This Is The Most Expensive Mythbusters Sequence In History
America loves two things: expensive whatnots and big booms. For more than a decade, the good folks at Mythbusters were kind enough to bring us the second of the two — they blew up cement trucks, shot a water heater through U.S. airspace, and generally spent as much time as possible treating life like an open world Bomberman sequel. Basically, they got to do what nine out of ten fourth grade boys dream of doing, and they got to call it "educational."
As for cash, the Mythbusters were sadly constrained to the budget allotted to them by a basic cable network whose only other marketable IP involved showing shark videos for seven straight days. The series' co-host Adam Savage has spoken on the subject of experiments that were too pricey to realize, with "let's drive a race car upside down" at the top of the list. So where was the budgetary line in the sand? What's the most expensive myth that the busters got away with busting?
Big news: jet engines cost money
In an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman discussed their most expensive experiment ever: the JATO rocket car.
It all started in the show's first season. The Mythbusters crew wanted to get the inside scoop on a Darwin Awards legend in which a man strapped a rocket to the back of his car and wound up doing 300 miles per hour, airborn, into the side of a mountain. As if turning a sedan into a surface-to-air missile wasn't expensive enough, the team wound up needing to do it three separate times.
The first attempt ended with a disappointingly slow and ground-centric launch. Revisiting the myth in 2007's "Supersized Myths" episode landed the gang with, if nothing else, some memorable footage: the car full-on exploded before it could take off. Finally, in 2013, they managed to fire off a pair of rocket-propelled Chevy Impalas, shooting one into a sandbag speed bump and the other off of a ramp. Savage and Hyneman were mum as to the final price tag on the endeavor, but seemed entirely convinced that their Wile E. Coyote shenanigans had put a bigger dent in the Discovery Channel's than any other.