Original subtitles

[ TV playing ]

Seen it.

[ Sighs ]

Definitely no.

[ Burps ]

[Laughing] No.

[ Laughing on TV ]

No.

Nope.

Boring.

So many channels, and nothing's on.

Narrator: Welcome to "mythcrackers."

Huh. [ Chuckles ]

[ Ding! ]

That was fun, being on that show.

What was it we were trying to prove again?

Don't know.

Don't care.

[ Humming ]

Blow it up!

But you know, i was thinking.

If we did their show, shouldn't they do our show?

A "Simpsons" special?

Absolutely.

[ Chuckles ]

Let's do it.

* the Simpsons *

captions by vitac... www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by discovery communications

hi. Hey.

Who's this?

It's al Jean.

Okay.

Hi, al. Pleased to meet you.

Jamie, it's al Jean.

I'm sorry?

The executive producer and the showrunner

of the best animated series ever

and the longest-running scripted show on television,

"the Simpsons."

Oh, "the Simpsons."

Welcome, al.

You were thinking "south park."

[ Laughter ]

So, are we gonna be animating?

No.

Look, their writing staff

is packed with science and math geeks, right?

110% percent.

And they try and hold to the laws of physics, right?

Yeah.

Conservation of mass, it's the law.

Ish.

We're gonna do a couple of stories from "the Simpsons."

Like what?

Okay, we've got one where Bart throws a lit cherry bomb

into the sewer system of the school

and turns all of the toilets in the school into geysers.

One of my favorite episodes, "the crepes of wrath."

Okay, that works. What else?

We have another one where homer protects his house

from a 5,000-pound wrecking ball

by putting his body between the wrecking ball and the house.

So, cartoon physics in the real world.

That's Jamie excited.

He's excited to get out of this room.

Yeah, probably.

Now, it is one thing to look at physics from the movie world

and see how realistic they are in the real world.

It's another entirely to try that with a cartoon.

And in investigating homer versus the wrecking ball,

Jamie's tackling the wrecking ball.

Aah!

And I've got to build a full-size homer

with all the same dimensions, body mass and water content...

as if homer was a real person.

Narrator: Yep.

To determine the kinetic energy implications

of homer's heroic intervention,

the size and mass of the key animated elements

have to be accurately translated

from Springfield to the real world.

So, al, we really strive

to be as accurate as possible on this show.

So I'm hoping you can supply us

with some real-world dimensions of homer.

Lights.

How tall is he?

Well, you have to be really accurate.

He's 5'11", and that's what the animators always use.

What about his shoe size? 11½.

Those are almost exactly my dimensions.

Well, the good news for you

is you have less stomach and more hair.

[ Chuckles ]

Speaking of his stomach,

how much does homer actually weigh?

Well, about 240, but we think 239 is funnier.

So 239.

[ Laughs ]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is homer Simpson full size.

Al, thank you so much.

I'm gonna leave you alone with the doughnuts.

They'll be gone when you're back.

Mm, doughnuts.

Narrator: Armed with homer's exact specs,

Adam commences the construction of an animated American icon.

[ Chanting ] U.S.A.!

U.S.A.!

Starting with upholstery foam...

That's pretty good.

Adam utilizes a method

with familiar, family-friendly results.

Adam: This technique that I'm using

of gluing an open-cell urethane foam to itself

is referred to as additive foam building

because, instead of casting and mold-making inflexible foam,

I'm physically building the parts that i need

out of sheet foam.

What you might not know,

this is how all your muppets were made.

Yep, same technique.

There we go.

Do i look like homer at all?

Hi.

What? [ Laughs ]

Ha!

Narrator: With the arms starting to take shape,

it's on to homer's famously tubby torso.

One, two, three, four, and five.

Doesn't look like much, but that's gonna be homer soon.

Narrator: A series of cylindrical discs glued together

form the tapered shape.

Yeah!

