Mythbusters

[Rick Law]

Since Mythbusters has been mentioned in this forum a few times, and one of their main guy Grant Imahara's face is often on Mouser doing their tech-videos and advertisement...

So, this may be of interest:

Mythbusters, the longest running show on Discovery Channel is coming to an end after 14 years.  2016 will be the last season.  Just saw an interview of Adam Savage talking about the final big finale show.

This is not entirely unexpected when they "kick out" everyone except the two owners of the show.  That was when I start noticing Grant showing up on Mouser.

[XOIIO]

Yeah, I heard about it ending too. It sucks big time :/

[bmwnomad]

The last episode is tonight, followed by a "reunion" show with all 5 cast members.

[Muttley Snickers]

Some of you people from overseas couldn’t possibly imagine the utter drivel and garbage that we down here have to put up with on free to air television, just mind numbing stuff in a repetitive cycle sometimes twice a day, scripted repo bullshit, idiots chasing alligators, meerkats with names, picking plonkers, holy headache batman the list goes on and on.

Bewitched and I Dream of Barbara Eden are also on the list. FFS.

Mythbusters was the exception, it will be sadly missed and I sincerely hope that a similar program takes its place in the not too distant future, a big ask and big thank you for all of those involved over the programs history, it really was a game changer.

[AF6LJ]

I wouldn't say MB was such an exception. I watched a season of it and found over half the episodes were poorly done. Half-Assed attempts at trying to bust a myth.
The show was crap from beginning to end.

[Muttley Snickers]

Yes well perhaps at times it was mediocre at best but I think that's what made it appealing, they were not infallible and they admitted it on many occasions and again compared to the other viewing options we have available it was tolerable for some of us most of the time.

[Brumby]

If you view Mythbusters as entertainment, then it is passable - but their efforts to produce objective science were often incomplete and sometimes just plain incompetent.

They did, however, produce some credible efforts - and this is what interested me.  Well, that and their penchant for blowing things up.

[calexanian]

Grant came an gave a speech at the HaD hardware meetup a little while back. He had been off the show for a while even at that point.

[RickBrant]

As with many things, "there's an xkcd for that."

https://xkcd.com/397/

[German_EE]

Favorite Mythbusters by a long way - The Lead Balloon. It's the episode that shows Adam Savage at his best when he builds a cube out of lead foil that unfolds as it inflates. It's a beautiful piece of engineering. The exploding water heater comes a close second. The look on their faces when the heater is there one moment and the next moment it's heading upwards at a rapid rate are fabulous.

[RickBrant]

One of my favorites - and one of the earliest - was "penny drop". Beautifully examined and tested.

[AndyC_772]

Mythbusters filled an essential role IMHO, namely, entertaining TV that shows and uses scientific methods.

Think about it... where else do people who aren't already scientists, come across the methods, tools and processes that are used on the show?

Can you think of another show in which people actually make things, measure them quantitatively, and then change them to try and achieve an objective? This whole process is so familiar to people who are regularly involved in science that we probably don't even notice how rare it is outside of that environment.

Imagine you're 10 yrs old, and enjoy watching Adam and Jamie blow stuff up. Where else do you encounter the idea that a high speed camera can be used not just for cool special effects, but to actually measure the speed at which something happens? Or that a device exists called an accelerometer, which can measure how hard you've swung an axe at a zombie? Where else do you even see a gated timer, or a thermal image, or a force gauge?

[German_EE]

Aged ten and growing up in the UK there was no Mythbusters but I did have Tomorrow's World, Young Scientist of the Year and, if memory serves, a programme called Tom Tom that had all sorts of fascinating stuff including building a robot. Now all that's gone and, regrettably, nothing has replaced it, kids these days NEED science based programmes on TV but all we seem to see are soap operas and talent contests.

I do my bit. Once a week the child of a neighbor comes to visit and  I try to fill his young mind with the useful stuff (whilst making it fun). According to his mother I'm "more fun than school" so I must be doing something right.

[RickBrant]

Damn good on you, German_EE.

[CatalinaWOW]

Loved Myth Busters, but the time had come to pull the plug.  They were running out of good myths and were too often re-hashing previous stuff and just making bigger and bigger explosions.  I suspect that the leads were getting tired of the daily grind also.  So.  Can the staff to cut costs.  Milk a little more money out of the last season and ride off into the sunset.

