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"MythBusters" Drops Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, Tory Belleci
rbrandis (735555) writes In a video announcement Thursday on Discovery Channel, MythBusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman revealed that longtime co-hosts and fan favorites Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tory Belleci are no longer on the show. "This next season we're going back to our origins with just Adam and me," Hyneman said in the video, which explained that the change took hold as of the season's last episode on August 21. (Our interview with the original-and-remaining Mythbusters is one of my favorites.)
I won't mind so much. A shorter, more focused format will get me watching more again.
I watched the first few seasons of Mythbusters but haven't watched in years and it has nothing to do with Grant, Tory, or Kari. They started testing all kinds of bullshit and making glaring E&O's in the process, to the point where almost every week they had to go on the Discovery forums and apologize for fucking it up. Waste of time better spent on other shows. I feel bad for the three who got the axe but I hope they didn't make that decision hoping to improve viewer counts.
nerd rage in 3, 2, 1....
(note, "nerd rage" not "nurdrage" on Youtube)
Question is, was it an amicable departure or.... something worse?
Wonder if someone else will pick these three up for some other science show?
I'll admit I haven't watched mythbusters in a few years, so things could be entirely different now, but back when I did watch the show I actually found them more entertaining at times.
To be honest, the show kinda got old for me. Explosions don't translate well to TV (at least not the cool parts), and every myth basically turned into a lame premise to load something up with high explosives.
I'm morbidly curious to find out what actually happened here. I suspect we won't find out for awhile, as everyone will be civil for the sake of their careers, but I'm sure in a few years the muck will run out.
Time to scrub the "...best known for his/her work on DC" from WP.
I think two hosts are plenty, BTW. Dilution always hurts a brand when carried too far.
The only shame about that is losing Grant Imahara. He actually built mechanically neat rigs and such for experiments in a more advanced way than Adam and Jamie tended to.
It always seemed to me like Grant was hired to do some science, Kari was hired to be the tits, and Tory was hired to balance out the tits.
The last several seasons have been very short.
Speaking for myself, I stopped watching a long time ago. At least a third of every episode is their narrator repeating things they've already said numerous times. If this "new format" means there's less of this wasted time then I won't mind, but if it means we just get more of the useless "recaps" from earlier in the episode, it will turn into the proverbial straw for me. YMMV.
Meh.... I think the show has just about rum its course. Only so many things you can blow up, I guess.
As if anybody with a Y chromosome would ever watch this without Kari Byron.
RIP
RIP
WTF?? Another female geek role model bites the dust. She's smart, she's gorgeous, she's clever, she's witty. We need way, way, more women like her on TV.
Bad fail, Mythbusters.
lol they must have really screwed up for all three of them to be fired at once
Maybe she will pop up elsewhere.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
...and the show "went back to its roots." Nothing to see here, move along.*
Posterity, my posterior.
It's really too early to tell, but it seems like they're taking this way too well and keep mentioning they're next adventure.
It's possible that they're going to star in their own show that Discovery is not willing to announce yet.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
I am a big fan of the show, but Ive stopped watching it because of the modern style of production - geared to those who have ADHD.
Modern shows now lead the viewers into the direction of the show... So, you have a few minutes of introduction, then a quick preview of whats coming up, then an ad break. Then after the ad break, they show you what you saw earlier, a quick little update, and then another flash forward to what you'll see coming up. Repeat repeat repeat.
With ads, it drives me mad. Without ads, its even worse. 10 minutes of real content gets padded out to a full 45 minute episode. So Ive quit watching - which is a pity, because the small bits of content embedded in the forward flashes and back flashes is usually quite good.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
Outside of the show shes pretty average. She only looks good in relation to the rest of the crew.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
My money's on "they asked for more pay for the next signing and couldn't reach an agreement". That will always boil down to some point between "you shouldn't have demanded more than you were worth" and "we probabably shouldn't have broken the cash cow's leg".
Only time will tell.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
But I think it's a good move. I always thought they were trying to do too much in one episode. And really, who can argue with focusing on two really awesome dudes who love to blow stuff up?
More isn't always better, sometimes its just more.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
So, you have a few minutes of introduction, then a quick preview of whats coming up, then an ad break. Then after the ad break, they show you what you saw earlier, a quick little update, and then another flash forward to what you'll see coming up.
