"Please don't try anything that you're about to see us do at home." "Ever!" "NARRATOR:" "On this scatological episode of "Mythbusters"..." "Oh, man." "NARRATOR:" "...it's all about idioms, as the team takes on those phrases we all take for granted." "Is it really best to hit the ground running?" "[ Laughter ]" "Or to end with a bang?" "And for the coup de grace..." "I shouldn't be surprised, but it smells terrible." "NARRATOR:" "...Adam and Jamie will attempt to polish the unpolishable." "Incredible." "Who are the Mythbusters?" "Adam Savage..." "I look good, right?" "I look damn good!" "NARRATOR:" "...and Jamie Hyneman." "Oh, great." "We've got a yeti outside." "NARRATOR:" "Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience." "Joining them " " Grant Imahara..." "Oh, my God!" "NARRATOR:" "...Tory Belleci..." "[ Cuban accent ] Say hello to my little friend!" "NARRATOR:... and Kari Byron." "You're better than a robot!" "NARRATOR:" "They don't just tell the myths..." "Bye-bye!" "NARRATOR:" "...they put them to the test." "[ Cat meows ]" "So, we're doing idioms." "Do you have any?" "I do, actually." "At Industrial Light  Magic, whenever we were working on a model that required a lot of detail and yet was still ugly, we referred to the process as [bleep] polishing." "So the myth is, you can't polish [bleep]" "Exactly." "That one's been around forever." "I've heard that all over the place." "I got a wrinkle, though, because the network has instructed us that we're not allowed to use the word [bleep]" "Can we say [bleep]" "Of course not." "[Bleep]" "Nope." "But to set your mind at ease, we can say "feces," "manure," "guano,"" ""dung," "waste," "scat," "doo-doo," "poo-poo,"" "and "poop."" "[ Cow moos ]" "NARRATOR:" "Pedants that we are, we've put common idioms to the test before." "We've dared to question the culpability of bulls in china shops..." "They're very careful of the breaking china." "NARRATOR:... the trouble with finding needles in haystacks..." "Yeah!" "NARRATOR:... and the ease of shooting fish in a barrel." "ADAM:" "I think he's still squirming." "NARRATOR:" "But just this might be the toughest task of all." "So, where are we gonna start with this poop polishing?" "Well, I think we're gonna need the widest possible array of dung that we can find." "A veritable smorgasbord of fecal matter." "And then see if there's any specific kind we can get to take a high polish." "Okay." "Let's get at it." "NARRATOR:" "From here, the best place to find a truly broad selection of dung is the San Francisco Zoo." "ADAM:" "Well, we're just about to go into the barn containing a bunch of giraffes, or as we on "Mythbusters" like to call them, the large herbivore savanna- based feces-production units." "And hopefully they're going to have some special packages just for us." "NARRATOR:" "But you can't expect something for nothing, so the boys come bearing fruit." "We've got some breakfast here." "NARRATOR:" "This girl refuses to take Adam's banana." "No surprises there." "Jamie has better luck." "JAMIE:" "She's beautiful." "NARRATOR:" "And breakfast begins its magical transformation into manure." "Okay." "Now you've eaten." "Let's see the other stuff." "JAMIE:" "So it turns out that giraffes are really efficient at extracting the nutrients they need out of the food they eat, unlike things like elephants and other herbivores that live in the same environment that are basically like cows the way they process." "The giraffes extract every last little thing -- hello -- out of the food." "And that's why you end up with this dense little nugget, which tells me that it might be better material for us to work with." "NARRATOR:" "But giraffes aren't the only donors." "Grizzly dung." "Let's go get some." "NARRATOR:" "Armed with scoops and buckets, they need to steal the scats of a bunch more species to give them the best possible chance of busting this myth." "If one stool won't take a shine, another might." "So there's no bears around here, I take it." "Hey, Jamie." "Over here." "Oh, man, this stuff is soft." "JAMIE:" "It's kind of like meatloaf." "I know I shouldn't be surprised, but it smells terrible." "You know the worst part now?" "I got an inch on my nose." "NARRATOR:" "The grizzlies get set free as the boys move from stink to stench." "ADAM:" "Warthogs." "JAMIE:" "Oh, right out of the gate, I see we're in luck." "ADAM:" "Look at that." "Holy [bleep] That's a lot of poo." "ADAM:" "[ Laughs ]" "Oh, wait." "Look." "Oh, it's all in a string." "[ British accent ] Looks like it