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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Aug 13, 2013 3:33:40 GMT
New notable quote from Adam: "It's like hell in a bathtub!"
Hydrofluoric Acid: Small scale test = nothing dissolved. Myth busted. Full scale: Sulfuric acid + "special sauce" = pig dissolved but bathtub intact. Myth still busted. Replicating results: Replace cast iron with fiberglass tub + excessive gallons of mixture from full scale = pig dissolved, but bathtub still intact. Final verdict: BUSTED.
Mercury Fulminate: Small scale (part 1): 5 g of compound = new way to obliterate a pumpkin! Plausible? (The testing of this featured a bonus for the ladies: Tory in his boxers.) Small scale (part 2): Throwing compound = nothing. Myth busted? Full scale: 50 g of compound (as show specifies) + blasting cap = poof, not BOOM. Everyone in room injured, but room was still fully intact. Myth still busted. Replicating results: 250 g of compound + blasting cap = room went BOOM! Final verdict: BUSTED.
Guest review: Vince Gilligan (Creator) & Aaron Paul ("Jesse Pinkman") The commentary was not overdone, they did not meddle with the testing process, & the Gilligan did provide some insight into the actual methods used on the show (i.e., the tub was made of cheese).
Overall, I liked the show. Not one of the best, but good nonetheless. Just counting down the seconds before the "Breaking Bad" diehards flood the DC site with "You did it wrong" & "It worked on the show" comments.
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Post by ironhold on Aug 13, 2013 7:02:37 GMT
Did this already air?
And if so, when?
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Post by blazerrose on Aug 13, 2013 7:32:07 GMT
It aired a couple of weeks ago in Oz and aired last night in the US. It will repeat on Thursday at 2pm.
If your DVR guide is like mine it does not show the program. I have to set a manual recording.
I will review later - I was making banana bread and doing Nano tech support for my SIL while this was on so I missed a bunch.
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Post by Antigone68104 on Aug 13, 2013 14:16:49 GMT
Official Disclaimer: I haven't watched Breaking Bad, but I did check out the show's pages on TV Tropes beforehand.
Overall, not a bad episode. Gilligan wasn't nearly as obnoxious as Seth Rogan was. I suspect I might know what the "special sauce" was, though I hadn't heard of boosting acid effectiveness by adding something to it.
I wonder if part of the trouble they had eating through the tubs was that the outer shell was protecting it. In their small-scale tests, they were using cut sections, so the acids could work on the "inside" of the tub material. Full-scale, the acids would have needed to break through a protective coating first.
Did I miss something, or was there no interaction between the build team and the guests?
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Aug 13, 2013 16:09:11 GMT
The only interaction between MBs & guests that I can recall was the opening montage & recap at the end. Other than that, the guests commentated apart from the MBs.
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Post by blindleader on Aug 13, 2013 18:43:50 GMT
As expected, everything was busted. No TV program, Breaking Bad and Mythbusters included, wants to be a DIY show for breaking the law and do other dangerous things, especially for the youngest age group of the target audience. They are also very careful to make sure it doesn't happen by accident. That shows up in the MBs hiding the identity of the "Secret Sauce". Thirty seconds on Google exposes the identity of said substance. If you ever took a course organic chemistry, you probably knew the answer off the top of your head. But MBs asses are covered and the youngest in the audience probably would have difficulty figuring it out. The rest are welcome to their Darwin Awards.
I liked this episode better than most. They seemed to spend considerably more time than usual explaining genuine science, even though the explanations are oversimplified and sometimes inaccurate in the details. Showing the audience "how science works" not "doing good science" has always been the strong suit of Mythbusters. They are to be commended.
I'm sure MBs will be deluged with requests to do many more Breaking Bad myths. All the dangerous ones will be busted, and we can be sure they are not going to try to make methamphetamine. That one would be busted anyway. We already have from other sources (Google Donna Nelson) that the procedure Walter White uses is a mash-up of different methods that leads nowhere.
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Post by OziRiS on Aug 13, 2013 18:54:05 GMT
And can we now be done with TV and movie specials for a while?
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Aug 13, 2013 18:59:15 GMT
And can we now be done with TV and movie specials for a while? I concur with that opinion. |
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Post by blindleader on Aug 13, 2013 19:26:25 GMT
And can we now be done with TV and movie specials for a while? Oh, I don't know. At least these myths had some basis in fact. It sure beats some of the myths they've tested in the past that seem to have been pulled out of some twelve-year-old's rectum. A walk down memory lane for a few choice examples: - elevator jump - curving bullet - bridge jump save by throwing a hammer - ninja myths, take your pick |
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Post by watcher56 on Aug 14, 2013 3:09:24 GMT
I suspect I might know what the "special sauce" was, I think we are all responsible here. {Yes but is still against board rules to post such a thing OR provide a link to it - CM} |
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Post by Antigone68104 on Aug 14, 2013 11:42:43 GMT
Yep, I was right.
Blindleader, elevator jump and bridge jump/hammer throw were established urban legends before anyone even thought of making the show; they're closer to the original concept than the movie myths.
