Mythbusters loses the sidekicks

[Mr Bean]

Back to Jame and Adam only

In a video announcement Thursday on Discovery Channel, "MythBusters" hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman revealed that longtime co-hosts and fan favorites Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tory Belleci are no longer on the show.

"This next season we're going back to our origins with just Adam and me," Hyneman said in the video, which explained that the change took hold as of the season's last episode on August 21.

"We're gonna take a brief moment to thank you guys for your incredible work over the last 10 years," Savage said in the video. "You've given literally your blood, sweat, and tears in the name of science and it has been a total pleasure not only to work with you but to call you our friends."

Added Hyneman, "We wish you the very best of luck and thank you."

Byron, Belleci, and Imahara responded to the news, and to their fans, on Twitter.

"After a decade of the MythBusters, we are no longer with the show," Byron tweeted. "Thank you to all the fans who have supported us. The show is taking a new direction. It was an amazing run. I learned so much about myself and the world. I love you all. I am sad for an ending but there will be exciting new adventures for us."

"It's been an amazing ride for 10 years!" Belleci tweeted. "We couldn't have done it without you guys. You're the best fans anyone could wish for. Thank you. We are going to miss you guys! So much love & support. If it wasn't for you guys, MythBusters wouldn't have been possible."

"Thanks MythBusters for allowing us to teach science in a whole new way," Imahara tweeted. "Also, explosions. Now, on to the next adventure!"

The next adventures for the trio have yet to be announced, but Imahara did win an award last weekend at the Geekies Award Show for his performance in the Web series "Trek Continues" while encouraging girls to take an interest in STEM (that is, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. Byron has been busy at the White House encouraging girls to take an interest in STEM.

In honor of the trio, the "MythBusters" official site created this retrospective of Byron, Belleci and Imahara hard at work busting myths for a decade.

Can't say they won't be missed mostly because they were sterotypes. I mean you literally had token female, Asian guy good at robotics and Tory who was just portrayed as dumb. He might have been a smart guy but they sure as hell framed him as dumb. So Token, Asian and Dumb American... they never had the stories that Adam and Jamie would share.

And lets be blunt, they gave Adam and Jamie the more interesting things to do. I never saw a time where Jamie, Adam, Tory, Kari and Grant were all faced with an identical challenge and we got to see them all put something together.

[GuppyShark]

I never liked the B-team and was particularly annoyed by the 'planets are psychic' experiment they came up with.

[Borgholio]

The suddenness of it makes me wonder if it was forced. All three at the same time and nobody is saying why it's happening? I'm thinking Discovery channel wanted them gone to cut costs or improve ratings.

[Mr Bean]

I never liked the B-team and was particularly annoyed by the 'planets are psychic' experiment they came up with.

I have not watched it in a few years, I'm interested what was the experment? Did they threaten to blow up the world unless the planet stopped them or did they wrap Tory is twenty pounds of tinfoil and chucked him into the Earth's core?

[Grumman]

I never liked the B-team and was particularly annoyed by the 'planets are psychic' experiment they came up with.

I have not watched it in a few years, I'm interested what was the experment? Did they threaten to blow up the world unless the planet stopped them or did they wrap Tory is twenty pounds of tinfoil and chucked him into the Earth's core?

Maybe he meant "plants are psychic"?

[Mr Bean]

Maybe he meant "plants are psychic"?

Well that makes a great deal more sense... even if it still does not make any sense.

[GuppyShark]

That's a pretty hilarious typo.

Yes, I meant plants. They hooked a lie detector up to a plant and detected one single spike on the reader while one of them was thinking mean thoughts in its direction.

[RogueIce]

And lets be blunt, they gave Adam and Jamie the more interesting things to do. I never saw a time where Jamie, Adam, Tory, Kari and Grant were all faced with an identical challenge and we got to see them all put something together.

They did work together more early on, and every once in a great while there'd be some crossover. But once they got their own shop (M7) the Build Team really was pretty independent.

The suddenness of it makes me wonder if it was forced. All three at the same time and nobody is saying why it's happening? I'm thinking Discovery channel wanted them gone to cut costs or improve ratings.

It might have been to cut costs, apparently from what people on Reddit were saying Discovery hasn't been promoting the show much at all recently.

In any event, I'm not sure it was quite sudden. At SDCC Adam talked about how they wanted to change the format up, and get back to their previous concept/small-scale/large-scale way of doing things, as well as show more of the building. Even had a clip of it. I'd imagine that would be a lot easier if they didn't have to dedicate air time to the Build Team as well.