could be a necklace." "We just have to polish it up." "NARRATOR:" "They race to secure the manure from half a dozen more animals, including lions, rhinos, and koalas." "ADAM:" "I think we got everything we need here." "Oh, you're full of it." "ADAM:" "[ Chuckles ]" "Let's get back to the shop and start polishing." "[ Laughing ] Okay." "NARRATOR:" "Now to test a myth with momentum." "All right, so what's next?" "Well, we've got another myth that will likely result" "in you getting hurt." "Great." "Awesome." "What is it?" "You know the phrase "hit the ground running"?" "That's the term when somebody is already up to speed" "before they start a job." "Right." "Well, we want to know is, if you literally hit the ground running, do you get going any faster?" "I like it." "Yeah, sounds dangerous for you." "NARRATOR:" "When the phrase surfaced in the 1 890s, it was meant literally, so all the more reason to put it to the test." "We'll move on to wheels in motion, but kick off with fast feet." "So, how are we gonna test this?" "I think we need to start out with a harness to keep us suspended in the air so we could get our feet moving before we touch the ground." "We should probably also add some forward momentum to see if that has any difference on the experiment." "That sounds like we're all getting hurt, not just Tory." "[ Laughs ] Welcome to my world." "NARRATOR:" "And welcome back to Trapeze Arts." "This where our three thrill-seekers once tried a 360 on a swing." "KARI:" "Oh, my gosh!" "That's enough!" "NARRATOR:" "The team has commissioned an indoor zip line to help launch the legend." "Meantime, they'll need some baseline figures to see if this phrase has legs." "I think we should start out with a control run from a standing start, let's say 30 feet, and then time it." "Then we'll use our harness rigs so that way we're up off the ground." "We'll start our run, and then when we're dropped, we'll be in mid-stride and we'll see if our time is any shorter." "NARRATOR:" "30 feet is a short sprint, but that's the best way to test this idiom." "It's 30 feet." "Right there." "NARRATOR:" "Any difference between a standing and a rolling start is likely to be measured in fractions of a second." "Let's go!" "Let's go!" "Come on!" "Get those shoes on!" "Get those shoes on!" "NARRATOR:" "Tory's the first to run his three standing-start control sprints." "KARI:" "On your marks, get set, go." "NARRATOR:" "Tory consistently clocks just over two seconds." "2. 11." "NARRATOR:" "But those tiny differentials might make all the difference." "All right." "Who's next?" "NARRATOR:" "Now Kari and Grant post their own times." "I'm ready." "TORY:" "On your marks, get set, go." "That was cute." "lt was cute." "I like the way she hit the back." "NARRATOR:" "Then Grant steps up to the mark." "TORY:" "On your marks, get set, go." "NARRATOR:" "Grant figures out the average time for each runner." "That's the mark they'll have to beat." "And now for the fun stuff." "Hit the ground running test." "Let's go over the plan." "The trapeze is set up." "Eric's gonna lift us up so our feet aren't touching the ground." "We're gonna start moving our feet." "As soon as we hear "go," we drop down and start the run." "NARRATOR:" "Tory takes flight as Kari takes fright." "KARI:" "Personally, I think "hitting the ground running"" "sounds great in your head if you're thinking in cartoons." "But in real life, I have a feeling it's gonna trip you up and, well, we might see some face-plants." "NARRATOR:" "We live in hope." "Adam and Jamie have gathered the droppings from nine different animals to see which, if any, buffs up the best." "JAMIE:" "Those babies would hurt coming out." "NARRATOR:" "Back at M5, Jamie marks up some tinfoil trays and finds a novel use for earplugs." "JAMIE:" "They work for your ears." "Maybe they work for your nose, too." "Okay." "Here we go." "NARRATOR:" "Once the poop is partitioned..." "JAMIE:" "Oh, man." "NARRATOR:" "...every sample gets roasted." "The theory is that dry dung is more likely to take a polish." "ADAM:" "The whole point of baking the scat at 300 degrees for six hours is not just to bring out the flavor, but also to get out the moisture, to harden it." "While it's regular poop, there's no way we can get a polish on it, 'cause it's soft." "NARRATOR:" "Baked horse manure looks way too flaky to take a polish, and the same goes for elephant, rhino, and grizzly dung." "ADAM:" "We got five out of nine." "That's actually pretty good." "Let's see what we can do." "What do you " " Where -- Where " " Where " " Where " "[ Laughs ] Where do you want to begin?" "NARRATOR:" "Adam's a stuttering mess, but this is uncharted territory." "They'll need good instincts and a strong stomach to choose the right sample and the right method." "Jamie picks..." "Giraffe dung." "NARRATOR:" "...while Adam tries..." "Lion feces." "And I'm going at it with a bit of 320-grit wet-dry sandpaper." "And, honestly, it seems to be going swimmingly." "JAMIE:" "So, I'm actually getting a nice little shine on this puppy." "I'm doing that just by adding a little bit of water to the table surface and rubbing it around until it kind of flattens what material is already there out into a nice surface." "NARRATOR:" "Giraffe pellets do seem to have polish potential." "JAMIE:" "The finishing touch on this is gonna be to add a little bit of oil, just like you would put on your furniture that you've got nice and polished, and that'll keep it shiny." "NARRATOR:" "Meantime, Adam goes high-tech with a jewelers' wheel." "ADAM:" "A terrible failure that is right there." "NARRATOR:" "Frustration turns to exasperation, as Adam learns that Jamie's using furniture polish." "You are obstinately ignoring the spirit and the letter of the myth by using a wax-based polish." "This is about polishing." "There's polish." "I don't see the problem." "You're imparting an artificial shine." "You might as well just spray-paint it." "You're adding material, and the material is what's getting you your shine, not the poop itself." "NARRATOR:" "Proving you can polish a poop is a big ask, so it's no surprise that the [bleep] hit the fan." "It's a wax." "It helps get a shine on it." "NARRATOR:" "Well, I guess we've left Tory hanging long enough." "He, Grant, and Kari are testing the literal truth of "hit the ground running."" "Just like the control sprints, they'll all try this running drop test three times." "And here's the highlights." "GRANT:" "[ Laughs ]" "KARI:" "Go." "TORY:" "The way I was picturing it is really cool." "I probably looked really cool in the high-speed on this one." "KARI:" "Hanging, set..." "I haven't reached maximum velocity yet!" "KARI:... go." "Go." "GRANT: [ Laughs ]" "I have to say, that was pretty awkward, and it wasn't really like hitting the ground running so much as it was hitting the ground stumbling." "Wow." "That is the most graceful thing I've ever seen in my life." "Eye of the tiger, Grant." "Eye of the tiger." "More like eye of the kitten." "NARRATOR:" "You can't help notice that hitting the ground running looks a lot clumsier and a whole lot slower than a standing start." "I'm under no illusion that was probably a slower run." "I almost didn't see her pass." "KARI:" "Mostly from all the awkward flailing around that left me in a strange position by the time I hit the ground to run." "TORY:" "Go." "NARRATOR:" "But the stopwatch never lies." "On average, the three of us were faster hitting the ground running..." "There's no way." "...by an eighth of a second." "Now we're going to do a test -- hit the ground running, but with forward momentum." "I think this is gonna be a much better test." "NARRATOR:" "Sliding in on a zip line, they'll hit the start line at speed." "By any standards, this must be the ultimate way to hit the ground running." "But will it be faster?" "TORY:" "It's hard because if your foot is not in the right place when you get off that trolley, you're gonna go straight on your face." "KARI:" "Maybe that's why "hit the ground running"" "isn't actually a good saying." "NARRATOR:" "So Kari follows in his floundering footsteps." "TORY:" "Run, run, run, run, run!" "GRANT:" "Run, run, run, run, run, run, run!" "Yeah!" "KARI:" "That's not so easy." "Yeah." "Yeah." "NARRATOR:" "Time for Grant to strut his stuff." "[ Grunts ]" "[ Both laugh ]" "Come on!" "Keep going!" "Finish line!" "Aah!" "When your legs go in the air, the trolley starts rocking." "Suddenly you can't tell where the floor is, and I hit the floor and things just went all wrong." "I just don't think that there's any way that this idiom works whatsoever." "I just don't think you're ever gonna get a significantly better time by running ahead of time." "It think it's just crazy and we should just stop saying it." "NARRATOR:" "But Kari and Tory finally did seem to hit that mark at high speed." "Still, it all comes down to those fractions of a second." "Running in the air with the forward-momentum test is a quarter-second slower than planting and running." "Really?" "!" "That's a surprise." "NARRATOR:" "So the jury's