Narrator: The human-like mass and density will come later.

For now, Adam's immersed in his art.

This is what we call a shop shower.

[ Air hissing ]

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: Next, the arms are attached to shoulder joints.

Adam: [ Chuckles ]

Narrator: And the legs are measured, cut, and positioned...

Whoo-hoo! On the posterior.

That's it, ladies and gentlemen.

Narrator: And, with those foam pieces of the puzzle in place...

Adam: All right.

I'm pretty happy with that.

That's lookin' a lot like homer.

Narrator: Adam heads out for help with homer's head.

This is the center

of what used to be industrial light and magic.

Now, behind that blue door

is legendary machinist merrick Cheney,

who built armatures for the stop-motion films

"nightmare before Christmas" and a million other movies.

And he is going to help us get homer's head screwed on right.

So, merrick, how is this gonna work?

So, we've taken your model of homer's head.

I've converted it into a machinable file.

And I've cut it up into, like, eight chunks.

That is cool.

And they all fit together

kind of like a three-dimensional puzzle.

Narrator: And that eight-piece puzzle will form a central cavity,

a negative space mold of homer's ironically large cranium.

Narrator: While Adam waits for all eight,

the hyneman has been concocting an ingenious plan.

Jamie: In the cartoon, homer appears to be on a wrecking ball

that's about as tall as he is.

And, because it's so much larger than a real-world wrecking ball,

I've got to make my own.

And that's not exactly an easy task.

But I've got an idea.

Easy as pi.

Narrator: The task at hand is to build a custom wrecking ball

the same dimensions as the one in the clip

but weighing in at a realistic 5,000 pounds.

Heh, so, are you starting to get the picture?

Narrator: It's a unique manufacturing assignment

the hyneman is tackling in his own unique way.

[ Dog barking ]

Jamie: There are a lot different ways of making a big, heavy ball.

But the quickest and easiest way i know of to do it

would be with steel-reinforced concrete.

Now, to do that, you need a mold.

And I've come up with an idea

of creating what amounts to a hemispherical-shaped auger

that i can Chuck onto the back of some earth-moving equipment

and dig two hemispherical holes right in the ground.

We pour our concrete in there around a steel armature,

let it cure, put them together,

and you got a ball... One big-ass, heavy ball.

Narrator: Yep.

To make two hemispherical molds...

It's working.

Narrator: For the two halves of the concrete wrecking ball...

That's what I'm talkin' about.

Narrator: Jamie's designed and constructed

a one-of-a-kind tool.

Jamie: This is workin' great.

[ Laughs ]

[ Laughs ]

Next!

The rig didn't break.

It's made a nice, symmetrical half-sphere.

It's clearly solid enough to have concrete poured in it...

It's perfect!

Which is what's gonna happen pretty much next.

Oh, look at that.

Narrator: The steel armature made back at the shop

will provide structure for the concrete half-shells.

And you could say the hyneman is happy.

This is working exactly like i had in mind.

Normally, if you want to make a big sphere like this,

you'd start off with a big chunk of foam.

You'd carve it into a sphere.

Our little hoes are perfect.

You'd put fiberglass over it.

And then, you'd make another mold of the interior cavity.

And it'd take several people pretty much all week long

just to accomplish this.

Instead of doing that, we just dug a hole.

I'm just sayin'.

Narrator: With the concrete shaped and edged

with matching seams,

phase one of Jamie's big ball is complete.

Jamie: Now, that has to sit for about a week and a half.

And then, we're gonna pull that one out,

turn it upside down and put it on top of this one.

And we'll bond the two things together,

and we've got a wrecking ball.

Narrator: With two weeks before Jamie can wreak wrecking ball havoc,

it's back to the shop

for part two of this Springfield spectacular.

So, what's next?

Toilet bomb.

Al, you want to do the honors? Thank you, Adam.

Well, in one of the earlier episodes of "the Simpsons,"

Bart flushes a cherry bomb down the toilet.