You left out the part where the flash forward is often misleading and designed to make the next part seem more interesting than it really is. So you start the show with an exciting preview, then a bit of content, then another exciting preview. Then ads. Then a recap, then the discovering that what looked interesting in the preview was entirely uninterested followed by another deceptive preview.
But MythBusters does it even more annoyingly: they'll combine Adam and Jamie doing Myth A with Tori, Grant, and Kari doing Myth B. So you end up getting those little recap, content, preview segments first for Myth A and then for Myth B, followed by a block of ads. It makes the entire thing completely disjointed and pads out what should be two mini-episodes into a single 45 minute episode.
I've kind of wanted to take a MythBusters episode as aired and edit it to remove the preview/recap stuff and merge Myth A and Myth B into a single block of content and see how much content I'm left with. Except I'm too lazy to bother pirating an episode to do that.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I'm looking for a gift for my aunt
AGREED! I'm going entirely off topic here, but I don't know what American producer decided that this format was a good idea. It's repulsive. You don't see this on the BBC. If Top Gear ever did this, they'd be flushed down the toilet -- which is why the American version of Top Gear on the "History" channel is just so terribly unwatchable. The History channel is one of the top offenders promoting this kind of banality, and it's a shame that the Discovery channel and so many others have caught this same illness (I'm looking your way, "Science" channel). American television producers are farking idiots.
Blame Discovery (and History, and all the other copycats). It's a fucked up format designed by morons in order to pad minutes and fill out advertising when they otherwise have very little real content.
I will not watch this show after this. I never watched it in the first place so not much is going to be different.
I always thought of Tory as the Brian Dunkleman of Mythbusters. You know, that guy who hosted with Seacrest during the first season of American Idol that no one remembers. They should have dumped Tory when he tried to electrocute Adam with the Ark of the Covenant, and no one would have minded.
Maybe. But their ratings are down so more likely they realized that 2 hosts makes for a much less expensive show to produce even if the other three aren't demanding salary increases, They might lose a few viewers for dumping Kari but they won't take a hit on the other two.
http://xkcd.com/397/
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The assumption seems to be that as 90% of kids 15 years ago were diagnosed ADHD, 90% of the target audience now must also have ADHD. Except for Game of Thrones viewers, who apparently have other issues.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Tory, Grant and Kari get their own show on the new "Blowing Stuff Up" channel
"A Little Song, A Little Dance, A Little Seltzer Down your Pants" -Chuckles The Clown
This is what happened.
When Friends and Big Bang cast members decide to unite for higher paychecks, the executives cave. A few years ago, some of the minor stars on CSI tried to do the same and were canned immediately.
I think they were trying to set a precedent for 2nd/3rd tiet actors/participants in a show that such actions will result in a 100% paycut. I can't totally blame them either.
Maybe these guys will step up. I loved them on Tested.
There are people who shorten these episodes to cut the repeats and some of the filler
http://www.reddit.com/r/smyths
"These 'Streamline' edits run shorter because they are missing teasers, cartoons, flashbacks, repetition, idents, history lessons, fun facts, "we're experts", and anything else that slows down the show."
The explanation I've heard is that the show is shot and edited for Australian television first, where it takes the form of a half-hour episode (without commercials? not sure). For the American edition, they pad it up to an hour with commercials, but can't really add new content so it's just repetition.
Check out "Streamlined Mythbusters." It's a crowdsourced version of what you're lookng for.
You know I too pulled the plug on the TV. But DAMN dude the amount of smug there would burn a hole in the universe.
Is my life 'better' without tv? Not really. Is it worse? Not really. Its just different.
..."we probabably shouldn't have broken the cash cow's leg"...
But, Grant could build it a new one, with a Ninja sword built in!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Adam mentioned a shift in fromat in a Tested video a while back, this seems to fit along with that.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Is it actually confirmed they got fired? I would not be surprised if M7 went on to other projects.
....it was budget cutback time. Not really sure how long Mythbuster's is going to last regardless. Haven't watched them since the magic bullet debunk since they were idiots to use a combustion propulsion (gun powder) instead of compressed air (CO2). I tried to post that observation but haven't heard a peap. :)
Top Gear UK does small recaps after the commercial breaks. They do not actually talk and explain what you missed like you forgot from 5 minutes ago, they kind of randomly throw in some replay of quick clips of something that already aired a second time.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Is this you? Sounds like it.
http://www.theonion.com/articl...