locked on the literal truth of this popular phrase." "Surprisingly, falling was faster and swinging was slower." "So what say we replace legs with wheels?" "Hey, how about a bike?" "I like bikes." "[ Laughs ]" "Oh, we know your track record with those." "[ Explosion ]" "I can tell you're trying to send a message, but I can't figure out what it is." "It's an idiom." "We've been exploiting it since the very beginning of the show." "Really?" "An idiom?" "I can't figure out what -- You got to tell me." ""Better to end with a bang."" "[ Laughs ]" "So you're suggesting that we end the idiom special with a bang?" "Exactly." "That's brilliant!" "Let's get out of here." "NARRATOR:" "Sure, we always assume it's better to end with a bang, especially on "Mythbusters."" "Today we'll put the predictable big bang up against a spectacular slow burn." "But first, well, we'll have to blow something into tiny, tiny pieces." "So, "ending with a bang" -- what are we gonna blow up?" "Normally, we blow up really big, spectacular stuff." "I was thinking, what if we blow up something small and piddling, but in a spectacular way -- like your little mo-ped there?" "What, this thing?" "Yeah." "I love it!" "Let's do it." "NARRATOR:" "Ensuring no one goes home with nine fingers or one eyebrow -- Frank Doyle and J. D. Nelson." "ADAM:" "So the goal is to make Jamie's mo-ped go away." "Det cord." "Det cord." "NARRATOR:" "Det cord, alias Primacord, a. k.a. linear explosive." "It might look like a clothesline, but the core of this flexible tubing is compressed powdered explosive." "[ French accent ] Ah, yes, for today's bang, we have chosen a vintage Mobylette, or mo-ped," "which we have wrapped carefully with aged Primacord several hundred feet, held together with duct tape, and ignited with the blasting cap." "I trust it will be fabulous." "NELSON:" "All right." "It's beautiful." "NARRATOR:" "But beauty sometimes needs a helping hand." "Well, I'm not one to let well enough alone, and the task we have is to go out with a bang, so I'm gonna add some gasoline." "This is a technique we learned when we were doing the Hollywood explosion." "And if you take a look at this footage of me pretending to be my own action hero, you'll see what kind of explosion we can expect from this." "MAN:" "3.. .2... 1!" "NARRATOR:" "So Adam adds even more fuel to the fireball." "[ Laughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "When a demolitions expert laughs like that, it's time to run for cover." "At least the boys have a bunker to hide in." "JAMIE:" "Okay, everybody ready?" "ADAM:" "We are." "All right." ""Ends with a bang."" "Firing in 3.. .2..." "1 " "Wait, wait, wait!" "I just realized this is "ending with a bang,"" "and we're still in the middle of the episode." "We can't do this at this point." "We've got to go take care of a bunch of other stuff" "and then come back here." "Really?" "Yeah." "Okay." "Let's go." "NARRATOR:" "Kari, Tory, and Grant have been testing the truth of the idiom "hit the ground running"" "to see if it really is faster than a standing start." "The results were surprising and inconsistent." "But where feet failed us, wheels might provide the answer." "We'll end with a car, but start with a bicycle." "[ Crash ]" "[ Bell dings ]" "You may remember this bike from "Drive Shaft Pole Vault."" "We have a very interesting relationship, me and this bike." "[ Humming ]" "Ohh!" "KARI:" "Whoa!" "I'm okay." "I need to be able to get this bike up to speed without it touching the ground." "So I'm gonna build a rig that will hold up the back wheel." "NARRATOR:" "The "hit the ground" part of this phrase means the bike needs to start suspended." "What I need to do next is make the release system so that way, once the bike is up to speed, we can quickly release the back wheels, it'll hit the ground, and we'll see what happens when we hit the ground running." "NARRATOR:" "Adding extender foot pegs to the back axle," "Tory modifies the mechanism to drop on demand." "Go ahead." "3.. .2... 