Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/01/19/adam-savage-reveals-mythbusters-scariest-explosion.html
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The staged reactions ruined the show for me. See them alone in one shot, next thing there’s a camera in their face.
Also, combustible dust isn’t exactly an unknown thing, this shouldn’t have caught them by surprise.
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I had not heard of the stick of butter in liquid oxygen idea. Is anyone having better luck finding a related video than I am?
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“Not a recommended science project.”
Tell that to my old chemistry teacher, good old Carl “Chemical Carl” Ferguson, who would demonstrate the effect (on a somewhat smaller scale) in the classroom.
Dust explosions, of course, have destroyed more than a few grain elevators. I have read that they were taught to saboteurs in WW2 as a way to destroy an entire factory with a small explosive charge and a pile of floor sweepings.
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was fully expecting a mention of flour too, but i was surprised it wasn’t.
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I know there was a Diamond sugar processing factory that hadn’t kept up with its cleaning and the accumulated dust on a conveyor belt caused a massive explosion
Destruction with a lovely toasted caramel smell
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My stepmother’s dad was blown up twice working for Bird’s Custard. Dangerous place, the custard factory.
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Man, moving out of the house for JUCO and discovering non-dairy creamer was flammable made me an absolute menace of a few months. Singing off my arm hair curbed my habit…
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I find that that’s a scourge of most reality shows though, they’re all edited to create a narrative and once you notice it you see it everywhere.
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Howard Jones theme song? Was he mistakenly referring to Thomas Dolby? I mean, the latter was a bit of a blip on the music charts (I still like a few of his other lesser hits), but he’s of an age to remember that music video being in constant replay. Well, here y’go. 0_o
Howard Jones - No One Is To Blame
howardjonesmusic
Sure, that could work. 
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My guess would be the concrete truck explosion would have been tops.
I loved watching Mythbusters, especially when you could find “super cuts” of episodes on the 'bays or the file-sharing apps. Not only commercial free, but all the tedious lead-outs and lead-ins removed (probs not correct terms… the annoying bits before the commercials telling us what will happen after the commercial, and then the annoying bits after the commercial tell us what we’re about to see).
AND cut & re-assembled so the two interleaved stories ran main (usually Jamie & Adam) and then secondary story (“The Build Team” of various combinations of Tori, Kari, Grant, and Jessi and probably others).
This resulted in the full hour-long episodes playing in ~30 minutes.
To @Alvin_Goodman’s point about staged reactions… while I was looking for the concrete truck explosion, I came across this, again from Adam. To be honest, I’d never given it much thought… I bought the illusion!
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Same with historical documentaries when you start to notice all the insert footage that seems to relate to the subject at hand but is often random footage of random people doing random things shoehorned in to add some visual flavor to the narration.
For example, say there’s a WWII documentary and they start talking about a specific bombing raid. Queue footage of planes as if to insinuate its actual footage of the event, but it’s just footage of some planes. Or there’s a soldier relaying a story and you see film of young soldier leaning against a post or something as if to say “this is the person talking” when it’s just some random dude.
Ever since I began noticing this, it’s just something I can’t unsee.
Take my 
. HoJo is a real mensch and he’s still actively recording and touring. I’ve seen him live several times in recent years. He’s damn talented and a lovely human.
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FWIW, Thomas Dolby is still around.
The Toad Lickers (feat. Imogen Heap)
Thomas Dolby Official
Still doing more electronic stuff as well. I don’t think he’s interested in coming up with another “She Blinded Me with Science”, his career has been pretty diverse, but I’ll bet he’s up for a collaboration.
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Guessing it is of this type. Certainly reads as though it would be scary.
Yeah, factual stuff can be the absolute worst for doing it. Or when you have, say, a reality TV presenter with camera crew visiting some person’s home supposedly without that person’s knowledge but cut to inside their home with another camera crew as they answer the door and feigning surprise. See also when a reality personage answers the phone to be told some, supposedly unknown, exciting news while there’s a camera crew in their face filming their reaction.
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Yes. Stuff like this insults my intelligence, and it makes me very angry.
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