In January 2003 , President George W. Bushcelebratedthe first anniversary of No kid Left Behind , The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towerswas in field of operations , Eminem ’s “ miss Yourself ” was at the top of the Billboard charts — and a little show calledMythBustersdebuted on the Discovery Channel . The internet promised that its “ quirky raw science and technology television serial ” would take “ a light - hearted look at modern misconceptions and the outlandish claims of urban legends . ” Discovery also bring a version of the line that would shortly become intimate to fans everywhere : “ This serial does n’t just retell the write up … it redact them to the exam ! ”
Now , after 14 seasons,2950 experiment , 1050 myths , and 900 detonation , the show is coming to an last : The concluding episode ofMythBustersairs this Saturday . That fact has eventually sink in for Adam Savage , who , along with Jamie Hyneman , has hosted the show since it start . “ I ’ve had a long clock time and a passel of stages to go through , ” Savage toldmental_flossover coffee earlier this week . “ I know this affair . I ’ve done this show longer than I ’ve had any career , and I ’ve grown up on it . I ’m relieved to be putting it to seam on our terms — but that did n’t help in the destabilizing issue of finishing something you ’ve been doing for 14 twelvemonth . I went through all the stages of last . ”
BUILDING UP SCIENCE
Savage wasworkingat the visual- and particular - effects house Industrial Light & Magic when Hyneman , who had been approached about possibly host a show , inquire if he ’d co - innkeeper . The duo had worked together in Hyneman ’s especial effects shop , M5 Industries , for a few year , making commercials and ramp up a machine forBattleBots . Though they had polar opposite personalities ( andgot on each other ’s nerves ) , they work out well together . So Savage said yes , the paircut an audition tape , and they down the gig .
What pursue was more than a decade of incredible — and often ludicrous — builds . “ For me , the builds that mattered are ones that also taught me something about what my job was , ” Savage says . His favourite is one of his first for the show : A winding tunnel capable of two speeds that showed a penny had two terminal velocity , one on its edge and one on its case , and that it tumbles between them . He construct the equipment to test whether a coin falling from the Empire State Building could kill a somebody below . ( Spoiler alerting : It ca n’t . )
“ We had math that described [ the two terminal velocity ] , but it occurred to me — even that first season , when I was absolutely as unripened as green could be — that I did n’t like the theme of just explaining math on camera , ” Savage says . alternatively , he wanted toshowit .
“ The hypothesis was that if I built [ the confidential information tunnel ] with the correct speed in the entry and the loss , and it was vertical , the penny would tumble up and down inside the wind burrow , and it totally did , ” he says . “ To this twenty-four hours , it ’s my preferent affair I ’ve ever made . That was a predecessor that I could not just talk on photographic camera cogently , or build things , but that I could contribute to the field of explaining and draw and showing thing in ways that were compelling and that had n’t been tried before . That was so thrilling . ”
In monastic order to complete their experiment , Savage and Hyneman were often expect to work up thing that they either could n’t get , or only did n’t exist . In the second time of year , the duo was testing whether a SCUBA diver could be sucked out of a torso of water by a heart attach to a flack - press whirlybird and situate in a tree . “ For obvious reasons , ” Savage says , express mirth , “ no one require to permit us anywhere near one , especially with a faux SCUBA diver . ”
So the ticker needed to be built . There were a couple of problems , though : Savage had no melodic theme how he was going to do it , and Hyneman was out with the grippe , “ which was weird , ” Savage says . “ That never happened any other time in the show . ” Thankfully , they had been able-bodied to discuss a game plan before it was clock time to make . “ I executed that plan and build a pump that exceeded the specs of the heart we wanted by 50 percent , ” Savage says . “ We require a pump that pumped 2000 gallons a minute and mine pump 3000 gallons a moment . It was beautiful . ”
But it was n’t all about big builds , or even challenging builds . Savage consume equal delight in constructing auto for ridiculous purpose , like when he built a fart backstop for the show ’s fourth time of year . “ It ’s so awing , ” he enjoin . “ We build it over a bathtub . The idea was that the rig was fill with water supply , and you ’d fart , and your bubble would go to the top into a chamber that you ’d be able-bodied to interlock it off and capture a fart . ” It accept them all sidereal day to get the line of work done , though . “ It turns out , when you get into a tepid tub , it ’s really hard to fart , ” he says . ( That was not the last meter he ’d build something having to do with flatus : This season , he built a fart - generating machine . )
Over the years , the builds became bigger and more ambitious — and Savage used them to assist tell the story . “ In the early episode , the builds are just builds , but in the late installment , the builds have all kind of biased tape and measurement and labels on them , ” he says . “ I wanted to assure the story more than just verbally , more than just visually — I require to order it graphically . I want every bod from each camera angle to tell the tale of the experimentation . By the last season , just these builds were so lovely to me because they were telling all of these thing . ”
Did it gravel Savage that they ’d often blow the builds up , or otherwise destroy them ? “ No , because that ’s the challenge , ” he says . “ If you ’re making something just to make it , you make it under one solidification of rules . But if your job is to make it wait secure while it ’s blowing up , that ’s a whole other matter — it does n’t achieve its fruitionuntilyou’ve blow it up . ”
AN EXPLOSIVE FINALE
Discovery
It ’s fitting , then , thatMythBustersgoes out with a fully grown boom , and , as Savage redact it , “ a wanton path of wipeout . ”
The duo abandon myth - busting for the last show , and for good grounds : “ We realized that unless we had the unspoiled myth ever , there ’s no myth that could address the exercising weight of being in the finalMythBustersepisode ever , ” Savage says .