Of course he didn't say anything about the Build Team leaving, but that does make sense as something they'd want to hold back until their final episode had aired. Still, the possibility exists that this was known and planned for some time, but of course NDAs and such prevented any of the cast from saying anything.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

The suddenness of it makes me wonder if it was forced. All three at the same time and nobody is saying why it's happening? I'm thinking Discovery channel wanted them gone to cut costs or improve ratings.

It might have been to cut costs, apparently from what people on Reddit were saying Discovery hasn't been promoting the show much at all recently.

Not big surprise. A quick perusal of Discovery's schedule reveals that Mythbusters is probably the most intelligent show remaining on the network, which really is saying something. I'm sure there are Discovery Channel execs looking to axe Mythbusters and replace it with another low-cost reality show about Alaskan motorcycle chopper fishermen, or whatever stupid theme the network is running these days.

Which, I might add, is not an unreasonable thing for them to think about. Mythbusters' audience in 2014 is a bit more than 60% of what it was in 2011. The current format of "Old guys + A vague smattering of science + The antics of a band of morons + Gratuitous Explosions = Profit!" was getting quite long in the tooth.

Which, of course, begs the question of how much longer "Old guys + smattering of science + Gratuitous Explosions" can carry the show before The Discovery Channel decides to send it off into retirement?

[Borgholio]

I think this may just be the final nail in the coffin for the Discovery channel as an actual educational program. It no longer has any actual science or educational shows that I am aware of. Same as how History channel went from all about history to WW2, Hitler, and Ancient Aliens. Are there still any good educational channels out there?

[Skywalker_T-65]

American Heroes Channel (Formerly Military Channel) is still fairly decent. It's sliding into the Discovery/History web, but for now at least its still got at least some good programing on it.

EDIT: Science also still has some educational stuff.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I miss the 70's when you had Open University lectures on BBC2 all day. That was educational (or so my dad tells me, I wasn't around back then).

[Havok]

American Heroes Channel (Formerly Military Channel) is still fairly decent.

Wait... what? They actually made that name change?

[Grumman]

American Heroes Channel (Formerly Military Channel) is still fairly decent.

Wait... what? They actually made that name change?

Hell, I thought Skywalker was just being snarky, but Wikipedia says it's a real thing.

[Borgholio]

*sigh* And it supposedly makes me a filthy communist liberal to say that although I respect our military, this kind of hero worship is out of hand.

I say that out loud and people want to throw rocks at me.

[Alyeska]

At least NOVA is still on the air, and Cosmos did well this spring. I enjoyed both teams in Mythbusters. I think they could have gone back to more science while still keeping them around. But rising costs and contract negotiations almost certainly played a part in the Trio being let go. I hope they can find some new work that befits their experience and skills.

[Imperial528]

I didn't mind the B team, but as with all B plots, they were kind of hit and miss. I'll miss the hits and won't the misses, I suppose.

And I'd rather have Adam and Jamie alone rather than no Mythbusters, so, yeah.

[Gandalf]

Considering that I found the build team irritating from day one, this might get me back into the show.

[Thanas]

American Heroes Channel (Formerly Military Channel) is still fairly decent. It's sliding into the Discovery/History web, but for now at least its still got at least some good programing on it.

Let's see if you can spot the problem with claiming this as an educational channel......

[Skywalker_T-65]

I'm not really claiming it as an educational channel. More saying that it has some educational programing on it.

A true, purely educational channel, doesn't exist that I've seen anyway. I certainly wish there was most of the time.

[Thanas]

PBS.

[Elheru Aran]

PBS.

Half the day PBS is cheesy children's programming; a quarter of it (midday through afternoon) it's cheesy craft or cooking shows; and after that it's actual educational material like documentaries. Or, you know, Masterpiece Theater or something like that. Because there's nothing like British accents to make learning more fun!

[Wing Commander MAD]

PBS.

Half the day PBS is cheesy children's programming; a quarter of it (midday through afternoon) it's cheesy craft or cooking shows; and after that it's actual educational material like documentaries. Or, you know, Masterpiece Theater or something like that. Because there's nothing like British accents to make learning more fun!

I think you need to broaden you definition of educational. Everything you listed, except Masterpiece Theater, is educational. Heck you could probably argue Masterpiece Theater is educational from a cultural perspective.

[Elheru Aran]

Oh, I know. I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Though I think calling craft and cooking shows 'educational' is stretching the point a bit. Instructive, yes. Fitting the literal definition of educational? Perhaps. They aren't terribly profound or leading to a deeper understanding of the universe and the world around us, though.

At least the "One Stroke Painting" wasn't terribly useful, that's for sure. Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, now, I will stand behind that to my last breath... that guy was awesome

[Thanas]

I think you confuse educational with "stuff I like".