Mythbusters - The one about jumping the shark?

Mythbusters - The one about jumping the shark?

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Beati Dogu

8,861 posts

138 months

Friday 22nd August 2014
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I thought the reason they brought the other 3 on board was because they couldn't cope with just the two of them.

Anyway, here's a look at Adam's workshop / man cave:

http://youtu.be/l9AqYaSRjw0


I want one of these to scare the cats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vVblGlIMgw





JonRB

74,390 posts

271 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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Although I do like Kari, Tory and Grant, I have to say that I welcome this (potential) new direction. I really do feel the current format is played out and I think a return to the original science-based myth-busting using the Scientific Method would be "awesome" (sic)

But I really hope they will ban the words 'awesome' and 'perfect' though. Because I play a drinking game where either word is said, and to be honest the hangovers I get after an episode of Mythbusters of late are rather bad.

VeeDubBigBird

440 posts

128 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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The Build Team now works at its own workshop, called M7.

I think the setup was they operated under the original company M5 but more as a branch of M5 than direct employees.

The M7 guys also have other jobs with different production companies, and wish them all the bes tin the future.

MartG

20,619 posts

203 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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I suspect Adam is going to have to be even more well disguised at future Comicons if he wants to avoid being asked why they dumped them thousands of times per hour

Mastodon2

13,818 posts

164 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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hairykrishna said:
I think the 'junior' thing is a bit of an illusion- Both Grant and Tory worked at ILM for almost a decade prior to mythbusters. If you're thinking of the same incident, I watched the episode the other night, the frustration and annoyance with the damaged $30k lathe was actually with Adam - he took a chunk out of the bed and then left it covered in sawdust.
The lathe incident I'm thinking of was in season 2 or 3 I think, they had a "myth-tern", who iirc was a competition winner who got to work in the workshop and take minor parts on screen. She never seemed much good in front of the camera and had little personality, so she didn't last all that long. I'm pretty sure it was her who Jamie caught misusing the lathe, telling her she could have damaged it, he then said something to the effect of "Well that cost me $30,000 so you should respect it, and if you didn't know how to use it, you should have asked." You could see his obvious displeasure, even though he can be a difficult guy to read - not to mention he was probably thinking of the near-miss of the accident that could have happened if an untrained person decides to have a go with a lathe. I do remember the episode where Adam left the lathe covered in sawdust, and him and Jamie arguing about, with Adam accusing Jamie of being a near freak.

With regards to the origins of the build team, I'm pretty sure Tori worked at M5 for some time, possibly even prior to Mythbusters even existing. He is obviously a good welder and machinist. Grant knows his robotics and electrical stuff, and Kari, well I have my suspicions she was only brought in because the producers wanted a woman on the show. You will note she is smiley, outgoing and attractive, yet almost completely unqualified to be there. She had no scientific or engineering ability, and no other discernible abilities other than looking good on camera - a shallow strategy to make science and engineering look "cool" to young girls I'd guess, since America, like everywhere else, struggles to get girls into maths, engineering and science roles. The program had Scottie in the early series, who was a welder and machinist, but she left after the "Baghdad battery" electrocution debacle, along with a producers. While Kari was on maternity leave she was replaced by a woman called Jessi who was really good - proper engineering ability and better in front of a camera than Kari too. In one episode Jessi plumbed a NOS system onto some stty old American car to give it enough power on a small run up to skim on water, and it actually worked. I'd like to see Kari have done that kind of work. Oh wait, she couldn't because she had no talent at all, but at least she made 10 years of easy money out of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0SEBFGGEcI

"Do you feel god?" - holy st, talk about bombing out, it's awful to watch. Also, who is this stand-in narrator?

Edited by Mastodon2 on Saturday 23 August 12:02

JonRB

74,390 posts

271 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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Mastodon2 said:
and Kari, well I have my suspicions she was only brought in because the producers wanted a woman on the show. You will note she is smiley, outgoing and attractive, yet almost completely unqualified to be there. She had no scientific or engineering ability, and no other discernible abilities other than looking good on camera - a shallow strategy to make science and engineering look "cool" to young girls I'd guess, since America, like everywhere else, struggles to get girls into maths, engineering and science roles.
Kari was a sculptress and artist before Mythbusters, and word is that she turned up almost daily at M5 pestering Jamie for a job until they finally took her on. So she didn't exactly waltz in there like you are implying.

grumbledoak

31,499 posts

232 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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V88Dicky said:
I'll just leave this here;
Er, spoiler tags? She is ginger...


