"Please, don't try anything that you're about to see us do at home." "Ever!" "NARRATOR:" "On this episode of "Mythbusters"..." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "...it's martial-arts mayhem..." "That's intense, man." "NARRATOR:" "...as Adam and Jamie focus, once again, on the secret world of ninja..." "Pain is your friend." "NARRATOR:... to check out the one-inch punch." "Ow." "[ Laughs ]" "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "Then Tory, Kari, and Grant explore the myth of the underwater blowpipe assassin." "Ninja!" "Yeah!" "NARRATOR:" "And the boys settle once and for all" "if a real ninja..." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "...can snatch an arrow." "ADAM:" "Archers, draw." "NARRATOR:" "Who are the Mythbusters?" "Adam Savage..." "[ Shouting indistinctly ]" "NARRATOR:" "...and Jamie Hyneman." "If I'm really good, I'll get nine fish." "NARRATOR:" "Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience." "[ Laughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "Joining them " " Grant Imahara..." "Or I be the scurvy dog!" "NARRATOR:" "...Tory Belleci..." "That bus just came out of nowhere!" "NARRATOR:" "...and Kari Byron." "But right on the money penny." "NARRATOR:" "They don't just tell the myths." "They put them to the test." "MAN:" "Hyah!" "[ Horse whinnies ]" "[ Fly buzzes ]" "There are a lot easier ways to kill a fly." "Ah, yes, but none more precise than the ninja method." "I suppose that means that we're doing ninja myths again." "Indeed, you are correct, flying walrus." "Three is the number of myths we must test in this journey." "The first is underwater blow-dart assassination." "The second would be the famous one-inch punch." "And the third -- ha!" " they say we must catch an arrow again, for we got this wrong the first time." "[ Whoosh!" "]" "Nice work." "Why, thank you." "NARRATOR:" "Unlike the samurai, ninjas don't have a fighting code." "They just do whatever it takes to get the job done." "Their ruthless dispatch of enemies spawned a rich mythology, and that's why they're familiar territory to the Mythbusters." "But ninja rep took a nose dive when Adam and Jamie proved ninjas couldn't walk on water or catch a sword with their bare hands." "Slides right through." "NARRATOR:" "And it was 0 for 3 when the boys proved shadow warriors had no show of catching a full-flight arrow." "Myth is busted." "This is what it would take to catch an arrow." "NARRATOR:" "But the fans disagreed, and hell hath no fury like a ninja fan scorned." "[ Aaah!" "]" "What did they say we got wrong?" "Well, the fans complained that our robo-arrow-catching hand was way too close to our robo-arrow-shooting bow and that if it was farther away, they reasoned the arrow would be going slower and that would make it easier to catch." "That's easy enough to test." "Is that it?" "Sadly, no." "Tons of people wrote us and said they've seen footage of people catching arrows." "Why didn't we bring one of those people on to the show to test with." "So we've got to get a real ninja and bring him on the show." "I don't know where we're gonna find one, but, yeah, I think we have to." "NARRATOR:" "We'll let them find that ninja later and start with the arrow-speed test." "ADAM:" "One of the primary complaints was that we were firing all of our arrows for the arrow-catch test from too close -- from point-blank range -- and that if the arrows were going from farther away, they'd be going slower and thus be easier to catch." "Well, our understanding of the physics is, there's very little difference between 10 feet and 50 feet." "And we're about to do some tests that hopefully will prove that." "NARRATOR:" "To find out," "Jamie will fire arrows at increments of 10 feet." "JAMIE:" "In this test, we're gonna use the high-speed camera and this scale to measure the speed of the arrow right as it hits the target." "Ready to take the first shot from point-blank?" "I am." "NARRATOR:" "Jamie is going to use a full-strength pull on each arrow." "ADAM:" "That's it!" "And 60 feet." "[ Clattering ]" "ADAM:" "Oh." "[ Laughs ]" "Well, I think you killed something, sir." "NARRATOR:" "Now, where did that arrow go?" "All right, this is 70 feet." "I thought this was a ninja special, not knight special." "This is what I had lying around." "Go!" "Oh!" "JAMIE:" "That ought to work." "NARRATOR:" "So, what did they find out?" "Well, we did pretty good." "[ Laughs ]" "Uh, there's effectively no difference." "You were consistently between 171 and 179 miles per hour." "So, what this means for our tests is that it doesn't matter how far away the shooter is from the catcher." "The arrow is