[ Laughs ] So long, sucker!

And it immediately sends geysers of water

shooting out of every toilet on the block.

[ Explosion ]

Woman: Aah!

So, explosives and toilets...

I'm thinking we should start small scale.

I totally agree.

I am licensed to drive this.

Whoa, whoop.

The myth is that an explosion

will travel through a plumbing system,

causing multiple geysers out of the toilets.

[ Explosion ]

That's the bowl.

And that's where the magic happens.

And, to test that, we're gonna do three things.

Number one,

I'm gonna make three transparent, working toilets,

so we can really see what happens when things go boom.

Number two... [ Chuckles ]

Number two, I'm gonna connect them

with an accurate waste-disposal system.

Two more like that, i think we're good to go.

And finally, we're going to be introducing

a cherry bomb-like explosion into that system.

And, well, then, we're gonna see what we see.

Narrator: Re-creating Springfield elementary's

plumbing system sounds elementary...

Melting my brain.

Narrator: But it's anything but.

Wah!

I'm trying to work out how to do this.

And, because I'm molding it,

effectively, i have to think upside down and backwards.

So, the negative space here you see,

I'm going to fill with a stone plaster

so that, when the stone plaster sets,

I'll pull out all the bead foam,

and I'll be left with a toilet negative, the front,

to which, i will mount a piece of acrylic...

Excellent.

So that we can see what's happening in the toilet.

It's gonna be frickin' awesome.

Narrator: And, after the plaster is set,

the negative space molds are removed...

Okay, one.

Narrator: To reveal the bowls.

Number two.

[ Laughs ]

Number two... get it?

'Cause in a... Never mind.

Narrator: And, once they're cleaned up and dried out...

[ Hair dryer whirring ]

It's a little bit of an oven.

Narrator: Adam mounts them

and seals the system

with a transparent sheet of half-inch acrylic.

I get excited about a good experimental rig.

I think it's time to flush a toilet.

[ Laughs ] So long, sucker!

Adam: I want to watch one of these work right now.

We think of toilets as, like, there's water,

and it's water all the way down, but it's not.

Toilet systems are mostly air.

And here's how it works.

If you put more liquid in the system than it can handle,

it just spills over here.

Now, if i flush this toilet by putting more water in,

check out what happens.

That works just like a toilet!

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: But that's only half the story.

Adam: Now that the toilets are finished and actually working,

it's time to plumb them into a system.

Excellent.

Okay.

See, the toilets in Bart's school

would've all been connected to a central set of pipes.

That's what I'm about to build in scale.

So here we go, go, go, go, go.

You were supposed to cut.

[ Sighs ]

Narrator: The plumbing beneath the bowls is crucial.

Good.

To accurately model the pressure wave effects of Bart's bomb,

it has to be set up

just like a three-stall school sewage system.

Complete with two crucial effluent outflows,

the system has multiple exits for the blast.

And, with that, this "Simpsons" special game of thrones...

Fire in the bowl!

Adam: Explosion in three...

is ready for blast-off.

Go.

[ Laughter ]

* the Simpsons *

narrator: Welcome to "mythcrackers."

Adam and Jamie have hit Springfield again.

Tonight, we take on the classic myth

that a cat will always land on its feet.

But, this time,

instead of experimenting as animated characters...

What was it we were trying to prove again?

Don't know, don't care.

[ Humming ]

they're animatedly experimenting.

[ Air hissing ]

And, with a transparent trio of toilets ready to blow,

they want to know if Bart's bomb

could've really gushed multiple geysers.

[ Explosion ]

[ Woman screams ]

Now, what happens when you flush a cherry bomb

down one of these toilets?

Well, it's gonna go down through the plumbing,

and it could blow anywhere.

It could blow here.

It could blow here.

It could blow down there.

That's actually what these black caps are.