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
I'm surprised no one said it... I think they've just run out of Myths! A lot of the new shows - it really seems like they're reaching. And as other people did mention, they have about 15 minutes of content in an hour of show with the commercial->recap->brief content->preview->commercial->repeat format. Yeah, I just really don't think they can make another season of shows without halving the number of myths that they have to come up with..
Bring back Scotti. Also, Tori sucked. Grant and Scotti are all you need. Tori is a tool, good for comic relief when you need a doofus to eat a chili pepper, and Kari was just T&A.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Well, yeah but, you don't play jazz. Do ya?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
You just described most nonfiction books, shows, anything.
One gem with a lot of useless padding and buildup.
I always liked the original ones better than the later shows with the expanded cast. The early ones they did stuff, the later ones bounced around for half an hour talking about doing stuff. Although Grant rocked, I always felt the other two actually brought the show down a notch.
Kari did have nice tits.
Just wait to see if the cast members are replaced or not.
1. The show had a budget for stars salaries. Adam and Jamie demanded higher payment or they would walk. The producers said, okay, to that. But they two stars used up the budget for the stars. Everyone else goes. This has happened on prior TV shows, where the big stars demand higher wages and they get it at the expense of lesser stars, although I can't think of one offhand.
This issue has also lead to the ensemble cast, like Friends, NCI. By attempting to cast multiple stars with no clear cut The Star, producers have more leverage with salary negotiations. "What? You want how much an episode? You do realize you are only one of 8 stars. I bet the show can go on without you."
2. Kari...oh heck. When you looked up on the Mythbuster's site, okay, when I looked her up the site several years ago, right under her name it said, "Sorry guys, she's married." It really did. Another aspect she brought to the show was an infectious perky enthusiasm.
3. The future. The 3 ex-Mythbusters all had lives before, and projects on the side during Mythbusters. That will continue. Although I would like to see them prove time travel by going back in time and taking over the show. That would be fun.
End of rant. Now I gotta go blow something up (cause I ran out of my meds).
Huh, I guess you really can find everything on the Internet. Thanks for the suggestion; I've wanted something like this for years.
People who watch Game of thrones are in it for the wieners.
Om, nomnomnom...
The quality of their segments was very questionable i.e. "lets make it explode", etc. Apart from Grant, I didn't really like Kari or Tory they were quite annoying.
I honestly can't wait for it to go back to Jamie and Adam! At least with those guys it's all about the science and not the gimmicks.
Great move guys I for one applaud you!
American TV likes to start with extremely long "base" contracts... Usually 7 years with a fixed amount for all of them... Up front, to starving actors before they can work at all. So when you see a show hit season 8 that's exactly what happened. The "wages for union scale" pay finally ran out and it was the first time to renegotiate after SEVEN YEARS of work.
Most TV actors only earn OK money.. Maybe low six figures (to live in Hollywood) and out of that have to pay agents, unions, fancy dress, etc.
I stopped watching Mythbusters last year when I found myself fast forwarding every episode to the end to see what happens. Too much fluff, and in some cases not enough rigor in their tests for my liking. I don't blame the hosts, though - they put a ton of effort into making the show and tried to make it entertaining.
I'm SURE they will spend more money doing Real Science on Sharks for Shark Week!!!
That is an option but not my guess.
My money is on "studio offered much less than they were making last season and wouldn't budge" The three decided it was better to move on to something else either as a group or individually then to settle for less money. They are relatively young and fairly popular right now so it's a good time to move on to something else as Mythbusters won't last forever.
Jamie and Adam are both older and will NOT be seeking work after Mythbusters is done so even if they were offered less money for another season, they would be content to accept as it still would be decent money. I'm guessing Mythbusters gets one or two more seasons until it's canceled all together, nothing lasts forever on tv.
Two hosts makes for a less expensive show. And also, half as many myths makes for a less expensive show.
What an impersonal goodbye. Just an announcement from Adam and Jamie, some video clips, and a stock photo.
While I could believe Adam's thanks for all their work, he seemed strained somehow. I think the network did it, after the wrap of filming for the last episode.
It really lacked the warmth that a heartfelt goodbye, shot in the M7 workshop with a handheld camera, hugs, and tears.
I speculate that the network forced the reconfiguration of the show after filming of that episode ended.
Sad, really.
