MythBusters (2014 season)
The cast of the television series MythBusters perform experiments to verify or debunk urban legends, old wives' tales, and the like. This is a list of the various myths tested on the show as well as the results of the experiments. The 2014 season premiered on January 4, 2014, changing to a Saturday time slot. The show resumed in July, called a "new season" by the Discovery Channel. It then moved to a Thursday time slot.
This would be the last season for Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara, after it was announced the build team would not be returning for the 2015 season. Hyneman and Savage would be the sole hosts of the show from this point onwards. In December 2014, Savage would go on to address the Build Team departures, indicating that the separation was a result of failed contract negotiations between Discovery Networks and the team members.
Episode overview
| No. in series | No. in season | Title | Original air date | Overall episode No. |
Episode 208 – "''Star Wars'' Special"
- Original air date: January 4, 2014
| Myth | Status | Notes |
| ...Luke Skywalker's grappling-hook swing across the chasm in the Death Star, while carrying Princess Leia, to escape the pursuing Stormtroopers. | Plausible | Adam and Jamie chose three elements for testing: the ease of throwing/launching a grappling hook and cable and snagging an overhead fixture, the effects of using only a waist belt for weight support, and the effect of a second person's weight on the ability to make the swing. Jamie built a hook similar to the one Luke used, and at a warehouse at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, he practiced throwing it at an overhead strut approximately away. He was only able to snag the strut after several tries, prompting him to declare this part of the myth plausible but unlikely. For further testing, Adam and Jamie set up two platforms apart. Jamie was concerned that using only a belt to support his weight could lead to serious injury, so he did a short test swing only a few feet above the ground while carrying a Leia dummy. He was able to complete the swing but suffered considerable pain; as a result, he declared the second part of the myth plausible but likely to injure a person badly. For the third part, Jamie donned a safety harness and performed the swing first by himself, then carrying the dummy. After both of these attempts succeeded, he made one last swing carrying Sophia Bush as a stand-in for Leia, and was able to cross the gap safely. He and Adam declared the overall myth plausible. Note: The Stormtroopers in the episode were all members of the Golden Gate Chapter of the 501st Legion. Adam and Grant - an ILM alumnus - were already honorary members, and Jamie was inducted into the New England Chapter in 2014. |
| ...the Ewoks' destruction of an Imperial AT-ST walker by crushing it between two swinging logs. | Plausible | With help from a local power crew, the Build Team used telephone poles to construct and brace a set of support frames to hold the logs. They estimated that the logs were long and in diameter, and chose eucalyptus wood for its hardness; each log weighed approximately. From studying the movie scene, they determined that the logs were pulled back 45 degrees and released to hit the AT-ST at a height of. The team placed a passenger van at this height and began to pull the logs back, but the structure began to buckle well before they reached 45 degrees. When the logs were released, the impact damaged both sides of the van considerably, prompting the team to try a full-scale test on an armored truck. In order to be able to reach a larger swing angle, they reinforced the structure and lowered the logs to just above ground level. This time, the logs punched the truck's side panels off the frame, leading the team to declare the myth plausible. However, they noted that the chances of such a trap succeeding were very small, since the logs would have to be placed at just the right height to hit the AT-ST. For a final test, they put a Stormtrooper dummy in the driver's seat and repeated the swing; the dummy was smashed to pieces. |
