Behind the Scenes: A Mythbusting Story That Didn't Make the Cut
One story from behind the scenes that we didn't do is actually quite interesting. When we were working on the Raiders episode, one of the things we were considering was whether Indy could have outrun a certain ball. We were actually going to build a track outdoors with scaffolding and piping to test this hypothesis. We bought a zorb, one of those inflatable balls that you can get inside of, and had been percolating on other Raiders myths when we started getting into this one. Jamie did a whole rubberized foam treatment on the outside of the ball to make it look like a stone, which looked great.
However, as Jamie pointed out, there's actually nothing new or interesting to be said about large stone balls in general. The moment he said that, we scrapped that story because we had to. It may surprise you that it didn't occur to us earlier, but these episodes often start with a broad range of stories and then get narrowed down to the most testable ones. In this case, we were considering testing whether Indy could outrun a ball, but ultimately decided against it because there was literally nothing to test.
We also had to consider which stories to pursue and which ones to drop. Sometimes, we'd identify myths that seemed plausible or even intriguing at first glance, only to realize later that they weren't really testable after all. When it came to the Raiders episode, we started with 12 or 13 different story ideas, but ultimately had to narrow it down to the most promising ones.
One story that didn't make the cut was a particularly spectacular-looking one involving Indy being dragged behind a truck using a whip and climbing up like in a famous scene. However, this idea took up all of our budget and time, so we ended up dropping it in favor of other, more testable stories. Despite your editorializing, Andrew, we really did try to test hypotheses that were testable, even if sometimes they didn't pan out as planned.
In general, I never had a preference for one story over another or whether the ones we tested were busted or confirmed. Whatever result we came to was the result we came to, and I just wanted it to be worth sticking around through the episode for. Given how fertile the movie myths are, I often joke that you could almost build an entire TV show just doing fast and furious myths – and in a way, that's not entirely far-fetched!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody adam savage i'm here with my k i'm in a really good mood today and i am answering tested patron questions about mythbusters today's mythbuster question comes from the green room andrew greenhe says and i quote often the program moved from urban myths to movie myths as urban legends are often based on some sort of truth or historical evidence did you prefer these as science-based experiments or did you prefer to recreate the elaborate fictional scenarios from movies knowing they were often only created for storytelling purposes rather than actual real science sorry just making sure i wasn't recording in slow-mo mode a mistake i have made storytelling purposes rather than actual real science andrew i have a bone to pick with your question hereit's specifically the phrase actual realscience actual real science isn't inherent in any of the stories we testedbecause it's not independent of a narrative it's dependent upon that narrative and the science exists in the testing of the proposition soi submit one that urban legends are just as fantastical as any movie plot and almost none of them are true and happened in the way that they were listed two the science is in the methodological breakdown and so the question is do you have something that is a testable proposition like in the fast and furious movies if your tank falls out of a c130 and you want to aim where it's going to land can you do that by firing said tank that's a testable proposition it is maybe one of the most ludicrous things i've ever heard in my life but it's also a testable proposition i submit there's no less real science in there than there is in the boston molasses flood of 1898 i think um before cane sugar we used to get most of our sweetening with molasses which used to be stored in these big above ground tubs no kidding and one of them in boston broke through of its levee or border it's like a big above ground pool picture an above-ground pool like 30 feet in diameter filled with molasses spilled out of this and actually a couple of people died there's an urban legend we never tested because frankly we couldn't figure out how to get that much molasses or how to afford that much molasses and then how to spill it onto a busy city street but hang on you uh so another phrase you have in here andrew and i'm not picking on you i'm just tackling your question in the pieces that i see that need tackling you say urban legends are often based on some sort of truth or historical evidence sure stipulated did you prefer these science-based experiments now you're editorializing you're claiming that our movie myth tests were not science-basedwell how would you assert that i'm simply taking a proposition and i'm testing it i know i know you're not telling me that i didn't perform science you're not there's no judgment in this question i i don't feel it i know i i'm being light-hearted about tackling your phrasing andrew but it it it isyou got to watch the gatekeeping because while i'm sad that we ever did a story like pyramid power which is a full woo-woo myth and we should have never tackled it the fact is some of the most beautiful depictions of what is possible in science were done in the service of some of the most ridiculous stories and when you combine those two things you make somebody's brain go wait a minute and right at that second where someone watching what you're telling them goes wait a minute you've created a scientist you made someone ask a question about what they're witnessing that is that's that's science right there do you have a question about what you see how are you going to test that question and so one of the things that i loved about the movie myths they were all completely absurd but if there was a testable proposition in there we would test it and i i know this line gets blurry but i will submit i will tell you one story from behind the scenes that we didn't do so when we were doing the raiders episode one of the things we were uh we were considering doing was could indy have outrun could india out run the ball yeah could india run the ball so we were actually going to build a track outdoors with scaffolding and piping make a track for a ball we bought a zorb one of those um inflatable balls you can get inside of we bought one of those it was exactly the right size and we had been percolating on the other raiders myths when we were starting to really get into this one and actually i think that jamie did a whole like rubberized foam treatment on the outside of the ball to make it look like a stone he did a beautiful job it looked great and then i remember specifically jamie turned to me and stevo and he was likethere's actually nothing here the stone is of x weight and x composition we can't know either of those because it's fictional therefore the speed at which it rolls and the conditions under which it's rolling are impossible to replicate because they never existed there's no assertion made about large stone balls in general it's just a very specific one and the moment jamie was like but he really was like but why are we going to do it and we were like becauseand then we scrap that story because we had to we didn't it we it may surprise you that it didn't occur to us earlier but like these episodes we're doing raiders i think we started with 12 or 13 stories i still want to be dragged behind a truck using a whip and climb in like the famous scene we didn't do that one because well the whip across the chasm was going to take up all of our budget and time but yeah so despite your editorializing andrew we did shy away from myths in which there was no testable no real testable proposition within it and again i'm sure some of you are yelling at the screen about stories you thought were surprisingly stupid for us to test mia culpa i you're plausibly right but we really tried we really tried always to be testing something that was testable and the the indie running from the ball there's there's literally nothing to test there and it took us more than a couple of days to figure that outum so no per your question now i'll get to answering your question andrew did you prefer one story over another no i never did i didn't even prefer whether stories were busted or confirmed or plausible uh yeah i was totally agnostic on that front whatever whatever result we came to was the result we came to i i i didn't have a horse in that race and and neither did jamie neither did anybody on the team umyeah we never wished for a specific outcome you just wanted a spectacular outcome you don't want any outcome but you want the whatever outcome you get to be worth sticking around through the episode for yeah don't know i didn't prefer one type of story over the other and frankly given how fertile the movie myths were i mean you could almost build an entire television show just doing fast and furious myths um given how fertile that that territory was for stories i'm really grateful for it um thank you so much for that great question uh thank you tested patrons for all of your awesome questions i'm repeatedly when i'm doing stuff like this surprised at how new every single question seems to be honestly after 14 years of production on mythbusters i thought i'd answered every question you guys just keep coming up with more awesome ones so thank you as always stay safe and i will see you guys next time\n"