Here in the states a great show for introducing science was "Watch Mr. Wizard".  Lots of simple table top experiments demonstrating basic chemistry and physics.

[TimFox]

I still remember the "Watch Mr Wizard" show that explained basic amplification systems, including tubes and transistors, as using an input to control the output from a power source.
A much later network show "Dinosaurs" (by the Henson organization with live-action large puppets) had a TV show called "Watch Mr Lizard", where the catch phrase was "We're going to need another Timmy!", after doing an experiment with looking down the muzzle of a cannon to see what happens. 

[AF6LJ]

I still remember the "Watch Mr Wizard" show that explained basic amplification systems, including tubes and transistors, as using an input to control the output from a power source.
A much later network show "Dinosaurs" (by the Henson organization with live-action large puppets) had a TV show called "Watch Mr Lizard", where the catch phrase was "We're going to need another Timmy!", after doing an experiment with looking down the muzzle of a cannon to see what happens.

Watch Mr Wizard was great and even had young girls getting involved in science.
I loved it.

[MrSlack]

I'll show what the UK has to offer now. Everyone needs to code according to the whipmaster general (UK is starting to sound like Marxist-Leninist work propaganda from the DDR era - production up 230%!!!). Therefore this is pumped down the telescreens to the easier warped minds:

https://youtu.be/VCnQXvC7KY4

It's bad but I'd rather my kids watched violent gory cartoons these days than got an insight into the world from the television.

[JoeO]

I still remember the "Watch Mr Wizard" show that explained basic amplification systems, including tubes and transistors, as using an input to control the output from a power source.
A much later network show "Dinosaurs" (by the Henson organization with live-action large puppets) had a TV show called "Watch Mr Lizard", where the catch phrase was "We're going to need another Timmy!", after doing an experiment with looking down the muzzle of a cannon to see what happens.

Watch Mr Wizard was great and even had young girls getting involved in science.
I loved it.

I forgot that Mr Wizard involved girls in science..  He was ahead of his time.

[Brumby]

https://youtu.be/VCnQXvC7KY4

I don't know what to say.   

[Someone]

The last episode is tonight, followed by a "reunion" show with all 5 cast members.

There have been more than 5 regular "cast"

[RickBrant]

But none with anything like the longevity of Grant, Kari, and Tori. I don't think any of the others were around for more than a season.

[tszaboo]

It (was) a good show, and I watched most of the episodes, re-watching them now. It is nice to see, how the show evolved. The last 2 seasons, without the B-team, was strangely more entertaining, I must say. Not because they were not there, but because the change of the show. They used better gear to make the videos, more editing, more special effects. It was more professionally executed.
The reason for ending it is probably because they did not like each other in the beginning, and they don't do that now. It is surprising that the show is still running. Anyway, that was the last reason to switch to Discovery channel, besides Wheeler Dealers. Now it is down the drain completely.

[rrinker]

 Ah the "good old days" when TLC was the Learning Channel and you could actually learn something useful,. not watch the latest antics of families who have a zillion kids (poorly adjusted) kids in the "name of god" or feuding groups of little people.
 What I don't understand is why my GF, an otherwise intelligent individual, watches this crap. I know she's not really into science and technology (and she can't stand Dave's voice, which is why I always am watching EEVBlog videos when she's also in here playing on her computer), but sheesh. Unless I'm watching something on my computer, I can hear the TV from the other room and I swear just the audio is killing more brain cells than I ever did with alcohol in college. Is it just me, or is it intuitively obvious even to the most casual of observers (a phrase my high school chemistry teacher loved to use) that that garbage is scripted?
 Even the crazy antics of Beakman's World was at least educational - my kids loved watching that and hopefully they learned a few things, and I always found it entertaining as well. We need more of that. That coding song thing...make it stop!

[Rick Law]

With so little worth watching, I gave up cable TV now and only has Netflix streaming as TV.

MythBusters was one of the show we watched as a family on Netflix.  The show is no longer on-line at Netflix.  Sometimes, shows return after a bit of absence.  So I am looking forward to re-watching all the Mythbusters episodes if/when it returns.  Return or not, Netflix has lost so many other worthwhile shows and movies I am not sure if I would keep them.