gonna be going about the same speed." "NARRATOR:" "And that means the iron fist in the leather-glove experiment..." "[ Both cheer ] -...gets the thumbs-up." "Those results were pretty clear." "They were." "It's true." "This is something we've known about for a while, and I'm really glad we got to show it on the show -- that the speed of an aerodynamic projectile like an arrow has a very low drop-off in speed" "from the moment it leaves the shooter to the moment it hits its target." "That means we were right, and the fans were wrong." "I guess if you want to harp on that, yes, that's true." "Now I think we can put this one away." "And it's time to bring out our real ninja." "Just wait till you meet him." "NARRATOR:" "Getting an elusive shadow warrior wasn't easy." "But the Mythbusters research team not only tracked one down, they got the best in the world." "Have you seen our ninja?" "No, but I'm not sure we'd know whether he was here or not." "[ Australian accent ] Hi." "I'm your ninja." "I'm Anthony Kelly." "You don't look much like a ninja." "No, I only have my street clothes on." "Give me one second." "Hyah!" "Wow!" "That's more like it." "NARRATOR:" "Okay, fans, you, the viewers, demanded we get a real ninja." "And despite his non-ninja appearance and Australian accent, he is the best in the business." "ADAM:" "Well, Anthony might not look like your classic idea of a ninja, but don't take our word for it." "We're gonna put him into our "holodeck" here and run him through some of his paces to see what he can do." "NARRATOR:" "So, is our ninja fast enough to catch a full-speed arrow?" "Well, there's only one way to find out -- see if he can catch..." "tennis balls?" "A thoughtful person might just ask," ""What does catching one of these have to do with catching one of these?"" "Well, it's all about reaction time, and Anthony has fast reflexes." "That's what this is about." "NARRATOR:" "So before the ninja catches any arrows, they're going to measure the speed of his handiwork." "Okay, I'm gonna keep time on the stopwatch and count on the clicker." "KELLY:" "All right, let's go, boys." "He's so ready." "NARRATOR:" "Now, catching tennis balls may not seem all that hard." "And go!" "Hyah!" "One." "NARRATOR:" "But those balls are traveling at 85 miles an hour." "ADAM:" "That's more or less the speed of a major-league fastball." "But at 26 feet away, he's standing twice as close to the pitcher." "15!" "The ninja has less than a fifth of a second to react." "If he blinks, he'll miss it." "Five seconds." "22!" "And time!" "Wow!" "Oh, goodness me!" "22!" "This could be a new world record." "NARRATOR:" "It sure is." "JAMIE:" "We have it clear as day on high-speed camera " "Anthony catching that ball as it comes into him." "Apparently, he has set a new world record." "We'll see how Adam does." "NARRATOR:" "A ninja arrow is hot stuff, but can a shadow warrior catch one in full flight?" "To find out, a real ninja has been put through his reaction paces with tennis balls." "Hah!" "21!" "NARRATOR:" "But Adam didn't think it looked too difficult." "I have to try this." "Can I try this?" "NARRATOR:" "And Jamie is more than happy to oblige." "Hah!" "We all know I don't have any particular problem with administering a little pain to Adam." "Oh!" "God!" "You said you'd do it." "I will." "I will." "I'm gonna let a couple go by me, and then you start." "NARRATOR:" "Now, Adam is a tad apprehensive because the last time he was on the receiving end of Jamie and a machine..." "ADAM:" "I'm ready, Jamie." "Oh!" "NARRATOR:..." "Jamie almost tore him a new belly button." "I keep forgetting that you have no heart or soul." "[ Both laugh ]" "NARRATOR:" "So branding Adam with balls..." "Dude!" "NARRATOR:" "...is Jamie's idea of fun." "Knock yourself out." "Here we go!" "Oh!" "Ho, crap!" "That's so fast!" "Ho!" "Ow!" "Oh!" "Pain is your friend." "Ho!" "Ha!" "I caught one!" "Oh, God!" "You don't want pain?" "Catch the freaking ball." "Ow!" "[ Laughs ]" "Ow!" "That's intense, man." "They come fast." "You want to try it?" "No." "Dude, I'm all red." "It's not as bad as the paintball, but it's definitely gonna hurt." "NARRATOR:" "Replays of Adam's slow-motion suffering..." "[ Laughs ] ...make it pretty clear why he won't be graduating ninja school any time soon." "ADAM:" "This absolutely confirms why we brought Anthony on the show." "And this is why I'm no longer the one trying to catch arrows." "So, ninjas, what do we got?" "This is a classic ninja myth that's all about assassination." "But this is specifically an underwater ambush." "So imagine you have a target." "The only time he's unprotected is when he takes his