We got a lot of gay fan mail when the show first started. Something to do with being in San Francisco and being a big, burly guy with a big moustache. But we're both happily married. To women.
— Jamie Hyneman
Occasionally, you know, a myth is specific with a certain model of car, you know, like a Corvette or whatever. And so we end up spending some cash on those.
If we knew what we were doing we wouldn't be entertaining.
I have to say that we're not actors, at least on 'Mythbusters' or any of the other television projects that we've done.
Children are just little scientists.
Well, one of the myths early on that I think is one of the funnier things we've done is airline toilet seats. That one was about a large woman that sat down on a seat in an airline and flushed the toilet and got stuck on it.
In my case, the only thing to note is if I show up at home at an unusual time, it's cause for raising my wife's blood pressure because it only happens if... usually that involves stitches.
I was approached to do 'MythBusters' in 2002. I didn't think it would go anywhere, but I guess anything can happen if you wear a funny hat and have lots of facial hair.
There are things that you would think were not possible, and yet they are.
I've ended up water skiing behind the Stanford rowing team as well as water skiing behind an excavator while it swung around in a circle.
I grew up on an apple orchard with a lot of surrounding wooded area, and I ran everywhere. I was outside all the time climbing trees.
You know, dealing with effects, as a job it's great, but with 'Mythbusters,' the stuff we've seen, the stuff we've absorbed over the years, has just been fantastic, and I wouldn't change it for the world.
As it turns out, one of the biggest choices we have doing the show is deciding the tangents we are allowed to take, the stuff that we see along the way. We're allowed to explore the world at large on these things; the urban-legend aspect of it is just kind of an excuse.
I'm a builder, first and foremost.
I really didn't think this was going to be a success. We did the first three episodes and I said to Adam, 'I can't see this going anywhere. I've already used up all my urban legends.'
I'm a little suspicious of using microwaves.
Now that I'm not a puppet for some director, the Hyneman is free to explore the world at large.
Adam's impulsive and energetic, and I'm calm and methodical.
If you get the question right, if you really define it, then the answers are just sitting there waiting for you. And it's something a little different than people usually think.
It's the results that are surprising, even results where we've totally screwed up, and then learned something in the process, are the ones that stand out. Having our preconceptions overturned is actually thrilling for us.
Some of the most important discoveries that scientists have made were not what they were seeking at the time.
At its core, what we do in 'MythBusters' is turn science into an adventure.
The core of what we're doing is, we're playing with the world. And our curiosity in doing that is what we are most proud of and what we like to put out there.
I think 'MythBusters' is a step up from special effects because we not only have to make things look like they work, they actually do have to work. It's more challenging and even transcendental.
I went to the library - and this was before the Internet - and I searched for a career that was creative, would not fall into a routine, involved problem solving and making things. It also had to be dynamic. I came up with special effects.
Just by going fast enough, you can ride on water with a motorcycle.
I work out regularly because I don't see the mind and body as that separate.
Duct tape is like that. It's a building block. You can make a rope out of it, you can make a cloth out of it. And because it sticks to stuff it's even more powerful. It's like an uber-material because of the versatility of a sticky fiber.
There are times when we're testing an actual explosion, and then there are times when we blow stuff up just because we can.
I'm like a race horse attached to a freight wagon.
I'm developing some new kinds of robotic firefighting vehicles to help with the massive forest fires we're dealing with in the West.
We've got a great deal of respect for each other on camera as well as off, no matter what it might occasionally look like.
It's millions of times more efficient to collect hydroelectric power through a dam than raindrop by raindrop.
After working as a charter boat captain and dive master in the Caribbean for a number of years, I decided it was time for a change.
Neither Adam or I are scientists, we're not engineers or anything of the sort. We just have a lot of fun and the thing is, fun for us happens to involve science and satisfying our curiosity.
One of the main reasons for success on the show is that we're not a demonstration show. We're an experimentation show.
I don't see that we're any different than many, many people that are out there. And it's hard to kind of accept something like we're larger than life, super-people or something like that.
We've done a zombie episode - only one - and the way we look at it as is we understand that there probably aren't zombies out there for real, but there's a lot of interesting stuff we can test about them. We've tested how bodies of zombies pressing against a gate, would they push it through and things like that.
Science isn't just for guys in lab coats, you know? It's for anybody who wants to do a good job of understanding and investigating the world.
In my case you can pretty well figure that you can put a beret and a mustache on just about anything you want and it looks like me.
For four years, I worked as one of the general shop crew on movies like 'Naked Lunch' and 'Arachnophobia.' I made lots of bugs.
I pretty much learned not to fight with it a long time ago and let it do what it likes to do. Otherwise, my shaving techniques are pretty mundane. I tend to do it in the shower because it makes the bristles soft and keeps the razor from building up the hairs inside it, and the mustache is dealt with with scissors.
I mean, we're - if I may say so - we're experts at using materials and processes in ways for which they were never intended.
I found that cardiovascular exercise boosts my mental performance. If I have a problem to solve, like an engineering one, and I get on a treadmill, then time disappears; all I know is an hour later I'm all sweaty and the problem has been solved.
You know, when you look carefully at stuff that you deal with everyday, applying a little creativity to it and thinking outside the box, it's amazing what you can do.
We really do prefer to build things rather than destroy things, believe it or not.
I think it's probably safe to say that continuing our onscreen relationship in front of the camera is probably not happening. I expect Adam may well pursue things in front of the camera, but I'm most likely not. It's not who I am.
Is there some situation where square wheels would be better than round wheels? Sure! A round wheel has a pressure point directly under the tire. A square wheel's corners are going to bite and propel you forward. The square wheel could be superior on snow or mud or sand.
Over the years, we've developed a respect for each other in the roles that we play and we rely on that difference to recreate clarity for the audience.
Algae are such basic, simple organisms.
