MythBusters - The Knowledge Hunters

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Television broadcast
German title MythBusters - The Knowledge Hunters
Original title MythBusters
Mythbusters logo.jpg
Country of production United States
original language English
Year (s) 2003-2016
Production
company
Beyond Entertainment
Beyond Productions
length 41-49 minutes
Episodes 278 in 15 seasons ( List )
genre Documentary series
idea Peter Rees
music Neil Sutherland
First broadcast January 23, 2003 (USA) on Discovery Channel
German-language
first broadcast
May 7, 2005 on Discovery Channel Germany
occupation

MythBusters - Die Wissensjäger (Original title: MythBusters ) was an American documentary series on the television station Discovery Channel , which dealt with the reenactment and verification of " urban myths ". The MythBusters format was actually developed for Australia , but was rejected there on the grounds that it was not scientific enough. In 2002, Discovery gave the show a chance in the US with three pilot episodes. In Germany, the program can currently be seen on DMAX and Discovery Channel.

content

In their show, special effects experts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage try to use experiments and modern technology to clarify what is true about certain urban myths and what is fiction . For example, they clarify what would happen if someone fired a pistol in a flying plane or whether a person could be killed with a thrown playing card.

To illustrate the respective myths, short animated films were used up to the 14th season, in which the main actors return in cartoon form. The raw animation style emphasized the experimental nature of MythBusters. In addition, the planning phases of all experiments were simulated in front of the camera. Blueprint-style sketches implemented the question in a television-friendly manner and created a recognizable MythBusters look. Blueprints from previous broadcasts decorated the Mythbusters headquarters.

The design was changed from the 15th season. In the new design, the steps of the MythBusters are no longer explained with sketches and blueprints, but with simple graphics and short, white texts that are superimposed on the normal picture. The new design also includes a new intro.

At the end of each experiment, the myth is declared as destroyed (busted) , plausible (plausible) or confirmed (confirmed) . As destroys the myth is called when the experiments do not achieve the results even under improved conditions, which claims the myth. A plausible myth relates to alleged events, often with a historical background, such as the allegedly only successful escape from the prison island of Alcatraz or Benjamin Franklin 's experiment with a kite in a thunderstorm. Since there is often no clear evidence that the event in question took place, it is only checked here whether the myth would have been possible as described. If the experiments confirm the sequence, it is considered plausible . The myth is considered confirmed if the experiments deliver the result described in the myth.

Hynemans company for special effects , M5 Industries Inc and the Bay Area of San Francisco are the scene of most episodes of MythBusters - The knowledge hunters . Checking myths has taken the Mythbusters team several times to abandoned military bases (NAS Alameda and Hamilton Air Force Base, Novato ), dry lakes, an aircraft graveyard in the Mojave Desert ( Mojave Air & Space Port ), Altamont Raceway Park as well to South Africa and the Bahamas .

Several special episodes are fully dedicated to the armored tape .

Changes in the team (2014)

In August 2014, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman announced that they would continue the MythBusters without the construction team Kari Byron , Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci . The aim is to go back to the roots with the series .

End of the series (2016)

On October 21, 2015 it was announced that the last season of Mythbusters will be broadcast due to falling ratings in 2016. Mythbusters ended after 14 years, during which they carried out around 2,950 experiments, examined 1,050 myths and detonated 900 explosions. The official farewell episode was broadcast in the USA on March 5, 2016, the actual last episode on March 6, in Germany the last season was broadcast from April 4, 2016 (see also the episode list ). In the farewell episode, there were several clips from viewers, including James Cameron and Barack Obama , who thanked the Mythbusters.

The "MythBusters"

Jamie Hyneman

Jamie Hyneman 2010

James "Jamie" Franklin Hyneman was born in 1956 and grew up on a farm in Columbus, Indiana. By his own admission, Hyneman was a "difficult child who moved out at the age of 14 and hitchhiked across the country." He later studied literature and the Russian language. He has been married to the teacher Eileen Walsh since 1989.

For several years he ran a diving school with a boat charter service in the Caribbean. He has also worked as a survival expert, linguist, pet shop owner, animal catcher, owner of a rescue company, machinist and cook. After that he found his way into the film industry and worked for several production companies. He later oversaw the production of models and special effects for hundreds of commercials and films as managing director at Colossal Pictures. He participated in over 800 television advertisements, among other things he is responsible for advertisements for 7 Up, Nike, Industrial Light and Magic as well as several American automobile companies. He was also responsible for visual effects in the production of Top Gun , the Matrix sequels, Star Wars - Episode I and Episode II, and many other films.