What's really sad is that even the new Cosmos series was infected with some of this production style, as has Nova in recent decades.
I remember old Nova shows and James Burke's Connections with fondness, but now I am wondering if that is just that I was so young that I didn't notice the pandering to idiots...?
this stuff is really not acceptable
Most of the show's "experiments" are nonsense or the results are obvious. Science isn't done this way. Never was, never will be. I'm waiting for them to do seances and contact the dead to prove something. Or conclude that because they can't contact the dead that need try to invent a new way to contact the dead, so stay tuned.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Except, of course, the show's been on for 11 years, not seven. The newest of the B team is Imahara, who joined in 2005, nine years ago. They've already renegotiated contracts at least once.
Either they demanded more money, the ratings are down enough to want to cut costs, or they've got something else planned - they may get their own show.
Or, of course, they may all just be tired of filming 48 weeks out of every year, to get ten episodes.
It seems to me only with TV can there be this really common "Let me demonstrate how I don't watch TV by telling you how much I know about TV."
Does anything else work like this?
"Top Gear" in the UK does not HAVE commercial breaks! It's made by and shown on, the BBC, whose main TV stations have no adverts at all (except for their own forthcoming shows).
When "Top Gear" is repeated on other, commercial channels, then yes, there are advert breaks.
"Absorbing your worst..."
I'm actually rather OK with this. Though Kari is fun to watch and has certain skills (particularly welding and being hot), and Grant is very talented with nuts and bolts and software and robotics, I actually like Mythbusters mostly for the hard science (even if wrong) of Jamie, and the manic presentations of Adam.
Who was the other one again? Oh, yeah, that other guy.
Anyway, I remember Mythbusters with just Jamie and Adam. I miss it: Two well-versed, very smart people arguing against each other but toward a common goal is a win every day.
Kid-proof tablet..
AFAICT, the format of Mythbusters hasn't changed in a very long time.
There is a certain cadence of it which has not, AFAICT, varied since the show included "the kids."
One of the producers of Mythbusters is said to listen to it in her car, and if she can't follow and understand the episode by voice alone, it gets redone.
(As your attorney, I think you're trying too hard to coalesce your own aging mindset with the continually-renewed world around you. Give it a rest. Things move on.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Because that's why they put on the show? She seems smart enough and, because she is not classically beautiful, seems obtainable for many male geeks who are conditioned to be very suspicious of the Penny types who have rejected them so many times in the past.
Personally, physically, she doesn't move my alert meter to "oh my FSM, she's frigging adorable", but I wouldn't kick her out for eating crackers in bed if I were single and hadn't been in a relationship in a while (okay, let's be honest, a week or two). Certainly her looks wouldn't stop me from dating her though if her personality was attractive (hard to judge that on scripted shows - some assholes come across as warm and friendly on television).
...that's why they put HER on the show...
Why no edit after post function (with a history log for those who care to quibble over the edits)?
But, didn't the sidekicks start later?
And, frankly, they moved into second derivative myths long ago.
ah man...Mythbusters...
I'm a fan, for sure, but it seems that even casual fans like me can sort of see past the veneer of production. It's kind of in my nature to analyze a show (as it is w/ many on /. i'm sure) and pick apart their production decisions.
So, when it comes to Kari, Byron, and Grant...I think they should have seen this coming a decade ago.
They're great, and they added value to their presence over the years. I always liked their segments.
But if we're analyzing production decisions, it seems that they should have tried to get their agent to get them more work, or maybe a spin off...their presence was never going to be more than bit parts...part timer gigs. Even the popularity of the show can't make more time in the timeslot...it's just there was a maximum ammount they could physically contribute due to time constraints per episode.
I'm sure fans will remember the super-cool welder chick from, i'm guessing, seasons 2-5...she moved on and I figured the others would do the same, having a rotating cast of experts go in and out over the years...except for Kari...she seemed like a good foil for the guys.
Anyhow, Mythbusters was always better than it's show. You could tell that dumb network people were putting weird constraints on them...ex: voiceover narration from some random in Tasmania or w/e...and other parts...but it is always going to be great for what it is...
but yeah...IMHO the three of them should have seen this coming
Thank you Dave Raggett
there is *plenty* of demand for such a thing...and the advertisers are certainly there as well
they could make it all 'STEM' and 'girl power' and just clean up...pop science is huge right now
Thank you Dave Raggett
No, but I met him and kicked his hipster punk ass.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Take a look at the smyths subreddit. They edit Mythbusters episodes to remove all of that flash-back/flash-forward stuff, turning those 45 minute episodes back into 10 minutes of content.