| ...Han Solo's use of a Tauntaun carcass to keep Luke warm on the planet Hoth. | Plausible | Adam carved a Tauntaun from a block of foam and added an outer layer of synthetic skin and fur, while Jamie created simulated organs to fill the body cavity and conduct heat in a realistic manner. They decided to use the dummy from the 2012 myth "A Titanic Tale", dubbed "Thermo Boy", to stand in for Luke as it had a circulatory system and a heater to simulate human metabolism. A food refrigeration facility was chosen to simulate the cold climate on Hoth, and Adam and Jamie built an insulated chamber inside that could be loaded with dry ice to achieve a temperature of −40 °C. Both Thermo Boy and the organs were warmed to and loaded into the Tauntaun, which was then moved into the chamber; once Thermo Boy had cooled to, Adam and Jamie started to monitor his temperature. They reasoned that Han might need 2.5 hours to build an emergency shelter for himself and Luke, and that Luke would die of hypothermia if his temperature fell to within that time. At the end of the test, Thermo Boy had only cooled to, and Adam and Jamie deemed the myth plausible, speculating that the reason for this might be the strong ability of water to absorb and retain heat. |
Episode 209 – "Moonshiner Myths"
- Original air date: January 11, 2014
Exploding Still
Firewater Fuel
Episode 210 – "Hollywood Car Crash Cliches"
- Original air date: January 18, 2014
Slapstick Shatter
SUV vs. RPG
Traffic Ram
Episode 211 – "Car Chase Chaos / Animal Antics"
- Original US air date: January 25, 2014
- Original Australia air date: June 3, 2013
Car Chase Chaos
| Myth | Status | Notes |
| The driver and the passenger can work cooperatively to drive the car, with the passenger steering and the driver operating the pedals, while the driver performs another task with his/her hands. | Busted | For all tests, Adam and Jamie set up a closed course on the decommissioned runway at New Jerusalem Airport using the same car. They each drove the course solo to establish an average control time of 62 seconds. When they took turns in each role in the cooperative scenario, both runs compared favorably with the control – operating the wheel as the passenger, Adam matched the control while Jamie bettered it by 2 seconds. However, when they added the multitasking element, their performance dropped off significantly – Jamie did hit over 50% of the targets, but in a run 15 seconds longer than the control; Adam fared far worse shooting while taking even longer. Due to the drop-off in the multitasking runs, they declared the myth busted, and cooperative driving as much harder than the movies depict it to be. |
| The driver and the passenger can switch seats while inside the car with the car moving at speed. | Plausible | Before proceeding with the next test, Adam and Jamie cut open the top of the test car to allow for bird's eye camera views. They did one run with Adam as the initial driver and Jamie as the initial passenger, swapping seats twice during the course of the run and completing the run in 63 seconds, only 1 second slower than the control. Declaring the myth plausible, they noted that it would be unreasonable and unsafe to try it in a real-world situation with other cars present. |
| The passenger can dump an incapacitated driver out of the driver's side door and take control of the car with the car moving at speed. | Plausible | For this test, Adam and Jamie buckled Buster into the driver seat and took turns with the simultaneous action of driving the car from the passenger seat while trying to dump Buster out of the car through the driver side door, with the other MythBuster riding in the back seat with an extra set of pedals for safety. Jamie struggled with the task, with Buster getting caught in the seat belt multiple times and only finally getting dumped outside in the final moments of the run, which took significantly longer than the control. However, Adam fared much better, quickly dumping Buster after briefly struggling with the driver's side door and completing the run just 2 seconds slower than the control. While noting it was not easy, they declared the myth plausible. |
Animal Avoidance
In an expansion of the myth that flies are repelled by water, the Build Team tested various "at home" methods for repelling various types of animals:| Myth | Status | Notes |
| Bottles filled with water deter cats. | Busted | The Build Team set up a "cat-friendly" area with a planter box. They set four adult cats and four kittens in the area and monitored their behavior remotely for one hour; seven of the eight cats went into the planter box at some point. Noting that the cats showed a predilection for high places and the "tower" that had been set up in the area, they decided to expand the test to include the tower as a deterrent zone. Tory and Grant then set small water bottles around the planter box and tower and re-introduced the cats to the environment, but within 15 minutes, the results were the same as the control, with seven of the eight cats venturing into both forbidden areas. |
