Ballistics gel dancers.
I bet Grant could put one of these together. (I’d rather see Kari though) 
Well, I think Adam is adorable. I mean, he’s smart and silly and owns his own NASA-style space suit. How could anyone resist that? Plus, the whole “I reject your reality and substitute my own” thing was awesome. (Though yes, as much as I love him, he needs to stop with the accents and impressions.)
I don’t see how anyone could doubt Tory is useful to the show. Who else could do stuff like this?
Eh, I really like the B-squad Mythbusters. They seem like they’d be fun to hang out with. I’ve never gotten the impression that they don’t know what they’re doing.
They will always hold a special place in my heart for building the Creamer Cannon, which was IMO the coolest thing on the show EVER.
It wasn’t him. On another forum I frequent, they found more pictures of the same guy in those photos and at other angles and lighting you can clearly see it’s not Adam.
And any reports of him apologizing were faked. Hell, the original thread on that other forum turned into a joke thread where everyone (well, mostly everyone) pretended they were real and it got to the point where they said “i just read mythbusters is canceled because of it!” and “Adam killed himself because of it!”
A lot of people didn’t get it was a joke thread and thought not only the picture, but Adam killing himself was real and were like “I don’t see this anywhere else, where are you getting your news from?”
I (not the poster whom you are quoting) think it just doesn’t look like him. It looks like him, but not to the point that I think it’s him. And your edit is completely untrue - he has not apologized, his colleagues are not disappointed, because it’s not him.
Joe
I always understood the “B” Team was to do the lesser experiments (like my all time favorite, growing plants and seeing if abusive language or different music would affect their growth).
Adam and Jamie would reserve the bigger blowing-up-stuff for themselves because they also had regular jobs in the special effects biz, and doing Mythbusters also was getting to be too much for them.
I am afraid that they are running out of myths to bust!
Oh, and I am glad Adam let his hair grow out from that hideous buzz cut, his hair is such an unusual, beautiful color. (and I like Grant and Tory. I am indifferent to “The Girl”, much as I am indifferent to Jennifer Anniston or Angelina Jolie. I see the swooning fans and remain totally puzzled.)
Yes, I am in agreement. It looked a lot like him, but was just a bit off.
As far as I’m concerned, the show is good because it’s one of the few where what they do is more important than how they look, what their personalities are, how smooth their dialogue is, whether they sexually desirable, whether they are cool, whether the production is slick etc. At it’s peak, the show was near unique in that they showed the backroom stuff. They showed not just the slickly performed payoff at the end, but how they built their rig, the scale rigs they built to try out ideas, the fuckups, the deadends, the rigs that didn’t work.
It broke out of the mould in which every show must be based slick showiness, to the exclusion of substance.
It is slowly falling back into the boring standard mould, and is getting less and less to my taste because of it.
Aaaaaaaaah! I just cringe watching that.
I think a lot of the complaints about the show are about things that make the show appealing to a lot of people. As Princhester says above, it has a cheesy, low-rent charm. My favorite period for the show was the first couple of seasons when they it wasn’t nearly as polished as it is now.
Yeah, the fact that they are all a little rough around the edges is part of what makes the show great. If they were too slick and polished, it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining.
I think that’s part of the purpose of the build team nowadays–they handle the stuff that is more random and open-ended, while Jamie and Adam concentrate on the more glamorous but predictable tests.
FWIW, I think the episode last year where they tested the moon landing conspiracy myths was probably their best single show ever. I’ve seen other shows give expository explanations debunking the moon hoax myths, but actually physically recreating them was really effective. I’m a science teacher and every year I have some student(s) professing to believe that the moon landing never happened. If they won’t listen to me, maybe I can buy a copy of that episode and show it to them!
The only thing I can think of him building off the top of my head is a homemade “jet” engine. But, a) that jet engine was pretty much just a fan and a metal tube, and b) there’s no indication that he actually designed it. What things has he built on the show that clearly were his idea and his design that was decently complex and actually worked?
I don’t doubt that he can build something according to a design he’s been handed. The question is whether he could have designed it himself.
My only bitch is they can not get it through their heads that 2 identical pushing devices will always be different. Like attaching 2 rockets to a device and thinking it will move evenly. How many times will they twist something into a knot before they figure that out.
I never said that he designed the things. What I said is that he’s a senior builder, both on the show and behind the scenes.
Remember, I was disagreeing with your assessment that “the other two in the build team could pretty much be anyone.” Can they design an entire complex mechanism from scratch? I don’t know, and in Kari’s case, I doubt it. That doesn’t mean that they’re lacking in skill by any means, though.
I do recall Tory building a number of non-trivial mechanisms on the show. By “non-trivial,” I mean that your average joe wouldn’t be able to build them, even if he was fairly handy around the house. I don’t have the specifics on hand though, and I will readily admit that I don’t feel like digging through the 'net just to figure out the details.
God, I miss Scottie.
I meant they could have been anyone who can weld and nail and stuff.
Admittedly they’d hand me my ass when it comes to building something, but they are just grunt labor compared to Grant. Before the big G came on the show, the build team couldn’t operate as a fully independent group from Jamie and Adam. That was my point.
On the topic of eye candy for those who like guys, Grant is the poster boy for Geek Cute.
Tory… would be a lot cuter if he didn’t act so stupid. I’m open to the possibility that he’s not like that in real life and is just told to act dumb for comic relief - the Mythbusters’ Peter Tork, if you’d like. But it’s still annoying.
Tory is more intelligent and capable than he comes across. His default mode just isn’t to think things through fully before acting. Whenever he listens to that (very) little voice that says, “hold on a sec…” he usually get things right.
Like XKCD says, at least they are using the scientific method. I feel if it was too cut and dry, people wouldn’t watch. I think they strike a good balance between entertainment and education.