There are places in the plumbing system

we can introduce the pressure from the cherry bomb.

But we're not gonna use a cherry bomb.

Not in my shop, we're not.

Number one, it's illegal.

And number two...

[ Chuckles ]

it's potentially dangerous and definitely very messy.

So we're gonna need a little bit more control

if we're gonna do it here.

For that, we have my little pop gun,

which has a fast-acting valve on it

that releases a blast of pressurized air.

[ Laughs ]

And that's essentially what an explosion does.

It creates a volume of rapidly expanding gases

in a pressure wave.

So we're gonna plumb my little pop gun

into Adam's rig in various places,

adjust the pressure and see what happens.

20 psi?

Yeah, that's a big, fat dump...

Of pressure.

Nice.

Let me know when you're ready.

All right, I'm gonna count it down.

Cherry bomb half-scale toilet experiment,

position number one, explosion in three, two, one.

Go.

[ Laughs ]

Go.

Narrator: A simultaneous Tsunami,

and the physics of Springfield

are looking surprisingly accurate.

Jamie: This first test showed

that pressure delivered to the middle toilet

was pretty evenly distributed to the other toilets around it.

It's quite pretty, actually. Yeah.

It's like a little bit of a water ballet.

Some sort of modern art.

Now, we want to know what would happen if the cherry bomb

and its pressure went here or here.

Would that make any difference?

All right.

I don't know about you folks,

but whenever i go to the toilet, i always take my umbrella.

Half-scale cherry bomb toilet experiment,

position number two, two.

Explosion in three, two, one.

Go.

[ Laughs ]

That's very satisfying.

Narrator: Another successful concurrent eruption...

Position number three, go.

One that's replicated

regardless of where the explosion originates.

Jamie: Which kind of makes sense

because there's resistance in each of these toilets.

And so, with multiple inlets,

that resistance is gonna tend to equalize the pressure.

Yeah.

The pressure spread is plausible.

But Adam has an issue with volume.

Jamie: Now, up until now, we've been experimenting

with a properly set-up plumbing system.

But it's not quite the fountain of water

that we see in the show

because there's just not enough water in the system.

But what if there is a clog in the system?

There we go.

The clog could have water backed up in that system.

And the cherry bomb could go in that.

And then, it's pushing water.

Adam: What do you think?

Jamie: That's about got it.

All right.

What happens to that water?

Does it come out of the toilets?

I kind of think so.

But we're gonna try it, just to make sure.

All right, this is a fully clogged toilet system.

Three, two, one.

Go.

[ Laughs ]

I think we found the explosion we were looking for.

[ Laughs ]

Well, aside from being pretty to look at,

our half-scale system has demonstrated

exactly what we were hoping,

and that is the "Simpsons" -like fountain of water

shooting out of the toilet behavior

from a cherry bomb thrown into the system.

So i think we're gonna go full-scale.

I think we're gonna detonate our cherry bomb

back behind some clogged-up water.

The question we have when we go to full-scale...

Will the cherry bomb actually generate the pressure we need?

[ Laughs ]

We don't know.

That's why we're gonna do it.

Excuse me. Sorry.

Narrator: While the crew completes the clean-up...

the epic odyssey of homer's heroic intervention continues

because Jamie's big ball has hardened.

Jamie: [ Chuckles ]

And his distinctly unconventional plan

has paid off.

It's lookin' pretty good.

Next, he makes the two halves a whole

and seals the deal with a super-strong sealant.

Jamie: So, my plan worked exactly as i had in mind.

And we've got a nice spherical shape.

[ Laughs ]

A little chiseling and a little mortar,

and this thing will clean up real nice.

And we'll have one heck of a big wrecking ball.

Narrator: With that, Jamie heads back to the shop,

where homer's head has just arrived.

Now that we have these lovely molds of homer's head,

we're gonna coat the insides with a tinted latex

because that'll give us the correct color,

and also, a nice, tough skin.