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Aug 14, 2013 13:23:29 GMT
For some reason, the TV/Movie specials tend to be disappointing. How many of us could have done without the Green Hornet Special? Then, there's Curving a Bullet(yes, you may commence groaning now...)
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Post by OziRiS on Aug 14, 2013 15:14:17 GMT
Off the top of my head, the only really good episodes based on movies/TV were "What is bullet proof?", "Hollywood on trial" and the Lethal Weapon toilet bomb.
I only consider the first two good because they debunked movie/TV physics that - even thoug completely rediculous - have been perpetuated for so long that people actually believed it worked like that in the real world.
Have you noticed how people being flung 8-10 feet through the air when being shot is an effect that has almost completely disappeared from movies and TV over the past 10 years? I credit these classic MB episodes for much of that.
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Aug 14, 2013 15:47:22 GMT
Movie & TV myths can actually be good in small doses. When it's something that has been portrayed on the screen so many that the general public just assumes it's true (bulletproof, flung back when shot), they have done great jobs with their methods and showing what's true/not true. It's when they give an entire episode to a specific show or movie that it becomes overdone.
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Post by blindleader on Aug 15, 2013 4:22:30 GMT
Yep, I was right. Blindleader, elevator jump and bridge jump/hammer throw were established urban legends before anyone even thought of making the show; they're closer to the original concept than the movie myths. Being established does not qualify a myth for testing if it flies in the face of common sense (a slippery concept, I admit) and a rudimentary knowledge of the real world. I think most here will agree that the supply of myths satisfying the original concept of the show has slowed to a trickle if it hasn't dried up entirely. Yet they must find something to make a show out of. |
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Post by OziRiS on Aug 15, 2013 10:28:02 GMT
Yep, I was right. Blindleader, elevator jump and bridge jump/hammer throw were established urban legends before anyone even thought of making the show; they're closer to the original concept than the movie myths. Being established does not qualify a myth for testing if it flies in the face of common sense (a slippery concept, I admit) and a rudimentary knowledge of the real world. If anything that "flies in the face of common sense and a rudimentary knowledge of the real world" shouldn't be tested on the show, there'd be no show at all. As I see it, the whole point of MythBusters is to challenge commonly held beliefs, no matter how silly those beliefs may be. You and I (and many others) may very well see it as common sense that eating an apple core won't lead to an apple tree growing in your stomach, but that doesn't mean EVERYBODY thinks that way. Enough kids around the world have certainly been told otherwise. Some people just don't apply common sense when they're told something by others. They just believe it (which explains religion in general, but that's not a discussion we should open up). The goal of MythBusters is not to question WHY people believe something. It's to question if there's any reason to believe it and present the evidence, whatever it shows. I think most here will agree that the supply of myths satisfying the original concept of the show has slowed to a trickle if it hasn't dried up entirely. Yet they must find something to make a show out of. I don't think so. I just think that we here are not the sort of people to believe in anything we hear and fail to apply common sense in our everyday lives. For me at least, that means that when I'm trawling the web or the newspapers for "myths" and I come across something that I find stupid, I automatically assume that other people will find it stupid too and I keep looking. What I've failed to realize is that the concept of this show isn't actually aimed at people like me. It's aimed at educating those who believe all the stupid crap out there. And there's a lot of stupid crap out there! |
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Post by Cybermortis on Aug 15, 2013 12:42:16 GMT
I think most here will agree that the supply of myths satisfying the original concept of the show has slowed to a trickle if it hasn't dried up entirely. Yet they must find something to make a show out of. You might be surprised... MB get many ideas from fans, so if ideas you like are not appearing on the show its because people are not posting them - or not posting such ideas they could test. |
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Post by WhutScreenName on Aug 15, 2013 13:16:00 GMT
I believe the point of episodes like this is to draw in a new audience that might not have watched the show otherwise. I have several friends here at work that very much like Breaking Bad, and maybe watched the Mythbusters episode (something they had never done before) just to see things from their favorite show.
That's why we will NOT see movie/tv myths disappear, because they bring in new viewers.
As for the episode itself... I only found it to be okay. Maybe my expectations where too high? the myths they were testing seemed like they could lead to great TV, but in the end I only felt it was so so... it wasn't a bad episode, but it wasn't a good one either, at least from my perspective.
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Post by the light works on Aug 15, 2013 14:06:18 GMT
They pretty much gave away what the special sauce was in the end - and it's another thing that you or I will not be able to get in the concentration they most likely got it in. It would have been interesting to see if it would have destroyed a tub with the protective surface damaged. however, all in all, I found it one of the less gripping episodes.
as for the mercury fulminate - I would have been more interested to see how hard they had to throw it to make it go bang. the fact that you can put enough explosive in a building to damage it is hardly earth shaking.
and it certainly doesn't make me regret my decision to not watch breaking bad.
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Aug 15, 2013 14:49:18 GMT
as for the mercury fulminate - I would have been more interested to see how hard they had to throw it to make it go bang. the fact that you can put enough explosive in a building to damage it is hardly earth shaking. Perhaps, the build team could have made a calibrated device (robotic/mechanical arm or hammer) to figure the minimum force needed to make it explode and then find out if it is possible for a human to throw with that level of force. |
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