Filming himself going to a Taqueria stand and putting hidden microphones under the seats to test the myth “Do women fart?” was enough to grab the attention of the executives on the Discovery Channel and land Tory Belleci the job as one of the co-hosts of the show MythBusters.
Belleci addressed fans of the show at Schaeffer Auditorium last Monday to promote the new season and share his experiences in the film industry.
“It’s a chance to come out to colleges and get students excited about science,” said Belleci. “So often we’re stuck in our shop. It’s nice to come to colleges and get feedback from the fans.”
Belleci started the night on a humorous note.
“First, Adam and Jamie are not brothers, they’re not gay, I’m not hooking-up with Kari, and Grant was not an Ewok from Return of the Jedi,” said Belleci.
Before working in the safe and controlled setting put in place by the MythBusters , he was “raised doing stupid stuff,” such as lighting off homemade pipe bombs on the Fourth of July.
“I don’t recommend that at all,” he joked. “Turns out, it’s a felony. The chief of police walks in my house the next day with a handful of shrapnel, lays it down on the table and said, ‘That’s what your little bomb did the other day’.”
Belleci also set his parents’ house on fire twice. The first being an incident with a makeshift flamethrower constructed out of a paint gun and fueled with gasoline, which worked well when he accidentally turned and hit the house.
Although things have long since changed from when he was a teenager, the possibility for something to go wrong is always present. He demonstrated with an injury compilation video, the song “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor,” blaring in the background.
Belleci also shared how he broke into the film industry after graduating from San Francisco State University, where he majored in Film Production. Jamie, one of the hosts on MythBusters actually got him his first job in film.
“I was harassing him and bugging him every day,” said Belleci. “I told him I’d work for free to get my foot in the door. From there I worked on a couple of movies. Starship Troopers was actually one of my favorite movies I worked on. I also helped on Matrix two and three, as well as Galaxy Quest . We did a ton of movies at Industrial Light Magic.”
While at ILM, he also worked on some of the later Star Wars movies.
“The first ones were good,” he said, “but the three I worked on sucked. Jar Jar Binks, really?”
He had worked his way up in the movie industry to co-host MythBusters , which is the longest running show in Discovery Channel history. Starting its eighth season, the show is still finding new myths to test.
“One myth we are going to be testing, which is kind of a classic and one that we’ve wanted to test for a long time, is the blue ice myth,” said Belleci. “If a toilet is leaking on an airplane, ice could freeze on the side of the plane, and when the plane starts to land, it falls off. People have claimed giant chunks of blue ice have landed on their roof. Also, Seth Rogen came on the set for a few days to help test myths from his new movie Green Hornet .”
During the Q&A portion, one audience member scrutinized how the show no longer represents science as it did in the beginning. Belleci acknowledges that the show veered from the scientific process toward entertainment, but in its defense he said, “I think they did a focus group, and it turns out explosions are more exciting than science.”
With that, he ended his address with a compilation of explosions from the show.
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