Episode Name:  Chicken Gun

Original Air Date:   January 18, 2004

Myths:  Chicken Gun, Octopus Pregnancy, Killer Washing Machine

Myth: Chicken Gun:

The Myth: The British borrowed a chicken gun from NASA to test train windshields. They find that the chickens were going through the windshield and getting imbedded into the back wall.  NASA tells them to thaw the chickens first.
 
The Experts:
Heather Joseph Witham: Explains that this myth has several variants (with different agencies and countries) but they all run along the same lines: When testing windshields with the "chicken gun", the chicken should be thawed.
Bruce Bradford: Pumpkin Chunking Champion/Expert and maker of "2nd Amendment" a "pumpkin chunkin'' champion.

Quotable Moments:
Jamie: "It’s fun, yet deadly..."(chuckles)

Adam: "I just wonder what a chicken breaking the sound barrier sounds like?"
Jamie: "squaak"
Adam: "q...w...u...a...a...k..."

Adam: "I suspect the pumpkin went through here..." (points to hole at back of blast chamber)

Action/Results:
They get the front half of an airplane cockpit from an airplane salvage yard in Sacramento, CA.  After some argument on the size of tank for the chicken gun, (Adam’s concern for safety vs. Jamie’s ambition for big and powerful) Adam finds the right tank, (even Jamie is impressed) and gets to work on the welding. They get frozen chickens from a local market and make the sabots for them. They set up a blast chamber and put the cockpit inside.  Bruce Bradford, cannon/gun expert checks their chicken gun and gives them his approval. The boys test the myth first with a frozen chicken, then with a thawed chicken. They find that they are equally destructive, if anything, the thawed chicken makes a bigger hole until they realize that the windshields they bought from the yard are not rated for air strikes.
They reuse the chicken gun but this time do a moment of impact test to see if there is a difference in the time it takes to impart energy when the chicken hits a target. They use high-speed cameras to record how the chicken imparts its energy in slow motion.  They try three times for each scenario, frozen and thawed. They find that it doesn’t matter; a chicken frozen or thawed will impart its energy with the same amount of time.
 The boys verdict, Myth BUSTED.
 
 

Myth: Killer Laundry

The Myth: A man gets climbs on top of a washing machine trying to stuff 50 lbs of laundry. As he tries to push down the laundry, he finds himself stuck and accidentally turns on the machine.  At this point, the man knocks down the bleach and blinds himself while trying to pull his legs out of the laundry.
 
 

Then the machine goes into the spin cycle and he knocks down the box of baking soda to the floor. His dog, startled by the noise comes into the laundry room gets frightened by the commotion and pees on the baking soda causing an explosion.
 
 

The Experts:
Heather Joseph Witham: Presents the myth in its entirety.

Quotable Moments:
Adam: "How many of you seen a washer machine naked?"

Action/Results:
The boys collect the goods for this myth: washer machine, 50 lbs of clothes and dog urine. They slowly find that each part of this myth is just not possible. First, they find that even for a large top-loading washer machine, they can’t stuff 50 lbs of clothes into it and have your legs sink into the clothes and get stuck.  Second, they find that the motor for the washer machine doesn’t have a lot of torque.  They can stop the spinning drum with their bare hands (after removing all other safety features).  Being Mythbusters, the boys decide to find ways to make this myth possible.  They decide to build their own "Franken Washer" by installing an electric car motor and a motorcycle chain to spin the drum, all operated by remote control.  Buster gets set up in the "Franken Washer" and spins when Jamie turns it on. Everything on the shelf spills onto the floor. Finally, Adam pours the dog urine onto the spilled baking soda ", nothing happens. The boys’ verdict: this Myth is BUSTED!
 
 

Myth: Octopus Pregnancy

The Myth: A woman was admitted to a hospital with stomach pains.  Doctors though she was pregnant, did a C-section and pulled out a live octopus. This happened six-months after a scuba dive.
 
 

The Experts:
Heather Joseph Witham: Explains that this myth plays on a girl’s fears of getting pregnant.  She also notes that this myth is a very old one with different animals as the culprit.
Julia Mariattini: Monterey Bay Aquarium, octopus expert
Jim Mckerrow: University of California, San Francisco, Pathology Dept., parasite expert

Quotable Moments:
(As Adam plays with the octopus): "...no, really honey, those are octopus hickeys..."

Action/Results:
The boys do a little traveling, to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, CA and talk to Julia Mariattini. They find out from this expert that octopus need attention to survive. Although it is possible to swallow an octopus egg, the conditions inside the human body are too harsh for it to survive.
The boys then visit Jim Mckerrow of UCSF, pathology and parasite expert. They find that it is possible for other animals to live inside the human body, such as tapeworms and roundworms.  These animals can survive because they have a special hard skin that allows them to survive the gastric acid in the human body. The origin of the myth most likely came from these parasites; Myth BUSTED.
 

-episode synopsis written by seismic_cowgirl