Mythbastards


ADAM: Welcome to Mythbastards, the show where we put the household
myths that people believe in to the scientific test. 

(JAMIE is standing next to a 6-foot high pile of mail which is big
enough that most of it is offscreen)

JAMIE: And it looks like we got a lot of myths from our viewers to
try out this week. 

ADAM: No, these are all love letters for Kari.

(scene shifts: the big pile of mail is spilling out from a pile on
a desk where Kari is reading)
KARI: Ugh! There are so many perverts watching this show!

(JAMIE sticks his head in the scene)
JAMIE: And here's our first myth: will Kari go out with any guy who
watches this show?

[[[[BUSTED]]]]

(ADAM and JAMIE stand by a table with a pitiful few letters)

JAMIE: We do have a few suggestions here. Let's see what this one
says. "Why don't you guys drop the whole myth facade and build
something big and then blow it up real good?" Actually, you'll be
wanting to watch our season finale since that's basically what we'll
be doing.

ADAM: Here's another one. "Will eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke
at the same time cause your body to explode in a violent mess of
blood and guts?" That's an interesting question. Hey, Jamie, why don't
you try this one?

JAMIE: Oh, no. It was your question. You can do it.

ADAM: You can have this one. I don't mind.

JAMIE: I wouldn't dream of taking it away from you.

ADAM: Why don't we flip a coin over it? Heads I win, tails you lose.

JAMIE: Okay. Wait!

ADAM: Haha, you lose! You do it!

JAMIE: Damn. Okay. 

(JAMIE opens a bag of Pop Rocks, swallows them, and starts drinking
from a bottle of soda)

ADAM: Drink it all!

(JAMIE finishes the soda and waits. ADAM ducks behind a table, grins,
and puts his fingers in his ears like Rimmer in the Future Echoes episode
of Red Dwarf. A few moments of dramatic tension pass, and JAMIE puts his
hand to his mouth to stifle a small burp.)

ADAM: That's it?

JAMIE: Well it seems that we've busted this myth thanks to my bravery 
and despite the apprehension of some less brave team members who might
have lacked the fortitude to try it themselves.

ADAM: Oh, come on! Here, watch this. I'll eat TWO bags!

JAMIE: Oh, right, now that you know it's safe.

ADAM: All right, FOUR bags!

(ADAM downs four bags of Pop Rocks, drinks a bottle of soda, and
burps violently. JAMIE then eats six and drinks a liter bottle to
prove he is tougher than Adam, and bubbles of soda come out his mouth
when he burps. ADAM raises it to ten bags, with soda coming out his
ears when he burps, and it escalates to the point where ADAM is
pouring a ten-gallon box full of Pop Rocks down a funnel into JAMIE's
mouth while shouting "It's not busted yet! We just haven't tried
hard enough!")

(Finally, both hosts are lying limp on the floor which is covered in
sticky soda puddles.)

JAMIE: Okay... I think this one is pretty much busted.

ADAM: ... Yeah.

[[[[BUSTED]]]]


JAMIE: This next suggestion is pretty good. "Does music really soothe
the savage beast?" I wonder how we can test that. 

KARI: (holding kitten) This is my cat Mittens. She likes to sit on my
face when I am sleeping, which might not be savage but is kind of rude.

(Kari plays a flute at the cat, who bats at the end of it)

JAMIE: That nice, but it's really not the Mythbastards way.

ADAM: We need to go bigger.

LION: Roar!

JAMIE: We're here at the Los Angeles Zoo where we've hired one of the
local bands to go down into a pit full of hungry lions and play some
music, and then we'll see what happens. (grins and rubs his hands)

DEXTER HOLLAND: Hey, wait a minute. The ad didn't mention any lions.

JAMIE: Oh, sure it did. Maybe you just don't remember. 

DEXTER HOLLAND: No, I'm pretty sure it didn't. 

ADAM: Yes it did. I'm sure we put it in there. 

JAMIE: Yeah. 'Lions' was in the ad.

DEXTER HOLLAND: I don't know. Playing in front of lions sounds really
dangerous.

JAMIE: Tell you what, we'll pay you a little extra if you think it's
dangerous. How does $400 sound?. 

DEXTER HOLLAND: The ad said $500! 

ADAM: No, it said $300.

JAMIE: Yeah, the ad was for $300. 

DEXTER HOLLAND: What? You know, I'm starting to feel a little
uncomfortable about this gig.

ADAM: Well, if you don't want the job, there are plenty of other
bands we could hire that would be willing to take it.


(The Offspring are lowered by rope into the lion den while the lions
circle around and lick their lips)

DEXTER HOLLAND: 1, 2, 3, 4!