Drop them? How, and where? What will they be testing? Aren't they usually using dummies for such?
>forward flashes
Hell, I am still pissed they cancelled Flash Forward.
This is just too much, now Mythbusters is being cut back.
Gadget Show in UK as well. Again.
Fuck TV man. The sooner it goes independent, the better. Internet is the new TV.
Well, you gotta think most of that is the fact that 63% of all news on the Internet is about TV. Seriously.
You can learn a ton about what's happening on TV without watching TV. For example, let's do a little experiment. I'm gonna pick a popular web site at random, say, "Buzzfeed" and go there right now. OK, hold on....
I'm back. Of the six top stories on Buzzfeed, three of them are about TV. Now this is the front page, where all the stories are aggregated, and I just looked at the top six stories without scrolling down.
There's a story about "Where has Jennifer Aniston been?" which I assume involves a significant amount of cosmetic surgery and possibly rehab. Next is (I shit you not), "How The TV Version Of “Clueless” Ruined Everything". I don't know what that could possibly be about, but the headline is tantalizing. I mean this TV show fucking ruined everything! Finally, the #6 headline is another story about television coverage of #Ferguson, of which there have now been more of than actual news stories about #Ferguson. This is an interesting phenomenon of it's own, with the media loving to talk about how the media is covering something, especially some horrible thing.
I didn't look, but I assume that if I were to scroll down there would be more headlines about people who play this "Game of Thorns" (which sounds painful) or one of the ubiquitous stories about how that guy on the reality show you don't watch turned out to really be a horrible person in real life.
You are welcome on my lawn.
and except for the fact science channels on Youtube (Vsauce for example) get more views than Game of Thrones/sopranos/lost.
So on one hand you have this myth of what is popular, on the other you have millions of people craving for content similar to Sagans Cosmos.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I think they worry too much about what constitutes a good myth.
I'd like to see a lot more smaller myths tackled - that'd get rid of the 'fluff' and like some have mentioned, they spend too much time repeating stuff - at least 3-4 times they say what they are going to do.
They need to stop catering for an extremely low common denominator.
If they made the episodes available worldwide, DRM free 1080p with the ads and repetitions removed, I might find it hard to resist snapping them up even at $2 each.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Call me when you cut the internet cable. Then I'll be impressed.
I agree on the recaps on one point alone: some features are split up, often with "The Star in the Reasonably Priced Car" segment of the show. When the main feature is returned to, then yes there is a brief recap.
However, on domestic BBC TV, there are no adverts.
I think that yes, a spinoff featuring Kari, Grant and Tory would be a good idea, and I would also think that they should work under the Mythbusters brand. However given that, I would have no idea what exactly the show would be about with these three. Maybe if Mythbusters is getting back to basics, the spin off could get more serious... show be called "Myth Re-Busters", take certain earlier "plausible" myths and re-do them but using more stringent scientific methods. Leave Adam and Jamie to do the laughs and the bangs. That way people who got too turned off by the presentation and the showmanship of the original series can turn on to something more to their liking... and if the general public are ready for something a bit more serious then ratings shouldn't be a problem either.
When you see the same scene replayed 5 times, before and after commercial breaks, and ten they flash back to it... It gets annoying. They could do the same show in 1/2 the time. Now they want to cut out 1/2 the crew and things they're doing? Doesn't bode well...
Twinstiq, game news
If they'll do it to the cast of ST:TNG, they'll do it to anyone.
I come here for the love
What is it about Brits and redheads, anyway? Prejudice occurs worldwide over every possible trifling difference, but this one has to be the weirdest.
This is definitely not true. It airs in Australia as a 1 hour show on all the channels it airs on. Furthermore, in the US they're allowed 17-18 minutes of ad breaks per hour (42-43 minute show) and in Australia they're only allowed 15 minutes of advertisements per hour.
I stopped watching when they ran out of myths and began to bust stupid stuff from TV and movies. Stuff that no one would believe to begin with. Guess what, that stuff all got busted.
Then enlighten this entire forum, smart ass :)
uhm...