| Lion feces deters cats. | Busted | Kari spread the lion feces around the perimeter of the planter box and stacked it in cups on each shelf of the tower. While the cats initially paused for a bit in reaction to the odor, the results eventually matched the control. |
| Cat litter and mothballs deter snakes. | Busted | For this test, the Build Team constructed an Indiana Jones-themed set with multiple attracting points for the snakes on one side. The snakes were released one at a time onto the set for the control, during which 18 of the 21 breeds crossed the set into the forbidden areas. When the cat litter and mothball combo was put in place, the snakes were initially agitated by the odor, but ultimately the same number of snakes crossed the barriers. |
| Cayenne pepper deters snakes. | Busted | The cayenne pepper made the snakes hesitate for a bit, but ultimately 17 of 21 snakes crossed over into the forbidden areas. |
| Ammonia-soaked rags deters bears. | Busted | The Build Team placed a minivan with a cooler filled with different types of food in the backseat near a forest enclosure, then set up hot wire around the perimeter of the area to keep the bear contained, as well as practicing a certain set of behaviors for safety. During the control, Baloo managed to open the large passenger side door and remove the cooler with the food without doing much damage to the minivan; with the ammonia-soaked rags in place, Baloo performed identically, showing no signs of being deterred. |
| Cayenne pepper deters bears. | Confirmed | To the Build Team's astonishment, Baloo was so repulsed by the cayenne pepper that rather than go near the minivan, he found his way through the hot wire and tried to walk off into the woods before being corralled by his handler. |
Serpent Stop
One myth was cut from the initial U.S. airing of the episode and was broadcast on the MythBusters' website:| Myth | Status | Notes |
| Hemp rope deters snakes. | Busted | While the snakes were slow to get moving, 19 of 21 snakes eventually crossed the hemp rope barriers into the forbidden areas. |
Foil Cat Deterrent
Kari stated during a Twitter Q&A that the myth of cats being repelled by aluminum foil was also recorded, but it was cut from the U.S. airing and to date has not been released on the MythBusters' website. It had, however, been aired in the version of the episode aired in the Asia-Pacific region.| Myth | Status | Notes |
| Aluminum foil deters cats. | Busted | Despite the planter's box being completely covered in foil, all eight cats entered the planter's box at least once. |
Episode 212 – "*DO* Try This at Home?"
- Original air date: February 1, 2014
Microwave Water
Extreme Extinguishing
N-Sync
Chain Reaction
Elephant Toothpaste
Exploding Snake
Soda Bomb Safety
Water Tricks
Episode 213 – "Mythssion Impossible"
- Original air date: February 15, 2014
Herding Cats
Greased Pig
Full of Cr*p
Episode 214 – "Bullet Baloney"
- Original air date: February 22, 2014
Bent Barrel
What is Bulletproof? (v.6)
Using a mock-up of a carnival-style shooting gallery, the Build Team tested the effectiveness of some everyday items at stopping bullets, including:| Myth statement | Status | Notes |
| A tape measure | Busted | The tape measure stopped.22 and 9mm rounds, but was penetrated by a.40-caliber round. |
| A golf ball | Busted | .22 rounds fully penetrated the golf ball. |
| A wallet | Busted | 9mm rounds fully penetrated a leather wallet filled normally, a duct-tape wallet filled normally, and a leather wallet overstuffed with cash. |
Shotgun Spear
Gun in a Vacuum
Adam explained the reason for the second justification of the myth not being true on Twitter, stating that the accelerant in a bullet contains an oxygenator, thus rendering oxygen from the air unnecessary.Neon Nightmare
Deep Fried Firearm
Episode 215 – "Supersonic Ping Pong/Ice Cannon"
- Original air date: March 1, 2014
Killer Ping Pong Ball
Ice Cannon
Episode 216 – "Fire in the Hole"
- Original air date: July 10, 2014
Grenade Shoot
Seconds from Disaster
The Build Team investigated the possibility of surviving a bomb explosion by placing the device in a container and diving out of the way. They first set up a charge of C-4 at the bomb range and detonated it as a control test, with rupture discs placed at distances of up to. These discs were calibrated to burst at, the threshold of shock wave injuries; the disc at was the farthest one that burst.For each test, they placed the charge in the enclosure, with a disc and several Styrofoam cutout figures at a distance of. They tested...