THE OFFSPRING: ././././././` WHOOOOOA! WHOOOOOA! ./././././././`

(The lions stop and go bug-eyed)

THE OFFSPRING: ././././././` AND IT FEEEEEELS! ./././././././`

(One of the lions meekly roars in response)

THE OFFSPRING: ././././././` YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH! ./././././././`

(The lions cower and hide in a corner)


(scene goes back to outside the den)

ADAM: Wow, those lions look really soothed.

(Scene of shaking lions with post-traumatic stress syndrome, one of
them cringing in fear when a zoo attendant tosses down a piece of meat)

JAMIE: All in all, I'd say this myth is confirmed.

DEXTER HOLLAND: Cool. Can we get get paid now?

ADAM: Sure. We'll mail the check tonight.

DEXTER HOLLAND: Cool. Thanks.

(DEXTER HOLLAND leaves. ADAM and JAMIE snicker.)

[[[[CONFIRMED]]]]


(The team is back to opening letters at the main set)

ADAM: This letter is interesting. It says, "A recent story in the
Washington Post casts doubt on the feasability of suitcase nukes,
the theorized nuclear bomb that could fit into a suitcase to evade
border security. Could such a weapon actually be built?" Well, there's
only one way to test this myth.

JAMIE: I have a suitcase. (picks it up)

ADAM: And I have a friend at Los Alamos who could get us some uranium.


(scene change) 

ADAM: The first thing we had to do was plan a bomb design.

(scene change: Jamie is showing off his bomb blueprints) 

JAMIE: This is a design for a simple one-stage nuclear bomb, the type
of thing that any third-world country can build. It uses a cadmium 
trigger to shoot a bunch of neutrons into the U-235 which will make
the big boom. It's something we can build fairly quickly and fairly
easily, with fewer possible things to go wrong. 

(scene change: Adam is showing off his bomb blueprints) 

ADAM: My design here is much better than Jamie's wussy nuclear bomb.
Look here. It uses a two-stage design where the initial reaction sets
off a secondary reaction to create a bigger and more awesome explosion. 

(scene change) 

JAMIE: We eventually decided on a one and a half stage bomb. We really
had to cut the explosive yield down to get the weapon small enough to
fit inside the suitcase. This won't be a city destroyer, but it could
still do a lot of damage if you set it off in a football stadium or an
airport.

ADAM: We don't have the uranium yet, but we can hit the metal shop
first to work on the bomb casing. 

(The hosts work in the metal shop, first unintentionally and later
intentionally knocking equipment into each other, tripping each other
with electrical cords, flinging projectiles at each other, etc, all while
each shows no regard for his own personal safety when working.)

(KARI walks in wearing a full suit of knight's armour)

KARI: Hey guys, I got the uranium.

ADAM: Didn't we do the suit-of-armour myth last week?

KARI: Yeah, but I decided to wear it for protection.

JAMIE: It's not going to protect you from the radiation.

KARI: No, from you guys. I'm not walking in here without it when
you two are working in here.

(Camera scene change: the hosts get to work assembling the bomb) 

JAMIE: We're using a layer of aluminum foil to shield the detonator from
cosmic rays so it doesn't go off early. Governments will usually use
something with a higher density for this, like a wall of extra uranium,
but if you put the shiny side facing outward, this works just as well.

ADAM: A little known secret about weaponizing uranium is that you don't
need a big factory producing heavy water to do it. You can get the same
effect by stirring uranium pellets into a mixture of two parts baking
soda to three parts skim milk and letting it sit overnight. So that goes
into the fridge, and now we just have to wait.


(Finally the hosts have finished building their bomb which looks like
a fat, short, stereotypical bullet-shaped warhead with fins.)

JAMIE: Well, we've finally finished our weapon. Now the question is
where are we going to test this thing? 

ADAM: How about the national wildlife refuge off I-5? It's big and
there's never anybody there. 

JAMIE: Good idea. Let's pack it up and hit the road.

(The big round bomb doesn't fit well inside the rectangular suitcase...)

ADAM: I can't get the latch to close.

(ADAM starts stomping on the suitcase to try to close the latch)

JAMIE: I wouldn't force it.

ADAM: What's the worst that could happen? 

(ADAM stomps the suitcase again)


(Stock footage courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy)


(ADAM picks himself up off the ground in a daze with ripped clothes,
smoke all over his face, etc. JAMIE falls to the ground beside him
and gets up in the same condition as his smouldering hat floats down
onto his head.)

ADAM: Well, it looks like we won't be able to test this one after
all. I do have to say the myth seems plausible if we could make
the bomb a little smaller or get a bigger suitcase. 

[[[[PLAUSIBLE]]]]


JAMIE: And I think that's about it for this week's show.

ADAM: Yeah. See you next week.

(The show closes with a series of still shots of JAMIE and ADAM
strangling each other and chasing each other with dangerous tools, 
to the sound of the rockin' part of The Offpring's Pay the Man [4:54 in])