V88Dicky

7,302 posts

182 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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grumbledoak said:
V88Dicky said:
I'll just leave this here;
Er, spoiler tags? She is ginger...
Is that a problem? smile

kowalski655

14,599 posts

142 months

Saturday 23rd August 2014
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No,as noone is looking at her hair

The Hypno-Toad

Original Poster:

12,247 posts

204 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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Thank you for sharing that. smile I'm quite surprised its still here!

But I think I'm going to go with lookalikey/fake on that one. Not sure Miss Byron would agree to a shoot like that and I seem to remember some tattoos about her person as well.

If you know of any others, clearly you need to discreetly post a link with large spoiler/NSFW warnings. wink

Rumour on the net today is that the firings are actually some sort of prelude to a myth on the show. A way of seeing how quickly an internet story spreads and all will be revealed in the next series...

However some people have also pointed out that the production companies profits are waayyy down. frown

JonRB

74,390 posts

271 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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The Hypno-Toad said:
Rumour on the net today is that the firings are actually some sort of prelude to a myth on the show.
That would be rather meta / ouroboros, wouldn't it. smile


stephen300o

15,464 posts

227 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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It'll be much better without those annoying junior ones.

JonRB

74,390 posts

271 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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I don't know if anyone else plays the Mythbusters drinking game? Take one drink if someone says 'perfect' (2 if it is someone other than Adam), a drink if anyone says 'awesome', and a chug if Tory gets hurt.

CONFIRMED: You can get a hangover with this game.

HairyMaclary

3,648 posts

194 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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The Hypno-Toad said:
Thank you for sharing that. smile I'm quite surprised its still here!

But I think I'm going to go with lookalikey/fake on that one. Not sure Miss Byron would agree to a shoot like that and I seem to remember some tattoos about her person as well.

If you know of any others, clearly you need to discreetly post a link with large spoiler/NSFW warnings. wink

Rumour on the net today is that the firings are actually some sort of prelude to a myth on the show. A way of seeing how quickly an internet story spreads and all will be revealed in the next series...

However some people have also pointed out that the production companies profits are waayyy down. frown
There are pics of 'her' rolling about on the bathroom floor naked but they have been confirmed fake - just squint a bit. You'll get the idea wink

That battery myth was horrible. Surprised they didn't all get sacked!

The three of them were involved in cannon ball gate? Wonder if that had anything to do with their departure. Sounds like that cost the insurance co a couple of quid. They finally aired that episode recently.

Otispunkmeyer

12,553 posts

154 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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PW said:
Apparently Adam & Jamie have said they want to go back to how the series started, with more focus on science, engineering and building things, rather than finding a vague excuse to blow something up.

This fits in with the type of content they've been doing with the live theater show and on Tested.com

Losing the second unit does dramatically reduce production costs too.
Sad to see them go, but for a while they did just seem to use explosives as the answer for everything and it got boring. I personally liked the earlier shows so will be interesting to see them go back to that. There can't be many myths left, though there are a few that definitely need redoing, so perhaps they just don't need 5 people.

Don't forget as well, they've been doing that for over 10 years... Things have to change, they can't do that forever, people have to move on.

This seasons been all over the place as well, they showed the airplane boarding one in bathe US as part of this series but it had already been shown in europe quite a while ago. I don't remember if honey mentioned they leaving then, but I guess they just shoe horned it in at the end before the credits?

Btw TBBT story was a fake rumour by the likes of an "the onion" type website no?


Otispunkmeyer

12,553 posts

154 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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JonRB said:
PW said:
Apparently Adam & Jamie have said they want to go back to how the series started, with more focus on science, engineering and building things, rather than finding a vague excuse to blow something up.
That's a laudable aim, to be honest. I have been getting increasingly annoyed with them doing ever more tenuous stuff which concludes with someone saying "THAT was AWESOME".

The "sexual attraction" episode with Kari wearing a succession of prosthetic breasts sunk to new depths for me.