In 1997 he founded the special effects workshop M5 Industries Inc. in San Francisco, which also serves as the location for MythBusters. The workshop has become one of the most important prototype manufacturers in the USA.

Adam Savage

Adam Savage (2007)

Adam Savage was born in New York City in 1967 . At first he worked as a graphic designer , set designer , interior decorator , carpenter and welder , processing various materials. Adam's television career began relatively early. He was already in front of the camera in his early youth and had appearances in this program through his father, who was an artist and created stage sets for Sesame Street . As a teenager, he starred in a Billy Joel video for the song "Second Wind" and appeared in a commercial for Charmin toilet paper.

For the past eight years, Adam has worked in the special effects industry for over 100 commercials and 12 films, including Star Wars Episode I and Episode II , Galaxy Quest , Terminator 3 , AI and the two Matrix sequels. He has made props for Coca-Cola , Hershey’s and Lexus and has worked for the New York and San Francisco theater companies. Savage worked for Jamie Hyneman's effects company M5 Industries Inc. even before MythBusters began broadcasting .

He married in 2003 and has twin sons from a previous relationship.

The "construction team"

Kari Byron (2010)
Tory Belleci (2006)
Grant Imahara (2007)

In the first season aired in 2003, the Mythbusters team consisted exclusively of Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage as the main actors. In the second season, the so-called “Mythtikanten” ( suitcase word from “Mythbusters” and “interns”), the Hyneman and Savage helped to build the scenarios to test the myths and to carry out the experiments and during the course of the second season the construction team was increasingly involved in the show as actors in front of the camera. From season 3, the construction team was officially one of the main actors and was also mentioned in the credits as an equivalent MythBusters. Scottie Chapman left the team at the beginning of 2005, started her own business as a metal worker and has been working as a dental assistant since 2013 after retraining. For this, the electrical engineer Grant Imahara got a bigger role, among other things Imahara was a specialist in the construction of robots in various designs. Scottie was back on the show from time to time from the end of 2007, while Christine Chamberlain left the team after the third season and now lives with her husband in Saudi Arabia. From the 13th season of 2015, the "construction team" was no longer part of the show, Jamie and Adam continued the series with a revised design and concept, just two of them.

The construction team:

Mythic edges:

  • Jess Nelson - engineering student

former members

  • Scottie Chapman - metal worker
  • Christine Chamberlain - artist
  • Jessi Combs - Temporary replacement for the pregnant Kari Byron (only in the 7th season, from episode 19)

Dr. Heather Joseph-Witham

Heather Joseph-Witham holds a PhD in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA . She is currently Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies in the Liberal Arts and Sciences Department at Otis College of Art and Design. In the pilot episodes, season 1 and the first two episodes of season 2 of the series, Joseph-Witham is responsible for explaining myths and their origins. Since the concept of the show has changed, it is no longer seen in the newer episodes.

"Buster", the crash test dummy

A crash test dummy , on loan from the National Highway and Safety Administration , named “Buster” by Adam and Jamie , was actually developed for the automotive industry and is used for dangerous experiments. In the 2nd season the dummy was badly burned in a fireworks experiment and had to be rebuilt. The head, hands and feet of the old dummy were used for the new building; its frame is made of aluminum and poplar wood, which breaks under roughly the same stress as human bones. The frame is covered with extremely durable dragon skin latex and the pieces of wood in his arms and legs often give the MythBusters information about how much damage a person would be if he got into the same situation as the dummy.

Guests (selection)

