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Written by Lnix
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Friday, 22 December 2006 |
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HOLIDAY SPECIAL
No episode number Original air date: December 6, 2006
Holiday Special 2006
Turkey Drop
The Myth: Can a frozen turkey kill a small pet or break a foot if dropped?
Memorable/Quotable Moments:
Kari: “Do we wanna talk about why I just got hit in the head with a thumb?”
Action/Results: Grant & Tory build a turkey drop rig, complete with urethane hands to drop the turkeys from around 60”. Kari makes a couple ballistics gel feet and some horrifying ballistics gel dogs, using canine replica skeletons.
A frozen turkey is dropped, widest part down, on to a force meter, creating 427.3 pounds of force, enough to do some serious damage to whatever it falls on.
A frozen turkey is dropped, narrow end down, onto the ballistics gel foot creating 770 pounds of force and breaking the foot nearly in half.
Another frozen turkey is dropped onto the fleshless zombie dog twice and does significant damage- a vet says the dog would probably not have survived.
Myth: Plausible
Cooking a Turkey with Microwaves
The Myth: A turkey can be cooked using the microwaves coming off a radio antenna as thoroughly as in a microwave.
Action/Results: Grant, Tory & Kari go to the broadcasting tower, the largest in San Francisco. They are told that due to the low wattage radio stations use, compared to 700 – 1200 watts of a microwave, there’s no way it will work and besides, they’re not allowed to climb to the top of the antenna.
A broadcast news van, which uses microwave signals to send images back to a television studio, is tested. A frozen turkey is placed in front of the disk and sent into the air. After 1 hour the turkey temp has only risen 20 degrees.
Grant, Tory and Kari then go to the USS Jeremiah O’Brien, a WWII cargo ship to see if the ship’s radar will cook the bird. After an hour the frozen bird’s temperature has actually dropped from 50 degrees to 45 degrees.
Myth: Busted
For laughs, Tory stuffs a bird with his “secret recipe”, sticks it in the microwave & runs. The turkey makes a satisfying explosion. Look, something’s got to explode, it’s Mythbusters.
Needle drop
The Myth: Grant, Tory & Kari will test some of the many myths for keeping the needles from dropping off a live Christmas tree.
Action/Results: First, Kari makes platforms for the trees where the needles will fall into a cylinder and can be measured. Grant and Tory go to a tree farm and pick out a number of Douglas firs that are all the same size. Each tree will be fed by a different method that is purported to keep the needles from falling off. The tree trunks are all given a second cut about 1” above the original cut to open up the cells let the tree better absorb whatever preservative will be introduced.
Tree # 1 is the control, just water will be used
Tree # 2 will be fertilizer, 5% to a gallon of water
Tree # 3 is a 5% mixture of bleach
Tree # 4 will be lemon lime soda
Tree # 5 will be water plus a common pain reliever
Tree # 6 will be a water plus common prescription medication containing nitric oxide.
Tree # 7 will be covered with hairspray, courtesy Styles by Grant
Tree # 8 is taken to a paint shop and completely covered in urethane. Shiny!
The trees will be monitored over a 6 week period for both the volume of needles lost and the overall look of the tree. After 2 weeks, there is no front runner although the control is the greenest and the urethane covered tree looks the worst.
The results:
The fertilizer mix lost 4 times the needles of the control tree.
The bleach mix and the prescription nitric oxide trees lost the least amount of needles but both turned an ugly color.
The tree covered in hairspray was judged to be the winner due to its overall low number of needles lost and good color.
Instead of testing a myth, Jamie & Adam decide to give the fans a treat and build a Rube Goldberg style Christmas themed machine. The contraption will be 100’ long and consist of 60 moving parts. They are constrained by the fact that there is no cheating, each mechanical gag leads to the next and if any one goes wrong they’ll have to reset and start over. Of course something goes wrong with just about every single gag. After several starts & resets the amazing Christmas Machine is successful. Adam walks us through it in the longest take to camera in Mythbusters history.
Ready? Here goes.
Mentos are released into 10 bottles of cola. The soda goes into a mesh cone and is funneled into a tube where a pair of wires which will make an electrical contact which will release a motor. The motor sends a bowling ball spinning downward, eventually releasing itself to land on and roll down a ramp, hitting all 10 Santa bowling pins. The falling pins will yank on a string sending tiny skiers down a hill. The skiers yank on a magnet which will release another Mentos into a soda bottle. The slowly released gas from the soda will inflate a tube up a ramp. The tube will tap a Mentos which starts a succession of the candies rolling down ramps. The Mentos eventually hit a ball which rolls forward and activates an electric train. The train travels in a circle and drops off the track into an open present. The present lid slams down, releasing yet another Mentos into a bottle of soda, which releases a robot that’s pushing a lit candle. The candle burns through a string that releases a hammer. The hammer whacks the back of a stove (an actual stove!) that tips forward and releases a cooked turkey. The turkey falls onto a see- saw and rolls down onto a dinosaur platform, jiggling a wire releasing 2 “doo dads” onto a tiny see-saw. The doo dads activate a robot who finds his way to a red hand nailed to a barricade. The robot tips the barricade over into a switch that sends electric current through a small Christmas tree and through a Jacob’s ladder which sets off a fuse above. The current travels down a coil and lights a tiny cannon.
The cannon fires, shooting the pirate hat off a skull. The hat turns on the hideous cymbal playing monkeys which travel down a ramp & release a nut from a nutcracker’s mouth. The nut releases another Mentos into soda, sending a pinwheel spinning. The pinwheel’s spin pulls a string out which releases a stocking covered foot to kick a broken crutch which is holding up a chair in which Buster sits. The crutch breaks, the chair tips over and Buster renews his acquaintance with the shop floor.
Merry Christmas from the Mythbusters!
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Episode Descriptions 