1." "Yeah!" "It's gonna work!" "NARRATOR:" "Out on the test track, Tory sprays the start, while Grant marks the finish line, 100 feet up the tarmac." "Then we'll stop the timer once we hit the finish line, and we'll do it three times." "That way, we get an average time from our standing start." "NARRATOR:" "These first sprints wouldn't scare a retired mailman." "Excellent." "NARRATOR:" "But for the sake of consistency," "Tory needs to wear a safety suit for each and every test." "TORY:" "It's just riding a bike." "How dangerous could that be?" "Yeah, but this is not the dangerous one." "But when you're suspended in the air, pedaling as fast as you can, then it gets dangerous." "Ready, set, go." "NARRATOR:" "As with the running tests, they average the times from three standing starts." "Go!" "What was my time?" "6.68." "KARI:" "Go!" "NARRATOR:" "And the Tour de Tory passes without incident." "6.34!" "I got it!" "I got a better time!" "NARRATOR:" "But we all know that once you learn how to fall off a bike, you never forget." "Oh!" "Now we're gonna move on to our suspended test." "Tory's gonna be on the bike suspended above the ground." "He's gonna pedal as fast as he can, and then we're gonna release him and see if he's any faster." "My prediction for the next test -- three words -- crash and burn." "All right." "I'm ready." "NARRATOR:" "But is he?" "If history is any guide, Grant should have 911 on speed dial." "KARI:" "Set, go!" "GRANT:" "[ Laughs ]" "TORY:" "That was pathetic!" "Keep going!" "Keep going!" "8.72." "Not very good." "Ready, set, go!" "[ Grunts ]" "NARRATOR:" "Try as he might," "Tory just can't, well, hit the ground running." "Once he hits the ground, there's so much friction, there's so much weight there, that it just immediately stops and he is basically at a standstill." "All right!" "Dude, hitting the ground running sucks!" "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "This was just like when we were at Trapeze Arts and we were trying to catch with our feet." "It's really hard to, well, hit the ground running." "GRANT:" "10.09 seconds." "Just to remind everyone," "Tory's control run was just under 6.5 seconds." "NARRATOR:" "Clearly, the friction between the road and the falling rear tire stopped the wheel dead and unbalanced the bike." "So, far from proving advantage, this test is going backwards." "GRANT:" "Your average hitting the ground running was 9.27 seconds -- 2.8 seconds longer than the control." "[ Laughs ] That's not good." "It's not looking good for "hit the ground running" on a bike." "But we can't stop there." "We still have a car." "Yeah!" "Let's ramp it up!" "All right." "NARRATOR:" "Adam and Jamie are testing the truth of that delightful idiom" ""You can't polish a..." you know what." "Adding to the unpleasantness," "Jamie's use of furniture polish provoked a scat spat." "I mean, it's ridiculous." "I just don't believe it." "I'm interested as to whether or not these things are polishable, not as to whether or not I can add something to them to achieve a shine." "NARRATOR:" "But he'd sooner strike a light than curse the darkness." "Hello, sir." "NARRATOR:" "Adam's enlisted Jason Arnold to explain the Japanese art of dorodango, shaping shiny balls from common dirt using only your hands, tap water, and patience." "ARNOLD:" "This was made out of just some soil found in my dad's backyard." "Then I wanted something nicer, so I went and got just a nice dirt mix that didn't have a bunch of junk in it." "ADAM:" "Wow!" "These are great." "Can you teach me how to do this?" "Absolutely." "Yes." "I love to teach people how to do this." "Let's do it." "All right." "NARRATOR:" "The boys dish the dirt side by side." "It's a proof-of-concept cooking lesson that hopefully works just as well with manure." "You know, usually on the show," "I'm connecting to my 1 4-year-old self, the pyromaniac." "Now I'm connecting to my 4-year-old self." "ARNOLD:" "You're looking pretty good there." "I think you could start to pick that up" "and get your hands dirty." "All right." "NARRATOR:" "They need a good balance of dirt and water to shape a sphere the size of a pool ball." "And remember, this is nothing more than a ball of mud." "ADAM:" "I feel like I want to add just a little tiny bit of water." "You really want to try and get water out of it." "Okay." "If you feel that it's too dry, maybe, and it's crumbling, then yeah, you may want to add some water to it." "ADAM:" "No." "I feel like I'm right on the edge." "NARRATOR:" "Adam soon adapts to the rolling rhythm..." "This is so much fun." "NARRATOR:... and the frequent trips to the fridge to speed up the condensation." "So, 25 minutes." "We can pull them out?" "Sounds great." "NARRATOR:" "It all takes time, but it could be worse." "If you're doing this the old-fashioned way with no refrigerator, outside, it'll take more like a week or longer, as you leave it outside." "Check it out!" "NARRATOR:" "Time to mend some fences with a method we hope they both agree on." "Look at that." "That is dirt, water, and..." "just