ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What is the most interesting call you've ever gotten?
ADAM SAVAGE: Actually, it came out of left field. At some point during season 3, we were looking for a new build team member, which eventually became Grant Imahara [a former Industrial Light & Magic animatronics engineer and model maker who operated R2-D2], and while we were auditioning people we got a call from Adam West's, the original Batman's, agent asking us to consider Adam West to be a MythBuster. [Laughs]
And did the two of you consider it?
SAVAGE: Oh yeah, we talked about it extensively, about how amazing that could be. It obviously didn't end up happening, but if you ask Jamie, I think both of us would agree that Batman is the most MythBuster-ish superhero there is.
JAMIE HYNEMAN: As far as scientific consultations, the one that stands out was from Oak Ridge when we did explosive decompression, which involves testing whether if you had a gun on an airplane and you're in flight, and the bullet accidentally goes through the skin of the airplane, will it just blow the whole side of the airplane out like they've shown in the movies? And so we actually got a hold of a full-size airliner, pressurized it appropriately so it was actually like it would be at altitude and went through a series of testing with just a small bullet, then a bigger hole and a bigger hole. That eventually involved a fairly high amount of high explosives that was required to replicate what you see in the movies. And Oak Ridge contacted us afterwards and wanted to get a copy of the footage because they had been trying to get funding to do that exact test, and indicated that they had intended to do it exactly the way we did it. Since then, they use that episode for training air marshals as to the realities of what happens if a gun goes off in an airplane. To us, that's just amazing.
SAVAGE: Finding ourselves unwittingly in that peer group is incredibly satisfying.
I know you don't care where your myths come from, but are there any other TV shows or movies that you'd really like to examine?
SAVAGE: I think there's a good amount of material on Lost that could provide fodder for MythBusters testing. I can't think of anything specific off the top of my head, but I've been an avid fan, and I know that there's stuff to do with surviving on the island, things that they've built.
HYNEMAN: You name any kind of a thing, like Die Hard 2. There's a classic shot that we've kind of already broached, about the jet fuel that is leaking out of the airplane and somebody lighting the match and it catching up with the airplane and exploding it before it takes off. I mean that one, we dealt with that in terms of gasoline, and it won't even happen. Movies are just rife with this kind of thing, based in fact — yes, fuel does burn — but the reality of it is something else entirely.
SAVAGE: Basically, there's no shortage of Hollywood getting the physics wrong and wherever they're missing it, we've got material to work with. Now that Jamie said Die Hard, I just realize there's another Die Hard myth that's been on my mental list that I have to put on the real list, and I'm gonna do that as soon as I get to work today.
What is it?
SAVAGE: It's too good, I don't want to spoil it. I'm sorry to tease you like that.