morning walk by the lake." "Okay." "You grab some poison darts and a blowgun, you hang out underneath the water, and when your target walks by [blows] you attack." "So you're using your blow-dart gun as a breathing tube." "Exactly." "That's wild." "It's like a ninja!" "NARRATOR:" "In their art-of-stealth arsenal, the blowgun, or fukiya, was a ninja's deadly weapon." "But does the myth of doubling as a snorkel hold water?" "The story goes, a shadow warrior would slip into a pond, stay hidden for hours, breathing easy through his blow tube." "When his unsuspecting target finally turned up, the ninja's poison dart would quickly carry out its carnage." "Aaah!" "All right, this is pretty complicated, so let's break it down into its elements." "All right, well, first of all, we need to see how long somebody can stay underwater, because if you're underneath the water for a long period of time, there's a possibility you could get hypothermia." "And we need to see if we can build an accurate blowgun using only the materials that an ancient ninja would have." "And we need to find out if you can aim underwater, because you need to correct for refraction." "Then, the hard part is gonna be breathing through the blowgun, loading the dart while you're underneath the water, and then making that lethal shot." "NARRATOR:" "So first up, Tory is gonna put his life on the line." "KARI:" "Stop right there." "That's good." "Today we're gonna test exposure to cold water." "And to do that, Tory has kindly volunteered to jump into our tank of 66-degree-temperature water." "NARRATOR:" "That's about the average temperature of a lake in Japan during fall." "But they're not throwing Tory completely into the deep end." "Here you go, buddy." "KARI:" "Ew, it smells, too." "NARRATOR:" "He will have some protection." "TORY:" "Well, apparently, ninjas used to rub animal fat all over their bodies and then put a leather suit on before they got into cold water to act as, like, a wet suit." "All right, you're gonna write on this board how you feel." "One is you're okay, you're good to go, all the way up to 10, which is, "I think I've got hypothermia." "Get me out of here now."" "NARRATOR:" "Sounds easy enough." "All right, 3, 2, 1..." "NARRATOR:" "Just stay underwater until you're almost dead." "[ Muffled screaming ]" "KARI:" "Quite honestly, under that cold water," "I don't think Tory is gonna last very long." "I feel like 10, 15 minutes, and he's just gonna be cold and have to get out." "NARRATOR:" "In water this cold, he could die in as little as two hours." "And just 10 minutes in, Tory is already struggling." "GRANT:" "Let's ask him what number he's at." "KARI:" "Five." "He's colder." "NARRATOR:" "In case Tory hits real trouble, paramedics are on standby." "They know what to look for." "Symptoms of hypothermia would include starting to shiver, lethargy being confused lack of coordination." "[ Object shattering ]" "KARI:" "Whoa!" "Other than the shivering, that's how he is normally, so it's gonna be a little tough for us to tell." "NARRATOR:" "It's even harder to pick when he's underwater, which he's now been for 45 chilly minutes." "KARI:" "Seven." "Okay, he's pretty cold." "He's pretty uncomfortable." "NARRATOR:" "In water this cold, Tory is losing body heat 32 times faster than he would normally." "His breathing is really getting ragged." "KARI:" "And the shaking is getting worse." "Oh, he's coming up." "He's coming up." "Okay." "Okay." "Oh, that's it." "All right." "Okay, quick, let's get your temperature." "NARRATOR:" "Kari and Grant need to check if he's critical..." "All the water out of your mouth?" "NARRATOR:... to see whether he can recover on his own or to call in the cavalry." "[ Shivering ]" "You can get out now." "Yeah." "That's a good idea." "GRANT:" "Now, given that Tory is just a regular guy of average health, that is a very good performance." "TORY:" "It was harder than I thought it was gonna be." "[ Breathes heavily ]" "The longer I was in there, the harder it was to breathe." "You lasted an hour." "I didn't think it would be that long." "Considering you don't have any cold-water training, it looks pretty good for this myth." "Yeah." "So we just did the exposure test." "Now on to the fun part." "That wasn't the fun part?" "No." "Now we're gonna do the blowgun test." "Yes!" "Yes!" "NARRATOR:" "All good ninja movies have a showdown, and the "Mythbusters" ninja special is no different." "So, our ninja feels pretty confident that he can catch an arrow." "Now, maybe holding seven world's records in catching stuff and the fact that he calls himself "the Arrow Catcher"" "has something to do with that, but