a little elbow grease." "Does it bounce?" "No." "I think it's actually pretty darn delicate, but I think this is our process." "That's beautiful." "I think we just need to choose the most dirt-like of the scat" "and start with that." "Okay." "NARRATOR:" "Adam adopts the ostrich droppings." "ADAM:" "[ Coughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "And Jamie decides on the lion leftovers." "I need to take this and make a shiny mud ball of it." "Now, this is lion poop, and the reason I want to use it is because these guys are almost exclusively carnivores," "and their poop is gonna be -- you know, have a certain characteristic because of that." "I'm holding on to a ball of wet dung, and I have a hard time imagining that it's gonna be shiny when I'm all done." "At the same time, I'm so jazzed from my shiny mud ball... that I'm optimistic that this is gonna work." "These are so simple." "You know, there's nothing more pure than a sphere." "NARRATOR:" "Unless the sphere needs a shave." "Jamie resists yelling, "Waiter, there's a hair in my poop."" "He just takes care of business." "JAMIE:" "Ah, that's working." "NARRATOR:" "Kari, Grant, and Tory have risked life and limb to see if it really is faster to hit the ground running." "Flailing feet proved nothing." "And the hover bike was a total bust." "GRANT: [ Laughs ]" "TORY:" "That was pathetic!" "[ Engine revs ]" "NARRATOR:" "But with much more weight and maybe more grip, this stunt sedan just might do the trick." "I like driving." "NARRATOR:" "Driving, and hopefully braking, is Kari Byron." "My strategy to keep consistency is I am just going to floor it for the start of each one of these tests." "NARRATOR:" "Grant sets the mark at 300 feet." "Now Kari sets some times from a standing start." "TORY:" "Here we go." "In 3.. .2... 1." "Go." "7.97." "TORY:" "Go." "NARRATOR:" "As before, they'll average these control runs to compare against hitting the ground running." "GRANT:" "Now that we have our data, the next step is to raise up the drive wheels, which are the front wheels, off the ground." "I think this has a good chance of being faster." "The car's more stable, it's got better traction, and the wheels are unlikely to stop when they hit the ground." "But there could be a few problems." "We could blow out the tires." "The car could swerve out of control." "Or we could destroy the transmission." "Be interesting to see what happens." "That's better." "NARRATOR:" "With the engine at full revs, this 4,000 pound car is rigged with a quick release to smash into the road at top speed." "KARI:" "We've never done anything like this before, so I guess we just have to cross our fingers and hope everything goes really well." "NARRATOR:" "And if things don't go well, well, there's no way anyone here can help her." "Unlike the bike, the car wheels don't stop dead." "But they do seem to struggle for traction." "The front end is up off the ground." "The wheels are spinning as fast as they can go." "I pull the release, and it bounces off the pavement, skids out, and takes off." "Tires didn't pop, so I think we're good." "We'll be able to do another test." "NARRATOR:" "That's a green light for a second run." "GRANT:" "This is the craziest thing ever." "I'm standing down here at the end of the line and you see once the car hits the ground, a huge cloud of smoke." "I'm not quite sure, actually, if the car is moving towards me until it breaks through the smoke and I can see it accelerating." "NARRATOR:" "Incredibly, nothing's broken." "So Kari hooks up for her third and final drop drag." "[ Tires screech ]" "[ Tires screech ]" "KARI:" "That was so awesome." "The redneck in me -- screaming the whole way." "I love a good burnout." "Mm!" "Oh, and I'm sure the test went well, too." "NARRATOR:" "At the end of a day charged by hormones and horsepower, it all comes down to timing." "Was hitting the ground running faster than a standing start?" "As cool as that was, I don't know if it made it any faster." "You know, I was concentrating so hard on just going straight, it just all went slow motion for me." "All right, well, the results are in, and it was very close." "Now, the average for the control test for the whole 300 feet -- 7.88 seconds." "What was hitting the ground running?" "The average of hitting the ground running -- 8.04 seconds." "Yes!" "We busted this one!" "KARI:" "And we busted the car, so we got to push it home." "NARRATOR:" "We've tried it running, cycling, and now motoring." "This is one idiom that works better in