nature's fury under laboratory conditions doesn't mean they managed to prove anything.
*** "Chunk of fence" =/= "tree"
*** And "tornado" =/= "hurricane." Tornado wind speeds can actually get quite a bit faster.
** The general procedure is that they do the myth as stated, or parallel experimentation that tests the substance of the myth as stated, and then if necessary change the conditions to produce the ostensible effects (justifiable as confirming that the myth is false by showing how unlikely real-world circumstances are to have the claimed outcome but mostly just [[RuleOfCool fucking awesome]]).
** I have to agree, though, they often state the myths as totally different from how I heard them, or interpret them differently. I think that's just the nature of folklore.

* When all else fails, add dynamite, even if it has nothing to do with what they are testing.
** ...That ''bugs you''?!
** In the show's defense they've never tried to hide the fact that they do it for RuleOfCool.
*** Though they claim, sometimes, that it's to replicate a myth about an explosion. "Well, fire alone didn't make the piano explode. What would a piano look like if it were to actually explode? Well here you go!"
*** That piano myth was such a wasted opportunity. The myth was that a fire would cause the piano to fold in on itself. When they showed the fire didn't do that, they just blew it up? Huh? I wanted to see them make it fold in on itself. Maybe use some det. cord to weaken that big steel armature inside, or rig up some remote saws or something. Not just blow it up.
*** But they never stated the myth was that the piano would fold in on itself, or even implode. They stated the myth was that fire would cause the release of tension resulting in an ''explosion.'' It was specifically stated to be an explosion myth. Hence, they were not gonna wrap up until something exploded. It's what they do.
* Dear Mythbusters: Please use the Metric system or US Imperial units. Pick one and stick with it. Don't use both, and ''especially'' stop using both in the same sentence.
** Oh, you'd '''hate''' Canada, wouldn't you? It's quite common practice there and in some of the US.
** This Troper loves using both, they work very nicely together. Measure tiny things in mm and cm, then work up to inches and feet before requiring meters...
** In the U.S. there are several things that are measured using the metric system, especially liquids and small amounts of matter. That's just how it works here, so they can't really be blamed for that.
** Try working in any kind of scientific laboratory in the US. Metric/USI measurements are used completely interchangeably, to the point where this troper sometimes has to think hard to remember which terms belong to which system. Possibly worse is the constant switching between celsius and fahrenheit- your samples are overheating at 20 degrees, while outside it's 31 and snowing. Wha-?
** This Troper works in an engineering shop that manufactures medical implants and surgical tools, and is used to cutting raw material into manageable sizes measured in inches, then using cm and mm to measure the details of parts once they've been machined into shape.
* Why in the world do they have a British narrator for the British broadcast of Mythbusters? It's the same language, so what's the point?
** First, it's fairly common because it's usually easier to understand one's own accent than one from another country. Second, just because the languages are the same doesn't mean the words mean the same thing because of dialectical differences. For example: the word "paraffin". To Americans, it's a type of candle wax. In Britain, it's kerosene. The old George Bernard Shaw quote about the US and UK being two countries separated by a common language does sometimes hold true.
* Why, after so many years, does the narrator '''still''' say that Adam and Jamie have "between them, more than thirty years' special effects experience"? Jamie ''runs'' an F/X company, and AFAIK he and Adam still put together an occasional effect for movies or commercials, so even if their work for the show doesn't count as "special effects experience", you'd think the count would be past 40 years by now.
** [[MathematiciansAnswer Well, 40 is more than 30. . .]]
** It could also be something as simple as not wanting to change the sound of the show's 'theme song.'