that's not good enough for us." "We got to see it." "Before I start shooting at Anthony," "I think I need a little target practice." "NARRATOR:" "Now, unlike a real battle, the ninja has put in a request." "JAMIE:" "Anthony wants me to stand exactly 26 feet away and fire past him, not directly at him." "How's it going, dude?" "You hitting the dot?" "I'm getting them bunched in pretty tight." "Yeah?" "Yeah." "You ready for taking a crack at the real ninja?" "Let's do it." "All right, let's get Anthony." "Anthony has also requested I don't do a full draw..." "ADAM:" "Ready for you, sir." "JAMIE:" "...and release my arrows at only about half to three-quarters strength." "NARRATOR:" "So this is the moment the fans have been waiting for." "Will ninjadom be vindicated or shamed?" "Can a real ninja really catch an arrow?" "Uh, that would be a no." "But he's a ninja." "He's not about to give up without a fight." "ADAM:" "Jamie's arrows are traveling about 120 miles an hour." "So at 26 feet, our ninja has about 1/8 of a second to react." "NARRATOR:" "He missed again." "This sure is a tough challenge, and fast looking like myth busted..." "Hah!" "Hyah!" "Waah!" "Dropped it." "NARRATOR:" "...until finally..." "[ Shouting ]" "Hah!" "NARRATOR:... he got one." "[ Laughs ]" "[ Grunting ]" "Nice catch." "NARRATOR:" "And now he's got his eye in." "Hah!" "Ow!" "Ninja!" "ADAM:" "The ninja caught the arrow." "Maybe the fans were right." "Our ninja was, in fact, able to catch an arrow..." "Hah!" "...which is impressive." "Hah!" "But we should note that it was at a set distance." "I wasn't doing a full draw on the bow." "I was precisely controlling the situation to give him the arrow exactly where he needed it." "NARRATOR:" "But catch it he did, so maybe it's time to break out a slice of humble pie." "Our ninja caught the arrow." "Are you feeling vindicated now?" "Our ninja caught the arrow." "Well, hold on." "Don't get so cocky, buddy." "We got a lot in store for that ninja to come." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "Blowpipes are a great assassination accessory..." "[ Ugh!" "]" "...but can a ninja use one to perform underwater slaughter?" "Tory has already beaten exposure." "Oh, that's it." "All right!" "NARRATOR:" "So now it's on to the blowpipes." "So, we've got exposure." "The next test is accuracy." "Okay, let's make blowguns and blow darts." "Okay." "Just for fun, let's have a little contest and see how much ninjocity you actually have." "Hyah!" "I think there should be some rules, though." "Like, the blowgun itself should blend in to the pond, so natural materials only." "How much time do we have?" "End of the day." "TORY:" "All right." "Get cracking." "All right." "NARRATOR:" "With ninja blueprints thin on the ground, it'll be everyone for themselves to use their "ningenuity" to make a winning weapon." "It's not a game of how hard you hit." "It's how accurate you are." "NARRATOR:" "Now, building a bamboo blowgun is tricky." "GRANT:" "Bamboo grows in sections with joints, so you have to remove the bumps and notches to make sure the dart won't catch in the barrel or lose air around the sides." "NARRATOR:" "Tory and Grant are done." "[ Blows ]" "NARRATOR:" "Meanwhile, Kari has decided the non-cheating rule doesn't apply to her." "KARI:" "You may have noticed that I put a metal tube inside of my bamboo blowgun, and that might be considered cheating." "I mean, metal is "natural."" "It does come from this Earth, so not entirely cheating." "NARRATOR:" "Three different blowguns." "Three different ninjas." "Only one will win the right to be the underwater assassin." "All right, here's dart number one." "[ Blows ] -[ Thud ]" "Ooh!" "[ Honk!" "]" "[ Blowing ]" "You're really accurate if you're aiming for the background." "NARRATOR:" "That's three darts close, but no cigar." "Now, Grant's natural-material blowgun has had a last-minute alteration." "Well, if you want accuracy, you should try the laser sight." "Grant's got a laser sight on his." "Wait a minute." "I know!" "Did ninjas have lasers?" "Hey, no." "Modern ninjas do." "NARRATOR:" "Laser sights have some advantages... and some disadvantages." "Ow!" "Oh, don't look down the barrel!" "Don't look down the barrel!" "Ohh!" "It's a self-sabotaging blow-dart gun." "Step up to the plate." "I got to save the palace." "Step back." "Step back." "NARRATOR:" "If Kari can't score, they'll have no weapon to test the myth." "[ Blows ]" "TORY:" "Ohh!" "In the face!" "KARI: [ Blows ]" "Ohh!" "Ohh!" "That is in the exact center." "She's like a ninja." "KARI:" "[ Blows ] Aw!" "Two out of three ain't bad." "Nice work." "GRANT:" "I think you definitely won." "I