Awning Fall. The first segment in this special is to replicate the scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where Indy jumps out of a window and falls through three awnings to slow his fall. Is that really possible? If you need to jump off of a building, can an awning save you? It turns out that you’ve got two questions there.
First, the crew finds a tall building and they rig three awnings on the side, and they drop Buster onto the top one. He loses a leg and falls roughly onto the second one. The shock readings indicate that he had a rough ride, but that the fall wasn’t fatal. So if you need to jump off of a building, you should probably look for some awnings. At least you won’t die. Plausible.
The second part is to see if they can recreate the scene from the movie, and for that they cut the awnings, then tape them back together. A stunt team comes in and hooks up a harness and puts a pad at the bottom. Just before Adam straps in, they get a call saying that Adam can’t do it. That’s too risky. It’s okay if Tory does it, however, and he does a great job.
Cutting a Sword. In movies such as The Count of Monte Cristo, the hero will take a large swing and leave the bad guy’s sword cut in two. Is it really possible for that to happen, or is it just something in the movies? The first problem here is that real swords that are used for fighting are pretty expensive, and that’s going to be a lot of money down the drain. So it’s decided that perhaps some replicas can be found.
The next thing is how to run the test. Grant and Tory first take some runs at swords in the parking lot and see if they can do it by hand. Needless to say, they can’t. No hard feelings here. I couldn’t either. So some experts are brought in.
Their swings are measured and Grant builds a machine to swing the sword at the same speed and strength, and that’s used to see what happens. In every case (except for one, with a cheap knock-off), it’s not possible to cut the sword. Some of the swords do break, but it’s done by stress fractures, not by cutting the sword. Busted.
Ejection Seat.. Lots of movies (mostly spy movies) have cars with ejection seats. In Austin Powers in Goldmember, our intrepid spy has a super-powered ejection seat that allows him to eject over the top of a helicopter. That’s a little much. But Adam and Jamie want to see if they can build a car that has a seat that doesn’t look like an ejection seat, and if they can get someone to sit in it with no idea that it’s actually an ejection seat. Not that they’d eject anyone or anything.
The sporty cars that would be ideal have a problem – the roofline of sporty cars comes inward, and a seat flying upward would hit that. So it’s decided to go for something less sporty, and Myth-tern Jess Nelson heads back out to get a less-sporty vehicle.
To keep the driver safe, they decide to use compressed air, stored in a tank in the trunk, and tubes in the seat back, which slide down over the base tubes. The only problem is that the seat back ends up looking a bit large. But other than the frankenseat, it looks fairly normal, and it works great too. Plausible.
Shootin’ Locks. Many movies have someone trying to shoot locks off of doors. One such movie is Big Trouble in Little China, but there are many. Grant builds a door that can hold a number of locks, and the rest of the crew heads to the firing range.
The first test is to see what happens when you shoot handguns at locks – first the padlocks and then the deadbolts. The result is that nothing at all happens. The padlocks are barely even dented, and they still operate. The difference in shooting at deadbolts is almost non-existent. If you want to blast off a lock, don’t use a handgun because it just won’t work. Busted.
The second test is to see what happens when you shoot a 12 gauge shotgun at the locks. At first it looks like the padlock is still working, but after yanking it once, it falls apart. The deadbolt lock falls completely out of the hole. In either case, there is a huge amount of shrapnel created by the destruction, so it’s probably not a good suggestion for getting past the lock. Confirmed.
The final test is to see what happens when you shoot a high-powered M1 Garand rifle at the locks. The padlock is simply destroyed and the bullet goes completely through the door jamb. The deadbolt lock also is completely wiped out by the M1. Like the shotgun, there’s a load of shrapnel by using this method, so it’s certainly not safe, but it does work. Confirmed.
Jumpin’ a Gorge. As seen in The Dukes of Hazzard, if you want to jump a car 175 feet off of a dirt ramp, you’ll need to get your car going about 70 MPH, assuming you have a 30 degree angle. But will you be able to drive away when you come back down again? To test this out, Jamie has to build one of the more complex remote control rigs he’s created, because it’s going to be a dangerous ride.
In the end, the car makes it the distance (well, it makes it 172 feet, and that’s pretty close), but there’s no way it’s going to drive again when it lands. The front of the car is completely mangled and it will have to be towed anywhere if it’s going to be moved at all. Busted.
Ballistic Breakthrough. In the movie Underworld, Kate Beckinsale shoots a hole through the floor to make an escape, using two 9mm pistols and just two clips. Is this a viable means of escape? Tory is chosen for this myth because of his set design skills, and he sets up a dual-deck design, where he can stand on the upper deck and shoot down from above to the lower deck, for safety’s sake.
Unfortunately, Tory’s building skills outdo his shooting skills, and he goes through hundreds of rounds and the floor on the lower deck still hasn’t given way, and he also gets some help from Grant and a couple of shotgun rounds, so it looks like any real floor wouldn’t have given way – and especially not with just two clips from 9mm pistols. Busted.
I remember reading in TV Guide when DOH was on the air. They mentioned how many cars they went through in each eposide. I think they shot the cars from an air cannon.