| Item | Status | Notes |
| ...a full filing cabinet. | Busted | With the charge inside a closed drawer, the cabinet was destroyed; the disc did not burst, but the cutouts were shredded. |
| ...a bed. | Plausible | The charge was stuffed under the mattress, which was thrown upward by the blast; the disc and cutouts were left intact. |
| ...an aquarium full of water. | Plausible | The charge was placed inside the tank, and the explosion was directed forward and backward; the disc and cutouts, off to one side, were unharmed. |
| ...a garbage truck. | Plausible | The charge was placed inside the rear hopper, and disc/cutout groups were placed both directly behind the truck and off to one side. The "behind" disc and cutout were destroyed, while the "side" set remained intact. |
Out-of-Control Test
Outtakes of out-of-control tests from the Seconds from Disaster myth were published on the Discovery Channel website. Additionally, they tested...| Item | Status | Notes |
| ...an unenclosed control, with C4 on wooden decking. | The decking was completely destroyed, with the Build Team concluding they should dial the experiment down. | |
| ...an empty filing cabinet. | The cabinet was completely destroyed and deemed to have produced too much shrapnel. | |
| ...a steel wall safe built into a wall. | Busted | The half inch thick steel safe and the wall were both completely destroyed. The cutouts were shredded. |
The overall conclusion was that the best approach was to place the bomb somewhere that would redirect the explosion, then move away from where the blast was going to go. Attempting to fully contain an explosion would create deadly shrapnel that would kill anyone nearby. The team finished by blowing up the truck with of ANFO.
Episode 217 – "Household Disasters"
- Original US air date: July 17, 2014
- Original Australia air date: May 26, 2014
| Myth | Status | Notes |
| Certain types of sunscreen can make a human body susceptible to catching fire. | Plausible | Adam began by spraying/squirting various types of sunscreen into a lighter flame to see if they would ignite. The cream formulations failed to do so, but the spray-on products did ignite due to their highly flammable propellants. For their next test, they set up a mannequin next to a barbecue grill and sprayed it with sunscreen once the grill was hot. One spray caused an arm to briefly catch fire. Replacing the mannequin with a pig carcass, they investigated the possibility that the sunscreen could ignite even well after it had been sprayed on, due to the presence of flammable solvents. With the grill lid closed, they sprayed the carcass, waited a certain length of time, then opened the lid to expose it to the flames. Delays of 3 minutes and 1 minute gave no results, but a delay of 5 seconds did cause the carcass to catch fire. They judged the myth plausible, and Jamie commented that spray-on sunscreen could ignite in the short time before the solvents evaporated. |
Piano Pile-Up
That Sucks
Water Heater Fire Extinguisher
Dog Bowl Ignition
This myth was not aired in the U.S.| Myth | Status | Notes |
| A dog bowl can focus the sun's rays at a small enough point to start a fire due to it being very hot. | Confirmed | The Build Team set up a table on a wooden deck outside on a sunny day, made to look like a picnic, and put out highly flammable objects to improve their chances. This included dried flowers, decaying wood, and paper. They set two types of dog bowls, metal and glass, in various sizes to focus the sun's rays. Due to high humidity and wind, they used a theatrical light to warm up the set, replicating ideal conditions of the summer. The temperature of the set was, with 12% humidity. After two minutes, the glass bowls started a fire on the set. Although ideal conditions are required, the myth was still confirmed. |
Sunburn vs Burn-Burn
This myth was cut out of the episode but included online.| Myth | Status | Notes |
| Putting on sunscreen near a candle can burn you. | Busted | Adam tests out if a candle can ignite sunscreen when applying it. He sprays it on a mannequin next to a lit candle. It does not work, only providing brief flames that do not start the mannequin on fire. Adam then sprays it through the fire, starting the mannequin on fire, which is unrealistic, and then therefore busted the myth. |
Episode 218 – "Commercial Myths"
- Original US air date: July 24, 2014
- Original Australia air date: May 19, 2014
Apple Bobbing Bungee
Tennis Take Off
Tory, Grant and Kari examine a myth that comes from a HEAD Tennis commercial that features Novak Djokovic rallying with a partner while the two are anchored to the wings of an airplane in flight.| Myth | Status | Notes |