totally cheated." "I've got a tube in there." "What?" "!" "What?" "!" "Oh, you so cheated!" "Coming from the man with the laser sight!" "NARRATOR:" "Now, there are sore losers..." "I'm the master ninja" "NARRATOR:... and then there's Grant and Tory." "[ Blows ]" "See that?" "That's without cheating." "Kari might be the master ninja now." "We'll see tomorrow when she's underwater." "They were really mad." "[ Men shouting ]" "They're..." "kind of scaring me now." "NARRATOR:" "Adam and Jamie are pitting science against the shadow warrior." "So far, the ninja has proven he can indeed catch an arrow." "Good work." "Thanks, Jamie." "NARRATOR:" "But even before the fan chorus of told-you-sos had subsided, the Mythbusters were flagging a foul." "So how did he do?" "Did our ninja catch the arrow?" "Well, technically, yes, but he had some requirements." "I had to stand at a set distance." "I had to shoot the arrow in front of him, where his hand was gonna be, not at him." "And I couldn't pull the bow back to its full draw." "I had to kind of do it like this." "Yeah, I think what we need to do is give our fans a cold, hard dose of battle-hardened reality." "Those bows need to be drawn at full strength." "Those arrows need to be aimed directly at our ninja, and he can't know from which direction the deadly arrow is gonna come." "Basically, you're trying to kill him." "Yeah, pretty much." "NARRATOR:" "Let's hope the ninja has good health insurance." "Look, our ninja caught the arrow." "He totally did." "But that's not the myth we're talking about." "We're talking about a ninja in battle." "He hears an arrow being released from its string " "[ Whistles ] Ching!" "And he plucks it out of the air." "That's what we want to see, and that's the kind of scenario we're about to set up for Anthony." "NARRATOR:" "To test the ninja's maximum mettle," "Adam and Jamie have created a battle zone." "JAMIE:" "In a real battle situation, there may be multiple archers, and you're not gonna know who's firing when." "So that's what we've got to replicate next." "NARRATOR:" "The plan is to use three archers " "Jamie and two secret shooters, all firing straight at the ninja's body." "Soon our ninja will know the Mythbusters' challenge!" "NARRATOR:" "This time, Adam is making damn sure the odds are stacked in his favor." "His secret shooters are the ninjas' nemesis -- other ninjas." "These are our ninja archers." "I can't tell you who they are." "If you knew, you'd already be dead." "NARRATOR:" "Now, there's just one slight problem with firing lethal arrows at a ninja." "It's that they are, well lethal." "That seriously needs sorting, so back at base," "Adam is building some less-than-lethal arrows." "We'll see." "Here we go." "3, 2, 1..." "NARRATOR:" "Adam's arrow went into the ninja, but the lethal metal tip didn't." "Oh." "It didn't go through the thing." "NARRATOR:" "It seems safe, but he won't be the one on the not-so-pointy end." "With rubber-tipped arrows, the ninja won't die." "But will he be able to catch them and defeat the forces of evil ranged against him." "It's a classic shadow-warrior showdown -- a lone ninja..." "Everybody's ready?" "NARRATOR:... evil assassins at every turn... and Jamie." "Archers, draw." "NARRATOR:" "If this were a movie, the ninja's victory would be assured." "Ugh!" "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "But this isn't a movie." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "It's more like a firing squad." "Wah!" "NARRATOR:" "And the ninja just took three direct hits." "ADAM:" "Okay, stand down." "Well, Anthony is absolutely a good sport but so far, under battle conditions, it's not looking good for the myth." "No arrows have been caught." "Archers, draw." "NARRATOR:" "At this range, with no cover, the ninja is a sitting duck." "So Adam decides to give him a bit more room to move." "ADAM:" "Okay, all right, stand down." "In the interest of giving Anthony an even better chance," "I'm gonna back up all three of the archers 10 paces -- another 10 meters -- so they'll all be at about 60 feet away from him before they fire." "[ Grunting ]" "NARRATOR:" "At a greater distance, the archers are less accurate." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "And the ninja gets close..." "Ohh." "NARRATOR:... but still can't quite get a grip." "All right, stand down." "Let's reset." "NARRATOR:" "The myth is looking like it's totally busted." "But to settle it once and for all," "Adam has one more option." "ADAM:" "I want to give Anthony the best chance of success at this, so I'm gonna have the archers all holding their arrows down until they fire, so he'll actually have a little bit of lead time seeing the flutter of their bow before they fire." "Ha!" "Hah!" "ADAM: [ Laughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "He finally caught one." "Hah!" "NARRATOR:" "So, is it a case of myth busted or plausible?" "JAMIE:" "In a battle scenario," "Anthony was, in fact, able to catch an arrow, although, in a real battle situation, you only have one chance, and Anthony took a number of hits before he got it right." "Our ninja did spectacularly when he could see an archer go up and release." "He had the time to anticipate." "Hah!" "But without that, I think we'd have one dead ninja." "NARRATOR:" "When it comes to fighting underwater, you can do it the hard way or the ninja way." "Use your blowpipe as a breathing tube and fire a poison dart into your victim." "Aaah!" "So despite the cheating... we did establish that it's possible to make an accurate blowgun using only natural materials." "TORY:" "We also showed that you could stay underneath the water for an hour, which would be plenty of time for you to wait for your enemy to come by." "So I guess it's time to put it all together." "This is where it gets really hard, because underwater, refraction is gonna distort your aim." "And even if you could overcome the refraction, you still have to load the dart in the blowgun while breathing." "NARRATOR:" "With carp ponds hard to come by," "Tory and Grant ninja up the local pool while Kari changes into something less comfortable." "[ Toilet flushes ]" "So how are we gonna test this one?" "All right, well, since this is all about accuracy," "I think what you should do is put the dart in the tube first while you're above water and then pop down under." "[ Blows ] Do it that way." "All right." "Get in the water." "NARRATOR:" "As the winner from yesterday's test, it's Kari's job to take aim from under the water, where things may not be so clear." "It's a different thing when you're above water versus being underwater, because of refraction, which, if we're correct, will probably make it very difficult to actually aim for a target and hit it." "NARRATOR:" "The problem for our trespassing assassin is the emperor she's aiming at isn't where he appears to be." "That's because light travels at different speeds through water and air, getting bent out of shape as it passes from one to the other." "Although she's still a deadeye shot above water..." "KARI: [ Blows ] -[ Thud ]" "TORY:" "Ohh." "That's where I was going for." "NARRATOR:" "...under the water," "Kari will be guessing where to fire." "KARI: [ Blows ]" "Oh!" "[ Cat meows ]" "Sorry!" "[ Laughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "She's missed by a mile." "It's really blurry." "NARRATOR:" "Now, remember, Kari is only fighting refraction here." "Breathing through the blowgun comes later." "[ Blows ] -[ Pole clangs ]" "TORY:" "Whoa!" "You hit the pole." "lt was high." "Yeah, lower your aim a little bit." "Oh, wow." "I thought I was way lower than that." "All right, refraction aim test, take three." "NARRATOR:" "So, will it be third time lucky?" "[ Blows ] -[ Thud ]" "Whoa!" "Whoa!" "That's a great shot." "A really good shot, and that was only your third try." "NARRATOR:" "Ah, the sweet smell of success." "KARI:" "The refraction test went so much better than I expected." "I thought that maybe I could hit the target, but I didn't think I could sit underwater, see the target, and really aim for it." "NARRATOR:" "They've got traction on refraction, but what about breathing below before they blow?" "That's their ultimate challenge." "KARI:" "In the interest of a bigger sample size," "I think we should all do this, so I think you should go ninja up." "Yeah!" "Time to be ninjas!" "NARRATOR:" "Once again, like thieves in the night, our stealth warriors sneakily slip into action." "Well, one of them, anyway." "Now, we've already proven that you can stand the cold." "Kari is compensating for refraction, and her targeting is right on." "Now it's time to put everything together and do it all at once to see if it's really possible." "In 3, 2, 1." "NARRATOR:" "This is it." "This is why our would-be assassins are here -- to see if they can breathe through their blowguns long enough to get a secret shot at their hapless victim." "And for this experiment, long enough is 10 minutes." "TORY:" "Now we've tested all the elements." "Now the final test is to see if we can load our dart underneath the water and then fire and hit our target." "NARRATOR:" "This is the really hard part -- feeding then firing their darts out of a tube they're supposed to be breathing through." "Trouble is, once you take your mouth away, the