theory than in practice." "TORY: [ Grunts ] Push harder!" "KARI:" "Wait." "Who's steering?" "!" "TORY:" "Who's steering?" "!" "Aah!" "NARRATOR:" "For Adam and Jamie, it's been three long days of shaping and buffing." "But thanks to the ancient art of dorodango, they've got a real chance of actually imparting a polish to poop." "You know, the casual viewer might look at this and say -- pardon the pun -- "What a load of crap." "Who needs to know this?" "This is disgusting."" "But I'm actually really fascinated by this." "Even if it is a disgusting material, it's totally unlikely." "And yet, by really thinking carefully about it and by, like, polishing and working it, we've actually got a lovely shine on this." "NARRATOR:" "Of course, it's not all smiles and sunshine." "The balls still stink to high heaven, they're unsanitary, and Adam's made a mess of the pants he was going to wear to the Emmys." "I swear, that is as shiny as I'm gonna get it." "It's pretty good." "NARRATOR:" "Now, here's the rub." "What exactly defines a polish, and how do you measure it?" "Adam's left nothing to chance." "Because the whole point of this exercise is to polish a poop, the question remains " " How do we know when we get there?" "What is "shiny"?" "What is "polished"?" "Well, we've got a glossmeter here, which measures shininess in gloss units." "And we know that anything above a gloss-unit measurement of 70 is considered high-gloss, or polished." "And I submit that that is our target." "First, I'm gonna run it through its paces with this shiny chrome ball, which no one would dispute is a very polished ball." "NARRATOR:" "The gloss reading on polished chrome should give us some idea of whether or not Adam's dung ball will make the grade." "Okay." "The results are in." "Shiny chrome ball -- 275 gloss units." "Now I'd like to measure my dorodango." "NARRATOR:" "They've cramped their fingers, lost time with loved ones, and infused M5 with a stink that might just last forever." "But if they can bust this myth, well, it's almost worth it." "106!" "[ Chuckles ]" "Remember, anything above a gloss units of 70 is high-gloss, and I got 106." "So I succeeded in polishing a poop." "Let's go get Jamie's." "Dude." "I achieved high-gloss, according to our glossmeter." "Not bad for, like, a lot of grass and other things in there." "Yeah, I got 106." "Wow!" "JAMIE:" "Can just about see myself in it." "Oh, we got to test yours." "Come on." "Let's go." "Okay." "NARRATOR:" "Jamie, you'll recall, chose the lion dung." "So in this bizarre quest for the best and brightest, it's carnivore versus herbivore." "Nicely done." "183 gloss units." "So you should know anything above 70 gloss units is considered high-gloss, and you knocked it out of the park." "JAMIE:" "They're shiny." "ADAM:" "They are." "I'd say we've handily busted this myth." "You can, in fact, polish a poop." "Yes, you can." "It's busted." "ADAM:" "I hope you accept my apologies for the early explodus interruptus." "JAMIE:" "Firing in 3.. .2..." "1 " "Wait, wait, wait!" "Hold on!" "It's now the end of the show, and now we can proceed with ending with a bang." "In case you didn't remember, we've got a mo-ped up there wrapped with a couple of hundred feet of det cord..." "It's like a spider caught it, really." "...and about a gallon of gasoline." "[ Laughs ]" "We're just about to light that puppy up, and it should be pretty spectacular." "JAMIE:" ""Ends with a bang."" "Are you ready?" "I'm ready." "You're sure?" "I " " Just do it." "Firing in 3.. .2... 1!" "[ Laughs ]" "That was suitably spectacular." "NARRATOR:" "And suitably devastating." "They've turned a mo-ped into a "no-ped."" "But just what is Jamie's diabolical alternative?" "Let's ask the man himself." "We're gonna make some thermite." "That means I'm gonna take this and mix it with this in that, and we're gonna cut that in half." "NARRATOR:" "Okay." "That's nice and brief." "But we'll need a bit more detail." "Thermite is a mix of iron oxide and finely powdered aluminum that burns at super-hot temperatures." "We used it previously during the "Hindenburg" episode, to a pretty spectacular effect, as you can see." "NARRATOR:" "The Hindenburg had a paint job partly based on the key components of thermite, which at least contributed to this historic fireball." "Thermite's also used to build bombs and in commercial demolition." "So it's not the kind of thing you buy prepackaged." "[ Engine turns over ]" "So Jamie has to mix his own -- very, very carefully." "JAMIE:" "The only people that we could