BeigeJournal

There is a nice article on MSNBC about the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters, entitled “Dumb Stunts, Smart Show: Cable’s ‘Mythbusters’ = ‘Jackass’ + ‘Nova’,” which I think is a nifty description of the show. The show draws about a million viewers, so I guess I’m not the only person who likes it.

The general geekiness of the hosts and their vast collection of geek toys—Machine tools! Ballistic gelatin! High speed cameras! A battered crash-test dummy! A big pile of junk! (as Thomas Edison supposedly said, “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk”)—is certainly a draw to geeky types. (Actually, the junk seems to be organized in hundreds of neatly labeled boxes.) Certainly the scene in the airline toilet suction myth show where they admire the fine, aerospace-quality welds on the borrowed airliner toilet is a wonderful example of their somewhat unusual take on life. “Wow, look at those welds!” “After we finished admiring the toilet….”

I certainly enjoy watching them blow stuff up. If the myth test doesn’t blow it up, they’ll put in the extra effort to make it go boom. A few extra pound of gunpowder is sure to work.

Anything resembling critical thinking on TV is always welcome. If you pick goofy topics you can make entertaining TV out of it.

You can search BeigeJournal for more Mythbusters entries.