| It is possible to play tennis on the wings of an airplane in flight. | Confirmed | The Build Team researched the plane shown in the commercial on which this myth was based and found that it could fly at speeds as low as. They took some lessons from the head tennis coach at the University of California, Berkeley, both in calm air and with a giant fan producing winds to match the plane's minimum speed. The wind affected the flight path of the ball, but they were able to adjust their technique to compensate. After the show's insurance company rejected the team's plan to do their testing on a flying plane, they decided to build a set of wings, mount them on a truck's flatbed trailer, and drive it down a runway at. Grant's final design had a wingspan of, and he and Tory set out to volley the ball 5 times at speed while standing on opposite ends, with Kari driving. After several failed attempts, professional tennis player Tyler Browne took Grant's place, and he and Tory were soon able to achieve volleys of up to 12 hits. The team declared the myth confirmed, then repeated the test with Tyler and Tory standing apart, farther than their first trials. Although the increased vibrations affected their playing, they did soon attain 5 or more hits. |
Episode 219 – "Road Rage"
- Original US air date: July 31, 2014
- Original Australia air date: May 12, 2014
Cliff Top Push Off
''Wanted'' Car Flip
Two Wheel Wipe Out
Episode 220 – "Laws of Attraction"
- Original air date: August 7, 2014
| Myth | Status | Notes |
| A person's intelligence deteriorates in the presence of members of the opposite gender. | Busted | Adam designed a test in which the subject would have to identify the colors in which words were displayed on a screen as quickly as possible, while Jamie built a testing room on a commercial film stage. Five men and five women took the test twice, first with a member of the same gender sitting nearby in the room as a control run, then with a member of the opposite gender. On their first run, the men achieved an average of 56.8 seconds, while the women averaged 50.2. However, the second run gave an average of 46.8 seconds for both groups, indicating an overall improvement in performance and leading Adam and Jamie to call the myth busted. |
| Men are more strongly attracted to blonde women than those of other hair colors. | Busted | Adam and Jamie set up a speed-dating scenario in which 9 men spoke to each of 9 women for 3 minutes, then rated them on a numerical scale. The test was repeated three times, with a different group of men each time; the women used wigs to pass themselves off as blondes, brunettes, or redheads, changing them after each test so that every woman had all three hair colors. Adam and Jamie found no significant differences among the groups in any test, so they judged the myth to be busted. |
| Pheromone sprays can increase a person's attractiveness toward the opposite gender. | Busted | Adam built a turntable with 10 airtight chambers, each holding a T-shirt treated with some combination of pheromone and/or sweat from either Adam or Jamie. A clean, unused shirt was also included as a control. One at a time, 50 women smelled every shirt and then voted for their favorite scent of the group. The shirt bearing both the pheromones and Adam's sweat proved the most popular, with 38% of the votes, but others either expressed a strong dislike of that smell or chose the control shirt. As a result, Adam and Jamie declared the myth busted. |
Storm in a D-Cup
Money Talk$
Episode 221 – "Traffic Tricks"
- Original US air date: August 7, 2014
- Original Australia air date: July 22, 2013
| Myth | Status | Notes |
| When one car brakes, it can cause a ripple effect that propagates behind it long after the initial cause has moved on. | Confirmed | Adam and Jamie set up a circular course to create experimental traffic at the Alameda runway. With a light traffic situation of ten cars, ripples were observed when Jamie hit his brakes, but these ripples quickly dissipated. A heavier traffic situation of twenty cars allowed the ripples to propagate around the test course multiple times, confirming the myth. |