Jamie and Adam won't be seeking work after Mythbusters? Jamie is 57 and Adam is actually only 47 years old ! Unless Mythbusters runs until they're 80, I'm sure they'll be looking for other gigs after this one. There is no retirement age in media, unless you're physically unfit to do the job or nobody wants you anymore.
in some cases not enough rigor in their tests
That was the problem for me with Kari, Grant and Tory. Sometimes I think they actually failed to test the myth because of some issue with their setup. I wouldn't mind that if they used it to add discussion about what constitutes a real test, or maybe suggest some way that it still could possibly be true. Invariably, they would just claim that this is "totally busted!"
It's just annoying. It's like they don't want you watching the program if your standards are too high. Goddamn it, that's what science is about!
I can't expect them to be as good as Adam and Jamie - they've got a lot of experience in making things happen from working in special effects. Some of their setups are quite ingenious. But watching these other fools pretend to do the same thing is just sad sometimes.
And yeah, as people have been saying, the fluff factor is worse than ever. Those little acted out bits with silly music are horrendous. What a waste of time and effort. Just do the myths. Watching clips on youtube is far better than watching on TV.
--
"Or, of course, they may all just be tired of filming 48 weeks out of every year, to get ten episodes."
That's pathetic. Over a month per episode.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I love the traffic myths and the airplane myths. Smarter stuff that applies to my life.
As much as I like the performers, I am glad they are making the change.
Understand, on BBC America, it has commercials and those small recaps I was referring to fall in line with what you are describing.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Oh hell, Jamie and Adam are guilty of the same thing - missing the obvious. I just watched the stripped down version of testing the myth that being in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex 'dumbs you down'. Test was read the color of the word and not the text. On the second time through, both sexes' scores improved. and J&A were surprised. Wow. The same people taking the same test a little later in the day (usually called practice) improved. They simply concluded the myth was busted and didn't at all consider the practice session. There are a number of other episodes where the obvious was ignored as well.
I'd just like to point out that I have ADHD and I can't stand this style of television. Even as a kid, I preferred my science-entertainment in a Mr Wizard kind of way: "Hey kids, we're going to do a thing. This is how we do it. We're doing it. Look at this amazing thing we've done!"
They are being let go in the real life. But what is going to happen to their characters in the show universe? Are they getting killed off? I suggest a gruesome industrial accident.
Oh hell, Jamie and Adam are guilty of the same thing - missing the obvious. I just watched the stripped down version of testing the myth that being in the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex 'dumbs you down'. Test was read the color of the word and not the text. On the second time through, both sexes' scores improved. and J&A were surprised. Wow. The same people taking the same test a little later in the day (usually called practice) improved. They simply concluded the myth was busted and didn't at all consider the practice session. There are a number of other episodes where the obvious was ignored as well.
If I remember correctly, the claim made, which they said was backed by other studies of this particular test, was that due to the nature of how the brain worked--the whole point of this particular test--studies showed practice had little to no effect.
You might find Mythbusters for the Impatient useful. It is a Youtube channel that edits each episode down to about four minutes.
I remember years ago when I first set up MythTV, and set it to record MythBusters. It eventually recorded the episodes from the first season, when they still did several myths per show, but finished one before starting on the next one. Watching those episodes was like heaven compared to the newer format. No "this is coming up later" and "this happened earlier" segments both before and after each commercial break. You have to wonder how much interesting footage they're leaving out so that they have time for all of those recaps.
Watch Star Trek Continues online. You'll see Grant plays Sulu. He is a very talented person with a wide open career ahead of him.
I think the show Myth Buster should be outlawed by Congress, can not see how Congress can allow a TV show to have more fun and screw off more than they do.
Here you go:
http://thepiratebay.se/search/mythbusters/0/99/208
Even less than 2USD a piece.
Hm. Teasers, flashbacks, repetition, indents? and "we're experts" ... definitely get rid of that stuff. But fun facts and history? I think that should stay. They give context and external topics to explore. While not strictly necessary in determining myth or fact they are still generally interesting to knowledge seeking, scientific minded individuals. Is anyone making edits with those segments in tact but the others stripped?
I seem to remember that in the early episodes where the trio appeared, they were all doing Very Useful Things to assist with the myth being busted. Then at some point, it seemed to move to where they were doing something completely different instead of assisting with the main myth. Weren't they even called "The Build Team" originally? Mebbe they shouldn't have made the awesome assistants compete with the hosts.
