Been rewatching old episodes of Mythbusters, and I’m confused as to why they disclaim their own disclaimer. “Don’t try anything you see at home. We’re what you call experts.” Um, they are experts. Is there a reason for this bizarre disclaimer within a disclaimer?
It sounds more approachable and humble to the non-expert masses, is my guess.
I always assumed they were not comfortable calling themselves experts—at least, not on everything they’ve tested. Their training and experience is in special effects for movies, not science.
This. The former sounds like, “Stand aside, plebe, I know what I’m doing, and you don’t!” The latter is softer, more friendly, and fits in with the tone of the show. Plus, even if they were demolitions experts off-camera, they brought in the real experts to handle the “Jamie wants big boom!” scenarios showing that even experts need expert experts.
Yeah, Jamie and Adam understand practical effects but with many of their “experiments” they were definitely not experts, and not infrequently did things that would make an actual professional explosives/ordnance or pressurized systems expert cringe. They managed to never kill themselves but they had a number of near misses as Adam Savage has discussed on his Tested.
Stranger
“Am I missing…an eyebrow?”
Real experts generally don’t accidentally shoot cannonballs through other people’s houses.
I’ve been watching a lot of Adam Savage’s Tested videos, because he’s entertaining and interesting. But I’ve gradually noticed that he seems quite competent when he’s doing some kind of work I’m not familiar with, like metalworking or resin casting, but when he does work that I am familiar with, like woodworking, he seems very sloppy and amateurish. I think it comes from his background in making movie props, which just have to look good and not actually be good.
There is definitely an element of expediency in his work that comes from being a model-maker, and he talks not infrequently about becoming a better machinist/electrician/cabinetmaker/et cetera. If you’ve ever handled movie props up close, except for ‘hero guns’ they’re often remarkably crude because they don’t really need to be finely detailed for film, and a good cosplay imitation is often better than the original prop. Go back and look at some of the original stormtrooper armor and helmets and you can see them flopping around or having unpainted/overpainted areas because of what a rush they were in to build a bunch of them at once.
Stranger
Well…
Bolding mine.
Though they’re likely not trained in ballistics.
I think this is the general scenario that reveals incompetence among “experts”. Only relevant experts can tell if someone is sloppy / wrong / bullshitting on a technical job edited to look good. Having this kind of moments myself tells me that likely much / most the TV guy is doing is similarly incompetent - I just don’t have the relevant expertise to tell.
It’s humor. Don’t read anything into it other than it’s an attempt to be funny.
Not even close. The attempts at humor are easy to tell from the actual incompetence.
Because they weren’t real scienticians.
I got a chance to see the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones in person, and even sat on it. It was made of cheap plastic. I was reminded of something you’d buy as a Halloween yard decoration. I thought at the time, no way could this piece of crap be the actual show prop. But when I looked at photos we took with it, the damn thing looked like it was made of metal. They really know how to make things that will look good on film that look like garbage in person.
(This was at the MoPOP in Seattle, which has lots of items that were on TV and film, though most are behind glass. Lots of props look awful in real life.)
I think it just went with the general spirit of the show. Not really taking themselves too seriously
Right . They are experts. That’s why they’re called experts.
Are they really “experts”? I have always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that they’re essentially just the hosts for the show, and that the real work is done by engineers and technicians working behind-the-scene.
There was a behind the scenes crew of people working on the show including at least a couple of occupational safety people, and they would consult with actual experts and bring in appropriate support like crane operators or rescue divers when the scenario required it, especially with more elaborate myths and after the cannonball but it is pretty clear that Jamie and Adam (and their on-screen crew) did much of the heavy lifting when it came to setting up their ‘experiments’, which is apparent in their amateur nature of many of them. Some of their supposed ‘myths’ I could have dismissed out of hand with a whiteboard, a calculator, and a Marks’ but almost nobody wants to spend twenty minutes watching some nerd draw freebody diagrams and do vector algebra when they can see something actually get smashed or explode.
Stranger
Yes. And let that be a lesson to you. I mean go ahead and do the boring explanation, you’re pretty good at that. But do that after you smash or blow something up!