Several weeks back I got my father-in-law tickets for the Pittsburgh stop of the Mythbusters: Behind the Myths tour and he was visibly shocked and pleased. He’s been anticipating the show for weeks and it’s been great to see him excited about it.
This was a lot different than the last time we saw the Mythbusters, at Behrend six years ago. That was an intimate sit down and talk and maybe take some questions. This was a full-out “we’re turning the stage into the daily Mythbusters experience!” And it was awesome. Less intense than I had anticipated at first, but endearing in its own way.
Don’t believe me? Just look at the pictures!
* Robot repair shop on 6th Street!
Getting in was really easy, we arrived just as downtown started clearing out so we snagged a great parking spot in the ramp across the street from the theater. Larry and I wandered around for a while, grabbed some coffee at Starbuck and a hot sub for dinner at Subway. On the way to the theater we ran across this great art installation: Fraley’s Robot Repair shop. If you’re in Pittsburgh anytime before this November stop and have a look.
* Awesome set
When they opened the doors to the lobby a bunch of people were milling around until they finally opened the inner doors to the foyer. I got a t-shirt (Larry paid) and we all milled around the inner-inner doors the the house itself. It was fun watching the kids all getting excited about seeing the Mythbusters in person.
When we finally got to go in and take our seats we got our first peak at the set and it was awesome. Off-kilter trussing, integrated automated lighting, and a pall of haze over the whole stage that was filled with props and contraptions.
* Great seats, 3rd and 4th row, extreme house left
My biggest concern when I bought the tickets was that we’d be too far over to the side, that the set would block our view or that we’d get a stiff neck from constantly turning to look center. Fortunately neither of these was the case. Jamie and Adam played most everything so far forward that there was nothing we couldn’t see and the seats were angled enough that it was comfortable to watch the center of the stage.
* Adam and Jamie emerged from a cloud of smoke.
After a variety of pre-show videos and announcements on the big video screen the lights darkened and the audience held their breath in anticipation (really, they did) as a big cloud of haze emerged from stage left. Jamie and Adam emerged from the could to thunderous applause.
* Tug of war
They got the show started right away with audience participation. They brought up four people from the audince to do a tug of war, pairing Jamie up with a little kid and putting a mother & daughter and some random bug guy on the other side of the rope with Adam. Of course, Jamie cheated by rigging the rope with a high-strength cable on his side. They then sent the mother and daughter off to a table on SL to work on interleaving a couple of phone books while Jamie, the kid, and the big guy tried their hands at a ring-the-bell strength machine.
* Bed of nails
* Rat race (paired bicycles, water pumps, exploding balloons)
* Jamie showing off Blendo, the robot that indirectly led to him getting the Mythbusters gig.
* Act I – Jamie took questions from audience
* Adam shows off exploding water heater
When Jamie was fnished taking questions Adam brought out the water heater from the exploding water heater myth.
After Jamie was finished taking questions
* A great laugh!
After putting the hot water heater away Adam looked right over to where we were sitting and complimented the guy with the great and distinctive laugh – I’m sure he was talking about me! He also said there was a competing laugh over on house right, and that they could do dueling laughs (Dueling Banjos done with laughers).
* Adam hanging from interleaved phone books
By this time the women who had been interleaving the phonebooks were done, and Adam takes them starts to explain how equipment testing works, and how the insurance company sometimes interferes with them testing a myth. For instance, on the day he was supposed ot drop through three cnavas awnings and safely land, the insurance company told him no, but they were perfectly okay with Tori doing the stunt (sometimes big multi-billion dollar corporations have no tact in explaining your worth to them.) So Adam explains how equipment testing works, and how insurance actuaries work, and how in the absence of proper testing and rating the insurance companies instead confer with experts. In the field of interleaved phonebooks, it turns out that Adam and Jamie are the experts, and so Adam was allowed to be suspended from a block and tackle hung over the stage, with the phonebooks hooked to the that, with Adam hooked to the phonebooks.
* perception hacking helmets
To close the first act they invited a couple people onstage, one random girl and some guy from the Pittsburgh hackerspace. The guy was strapped
* Insane stunt involving kid and watermelon to open act II
Just look at the picture, it’s explanation enough.
* Ninja catching an arrow
* Act II – Adam took questions from audience
Adam has been lucky enough not to sustain any major injuries on the show (though he has acquired close to 40 stitches on his left hand, in one or two stitch increments, over the years). One kid asked if he’d ever broken any bones and he said that he’d only ever broken one bone, and the audience started to applaud.
“You may clap now, but that bone was my seventh vertebrae. Yeah, I broke my neck.”
* New buster – Syndaver
Another question was about Buster, and how many they’ve gone through. After going through several auto-industry safety dummies, and their own home-brewed dummy, they’re now trying something called a Syndaver, which is like a synthetic cadaver filled with bones, muscles, organs, tendons, skin, etc… In fact, they’ve started to use the syndaver with the skin removed because otherwise it looks too creepy.
* Hi speed camera, kids doing silly faces
These videos should soon be available on the Mythbusters’ new website: http://www.tested.com
* Suit of armor for sharks, and paintball
* “Launching” Buster into grid
This was the only disappointing bit of the whole show. They bring a volunteer onstage to push down the plunger that supposedly shoots buster out of a cannon and into the sky. What really happens is that the plunger triggers a big smoke and bang, the dummy dips into the barrel, and another dummy is dropped to the stage a few seconds later. Overall, really cheesy and I hope they drop the bit if they ever do another tour.