* The Narrator. He Just Bugs Me.
** Right there with ya. If he would stop making [[LampshadeHanging blatantly emphasized puns]] [[DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible puns]] and pronounce things like 'guillotine' correctly, I might be able to tolerate him. As it is, he's the most irritating part of the show. The cast themselves explain what's going on more often than not, I don't see why they even need a narrator.
** In some of the early episodes that were aired in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} the American narrator was replaced by an Australian(?) narrator reading the exact same script. He wasn't any better.
*** Ironically, the narrator in the US version (Robert Lee) actually lives in UsefulNotes/{{Sydney}}, Australia.
** In Britain we have a different narrator by the [[UnfortunateNames unfortunate name]] of Robin Banks.
*** Unfortunate, or AWESOME?
** I've seen a couple website clips that use the British narrator. He doesn't put the same painful emphasis on the puns and I really prefer him.
* Maybe not exactly the narrator, but the narration: In one episode involving concrete, Jamie mentions in passing he used to be a concrete inspector, only to be immediately droned out by the narration claiming that this is boring drivel only nerds would be interested in. Considering 99.9% of the audience are nerds that actually *would* be interested in what a concrete inspector does, why did someone in the production choose to insult their own audience like that?
** Because not all nerds are NDT Engineers? Hell this troper finds NDT to be one of the most boring parts of the job.
** Also, 99.9 percent of the audience being nerds is a completely ridiculous assumption. You don't have to be a nerd to like explosions and cool stuff, which is most of what the Mythbusters do.
* The narrator said "Swedish sauna" in one episode. Sauna is Finnish invention.
** While we're at it, Robert Lee also consistently mispronounces "dorodango" in the "can't polish a turd" myth - it's pronounced with a short "A" sound, he says it with a long "A". Seems the post-production guys at Beyond Productions generally aren't half as good at research as the [=MythBusters=] themselves.
*** To be fair, when I saw the word "dorodango," I thought it was with a long "A" sound, much like the way I pronounce "Tomato". This seems to be less of research problem and more of an individual's way of pronouncing words. Besides, researching how to pronounce a word that seems easy to pronounce seems almost like a waste of time that could be used instead for narrating more Mythbusters.
* I've just kind of been wondering lately why no member of the team is a certified explosives expert by now. Of course, maybe one or more of them are and they just like having more experts around for extra safety.
** You mean a licensed pyrotechnician? I imagine there's many years of education that go into that, which the team doesn't really have time for. And they've got access to licensed pyrotechnicians through their FBI contacts, so it's not like they need to be licensed pyrotechnicians themselves.
*** Well, they always call that contact "FBI '''explosives expert''' Frank Doyle," so I used that term. I'm sure it does take years, but they have spent years doing this and they all hang out at the bomb range quite a bit, is all. Maybe first-hand experience isn't enough, but on the other hand they can get their hands on some volatile metals, so maybe they do have some credentials.
*** They probably are. But considering the scale of some of their tests, they may need to call in the FBI simply to avoid legal trouble. After all, some materials can be highly regulated and making bombs can be potentially illegal. Also, it gives them a measure of expert opinion to avoid accusations of "Well you didn't do that right... a -real- expert would have done it this way."
*** I know I've seen an article that referred to Jamie as a trained pyrotechnician, but even back in season one (before [=MythBusters=] took over M5) they brought in pyros instead of having Jamie do the work. He doesn't strike me as the sort of person to let his license lapse, but maybe his is limited to the size of charge that would be used in effects work?
*** Getting certified to use explosives is (relatively) easy; it's basically an extensive safety course. Getting certified to ''buy'' them is something else again; it's a lot cheaper and easier to pay Frank Doyle for his time than it is to go through an extensive and invasive federal background check.

*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint You misunderstood me]] (I wasn't clear enough). I don't think that calculations can replace experiments - especially in an entertainment show. I don't think science is some sort of class at school. However - the experiments have to have some cause (even if it is 'what will happen in such conditions'). Here the cause was to test the plausibility of some myth. However the frequency and length was key element in it - you cannot just scale down model and expect it to test it as it would not work. They did not get valid date (here - descriptive data - not quantitve data) - they did not prove or disprove myth and the plausibility of it was not affected. For the same reason in sterilized enviroment why Earth cannot model neutron despite having wavelength & co. is that the correlation between mass, wavelength etc. are different you cannot always build small model of something and expect it to work in any way similar to real thing. [[Administrivia/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike I didn't complain about show I don't like]] - I find it enterteining and promote "scientific" approach. *However* I do complain about this specific show because it did not tested what it was suppose to test.
*** That myth was done early in the show. You have to keep in mind that these guys are not scientists. Their profession is in modelmaking and special effects. Their line of work is all about scale models. In industry they are called "look like" models, which are meant to only superficially demonstrate what is going on. Granted, they did not need the model, but they admitted it wasn't enough to confirm anything, and so that's why they went to experts. You can't blame them for using the training and tools they work with.

*** "Very hard is winning the nobel prize. Impossible is eating the sun." This myth was doomed from the start seeing as they were using the word impossible in it's literal context. Even if they were unable to separate the two phone books, even with tanks, that doesn't necessarily mean that no force in the universe is capable of separating them. I do agree that the myth is essential confirmed in that it is not possible within believable limits.

** I think they were just trying to emphasize that it's a very scary thing, and the fact that it both becomes a firey explosion and a nuclear explosion are not directly related.

** TooSoon, perhaps? The last survivor of the Titanic died in 2009, and there probably aren't all ''that'' many Hindenburg survivors or witnesses still around, since that event was in 1937. On the other hand, an event in 2001 still has a ''lot'' of remaining survivors, witnesses, families, and so forth.

** Also most of them are easily untrue, like the [[MemeticMutation ever popular]] "jet fuel can't melt steal beams" which don't even require physical tests; you can point out the faulty logic in it with a simple engineering book. It would likely make for dull television on top of being TooSoon, not to mention ridiculously difficult if not impossible to test in scale.

*** You'll notice a trend that nearly all of those are b-grade build team "myths." Occasionally they test something then at the end of the episode reveal that it wasn't even necessary to test it because previous research already proved one way or another. That certainly doesn't qualify as "almost all" the myths tested, especially when you compare to the myths tested by Adam and Jamie or earlier seasons. At least a few of them qualify as genuinely cool, or pack enough quickies into a show to maintain pace (such as Series/MacGyver episodes, where you often know it will be busted but at least they do a dozen myths in one show).

* Nerd Rage time: in Series/MacGyver Myths, the narrator claims that the "classic airfoil shape [...] makes flying possible". Flat airfoils work just fine, they're just a bit heavy on the drag. That's...that's a research mistake, on Mythbusters. Gah!

** I know she seemed to do a lot of building with the bamboo ultralight in the Series/MacGyver episode.

** Eggman is ''also'' all three: walrus mustache, bald head and engineering genius. If these two ever meet, they'll be an unstoppable WorldDomination team.

*** I'd like to meet this person who watches Mr. Bean and honestly thinks it's at all representative of real-world physics. [[YouFailPhysicsForever It must be a hoot when they watch Looney Toons.]]