alternatively , Savage and Hyneman opted to do what they felt would make the fans happy — and they lead off by louse up something up . Then there ’s a base on balls down memory lane , which Savage says is the secondly - most expensive succession inMythBustershistory ( it was narrowly edged out byRocket Car ) . “ Memory lane was a mile long and filled with 14 years of constructions from the show ’s history , ” he says . “ The ‘ walk ’ down memory lane take about 80 seconds — and it ’s the most extreme and beautiful driving I have ever had to do in my whole life . After the first 15 seconds , I could not see out the front of my fomite and I still managed to stay good , stay on course , and complete my job . ” The terminal sequence is “ the gravid explosion inMythBusters ’ history . ”
Savage had all form of creative — and weird — idea for the final shot ofMythBusters . “ I want to wake up in bottom next to Suzanne Pleshette like Bob Newhart and go , ‘ I just had the weirdest dreaming , ’ ” he say . “ You know the joke about how a cat always lands feet down , and toast always lands butter - side down , so if you strap a piece of butter toast to the back of a cat , and push it off a board , it will levitate ? At one tip , I had this vision that the last sequence would be 80 seconds of me and Jamie going , ' okay , rent ’s do it , ' and we push the cat off the tabular array , and this bombination occur — and all of a sudden , Jamie and I are stomach on the street in Tokyo , and we ’re like , ‘ What the f * * * just happened ? ’ and switch off to black .
“ We did n’t do that , ” he says . “ In the end , it ’s a little elegiac , and it ’s sweet , and it ’s also last . There ’s not much else we could have done . ”
REVISITING DUCT TAPE
Luckily for fans , the last sequence ofMythBusterson Discovery is notquitethe final stage . There ’s a reunion special and then , on Sunday night , a incentive episode will air on the Science Channel . It was shoot , Savage says , “ as sort of an inaugural baton - passing forMythBustersto move from Discovery to the Science Channel , ” where the show will air in reruns . And it revisit a frequent , and beloved , subject ofMythBustersmyths : Duct tape .
“ We really think that we had exhausted all the possibilities of duct tape , ” Savage says . The show did everything from build bridges to sustain cars together with the material , but Savage came up with one last duct tape idea . He just had to convert Hyneman .
“ I ’ll tell you , no one got pissier about discussing duct tape than Jamie , because he ’s like , ‘ I do n’t want to build an episode just on a challenge , ’ ” Savage state . “ Then , I was like , ‘ But I come in up with an idea , ’ and he was , like , ‘ Oh , what ? ’ I said , ‘ Trebuchet , ’ and he goes , ‘ Oh , that would work . ’ ” It is , Discovery promises , “ the epithelial duct tape habitus to terminate all duct tape builds . ” They apply the gadget to ruin something , of class .
LUCK AND LEGACY
Perhaps the most important myth wear during 14 seasons ofMythBustersis the one that says science is a stuffy subject . Hyneman and Savage showed that science can be fun and creative , and that curiosity is pretty cool . MythBustersinspired kids to become engineers , and changed how skill is teach — which Savage says is “ abase . ”
But Savage and Hyneman never really thought about creating a show that would pass on any kind of legacy . “ We really were just trying to make the show on a day - to - 24-hour interval basis , ” Savage enunciate . “ I still think of anything approaching a legacy as this awing bunce on the top of this unbelievable matter that we did . ”
These sidereal day , both ( presently - to - be former ) MythBusters are keeping in use . Hyneman is work on a numeral of projects unrelated to show patronage , and Savage enunciate he ’s spending lots of fourth dimension in his shop class , where he recently installed a full - size Bridgeport factory . He ’s working on a project with the California Academy of Sciences , create and build forTested.com , and writing two stage shows .
The end is bittersweet , but Savage aver his run emotion is something else all . “ I ’m the luckiest mortal alive that these stories that I was interested in relation wrench out to have such a vibrancy in exactly the way that they meant something to me , ” he aver . “ I ’m so grateful . That ’s mostly what it is , because I ’m just supremely , impossibly golden that my skill set was a key that agree this lock so perfectly . ”
The final episode ofMythBustersairs Saturday , March 5 at 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on the Discovery Channel . The special fillip episode airs Sunday , March 6 , at 8 p.m. EST on the Science Channel .