Kari was in episode 2 and randomly through season 1, Season 2 was the first trio (Kari, Tori, and Scotti)
As a long-time "Puget Sound"-ite, I was always under the impression that - prior to his big break with Almost Live - Bill Nye had already been trying to break into comedy and/or show business (although he was indeed a Boeing engineer).
I do know that he didn't start out as "Bill Nye the Science Guy" - it was a name John Kiester offhandedly coined which stuck (because, frankly, it was perfect for him).
#DeleteChrome
No no no no! What makes Top Gear what it is is the 3 personalities and the constant ribbing of each other. The American ones just have no personalities. I tried watching it for 3 episodes, but just barely made it through those and then stopped.
Can't exactly say I'm disappointed they're leaving. They were not what the show really needed. This is a good opportunity for them to rethink the show's format and improve it. The current formula they've been following since season one has grated my nerves to the point I can no longer watch or enjoy the show. The piece-to-camera filler with the "oh-so-witty" worksafe quips and filling in at least 20-35% of the show's runtime with recaps of footage we've already seen is just agitating more than entertaining to me. I'd honestly prefer it if Mythbusters moved away from the "youth science variety program" format into a more serious, documentary-style science show aimed at mature young adults. They could focus more on the details of the scientific approach, explain their reasoning with scientific facts, explain the history of the logic they use in their approach, and give us raw cuts of footage of their experimentation. It'd not only be more informative but it'd shift the target audience to those actually interested in science rather than kids & teenagers who just like seeing things blow up or catch fire. Those kinds of things may be seen as entertaining by television executives, and it may help the show get good ratings and attract the interest of big companies willing to pay for advertising slots alongside the program, but concentrating mostly on big explosions and great balls of fire doesn't really help make the show be seen as a "learning" program.
Worse, on BBC America, they actually edit out large portions of the show.
Remember that the original show is nearly an hour long without commercials. So for the US version, they edit it down to the standard 44 minutes so they can include 16 minutes of ads. Which means you're missing anywhere from 12-20 minutes of content depending on original. (Based on Netflix run times.)
They've started showing the initial airing of a new Top Gear in hour 20 minute blocks, but repeats are always the edited versions. There's some stuff that's simply never been shown on US TV because it was edited out for ads.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Very much of this. Also they refine/repeat myths.
One of the best parts of the show is when viewers point out possible errors or omissions and the mythbusters retool and redo an 'experiment' to address such concerns and complaints.
Again - crude when compared to the controls of hard science, but definitely pushing people in the direction of scientific thinking.
In some cases? I'm not sure they have ever conducted a test that would be considered scientifically rigorous. I would suggest that if they were to submit their work for publication it would get bounced right back, but I've seen what passes "peer review" these days so I won't.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
All these years and still no episode testing the pancake total collapse theory of how skyscrapers can pulverize themselves into microscopic dust and collapse at freefall acceleration into their own footprint leaving a pool of molten iron which remains for weeks and months after the fact?
If you think you can go better, you should contact the show's producers. It's a very time consuming show to produce.
That was the claim - and it is mostly correct - but they interpreted "practice had little to no effect" to mean that every time you try this test you will do no better than the first which is wrong. While practice has no effect, not having ever done the test before on the first attempt will have a negative impact on the results for at least part of the first attempt. Also the Stroop test isn't really suited to measuring the kind of 'dumb' they were supposedly testing for.
[The Universe] has gone offline.
WTF is up with this stupid fucking Slashdot.beta? Every damn post is duplicated, 2-3 times. What a piece of crap. Too bad they don't bother testing...
Truth being they don't really need to seek work even if Mythbusters was to be cancelled. Adam and Jamie, and as far as I'm aware the 'B team' still do their 'day job' of building movie and TV special effects when they aren't actively working on myths. Of course whether or not the B team still want to work for Adam and Jamie now is a different matter...
[The Universe] has gone offline.
i stopped watching they ack like they are trying to entertain 5yo the show will get good again
Making experiments is my forte. It was at one point and time a huge part of my job.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Top Gear definitely does the recap/preview thing though, and not always at the beginning of the show. Admittedly it is done much more tastefully than the new Mythbusters. Commercials and the recaps are separate issues, but they can both combine for a multiplicative annoyance.
I'd like to see a lot more smaller myths tackled
One of my husband and I's very favorite myths is one of the simplest, and it's one of the ones you can do at home too: Phone Book Friction, asking if you interleave the pages of two phone books together, can you pull them apart again?