water rushes in..." "[ Laughs ]" "NARRATOR:... and your blowgun becomes a water pistol." "[ Coughs ]" "Where did it go?" "[ Coughs ] I don't know." "NARRATOR:" "It's a no-show from the big blow." "Do our ninjas lack the knack?" "Is the task too big an ask?" "Hyah!" "Next." "Next is the ninja one-inch punch." "Made famous by the legendary Bruce Lee." "Exactly the one." "The myth is that, in the right hands, a ninja whose fist is only this far away can still floor an opponent, and we're in luck, because our ninja has been trained in the one-inch punch" "by one of Bruce Lee's own students." "NARRATOR:" "Now, before they test the ninja's one-inch weapon," "Adam and Jamie want to measure how hard a normal punch is." "JAMIE:" "Give me your best shot!" "Come on!" "NARRATOR:" "Last time punches were thrown," "Adam got to sock Jamie." "ADAM:" "Ready?" "Aah!" "JAMIE:" "That was a hard one." "NARRATOR:" "So it's Jamie's turn to thump Adam and then see how his full-force punch stacks up against the ninja's one-inch wonder." "ADAM:" "Now, there's been some concern from our insurance company about getting punched in the chest because it's where your heart is." "That's why I'm wearing this big, red man suit." "Then we've got a load plate, and then we've got some padding on the load plate to protect Jamie's sensitive hands, 'cause in his spare time, he's a hand model." "NARRATOR:" "Whoops." "Oh, there he is." "[ Laughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "Well, if he wasn't mad enough to punch Adam out before, he sure is now." "[ Dog growling ]" "So, just what sort of punch does Jamie pack?" "Give me a full-force punch." "NARRATOR:" "It's payback time." "Ohh!" "Ohh!" "[ Chuckles ]" "Ohh!" "What was the reading?" "325 pounds." "NARRATOR:" "At 325 pounds, if Jamie's fist had been delivered to Adam's jaw, it'd be a knockout." "Ow." "[ Laughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "With their baseline set, it's time to see how many pounds of punch the ninja can muster from only one inch away." "Okay, Adam, are you ready?" "Give it everything you've got." "Hah!" "Hah!" "Hah!" "Dennis, what was the reading?" "153." "NARRATOR:" "That's half of what Jamie racked up at full throttle." "Ohh!" "But still not hugely powerful." "Yeah, but is the one-inch punch actually a weapon in the ninja's arsenal?" "Yes, it is, but more common is the three-inch power punch." "Let me demonstrate that for you." "Okay, it goes like this." "The hand rolls in, and we hit here like so." "Okay." "I'm ready if you are." "Okay." "Hyah!" "Hyah!" "Hyah!" "210 pounds." "210!" "Now we're getting there." "NARRATOR:" "The high-speed shows the force of the punch." "And at two-thirds the power of Jamie's knockout blow, it'd more than likely floor an opponent." "Hyah!" "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "But where the ninja's precision punching really showed..." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:... was when he broke the last of three boards..." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "...leaving the first two intact." "Hyah!" "Imagine what would happen to your internal organs if you were on the receiving end of this." "And that was one punch..." "No more of that." "NARRATOR:" "...even Jamie couldn't match." "No, I don't see any damage, Jamie... except to you." "[ Laughs ]" "How are we gonna call the one-inch punch?" "I'd have to say it's plausible." "While it'll never be as powerful as a full-on punch," "Anthony was actually able to generate an impressive amount of force at that range." "I agree." "With the proper amount of training and catching your opponent off guard, you could totally knock someone down with what he did." "I say plausible." "Plausible." "NARRATOR:" "Laying an ambush aboveground is hard enough." "[ Gunshots ]" "But can a ninja blowgun-breathing assassin do it from underwater?" "That's what Tory, Kari, and Grant are testing." "But so far, all they've blown out of the water is..." "[ Coughs ]" "NARRATOR:" "...more water." "All right, we're gonna have to blow harder." "Actually, I was thinking of this." "You've only got poison at the tip, right?" "So what if you have the end in your mouth and you kind of hold on to it like this with your teeth and then breathe through your teeth, and then you load it?" "That way, there's never a water transition." "Sure, whatever works." "We need to assassinate this guy." "[ Laughs ] Okay." "NARRATOR:" "So let's pucker up and see if breathing through clenched teeth is the ninja way to deliver death to the dummy." "That's a miss from Tory." "[ Gasps ]" "NARRATOR:" "And Kari's cheating blowpipe has fallen to bits." "Oh, it