To be honest, Jamie and Adam very rarely seem to interact with Kari, Tory and Grant these days anyway; it's almost as if they are filmed completely separately. So maybe splitting them off makes some degree of sense.
According to grants AMA on reddit they prett much do film separately. None of them really hang after the show, not even Jamie and Adam, they irritate each other. It's like work colleagues, you like them, but you don't spend any time with them out of work. I believe only grant and Jamie actually did stuff together outside of the show due to their joint interest in robotics.(having both entered robots into Americas much better version of robot wars)

Otispunkmeyer

12,553 posts

154 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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Mastodon2 said:
I have always sensed a tension and unease between the two camps tbh, Adam and Jamie are very experienced, old hands of their industry, whereas the "build team" were young and imo, lacking in nouse - although admittedly, Grant is a talented robotics engineer. You could see the obvious frustration and annoyance from Jamie in an early series when one of the juniors (not Kari, Tori or Grant though) nearly damaged a lathe in Jamie's workshop, and he explains that it cost him $30,000 and should be treated with respect. Then of course, there is one of the most uncomfortable moments in TV history as the build team electrocute Adam to see if he has a "religious experience". The only one having a religious experience was me, asking "please god, make this cringe-inducing segment be over".
All bar Kari worked previously for IL&M so they shouldn't have been short any experience!

Otispunkmeyer

12,553 posts

154 months

Sunday 24th August 2014
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JonRB said:
Mastodon2 said:
I have always sensed a tension and unease between the two camps tbh, Adam and Jamie are very experienced, old hands of their industry, whereas the "build team" were young and imo, lacking in nouse - although admittedly, Grant is a talented robotics engineer.
Yes, indeed. You get the impression that Jamie, at least, is genuinely interested in the Scientific Method (Adam perhaps less so), and the Build Team not at all.

Whether that is by direction or reality, I don't know. Kari is an artist, Grant is (as you say) an engineer, and I don't know what Tory is.

Mastodon2 said:
Then of course, there is one of the most uncomfortable moments in TV history as the build team electrocute Adam to see if he has a "religious experience". The only one having a religious experience was me, asking "please god, make this cringe-inducing segment be over".
Oh gods I remember that. The look of total betrayal on Adam's face was bowel-twistingly awkward.
That was the show producers pushing that to happen, not Tori, Grant or Kari. Said producer didn't stick around much after that. But it was also ridiculous in the sense that he'd of had electrical current going across his body... Bit of a no no!!!

h0b0

7,557 posts

195 months

Monday 25th August 2014
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Mastodon2 said:
While Kari was on maternity leave she was replaced by a woman called Jessi who was really good - proper engineering ability and better in front of a camera than Kari too. In one episode Jessi plumbed a NOS system onto some stty old American car to give it enough power on a small run up to skim on water, and it actually worked.
Before MB Jessi was on the "Power Block" this was a group of 4-5 programs on a Saturday morning that were dedicated to cars. Her show was Extreme 4X4 where they built trail buggies from scratch with massive ground clearance and 500hp V8s. I'm always very suspicious of of w omen on this kid of show because I fear they are brought in for their boobs. Jessi always impressed me with he knowledge and apparent ability. She was injured while filming the show and had months out. (Could have been an excuse to leave) she made only a couple of shows after this and got the MB gig.

After MB she has gone on to fulfill all my sexists fears and join a show called "all girls garage". There are 3. Presenters and it is clear that the other 2 are only there as a result of their casting couch antics to get the role

ZesPak

24,420 posts

195 months

Monday 25th August 2014
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Otispunkmeyer said:
I believe only grant and Jamie actually did stuff together outside of the show due to their joint interest in robotics.(having both entered robots into Americas much better version of robot wars)
yes

I remember Grant from that show, and that was almost a decade ago. Also, the builds he came up with for the show (which we'll assume was really him) showed that he deffo knew what he was talking about.

I didn't know about the tall guy, I like him on the show but he mainly seemed to be the target of "we need to do something where someone might get hurt".

As for Kari, iirc she was in an older show where they needed a "stand-in-but", as a but-model... afaik her experience was non-existent. Though they do seem to work together and I liked their work in general. Building stuff, doing good science and being entertaining are all very different skills, and it'll be hard to find people that can do two or even three of them.

As said, it was a nice concept but after over a decade I can see you're starting to run out of popular material. Now and then they did something from TV (eg: Breaking Bad stuff, scope shot from private ryan,...), but even that is pretty thin if you want to keep it popular.

Shame they wouldn't get a proper goodbye though. As said before, there has to be some dispute on either side for that to happen.