The answer (spoilers ahead): Yes, but it takes a great amount of force. Even two cars couldn't pull them apart. It was a simple myth where everyone, hosts included, thought it wouldn't take that much force -- they're just two phone books! The episode was excellently paced as they tried test after test, each time upping the ante until finally they used two TANKS to finally separate the phone books!
Yep, I admit I am an asshole, but I get hotter women than you ever will.
When you conveniently limit hotness to women you were able to bag, then that's an easy claim to make.
Redheads are hot.
Point taken, AC.
uhm...
Close but no cigar. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it went like this:
Towards 2000 (Beyond production) - a 1hr episode by Australians for Australians in the 90's
Beyond 2000 - Same though after 2000 AD - then came Mythbusters for the US market.
The 2 original shows were future science, gadget shows and had no Mythbuster content. The 43 minute show format is purely a US production.
Note: Jamie and Adam are here in Oz right now and have a stage show where they are mythbusting all by themselves.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Other than Christina Hendricks. Sad day to see kari go.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Geez, yeah every peice of intellectual property should be available for 4$, DRM Free, without ads. Damn AppStore/iTunes.
I meant less than 4$. Damn user input sanitization.
Adam has always been a waste of space in my opinion. He's goofy and for some reason a lot of nerds identify with him, but in nearly every episode, Jamie does 90% of the useful work and Adam the minor 10%, usually something cosmetic. They should cut his overpriced salary and keep the other three.
There are people who shorten these episodes to cut the repeats and some of the filler http://www.reddit.com/r/smyths "These 'Streamline' edits run shorter because they are missing teasers, cartoons, flashbacks, repetition, idents, history lessons, fun facts, "we're experts", and anything else that slows down the show."
I'd be happy to skip teasers, flashbacks, repetitions and idents; but to keep history lessons and fun facts (I don't remember seeing cartoons nor what is "we"re experts")...
Why did they cut these?
Perhaps do a show that demonstrates that there is nothing at all suspicious about the collapse of WTC-7. I've had it with the controlled demolition loons showing up in every online discussion.
Jamie and Adam: Do the world a favor and put the CD thing to rest already. It's time.
is to stop spoiling the myth results during opening scenes. Drop the highly annoying US style editing where watchers apparently have the attention span measured in seconds and you have to repeat half of the program after every commercial break (which there are an astounding number in US apparently) and go through the program one myth at a time instead of bouncing from topic to topic (again I suspect because of the apparent attention span of general US public).
I will miss Kari, she was so hot and wild, won't be the same.
Means less of this:
Welcome Back to Mythbusters!
Before the ad break, Adam and Jamie were looking into *the reason you tuned into the show*"
*Clips you've already seen of Adam and Jamie trying a few things, usually with explosive results*
"But before we get back to that, here's that *other, less exciting Myth that is being busted*"
*Segment entirely devoted to other myth*
"After the break, Adam and Jamie will return to continue on *the reason you tuned into the show*"
They claim that people do not get better with practice. But the mythbusters could still have had half the test subjects take the first test with the opposite sex observer and the other half take the first test with the same sex observer.
No, I'm an Aussie and it has always run for an hour here (around 50 mins + ads)
Adam is 47, Grant and Tori will be 44 in October, Kari will be 40 in December. There is not much difference in age there. Only the Hyneman is really older at 58
So, we could start by cutting the show by 30 minutes by removing the 'after the break' and the recap . . .
That, and, stop testing, say, euphemisms?
How about this? Some of the "of course you can't do that" crap, you test, if you want, when it's OF COURSE not true, don't farking air it!
It always blew me away how much stuff these people waste debunking some silly "myth" that a reasonably intelligent person could figure out on their own. My 5 year old, however, did find the show entertaining.
Great show, just running out of stuff to do
this will be the end of "mythbusters" in Germany.
Kari was the best reason to watch the show
... because with 3/5 of the team gone, they should drop 6 letters from the name of the show ...
I'm actually amazed this terrible show is still going. The basic premise of the show is if two mediocre SFX guys and/or three (whatever they are, children's TV presenters, or something, not scientists anyway) can't do something quickly, easily, and above all cheaply, it's totally impossible! I've never seen so much bad science in one place (outside of a creationist museum, that is).