didn't work out for me." "NARRATOR:" "So it's all up to Grant." "GRANT: [ Blows ] -[ Thud ]" "Oh, yeah!" "You did it!" "You did it!" "Yeah!" "Ninjas!" "Assassination accomplished!" "You hit it!" "I hit it!" "Good job!" "NARRATOR:" "Grant scored a direct hit, and spurred on by his success, the team goes for take two." "TORY: [ Blows ]" "NARRATOR:" "That's another miss from Tory." "[ Blows ]" "NARRATOR:" "But Kari is dead on target." "[ Blows ] -[ Thud ]" "NARRATOR:" "And so is Grant." "Whoo!" "[ Laughs ]" "Where did I hit?" "He's assassinated!" "KARI:" "Oh, I hit him in the face!" "We killed him!" "We got him!" "Yeah!" "TORY:" "This is totally plausible." "We covered all the elements." "You can survive the exposure to the cold." "And you can overcome refraction." "You know what?" "If you put all three of us together, you'd get a ninja." "A very scary ninja." "We finally found a ninja myth that's plausible, and we're not even trained ninjas." "I mean, could you imagine if we were trained ninjas?" "KARI:" "The blow-dart experiment was phenomenal." "This is actually a plausible ninja myth." "I'm completely surprised." "Now I can go back to being a pirate, 'cause I'm not one for this ninja stuff." "It's cold." "NARRATOR:" "Adam and Jamie are trying to put to rest whether or not a ninja can grasp a passing shaft." "It's true -- when ambushed, the ninja did catch an arrow." "Hyah!" "But he also caught more than a few with his body." "And then some." "But the ninja is real sore." "He says no shadow warrior would get cornered like this." "He wants a rematch with Adam, mano a mano." "ADAM:" "Our ninja has actually issued what sounds like a challenge." "He says, in a battle situation, he wouldn't catch an arrow." "He'd deflect it, and I'd be dead before I got a second shot off." "I say, "Prove it, ninja." And that's what we're about to do." "We're gonna set up exactly that scenario and see if I can get two shots off before I'm dead." "Here's the first one." "NARRATOR:" "It'll be an ugly grudge match." "There's a lot at stake, and Adam needs to save face..." "Hyah!" "Hah!" "NARRATOR:... if there's anything left of his face to save." "This one's called ninja's revenge, and it's all about the speed of reloading." "Now, let's face it -- putting an an arrow onto a bow is kind of fiddly, and if you've got a ninja running at you full speed, you might be in a little trouble " "or at least, so our ninja says." "NARRATOR:" "At 20 paces, it's Adam "Ninja Buster" Savage up against his archenemy, the Orange Avenger." "Oh." "Ah." "JAMIE:" "Oh, you're dead." "[ Laughs ] You're dead." "Okay, you ready?" "Hyaaaaaaah!" "Hyaaah!" "Haaah!" "[ Laughs ]" "JAMIE:" "You did get the nock on the string." "I got the nock on the string, but, man, ninja got to me." "No bananas." "Thank you, my friend." "Well, look, I practiced, and my arrow-shooting got pretty quick." "I was able to fire two shots in just under three seconds, and that didn't even come close to helping me survive the ninja." "Not only did he cut my arrow in half, but I was cut down." "In my prime!" "Adam was toast." "Although I have to say, this was a close-combat situation, and if Adam was over 100 feet away, there might be a different outcome." "NARRATOR:" "And the final score..." "Hyah!" "NARRATOR:" "...Ninja 3, Adam's pride 0." "So, the fans say ninjas can catch arrows." "How are we gonna call this one?" "I have an idea about how to answer all the complaints we're gonna get from the fans." "I'm gonna role-play as the fans and have a conversation with you as you." "Okay, I can do that." "Okay." "[ Inhales, exhales sharply ]" "Dude, he totally caught the arrow even under your "impossible" battle conditions." "Once he saw the archer raise his bow, whoop, he was able to grab that arrow." "Yeah, well, corpses can't catch arrows." "He'd been dead 20 times before that." "Yes, but think of all the arrows he avoided before then, too." "And under battle conditions, the archers might not be drawing to full strength, and things might be deflecting off walls and stuff like that." "He'd still be dead by then." "But remember the mano a mano when Adam shot the arrow at him, and he was able to slice it out of the air with his sword?" "Dead!" "Okay, I can't do this anymore." "The myth is that a ninja could pluck an arrow -- he has no idea where it's coming from -- sense it coming and reach out -- waa-chhh!" " and pluck an arrow out of the air." "Our ninja is arguably the best in the world at catching arrows, and he couldn't do that." "If we had removed the rubber tips from our arrows, we'd have one dead ninja on our hands." "I say busted." "lt's busted." "[ Chuckles ]"