Narrator: Once the latex skin is dried,

Jamie fills homer's head with a two-part pouring foam.

Jamie: Now, this stuff expands about 4-1,

and it's a little hard to estimate homer's head volume.

All i can see is that it's much larger than mine,

as hard as that is to believe.

You want to help me pull this thing apart?

Narrator: 15 minutes later, the foam has set.

There you go.

It's coming.

And homer's precisely proportioned profile

is revealed in all its glory.

Oh, it's kind of heavy.

Ah, that looks awesome, totally fantastic.

For the finishing touches,

Jamie paints homer's famously unshaven mug.

Starting to look like homer.

Adam coats his torso with waterproof rubber.

And Jamie adds the ears

and those instantly recognizable eyes.

Jamie: [ Chuckles ]

Kind of comes to life when you do that.

So homer is very, very nearly complete.

We've painted all of his body parts, including his head,

and now, his hands, a suitable shade of "Simpsons" yellow.

After this, we'll send his measurements out

to our seamstress to make him a full set of clothes.

And then, it's time to take him out to the location

and abuse him.

Aaaaah!

[ Dog barking ]

To recap, homer supposedly protects his house

by placing himself between a wrecking ball

and his house and absorbing the shock with his body.

In order to test this,

we are absolutely of course going to need a wrecking ball.

Check.

Well, that's a big-ass ball.

Adam: We are also going to need a house

to swing this wrecking ball into.

So we decided to build our own.

Actually, we built two.

[ Laughs ]

I'm always painting something before we destroy it.

There's a very good reason.

Because what we want to find out is whether homer would have made

any difference to the wrecking ball's effect on his house.

All right, let's go.

Therefore, that's our control house.

We're gonna swing just

a straight old wrecking ball into it.

Ah.

It's only when we get to this one

that we're gonna strap homer to that wrecking ball

and find out if the amount of destruction...

Beautiful.

Is actually different,

i.E. Less on this one.

Now it's a home worth protecting.

Yeah, perfect.

Jamie: In the demolition industry,

wrecking balls are kind of iconic.

Jamie wire brushes his balls every morning.

Jamie: But we've come to find out

that they don't actually use them that much anymore.

Now it looks like it's all business.

And when you think about it, it's sort of understandable.

There we go.

Jamie: Because you get thousands of pounds

of weight swinging on the end of a cable,

it's not exactly a precision instrument.

You're right on the money, 5,000 pounds. It's perfect.

Not only that, it's hard on the equipment that swings it.

[ Grunts ]

Jamie: So, we've found that,

whenever we need a wrecking ball, we make our own.

Narrator: With their accurately sized

and weighted homemade homer wrecker

ready to swing into action...

I love having the right hardware.

Narrator: It's simply a question of lifting it...

I'll hold it up in case it falls.

Awesome.

Pulling it back and letting it go, right?

Ray, how do you feel about it?

You like it?

Wrong.

If it goes out too far,

it's gonna want to bring the crane over.

Do you understand? Right.

So that's an interesting question.

If we pull it back too far, and it swings far out,

it's gonna pull the crane over.

Probably the big question is, how far do we pull it back?

Narrator: To answer that...

Right angle, 40-foot radius.

Okay.

So let's talk this through. That's 40.

Narrator: The guys look into the limits

of the crane's live load capacity...

Let's say the ball hangs here,

and the crane is here in relation to the house.

Narrator: Discuss the physics involved...

Force equals mass times acceleration.

So, once that ball starts to move...

It wants to keep going.

Nerd!

Narrator: And, after an hour of tense discussion...

You have no intuition about that whatsoever?

Come up with a swing distance of...

What if we did 12 feet?

12 feet is significantly less

than the free-wheeling cartoon capers of Springfield.

Good.

But it's as far as the real-world physics allow.

All right, you like that?

Yeah, i think that's perfect.

And with those parameters in place,

the guys set up for the control.

