Are the Mythbuster's safety standards deteriorating?

I haven’t been watching recently, but if anything, they’ve been getting more safe over the years. Accidents happen—Adam burned his eyebrows off in the first season, they don’t let things like that happen again.

I think they are getting more daring about which scenes they show to the general public. They used to be very choosy about not showing the time their experiments went awry, but they found out those are the best selling episodes.

I met the Mythbuster guys at the Maker’s Faire in San Mateo,a couple of years ago. They showed some ‘outtakes’ that are the kind of things you are now seeing as part of the show.

They’ve always had mishaps on that show. When you’re doing what they are doing, it’s almost impossible to have a 100% safety record. Any injuries I’ve seen from any of them were minor and didn’t require so much as a trip to the doctor.

I’d say they attention to safety is all there in a field which is inherently hazardous.

The nature of the show I think precludes being entirely safe. After all, watching a controlled explosion is okay, but watching an explosion that is supposed to controlled but might not be is much more interesting.

In tonight’s show (about car bumpers exploding off burning cars) I noted that Adam, despite his lovely silver suit, almost got caught in the flames when they lit the first car up. Because he wasn’t injured it gave all of us watching a bit of a thrill and then a good laugh.

And then there was the casual evacuation of the room when the bumper mount began to emit a noxious-smelling white smoke unexpectedly. They joked about it, but they did leave and took the camera man with them.

I do note that in the past few shows, including this one, most of the personnel were huddled behind some sort of transparent safety shield, so they are thinking about safety. I also note that they all seem to have all their fingers, and everyone is accounted for on each episode, so apparently serious injuries are successfully being avoided.

I suspect that Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) has had more frequent injuries than any of the Mythbusters cast have. At least, he shows every bump, scrape and bite on camera.

In all honesty that fire in the car was one of the dumbest things I have seen them do. They are way smarter than that.