Mythbusters: An Appreciation. You Can Bust My Myth Anytime

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Mythbusters is finally back at full force, and I sat through last night’s season premiere grinning from ear to ear.

I love the hell out of this show, and last night was yet more evidence of why everyone should do the same. Projectile slushies, faux helicopters, 120 mph collisions, a bloody action-hero demonstration of how to dangle from the edge of a skyscraper by your fingertips.

There are moments in most Mythbusters episodes when Adam Savage loses his composure in a fit of hooting and hollering, and last night’s episode was one of those editions that had me giggling even before Adam was. If you will permit me to relive my five favorite moments:

-The ‘non-trademark’ blue slush drink. I love it. They clearly can’t call it a ‘slushie,’ or an ‘Icee,’ so we get ‘non-trademark blue shush drink’ instead. Whatever the name, their test to figure out which moving projectile carries more force – soda, soda-ice combo, slush drink – was ingenious. And it all built up to that glorious, slow-mo shot of an icee exploding against a steel plate. I have no idea how much such experiments cost, but that blue obliteration was worth every penny. (More at Techland: The Toy Story 3 photo album – meet the new toys)

– I know they tell home viewers to never attempt their experiments, but the blue slush road test almost looked too fun not to try. Rolling at 60 mph, Jamie leans out of a car and chucks a slush-filled cup at a dummy behind a windshield that is rushing at him at 60 mph as well. Not only was it fun to watch the high-speed target practice – I thought Jamie did pretty well, all things considered – but then we were also bestowed with a good half-dozen slow-motion shots of Styrofoam cops pulverizing glass, showering the dummy with hundreds of shards. Crazy epic.

– Tory biffed it hardcore during the test of how long people could cling to the edge of a building. For some odd reason, the team set up the stunt right above an open window frame, and when Tory finally let go, he freefell right into the window frame, knees first. Blood everywhere – and after we saw the slow-mo impact of his leg compressing into the concrete, I had a whole new admiration for our mythbusters – risking life and limb.

– How could you not get a vicarious adrenaline rush from Grant, playing action hero above that swimming pool, dangling to a fake helicopter? First off, the whole sequence just looked cool – shot from above, with that industrial fan whipping the water at 90 mph and our heroes straining to hang on to the metal pipes. It was pretty bad ass, as Grant hoisted himself up in true Schwarzenegger style, posing as he reached the peak. And then his shirt slid up, exposing his blinding white chest. A nerdy, albino superhero for the record books. (More at Techland: Would you read books in 3D?)

– Jamie’s soda-can-cannon was awesome. Stepping out of the car, Jamie instead decided to pummel the dummy and its windshield with soda cans fired out of a makeshift rocket launcher. I particularly loved the slow-motion shots that captured the cannon’s epic recoil; Jamie had a hard time keeping his footing.

Near the end of the episode, both Adam and Jaime admitted that just about anything can be deadly when shot out of a grenade launcher. And as they walked off into the sunset, I decided it was these two crack scientists that I’d want on my side, on the day of the zombie-apocalypse. If they could do this with a cup full of blue slush, just imagine what they could with, say, a can of Spam. I want these two on my side.

Is the show a bit predictable now, in some of the staged banter and forced explanations? Sure. But honestly, I don’t really care. I love the challenges they set for themselves, their ingenuity in devising tests, and their creative ways of capturing it all on film. This is the sort of reality TV for me; what did you guys think of the big return episode?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gio6k9KycM]

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