Standing now.

Jamie: You may be wondering why we're not pulling our wrecking ball

back quite as far as you see them do in "the Simpsons."

About four feet away.

Well, cranes aren't designed to swing heavy weights around,

like tether balls.

If they did that, in a heartbeat,

they could tip the whole crane right over.

Stop. Stop.

Are you happy with that?

You betcha.

In rigging, there are two kinds of loads,

a dead load and a live load.

A live load is one that moves,

and this load is about as live as it gets.

Narrator: The repercussions of a miscalculation

could be catastrophic.

You know, it's just like destruction in potentia.

But the question they're aiming to answer is,

what kind of hit will the house take without homer?

This is "Simpsons" wrecking ball control,

minus homer, in three, two, one...

Go!

[ Laughter ]

Yeah!

Ah, fabulous.

The second hit.

Oh, yeah.

Third hit. Let's go for a third hit.

The whole... whole building just is kind of...

I know! Shifting.

Our test showed that a wrecking ball hitting a house like this

would severely damage any masonry,

as well as the framing and the wall of the house...

just like it did here.

Adam: Now, the question is,

will homer make any difference

if he gets in between that ball and the house?

Honestly, i don't know.

Narrator: To find out if Bart's bellagio-esque fountain

will translate from the success of small scale to full scale,

the mythcrackers hit the bomb range.

After having played with miniature toilets

to our hearts' content...

Adam: Go!

[ Laughs ]

we are going to assemble three real toilets

on a platform 7 feet off the ground

with a real full-scale plumbing system...

Ready to, uh, get started and build this thing?

Can you give me a minute?

Sure.

So that we can cherry bomb it all day long.

And, believe me, we will.

[ Grunts ] Come on!

One toilet, two toilets, three toilets.

Narrator: To re-create the exact same setup as the shop test...

Remember, kids, proper care of your toilet

requires brushing twice a day.

Narrator: But as a standard-size sewage system...

[ Bellowing ]

It's almost like Godzilla.

The guys plumb the multiple inputs...

Yes, that's it.

A gas vent and central waste pipe to a 7-foot-high platform.

[ Speaking gibberish ]

Maybe we should just back away a little bit.

Narrator: And, up top,

Adam finishes with three fully functional toilets.

Adam: Hey!

That totally worked!

Ah. All right.

Narrator: Now, what about the boom that shakes the restroom?

Under strict bomb squad supervision...

The guys are using their own mythbusters-made cherry bombs

to find out if the fuse will fizzle when wet.

Adam: Now, when you hear that Bart

throws a cherry bomb into the toilet...

Let's get to safety, shall we? Come on.

Your mind might be set to thinking,

"i wonder if water

would actually put out a cherry bomb's fuse."

An excellent question,

and one i am just about to answer.

Can't get over how much like a cherry they look.

[ Laughs ]

Here we go. It's about to go underwater.

Oh. Oh.

It's burning underwater. [ Laughs ]

I don't get it.

Jamie: So how is it that the fuse on Bart's cherry bomb

is able to burn underwater?

Well, to burn something, you need three things.

You need fuel, you need oxygen,

and you need a source of ignition.

Now, as it happens,

the gunpowder that runs along inside this fuse

has everything it needs to burn.

It has its own fuel and its own oxidizer.

So it's quite happy to burn

without any kind of exterior source of oxygen.

Every time i learn something new,

it pushes some old stuff out of my brain.

Oh!

Nice!

That was awesome.

Narrator: With the fuse firing just fine

and the cherry bomb packing a punch...

Got it.

It's time to fill up and bring the boom.

Okay, that's it.

Adam: Our first cherry bomb experiment

with the full-size toilet system

is going to replicate the circumstances

that we found to be our ideal circumstances

in the small scale...

That is, the sewer system clogged with water

with the cherry bomb placed under that water.

[ Laughs ]

Jamie: Right about here.

