So I was pretty pleased to discover that I could watch Mythbusters on the satellite. However, I do have one question; is the narrator in the US British? I can’t remember one way or the other, but I don’t seem to remember him being British (actually, I can’t remember a narrator at all, but I hadn’t watched the show in quite a while). At any rate, the narrator I hear here has a British accent, and makes reference to things like kilometers and biscuits and grams, etc. which makes me think they must either have more than one narrator to do region specific narration, or the same narrator does two versions of the narration. It’s the same show - it has Adam and Jamie and lots of explosions.
This post contains a form of the word “narrate” way too many times.
Bonus question: I turned on tonight’s episode halfway through. They were working on two myths, one involving a guy who purportedly broke out of a Mexican prison using salsa, and the other involving a cement truck. While I fully appreciated the very big explosion, I have no idea what the myth they were trying to bust was with the cement truck.
IIRC the answer to #2 was “it depends on how much concrete.” They had two trucks, one that was coated inside and one that had what amounted to a floor poured in it by mistake. The coated one got a lot of its cement knocked loose by the explosives. The one with the floor is the one they blew up real good.
Thanks for the answers. One thing I don’t quite get… There was a scene where a guy was using a jackhammer to break up the cement. I’m not too clear on what the point of that was…
They talked about different methods used to get hardened concrete out of a cement mixer. The traditional way I think is to use a jackhammer or otherwise chip it out. The unorthodox way was to use explosives to do it the easy way. I think they proved out that you COULD use explosives (if you used the right amount) to break up the concrete and make the job much easier…but you’d pretty much need to know what you were doing to do it that way. The smaller explosives didn’t really do much.
As an aside, I love this show. Did anyone catch the one where they determined if it was better to walk or run in the rain? Interesting point: Their answer is different than Cecil’s. There have actually been a couple answers they have gotten that are different than Cecil’s but thats the only one I remember distinctly.
They tried to see whether they could remove the cement using more conventional means rather than high explosive. They concluded that the sound of the jackhammer reverberating inside the mixer was much too loud.
As for your first question, the narrator has an American accent here in the States. However, according to the Mythbusters fan page, is Australian, born in England, but grew up in America.
I think the rain episode was the first I ever saw, and I was instantly hooked. IIRC, that was also the ep where they tested the “dropped cigarette in the toilet” myth. I think it was the ensuing forced explosion that made me such a fan. Hey, some chicks dig explosions too
Very strange that they have different narration! Maybe it gives them a chance to add explanations for stuff that they don’t think brits would understand?
Alternatively, it might be related to editing/repackaging to fit the different-sized time slot. Do they cut it to 30 minutes?
“Don’t worry, chaps. It’s perfectly normal for an American bloke to get his knickers twisted over the chance to play with a .50 calibre rifle! He’ll find it so exhilerating he’ll dash home to roger his old lady as soon as the cameras stop rolling.”
“Jamie want big BOOM!” These guys push things to the limit, and then beyond if they can destroy something. I love it! My favorite was the trombone slide hitting the conductor.
My favourite is one where (I think) they’re testing the exploding point of items in a hot car (or oven as the case was toward the end) and Jamie’s in the space-suit thingy. Adam says something, and Jamie just nods, then Adam says “Are you going to come out of there?”. Jamie just replies “I like it in here. S’private.”
A friend of mine used to work as a producer for a local ABC affiliate. He said that there are a lot of shows that show the same segments, even the same interview answers, but have a different reporters/interviewers/hosts in different parts of the country. A pronounced Noo Yawk accent in NYC would be welcome not the least in Texas. Different narrators/hosts give a local flavor and make the show more attractive to that audience. I like the current Battlestar Galactica, and you can see that they have tried to bring in someone from all the major English speaking nations - even Canada. Baltar gets to speak. in his normal British twit accent, Apollo is actually a Brit speaking with an American accent, Olmos is Olmos, you have a bunch of Canadians sounding like Canadians and best of all, they even had Xena with her Australian/New Zealand or whatever accent. Having a local identity in the show helps sell all those made in China/serviced in India products to the natives.
I have errrrr… “access” to a lot of British programming via the Internet and I’ve seen just what you’re describing.
AFAIK, Discovery Channel’s “Modern Marvels” is a US show that’s recently arrived in the UK, and is dubbed - word-for-word - into British English. I believe that the Discovery show “Decisive Battles” is also originally a US show - the British one is dubbed into “British” and also cuts the introduction of the American guy standing in front of the battlefield in question.
This also works both ways, though. Almost all of the “outrageous” medical documentaries TLC\Discovery has been showing lately (“The Girl With X-Ray Eyes”, “The Half Ton Man”) are originally British, yet have been dubbed into “American” for TLC’s audience (this is especially obvious in “The Half Ton Man”, as the entire camera crew have British accents, even though the “half ton” man in question is from the US and the doc was filmed here).
I’m not sure why the Brits go to all the trouble to re-dub documentaries and a lot of “reality-based” shows (like Mythbusters). After all, a goodly portion of their TV programming is American, and shows like NYPD Blue and Lost are most certainly not dubbed.
And it can’t be for clarity of weights and measures, as I have plenty of British documentaries where Imperial and metric units are used interchangeably. I have seen several shows where someone will used “kilometer” “foot” and “stone” in the same sentence practically. Then there’s a show about Britain’s military past - Battlefield Britain - where one of the hosts (an older gentleman) uses Imperial measures exclusively, while his son (another host) uses metric exclusively. It’s actually quite funny when they’re on the screen together - “the battlefield itself is two miles that way… right, son?” “You got it Dad - 3.2 kilometers that way”.
I’m not sure if “terminology” is a vaild reason. Brits and Yanks can understand each other most of the time - I didn’t have to look up “spanner” to figure out what it was. However, I can absolutely see American networks redubbing Brit shows for “clarity” - hell, American networks even caption native English speakers these days if they have a strong accent of any kind.
Aside from that, I guess it’s just a “familarity” or “comfort” thing for the networks. But what do I know, I don’t work in TV.
Yeah, there’s definitely nothing wrong with a few explosions, though sometimes I think I find the sheer, childlike glee on everyone’s face (but especially Adam’s) every time they blow something up even more entertaining than the explosion itself. Plus funny geeks are always good.
Now I just need to get the Canadian Discovery Channel to stop showing reruns and start showing these new episodes people are talking about…
