As MythBusters Kari Byron and Tory Belleci chatted about their show as they sat on a couch positioned on the Hall Auditorium stage, Belleci announced a myth he would love to try called “Flaming Playground Slide.”
“It’s going to make it, it’s going to be a great episode,” Belleci said with confidence. “These kids were in a playground on a hot summer day and they were going down a slide but they weren’t going down fast enough so they were like, let’s use some kind of lubricant, so they poured gasoline down the slide to go faster.”
Belleci explained that the myth was the static electricity from the children’s pants set the slide on fire.
“Children on fire,” Byron repeated to her cast-mate several times over. “It is never going to fly.”
Belleci thought on this for a minute, then came up with an alternative solution:
“What if they were dumb frat guys?” Belleci asked. “Would that be better? Would that be easier to take?”
Waves of laughter rolled through the auditorium as Belleci’s joke set in. While Miami students involved in fraternity life on campus probably weren’t thrilled with the idea, there’s no doubt the first Miami Lecture Series of the year was a complete hit for all 800 of its audience members.
As the lecture began, the show’s co-hosts explained how they got their start with MythBusters back in 2003.
Following her graduation from the San Francisco State University film school in 1998 with a degree in film and sculpture, Byron took an internship with M5 Industries where she met MythBusters host, Jamie Hyneman.
On Byron’s very first day, Hyneman told her it was their first day filming MythBusters, and asked if she would help with a myth they were trying to bust. The myth was that if you flush a toilet on an airplane while it is in flight, you’ll get sucked into the toilet.
Eager to get as much experience as possible, Byron allowed Hyneman to take a 3D scan of her backside in exchange for 100 dollars and a chance to learn how they would use the scan to create a sculpture to test the myth.
One scan of her buttocks and nine years later, the 38-year-old is going on her tenth year as a co-host of Mythbusters with Hyneman, Adam Savage, Grant Imahara and Belleci.
“So there you go, that’s how I got my a– into show business,” Byron said during the lecture.
Like Byron, Belleci also attended the San Francisco University film school. After he graduated in 1994, he began working with Hyneman at a small production company, and spent the next chapter of his life creating models for Hollywood films like Star Wars, the Matrix trilogy and Van Helsing. He then joined MythBusters in 2003 with Byron.
Besides giving information on their backgrounds and history with the show, Byron and Belleci discussed the very title of their lecture: how the MythBusters made science cool, again.
The evening started off with a quick press conference at Williams Hall with numerous student organizations in attendance. Keeping in accordance with the theme of the lecture, questions that were asked included, “What is cool about science that inspired you to work with it?”
“When does science stop being cool?” Byron asked. “It’s always cool.”
Belleci agreed with Byron’s response, but just had a different way of phrasing it.
“We make science awesome…we take science that is cool and ramp it up on steroids.”
Byron also remarked how neither she nor Belleci started out as particularly interested in science as children, when they first started doing the show.
“We were just having fun, and then it turned out that science IS cool!”
The duo was given much more time to talk during their lecture series debut later that evening where they explained many of the facets of the show, including how involved with the fans they strive to be.
“We get a lot of our ideas from the Internet,” Belleci said. “That’s the great thing about having a message board for the show. We wouldn’t have survived as long as we have if it wasn’t for the Internet…it allows us a chance to actually interact with the fans.”
Later on in the lecture, they were also given the opportunity to discuss what results have surprised them over the years working on the show.
Byron remarked how they recently tested a myth about bending the barrel of a gun and firing backwards, often seen in cartoons such as Looney Toons. To her surprise, the cartoon logic applied to the real world, and the myth was confirmed.
Belleci also talked about the myth that elephants are afraid of mice, painting a picture of an elephant jumping on top of a table to get away from a tiny white mouse, as often seen in cartoons. After Hyneman and Savage tested this myth and found that elephants really are afraid of mice, both Belleci and Byron were stunned.
“The cartoons weren’t lying,” Belleci said. “Cartoons are real!”
The pair was also asked about myths they would love to do, but do not have the resources to properly test at the moment.
Byron said they would love to test the “upside-down race car myth… where a formula one racecar generates so much downward force that it could theoretically drive on the ceiling.” However, that would require more resources than what their budget can allow.
“We would need a cyclical track, miles long, and someone to loan us a million dollar racecar,” Byron said.
Another myth they would have trouble testing is the “21 grams” myth, the idea that when you die, you suddenly become 21 grams lighter, often attributed to you parting with your soul.
“We need to find someone who is on their deathbed, rig them up on a scale, and then just watch them sleep,” Byron explained
“Until they die. Not morbid at all,” Belleci added in a sarcastic tone that made the audience crack up for what was probably the twentieth time during the lecture.
The MythBusters spent the remaining hour talking about their favorite, and also not so favorite myths they have worked on in the past, but one of the great takeaways Byron and Belleci left the audience with is that science isn’t just for people with Masters and P.H.D. degrees in science.
Of the five hosts of MythBusters, Grant Imahara is the closest one to holding a science degree, graduating college with a degree in electrical engineering.
“The whole idea of the show is that we’re just regular guys, and we’re just doing science because it’s not just something that a guy in a white lab coat’s going to do somewhere and speak in a language you don’t understand,” Byron said. “No, it’s something that’s accessible to everyone, so I think that’s what has been a good message for us.”
To catch up with Byron and Belleci every week, be sure to tune in to MythBusters on Discovery Channel every Sunday at 9 p.m.!