Now, we're gonna be lighting this off

with an electric spark via these wires

because that'll allow us to place this

exactly where we want

and set it off exactly when we want from a safe distance.

Okay, we're all sealed up.

Setting off explosives in the air as opposed to water

is really quite different,

and that's because air compresses and water does not.

So, if you apply pressure to water,

it'll deliver a shock wave

directly to whatever it's connected to,

kind of like a hammer blow.

Are you ready? I'm ready. High-speed's ready?

Now, in our case, that water hammer can become massive.

In three...

And it'll deliver the shock wave through the water,

through the plumbing... Two...

to anything that it's connected to.

One.

Oh-ho-ho!

[ Laughs ]

That was catastrophic.

[ Chuckles ] Yeah.

Narrator: Yep. Jamie's hammer theory nailed it.

In contrast to the shop test's

"Simpsons" -like water fountain...

Oh, yes.

Hey, this camera's still rolling here.

When faced with the same firepower

as a real cherry bomb...

It is a freaking horror show up here.

The standard, full-size lavatory fixtures

were forced free of their moorings,

leaving the porcelain...

Yay!

And, possibly, the myth, busted.

Looking carefully at the high-speed footage,

you'll notice that water starts coming out beneath the toilets

at the same time as it starts coming out the bowls.

Now, that means that that water was moving so fast

that the toilets' plumbing was not able to absorb the onrush,

which is why it broke the toilets off their mounts

instead of creating three large geysers.

Our cherry bomb gave us a stunning explosion.

Unfortunately, it also happened to rip all three of our toilets

right out of the floor.

That pretty good?

Looks good to me.

So we have gone to the measure of bolting them

right to the cast-iron flanges of the plumbing

that they are plumbed to.

And that should hold them tight for this test.

Narrator: After a quick reset up top...

You know, all evidence to the contrary,

i think you and i would make a good pair of plumbers.

This time, they place the cherry bomb

at the lowest possible point of the plumbing.

The guys are hoping the larger volume of water

above the explosive will absorb more energy

and give them the mythical gushing geysers.

Adam: This is it.

After small-scale and large-scale experiments,

this is the blast we hope will work.

We have changed the position of the bomb.

Hell, we've even bolted them to their own plumbing,

which is totally unrealistic.

But it's what we hope it will take

to give us the geysers that we're looking for.

And it's just about to happen.

Are you ready, sir? I am.

Okay.

Five, four, three...

Two [Laughs]

One.

Go!

[ Laughs ]

No force can contain the cherry bomb.

What are you gonna do?

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: Yep. The power was simply too much.

The pressure blast couldn't escape

through the narrow plumbing fast enough,

and something had to give.

Jamie: What we're seeing is that,

if you have enough energy to push a lot of water

up and out of those toilets

using something like our cherry bomb,

that same energy and the shock wave that accompanies it

is also going to break the toilets off at their bases.

They're simply not strong enough to stay in place.

So, as far as I'm concerned, using an explosive,

you're never gonna see the kind of geyser

that we saw in the cartoon.

In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

So, cartoons don't reflect reality?

Wow, this is big. This is...

What's the word? Busted!

It's busted, yes.

Yeah!

[ Laughs ]

Kickin' toilets apart since 1930.

[ Chuckles ] Them's some steel-tipped shoes.

Narrator: With the porcelain pummeled,

Adam and Jamie head back to homer's house,

where our humble hero awaits his moment of glory.

D'oh!

Hello, friends.

If you're like most people,

you probably are sad that you haven't been able to afford

your slice of the American dream.

But now it turns out that you can.

On the outskirts of Springfield, a new development has arisen,

one that provides picture-perfect homes,

if viewed from the right angle.

We've reduced home ownership to its barest essentials...

One wall, one couch, one floor.

Welcome to shady acres.

Pay no attention to the wrecking ball.