Doyle was usually called in to help when particularly explosive explosives or extremely large quantities of explosives were used in a shipment. Among other things, he helped in episode 26 ("Salsa for Freedom" / "Salsa Escape") to blow up a cement mixer with the help of 425 kg of the explosive ANFO . In addition, through his professional relationships, he repeatedly made it possible for the MythBusters to use tracer ammunition in experiments , the possession of which is prohibited for private individuals in some US states.
  • Erik Gates , electrician, owner of Gateco Electric and hobby rocket builder :
Gates stood by the MythBusters in several episodes as a specialist in the development and construction of missiles and also made missiles available to the MythBusters. He died in December 2009 while working with his company as a result of an accident at work in which he fell into a light shaft ten meters deep.
  • Sergeant (later Lieutenant) Alan Normandy , member of the South San Francisco Police Department and Forensic Expert on Firearms:
Normandy was mostly used in experiments with firearms that could not be legally carried out by private individuals and which therefore took place under his supervision. He also made it possible for the Mythbusters to use firearms practice areas and police rooms for experiments if this was necessary for safety reasons.
  • Dr. Roger Schwenke , acoustician at Meyer Sound Laboratories :
Schwenke supported the MythBusters in various experiments with sound. So he assisted z. B. in episode 8 ("Escape from Alcatraz" / "Alcatraz Escape") when investigating the myth that ducks quacking allegedly had no echo, in episode 25 ("The laxative tones" / "Brown Note") whether Frequencies in the infrasound range could lead to people losing control of their intestinal muscles or, in episode 31 (“Can singing destroy glass?” / “Breaking Glass”), whether it is possible to break glasses with the help of the human voice .
Vendera helped in episode 31 ("Can Singing Destroy Glass?" / "Breaking Glass") the mythbusters to check whether a person could "sing" a glass with the help of his voice.
In episode 157 ("... meet Barack Obama" / "President's Challenge") the MythBusters met Barack Obama in the White House , at this meeting Obama described himself and his two daughters as big fans of the MythBusters. He finally addressed the ancient myth about the Greek scientist Archimedes , which the MythBusters had already checked twice (episode 16, "The laser weapon from Roman times" / "Ancient Death Ray" and 46, "Mailbag Special: The igniting spark of Archimedes") / "Archimedes Death Ray"): Archimedes would have bundled sunlight with mirrors and thus set Roman ships on fire. Obama noted that there was still controversy over the plausibility of this myth and asked the MythBusters for one final review of this myth to prove or disprove it once and for all.
Episode 206 was a special on the TV series Breaking Bad, with Gilligan and Paul as guests. In this episode, the MythBusters recreated some scenes from Breaking Bad and checked them for plausibility, Gilligan and Paul commented on the experiments.
Cameron appeared in episode 190 ("Titanic Floß" / "Titanic Survival"), in which the MythBusters movie scenes from Cameron's 1997 film Titanic reenacted.

Suggestions for improvement from the audience

Not every experiment satisfies all viewers. Spectators often have suggestions for improvements for experiments, and these suggestions are dealt with at irregular intervals in a “revisit”. Previous experiments are repeated, suggestions and ideas of the audience are taken into account, whereby previous results are partially corrected.

Episodes

Spin-offs and follow-up series

On March 31, 2016, it was reported in the USA that the Science Channel was developing a kind of casting show to find new presenters for a planned Mythbusters follow-up series. The series planned for a season of eight episodes was called MythBusters: The Search . Ten candidates had to complete various tasks based on Mythbusters episodes. It was broadcast in the USA from January 7, 2017, and in Germany from March 29, 2018 on Nitro .

On March 28, 2017, the Discovery Channel announced that the new MythBusters 2017-2018 would air, with new presenters Brian Louden and Jonathan Lung, winners of MythBusters: The Search . The broadcast in the USA took place on November 15, 2017, the German broadcast on Nitro from April 26, 2018.

In September 2016, it was announced that Byron, Belleci, and Imahara would be the stars of a new scientific entertainment program on Netflix called the White Rabbit Project . This show had its premiere in December 2016 and, like MythBusters, is produced by the Beyond International Group .

Web links

Commons : MythBusters  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. dailymail.co.uk: 'The end of an era!' MythBusters shocks fans by axing daredevil co-hosts Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara after 10 years on hit Discovery show Article dated August 23, 2014
  2. Video with the announcement of the last season. Retrieved November 10, 2015 .
  3. www.discovery.com: 'Where are they now: Scottie Chapman?' Article from October 2015
  4. ^ Adam Savage addresses MythBusters departures at UPI.com, added March 1, 2015
  5. Appearance on TV show: Obama on Archimedes' footsteps in Spiegel Online from October 18, 2010
    President Obama Announces Walk-On Role on Discovery Channel's MythBusters , Discovery Channel press release from October 18, 2010
  6. MythBusters: S12 - Breaking Bad Special on YouTube .
  7. http://www.filmstarts.de/nachrichten/18475409.html
  8. James Hibberd: Mythbusters spin-off reveals explosive first trailer . 15th November 2016.
  9. ^ Imfernsehen GmbH & Co. KG: MythBusters: The Search: Broadcast dates. Accessed April 13, 2018 (German).
  10. https://corporate.discovery.com/discovery-newsroom/science-channel-unveils-its-2017-18-upfront-slate-led-by-johnny-galeckis-scijinks-and-the-all-new-mythbusters /
  11. https://www.fernsehserien.de/mythbusters/episodenguide/staffel-11/13491
  12. Matthew dessem: MythBusters Build Team Reuniting for Netflix's White Rabbit Project . September 5, 2016. Retrieved September 6, 2016.