A lot of the myths they do isn't so much testing the truthfulness of a myth, but gathering data on a subject. This goes all the way back to the first season and the weather balloon chair, they knew the myth was true because of the police reports but they wanted to verify all the claims and factors involved.
Everyone knows that the surface tension of water is not far off a solid surface, especially at certain speeds, but the question is about how close it really is. Their testing showed that the difference was far more significant than expected.
Suddenly my DVR recorded a new episode. I had no idea the new season started!
So they tested that scene in RED where Marvin killed the lady who fired a RPG at him by shooting it in midair. Wow, I just saw that movie a couple of weeks ago and literally one of the first things I thought was "I wonder if Mythbusters could test that?"
Sigh... It's gotten to the point where testing movie stunts isn't something cool and different anymore, it's just a sign that they've run out of better material.
Did anyone see that scene and seriously wonder if it could work? You don't go to action movies for plausible stunts, you go for extraordinary feats.
Fresh-eyed movie blogI don't doubt that if you could hit it, it'd explode. The implausible part of that (besides the aiming) was that it only exploded backward.
If they're doing myths like that, they'll eventually do the shot in Superman Returns where the bullet bounces off his eye.
"So the force plate says that a bullet at that range would impart this many Newtons of force in this area, meaning his eyes are ten times stronger than titanium, let alone steel. 'Man of Steel'? Myth busted."
edited 29th Sep '11 5:30:11 PM by TParadox
Fresh-eyed movie blogThey ran out of urban legends years ago. "Myth" is an artifact title these days.
If they're not doing movie stunts, they're doing pop science hacks (fuel efficiency, beat the traffic cam, plane on a conveyor belt) or viral videos, which are related to movie stunts, only with a smaller budget and even more claimed veracity.
Fresh-eyed movie blogOne of the best episodes was the one where they made a catapult out of a cherry picker. It's also one of the first episodes I saw.
Fresh-eyed movie blogThis weeks episode was actually testing the myth that the people who watch mythbusters are unable to keep themselves from making "balls" jokes during the entire episode. So, did you fail? I know I did.
Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.And don’t forget he helped build a space elevator. So, yes, it was a very awesome if trippy episode. I’m half disappointed and half glad Jamie didn’t show up.
Looking forward to the duct-tape airplane.
The duct tape air plane was pretty cool, but was trumped by the excavators. I gotta wonder why they didn’t git make let commission grant to make a Giant Row-Bot.
edited 20th Oct '11 8:31:50 PM by GiantSpaceChinchilla
Anybody know if the Locations special is worth watching? Another sign of the show's decay is that they're repackaging old material into "specials" two or three times a season.
Fresh-eyed movie blogI hate to be late with a holler...
Laminated paper armor really doesn't seem like it would be much weaker than lamellar armor. That being said during that period Paper was about as valuable as gold.
Ok, Silver, but you get my point.
Also, your average foot soldier would be lucky to have much more than a leather tunic in any period, so thats another thing to consider.
edited 10th Nov '11 10:35:37 PM by anathame
I've only recently gotten a chance to see the Literally Shattered Lives myth and I noticed something: when they make the mold for the head with Kari's face and the eyelashes get left behind they then just use the mold straight for the completely ice head.
The completely ice head not only ends up with the most normal looking face (it just looks like a scuplture), it also pulls off some of the eye lashes meaning that you have this completely white face with normal eyelashes that pushes it into Uncanny Valley.
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Based on what I heard, it seems the repackaged episodes are the result of Executive Meddling - Discovery executives said "we want more episodes this season", the MythBusters crew said "there's no way we can film that many episodes in time".

Furthermore, the blue ice from airplanes isn't "water and a little dye". It has additives to consider even before the question of "has it been used to rinse out a toilet yet" is addressed.