Narrator: Jamie and Adam are chasing a cartoon conundrum...

Adam: Oh!

That's his home.

Narrator: The homer wrecker.

Can our hero's leap of faith

dissipate the force of this impact?

[ Laughter ]

Yeah!

You know, it didn't move very fast,

but it had quite a kick to it, didn't it?

I mean, that's Newton's second law, right there.

[ Both laugh ]

Now, we're gonna leave all this damage intact, as it is...

Ah, couldn't be better.

Jamie: And go ahead and do the test with homer

on the wrecking ball with the identical house.

Now, that is a proper cartoon wrecking ball.

Jamie: And, if it shows damage anything like this,

we will know that homer's efforts

would've been for naught.

And ta-da!

Allow me to introduce you to the completed,

ready-to-be-tested-with hero of this episode...

Mr. homer j. Simpson.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a round of applause.

Woo-hoo!

Narrator: Our accurately sized and dressed homer...

There we go.

Is attached to the ball exactly as per the clip...

That's it. First arm is on. Okay.

With a final, crucial component.

Jamie: Since part of this

is what happens with homer's body mass on the ball,

we need to give him some body mass other than just foam.

We're doing that by adding water.

Narrator: The average density of a human body

is within a couple of percentage points of water.

Perfect.

So a water-filled homer

is an almost perfect energy-absorption analog

for a real person of that size and shape.

Oh, oh.

Homer is substantial.

Our cartoon character is coming to life.

Narrator: The question is,

with a real-life mass of 239 pounds,

can he save his house?

I think we're good to go up.

All right.

[ Chuckles ] It's happening.

Jamie: We're making sure that we're positioning the ball

exactly the same way that we did the first time.

We'll let it settle so the physics should all be the same,

except for homer.

Does it look like his ass is dead center?

Adam: He couldn't be more perfectly

on the horizon of the lines of force

between the ball and his house.

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: As per the control,

the velocity on impact may only be a pedestrian 6 miles an hour.

[ Both laugh ]

What are we doing?

But with 5,000 pounds of ball...

Who's paying for this?

This is awesome.

There's a lot of energy to dissipate.

Say goodbye, homer.

Can our hefty hero really absorb that impact?

All right. Here we go.

Homer versus the wrecking ball, the final experiment.

Three, two, one.

There he goes! Oh, yeah.

Oh! Oh!

Oh!

[ Laughs ]

Jamie: That's a result that i never would've bet on.

[ Laughs ]

He's clearly made a big difference.

Yeah, i mean, look at this house.

And then look at that one.

Wow! I'm just sayin'.

Homer's ass is quite impressive, actually.

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: It's an astonishing result.

The house didn't escape completely unscathed,

but homer did help.

Well, astonishingly,

it turns out homer did in fact make a difference

by placing himself between the wrecking ball and his house.

He clearly made a heroic effort, and it had a heroic outcome.

Jamie: Those cartoonists don't get enough credit

for proper engineering.

[ Laughs ] [ Chuckles ]

* i am so smart *

* i am so smart *

* s-m-r-t *

* i mean s-m-a-r-t *

all right, al. I got some good news...

Woo-hoo!

And some bad news. D'oh!

I'm gonna start with the bad news,

which is the toilet bomb.

Unfortunately, all we got was total toilet destruction.

It's busted.

Well, you forget that the school is near a nuclear plant,

a nuclear plant run by idiots.

Oh-ho-ho. It's funny 'cause it's true.

And there could be a nuclear explosion at any moment,

which means that the toilets are ultra-super-reinforced,

not busted.

Hmm.

I see where you're headed with that.

And the good news?

The good news is homer wrecker.

We are totally amazed by these results,

but the fact is that homer made a difference.

By placing his body between the wrecking ball and his house,

he was successfully able to keep it from being damaged.

So, you're saying the show is 100% scientifically accurate?

Mm, s-sure.

Thank you, gentlemen.