find used to working with this kind of quantity of thermite normally make solid rocket boosters." "And they told me that I need to be really careful with this because even mixing it in a mixer like this can generate enough heat from the friction that it could auto-ignite." "And once this stuff goes off, you don't want to be around it." "So we're keeping a close eye on it." "NARRATOR:" "Cue the sacrificial S. U.V." "It's Adam's job to prep the patient." "ADAM:" "I have to remove the tires because they don't want the tires to burn out here." "So, of all the things we're gonna destroy, we're gonna leave the burning, molten rubber out of the equation and just set the car down on its frame." "NARRATOR:" "The first batch of bathtub thermite is bagged and distributed." "So I figure we stuff these in around the engine." "And when it starts to run through the hood, it'll set them off." "NARRATOR:" "Now Adam's method gives an insight into Jamie's madness." "He's landscaping the car with house bricks to form a flaming gutter." "My vision is that we're gonna create a river of thermite that's gonna rain down on the inside of this S. U.V." "and cut it right in half." "Now, is it gonna do that?" "We don't have a clue." "It hasn't been done before." "But it's gonna be cool." "ADAM:" "Something is just occurring to me." "This is a freaking lot of thermite." "Have you found anyone who's ever set off this much?" "Nowhere close." "Ha!" "Cool." "Maybe somebody has, but I couldn't find them." "NARRATOR:" "If he could, they probably wouldn't approve of this." "By the time he's finished," "Jamie's used more than 1 ,000 pounds of thermite." "JAMIE:" "It burns at 4,500 degrees." "It's self-oxidizing, meaning that you can't really put it out, because it doesn't care what you do to it." "And as far as we know, nobody's used this much before." "It's gonna be amazing." "If this works the way we're planning, if we actually achieve splitting this S. U.V. down the middle, then absolutely, it's gonna be better than a bang." "But really, it's anybody's guess as to whether or not it's gonna work." "JAMIE:" "Okay." "I'm gonna light her up." "Over." "NARRATOR:" "Don't you just love seeing history in the making?" "Jamie sets the slow-burn fuses then moseys on back to safety." "JAMIE:" "Personally, I'd take this over a bang any day because this is something special." "Once this stuff goes off, it's gonna be nuts." "I think something's starting to happen towards the rear of the car." "ADAM:" "Oh, cascading." "JAMIE:" "Yeah." "[ Explosion ]" "ADAM:" "Oh, yeah!" "[ Laughs ]" "NELSON:" "That's what I'm talking about." "Oh, it's coming out the windows." "It's definitely gotten into the cab." "NARRATOR:" "Burning thermite is tree times hotter than molten lava, and the U.V. rays are so intense, you can't view it up close without a welder's mask." "No wonder Jamie thought this might be better than a bang." "ADAM:" "Wow!" "Oh, oh, there it is." "The river's running down." "JAMIE:" "You can see it dripping off the front of the car." "Exactly." "Oh, that's great!" "NARRATOR:" "As the fire peaks then sputters, it looks like the thermite strip hasn't quite cleaved the roof." "It looks like it's petering out." "NARRATOR:" "J. D. decides it's safe enough to venture forth." "JAMIE:" "While it didn't really cleanly cut it right down the middle like I was hoping, there's not gonna be a whole lot left of that car." "NARRATOR:" "But rending the roof wasn't the main aim." "They just want to know one thing." "JAMIE:" "Was this better than a bang?" "I'm sort of biased towards saying yes, because the amount of energy that was released here was just enormous." "This was something that you just " "You just never see 1 ,000 pounds of thermite going off." "This was fantastic." "I loved it." "Well, for ends with a bang, we got two beautiful points of comparison." "On one hand, we've got the non-bang, and the other hand, the bang." "I like the non-bang." "Yeah, and I like the bang, which means we're deadlocked." "We can't call this one." "Well, let's do something a little different and put it to the viewers." "Let them decide." "That's brilliant! and tell us which one you like best." "NARRATOR:" "So you can help decide if this one's confirmed or busted." "Meantime, Adam has some closing thoughts." "Well, we got our bang and we got our non-bang." "But just in case you feel like ending this very episode with a bang, here's a few of my favorites, starting off with the good old water-heater explosion." "[ Classical music plays ]" "Oh!"