'Mythbusters' cannonball busts through house

[Don]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57338 ... eStories.0

I wonder which member of the "Mythbusters" production team was told to go to a nice suburban California house and ask: "Can we have our cannonball back, please?"
You see, it seems as if there was a slight miscalculation on the part of the science-meets-stunts show when it fired a cannonball on a bomb disposal range in Dublin, Calif., yesterday.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the projectile was supposed to hit some rather large trash cans filled with water before piercing a wall.
Strangely, it missed the trash cans, tore through a cinder-block wall, bounced its merry way down a hillside, barreled 700 yards through a suburban California neighborhood, smashed through the front door of a house, bounced up the stairs of the house and, without knocking, penetrated a bedroom door where a man, woman, and child were sleeping.
They were only woken after the cannonball had passed through. There was a little rubble and dust.

Was it done? Of course not. The cannonball then bounced its way out through the wall of the house, crossed a road, smashed a few tiles that were carelessly lying around on the roof of another house and finally took a seat inside the Gill family's Toyota Sienna, which they had thoughtlessly parked in the driveway of their home.
A spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department--which is responsible for the bomb range--gave the Chronicle three apposite words for the incident: "Crazy, crazy, crazy."
Well, it was traveling at 1,000 feet per second.
No one was injured in the making of this disaster. However, presenters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have agreed to shave off all of their facial hair as a gesture of shame. No, I have no confirmation of that. I merely think it's the least they can do. Currently, though, they don't seem to be commenting.
Jasbir Gill, whose minivan was the cannonball's final resting place, offered this to the Contra Costa Times: "It's scary. I was in the van five minutes before this happened."
Who would now be the "Mythbusters" insurance company? The cannonball and the range had reportedly been used many times before for such experiments. This was the third time the cannon had been fired that day. There is talk of the cannonball enjoying an "unfortunate" bounce.
Yet how little fortune it must have been for the poor family whose house was penetrated by this uninvited bouncing guest.
The scientific myth that was apparently being tested here was whether other materials could be fired out of a cannon. I wonder what the results of the experiment might be. And what they might cost.

[conversationpc]

Holy crap, Batman!

Sounds like they'll be paying up for some home and auto repairs/replacements.

[artist4perry]

Holy crap, Batman!

Sounds like they'll be paying up for some home and auto repairs/replacements.

Where is Bob Villa when you need him.

[DrFU]

Schutt happens. Totally love the Mythbusters. They are taking the show on the road; reminds me I need to buy tickets.

[brandonx76]

Fuck...they could've killed multiple people...very lucky they didn't...expect some high pay outs to the home owners

[verslibre]

I'd sue the hell out of those guys.

[Don]

MythBusters make apologetic house call after cannon accident

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-57339 ... eStories.0


It's not often that two world-famous TV stars drop by your house, but then again, it's not often that cannonballs come flying through your walls either.
On Wednesday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, MythBusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman personally stopped by to apologize to the residents of the Dublin, Calif., house that crew members of their show had accidentally hit with their cannon fire a day earlier.
In a tweet this afternoon, Savage addressed the situation. "It's true, a cannonball got away from a Mythbusters experiment in Dublin, CA," Savage tweeted first. "Nobody hurt thank goodness. Jamie and I toured the damage."
Then, a little later, Savage added: "Now it's back to SF, to meet and discuss how to keep this from ever happening again. Very intense. We're SUPER relieved no one was hurt."

"Come in," said...Shetty, 39, ushering show hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage across a floor still speckled with paint and plaster.

Behind Shetty was damage more likely to be found on a pirate ship than a two-story tract home. A round hole scarred an interior wall and, beyond that, another hole showed where the cannonball had exited the upstairs master bedroom as Shetty's wife, Seema, napped with the couple's 2-year-old son.

After assuring Shetty, his two children, his wife and her parents that they would never again blast a home with heavy ordnance, Hyneman and Savage said the incident was the worst thing that had happened during thousands of experiments over eight years on the Discovery Channel show.

They also promised they wouldn't air the footage they had filmed of the near-catastrophic cannon shot.

"It's a wake-up call," said Savage, 44, who like his 56-year-old partner lives in San Francisco. "Honestly, the feeling of embarrassment is not something we're indulging in right now. We feel for the families and the people affected by this."
According to the Chronicle, neither Savage nor Hyneman was present when the cannon misfired at a bombing range that the show often uses when filming experiments. Instead, the show's other three hosts, Tory Bellici, Kari Byron, and Grant Imahara "had been 'calibrating' a homemade cannon, firing a ball made of either steel or cast iron into water barrels and a brick wall to make sure it had the same power as a historical cannon." The idea was to find out if the cannon was capable of firing a shot through a castle's walls. Instead, they breached the walls of Shetty's home.
Although this was the first time that the hugely popular show had been responsible for such damage to anyone's personal property, it's hardly the show's first mishap. Indeed, MythBusters has a long history of accidents, although they have generally been minor, and any injuries were to cast members only.

Either way, it's a great public relations move for Savage and Hyneman to stop by the Shetty household to say they're sorry. It's also something totally in keeping with the personalities of the two stars, who, while being world famous, are also extremely down to earth.
Now, the show's hosts and producers have to find a way to repair not just the damage to the Shettys' home, but also the MythBusters' reputation. Certainly, the fact that no one was hurt will make it easier. But there's little doubt that everyone involved with the show will be eager for the time when no TV stars have to be making house calls in Dublin.

[tammy]

I saw this on the News and the damage done on the house. Don't know who Mythbusters are but this was a really stupid thing to do...mere inches from possibly killing a child!