| For journeys shorter than 400 miles, driving is faster than flying. | Plausible | The Build Team had a race of from San Francisco to Los Angeles, between Tory on a plane, and Kari and Grant driving. The bottlenecks of air travel—arriving early to get through security, waiting for the plane to start boarding, retrieving luggage at the destination, and then renting a car—delayed Tory significantly. Kari and Grant had fewer such delays, but did have to stop for gas and food at one point, and traffic in and near the larger cities did slow them down. Kari and Grant arrived at their destination after 5h 33m; Tory was slightly faster, at 5h 25m. Because of the close result, and this myth being tested at close to a worst-case scenario, it was declared plausible. |
Lane Weave
Crossroads Conundrum
Episode 222 – "Plane Boarding"
- Original US air date: August 21, 2014
- Original Australia air date: September 12, 2012
Plane Boarding
The episode decided to use a myth on plane boarding; this was because of waiting time being the biggest complaint from flyers everywhere.| Myth statement | Status | Notes |
| The standard back-to-front airplane boarding system is really the slowest. | Confirmed | At a boat storage facility in Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Adam and Jamie built a replica of a typical passenger airplane cabin and airport departure gate and enlisted enough volunteers to fill all the seats. Each passenger was assigned a seat, and Adam and a team of flight attendants assisted them in boarding and stowing their luggage. In each test, a small percentage of the passengers were secretly instructed to act in typical ways that tend to slow down boarding. Business class passengers and families with small children were always allowed to board first. Jamie measured the total time needed to seat all the passengers and stow their luggage, and they rated each boarding system as "Great", "Okay", or "Terrible". Alternatives were compared against the standard back-to-front system in terms of time and total rating points. The systems with an "outside-in" component proved to be the most popular and were nearly 10 minutes faster than back-to-front, filling the seats furthest from the aisle first. The two random systems, both with and without assigned seats, were faster than back-to-front but were also the least popular. |
The following are the results of the experiment.
| Boarding Method | Completion Time | Customer Satisfaction Score | Notes |
| Back-to-Front | 24:29 | 19 | Confirmed as the slowest, with the third lowest satisfaction score. |
| Random, with assigned seats | 17:15 | 12 | While faster than the current system, the satisfaction score was worse. |
| WILMA | 14:55 | 102 | Significantly faster and more satisfactory than back-to-front. |
| WILMA Block | 15:07 | 105 | Also faster and more satisfactory than back-to-front. |
| Random, no assigned seats | 14:07 | −5 | Although this method was the fastest, it was also the least satisfying; Adam commented that the latter result may explain why airlines do not use it. |
| Reverse Pyramid | 15:10 | 113 | Significantly faster than back-to-front, and the most satisfying. |
Bite the Bullet
A spinoff of Magic Bullet from 2003 and Ice Bullet from 2004.| Myth statement | Status | Notes |
| A bullet made from a human tooth can inflict a lethal wound and shatter on impact, leaving no evidence to be discovered during an autopsy. | Busted | The Build Team constructed bullets of different types from human teeth donated by a local dentist, with the goal of measuring accuracy, penetrating power, and ability to fool a forensic pathologist. Kari fitted teeth into the cases of.38 Special revolver rounds, while Tory knocked the roots off others and loaded them into 12-gauge shotgun shells and Grant shaped teeth to fit into.308 rifle cartridge cases. He also shaped rounds from bone, using a cow femur. For the accuracy and penetration tests, the team compared their ammunition against standard rounds with lead projectiles. The revolver bullets failed the accuracy test and were discarded, while the shotgun shell and bone rifle bullet gave satisfactory results. The tooth rifle bullet disintegrated before it left the barrel. In the lethality test on a block of ballistic gelatin, the shotgun shell inflicted enough shallow wounds to be judged as potentially lethal, while the bone rifle bullet did not penetrate far enough. However, when Grant made a longer bullet, the increased mass led to lethal penetration of the fragments. Finally, the team put together human analogs from pig carcasses, filling them with simulated internal organs, and fired the shotgun shell and heavy bone rifle bullet into them from close range. When a forensic pathologist examined the wounds, she was able in each case to determine that they were caused by gunshots and to find the projectiles. Since all three ammunition types failed on at least one of the original three counts, the team declared the myth busted. |