“MythBusters” did a lot of scary-looking stuff, and while it’s obvious that safety would have been top priority, were there ever any brown trousers moments? Absolutely, and according to what Jamie Hyneman told OnMilwaukee, there was one segment in the 1st season that brought it home very, very quickly just how dangerous some of their experiments were.
They were reconstructing a tree cannon from Hungary’s distant past, and yes, Hyneman says they were working with a professional pyrotechnics expert when they did it. He told them that he was going to be standing what was presumably a safe distance away — 250 feet — so the “MythBusters” opted for an even safer 350 feet … or, so they thought. “The thing went off, and every piece of that tree cannon — which was chunks of wood maybe 80 pounds, give or take — flew over our heads,” he said. “That was kind of a wake up call, and that kind of thing has never happened again.”
There are plenty of cool myths, hold-your-breath explosions, and massive builds, which is why this one sneaks into the top three. It’s impossible to tell whether or not this wake-up call changed their course from a potentially disastrous one, but that’s all right — some things shouldn’t have to be learned the hard way, and Hyneman thanked the tree cannon for that.
