Mythbusters Recap: Viewers Choice Christmas Special (Televizzle.org)

This episode took a bit of a different format than the rest. Rather than the larger myth (or two or three) that is tested to see how it holds up, this one looks instead at six holiday "mini myths", as well as the ten favorite myths, as chosen by the viewers of the show. As such, each myth isn't given a whole lot of time. On one hand, it's a nice change of pace because you aren't given a whole lot of time to become bored with any particular methodology. On the other hand, you aren't given a whole lot of time to become bored with any particular methodology. So without further ado, we'll take a look at the myths.

Holiday Myth #1: Will a clothed snowman melt slower than a naked snowman? While San Francisco isn't exactly the best area for testing myths that involve cold weather, in this case it's perfect, because the test invovles the melting of the snow. So the only challenge involved is getting the snowmen built in the first place. To do that, Adam and Jamie get a whole bunch of ice and build snowmen. Adam's snowman, which had a Jamie-like mustache and no coat, lost significantly more bulk than Jamie's snowman, who had the advantage of a winter coat. After five hours or so, it was obvious that if you want your snowman to last, give him some clothes. Confirmed.

I will interject here to say that the clothed snowman had a heavy winter jacket that obviously conveyed some insulating properties. Had the clothed snowman simply had a shirt or something, I suspect that you would not have seen such a pronounced difference - so the title of "clothed" snowman may be something of a misnomer, and this is really more of a test of an "insulated" snowman versus a naked snowman. But I digress.

Holiday Myth #2: Does a silver spoon put in the neck of an open bottle of champagne keep it bubblier? This one was a new one to me, but apparently if you open a bottle of champagne and place a silver spoon in the neck of the bottle, it will keep those bubbles, well, bubbly. So Adam and Jamie prepare the bottles. One is a control bottle, which is not opened. Another is opened and reclosed with the cork. Another is left opened, and another has the spoon. After 24 hours, the guys perform a blind taste test. Their senses agree, so they check to see what happens. They both agree that the worst-tasting sample in the bunch (that is, the flattest sample) came from the one with the spoon. Busted.

Holiday Myth #3: Can urine freeze before hitting the ground? A section of the warehouse is arranged with some massive blocks of ice, and the temperature is measured at a whopping seventy below zero, which equals the lowest temperature ever recorded in the continental US. If pee won't freeze at this temperature, then it probably won't happen anywhere. When Adam lets the stream go, it doesn't freeze. Busted.

I'll poke my nose in again here and say that I'm not sure of the methodology here. Adam did put the fake urine in the middle of the icebox, so the temperature was probably accurate, but the stream from the test tube looked pretty substantial. I've read stories of travelers who have their breath (a fine mist, to be sure) freeze in their beard, so there has to be a point where the stream becomes fine enough that it will freeze. Perhaps more testing needs to be done with finer streams to see what happens.

Holiday Myth #4: Can a falling icicle kill you? Jamie just happens to have some massive icicles in the freezer, so it seems like a good idea to see if they can drop some from the upper levels of the warehouse and see what happens if they should hit something. So grabbing some meat from the fridge, Adam rigs up a tube that will send it on-target and on the very first try they impale the thing. Confirmed.

Me again. I guess I'm just turning into too much of a cynic. I won't doubt that there are going to be some places where an icicle will have the momentum from a larger drop, but I think that in a lot of cases, it's just not going to have the speed to get going fast enough to penetrate the skull - or any bone. The problem with this test was that it was a boneless hunk of meat. It's a lot easier to penetrate meat than it is to get through bone. Not saying it wouldn't hurt - just that it may not kill you.

Holiday Myth #5: Will a frozen turkey explode if dropped quickly in oil to deep-fry it? Citing the fact that Southerners like to deep-fry their birds for the holidays, and that reports have come about that if you drop them in the oil, then an explosion will result, it's time to find out if that will happen. The control bird was raw, but not frozen. It caused a bit of a mess, but nothing major. The frozen bird caused oil to spill over, but definitely no explosion. While it's recommended that you don't do this on a deck, or anywhere inside, it was messy, but not an explosion. Busted.

Holiday Myth #6: Lighting a fire makes the rest of the house cooler? By putting thermometers throughout the house and lighting a fire, Adam and Jamie were able to monitor the temperature to see what happened. It seems that the temperature in the other end of the house did go down - by 3 degrees in just a few minutes. Not a bad result for just a few minutes in 55 degree San Francisco. Confirmed.

Scattered throughout the holiday myths were the viewer favorites. Here is the list, in reverse order (favorite is listed last):

All in all, a decent collection of episodes. Even today, you'd be hard-pressed to find some better myths, as many of the later myths tested, while good, just have a tough time standing up to those that came in the earliest episodes in the series.