Some reality-based shows are so exciting that they really do need the disclaimer for viewers not to try to recreate the onscreen shenanigans, but hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters got up to such crazy stunts that most of us inherently knew better than to even dream of busting any major myths ourselves. Savage and Hyneman always seemed to keep their cool even when the mythbusting didn’t go according to plan, and in the wake of the series finale, Savage has come forward and admitted that there was one type of accident that they always worried about.
I was sure we were gonna have a car accident one day. We do many driving stories in each season, and the part that never shows up on camera is moving the car around. You say, “Okay, 3, 2, 1. Go.” Press on the gas and it turns out you’re in reverse and you run over a cameraman or a $100,000 high-speed camera. That’s the dumbest accident there could be. And yet it’s probably the one we were most in danger of having if you look at actuarial scales.
Adam Savage’s reveal to Popular Mechanics that he always worried about an accident with one of their many car stunts makes a lot of sense considering the risk involved. But the hosts were always so excited about their experiments during episodes that we might not have guessed that worst case scenarios for bystanders were playing in their heads.
As it happens, however, the boys didn’t only worry about the bystanders. According to Savage, he and Hyneman were never 100% certain that they would make it out of a stunt intact either. Now that Mythbusters has come to an end on Discovery, he can reflect on what didn’t happen to them.
Jamie is fond of saying, 'At a certain point you feel like your number’s up' when you do shit as dangerous as what we do. I am so grateful that our number never came up. We have five broken fingers, about 30 or 40 stitches, and one loose cannonball that caused no injuries to our name, and we’re both quite proud of that.
Taking into account all the times they could have blown themselves up, lit themselves on fire, and/or crashed themselves through the windshield of a car during 13 years of Mythbusters, Savage and Hyneman are right to be proud of themselves. Of course, there might have been more injuries if Discovery hadn’t put the kibosh on some of the hosts’ more ambitious ideas, but all’s well that ended well. “At least nobody died” may not be the best mantra for looking back on most jobs, but there’s no better way to sum up this series.
If only the show hadn’t ended at all. Producing that many seasons of any show is more than respectable, but there's nothing like a Mythbusters marathon on Discovery to live out movie stunts and bust myths vicariously. Still, the hosts had the time to give a fitting end to the show in the final season rather than have their show abruptly cancelled…and at least nobody died.
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