Jamie seems to get pissed off very easily. Feels like it would be hard to work for him/with him.
Posted by SerenityEnforcer@reddit | mythbusters | View on Reddit | 26 comments
I am watching the M5 Tour they made in 2008… The way be rants about Adam being messy or that the “stations” in the shop are not set up the way he wants…
He just seems unnecessarily rude sometimes and hard to work with.
MasterFubar@reddit
I don't think he's really like this. That's the character he played, not necessarily himself.
A TV show needs tension, otherwise people get bored.
FluffyPigeonofDoom@reddit
He is like this as it is called being mature, you are forgetting that's why he is in Finland now.
thirstpretzel@reddit
This is rubbish. I'm researching the entire series and Jamie is consistently level headed. And actually laughs quite a lot. Maybe that changes in later seasons a little. But I wouldn't call him always angry at all.
Arrakis_Is_Here@reddit
When Mythbusters first aired, I connected with Adam way more than Jamie
Now I'm middle aged and I connect with Jamie more than I do Adam. In fact, I can't stand Adam anymore. He's like an little child who wants his own way and plays pranks on people and then sulks when the tables are turned on him. He can dish it out, but he can't take it
realS4V4GElike@reddit
Just as youve grown as a person, I bet perhaps Adam has done the same?
Arrakis_Is_Here@reddit
Perhaps.
I watched his YT channel during in lockdown and didn't find him annoying then.
Only on rewatches of MB does he do my head in
the_bryce_is_right@reddit
I think Adam played up a character and isn't necessarily like that in real life, kind of like Gordon Ramsey does with his asshole screaming chef act.
yas_sensei@reddit
I met Adam at a conference in Las Vegas about 15 years ago. I had a nice 5 minute chat with him without any handlers around and I found him to be in person exactly like he was on the show. I don't think it's an act. In fact, in his talk at that conference, he admitted that he and Jamie got along as colleagues on the show but never experienced anything like "friendship." According to Adam, they had a mutual respect for each other's abilities, but didn't get along well enough to socialize, apparently as in ever.
Bison256@reddit
He's said that on his YouTube channel as well.
mochicoco@reddit
Adam seems to very “on” during the show. I get the feeling Jamie is always the same. In the episode where they got drunk (beer goggles), Jamie just got pink.
Wolfebane86@reddit
I think a big part of that is editing. Mythbusters is a show with directors and editors, and shows are more successful when there’s conflict. If it’s more narratively interesting for Jamie to get frustrated with Adam, then the show runners are going to edit the footage to build that conflict. I seem to recall multiple comments from various Mythbusters over the years explaining that there’s a fair bit of suggestion/direction from on set directors as well to build up these conflicts.
Bison256@reddit
Yeah, I noticed that after watching Adam's YouTube channel. He's no where near as hyper as the Mythbusters editing makes him seem.
No_Nobody_32@reddit
Mythbusters fell into the category of "scripted reality" shows.
It wasn't anywhere near as off-the-cuff as a lot of people seem to believe. There was always a plan for each episode, but due to how reality often gets in the way of plans, there was also a lot of leeway in how they hit the points.
Narwalacorn@reddit
Honestly as long as the outcome isn’t scripted Idrc if the rest of the show was to an extent
shanejayell@reddit
That too,
I remember a early episode where Jamie was working on something and Adam blundered in and BROKE it, and Jamie just went, "Adam, I think you should work over THERE." I would have lost my shit, so.... *lol*
mochicoco@reddit
I get the feeling it’s always Jamie’s world. He likes things a certain way. In this way he’s a bit of an asshole. He knows this, that’s why he owns his own shop. I feel if you are willing to submit yourself to his orbit, he would be a great mentor. If you can’t, it would be hell to work for him.
jsabo@reddit
I seem to recall that they cut directly from this rant to a shot of Adam working on a lathe, and the whole space was ankle-deep in shavings.
It's one thing to get anal about someone not putting the coffee mugs back with the handles all facing the same way, it's entirely different when someone's failing to stop a small mess from turning into a huge mess.
And you certainly got the impression that not only wasn't this the first time it happened, but that Adam had been asked, then told, to clean as he went, and it was ignored.
You ask me, the guest in the shop making the mess is the one who's hard to work with.
shanejayell@reddit
He's (or Adam thinks he is) on the autism spectrum, so there's that. And it's HIS shop, so if he wants staff to be neat, that's fair.
SerenityEnforcer@reddit (OP)
Good point.
shanejayell@reddit
Also, Kari and Tory worked with him before Mythbusters got going and in the first couple of seasons before they got M6, and seemed to have no issues with him.
I suspect Jamie is just one of those gruff but competent types who aren't good with social stuff.
Abraxas19@reddit
And tbf Adam seems like he could be pretty damn annoying to an introvert
DangerSwan33@reddit
And fair being fair, your workstation is so important when you're doing anything creative.
None of the MB team really seems to mind that Jamie is so particular, because they all also probably understand how important a clean, organized space is when it comes to building things.
Like others said earlier, there's likely a bit of editorial drama added in, but his complaints are fair.
With how often Adam has pointed out that, despite their differences, they work great together, Adam was probably never too bothered by it, and likely understood.
RealmKnight@reddit
Likely just a matter of the editing highlighting moments of tension. Keep in mind that if they condense a week of filming into a 20 minute myth and include the one minute during that week where Jamie was acting frustrated, his apparent tendency to get frustrated is drastically over-represented.
ttech32@reddit
Before mythbusters, M5 was a commercial special effects shop. They have said in interviews that it was common for them to be handed projects as soon as a day or two before their prop had to be delivered. The show itself had some pretty tight deadlines itself. When you have that little time to do a build, wasting even a few hours because your tools are scattered or you can't find a clean workspace can literally cause you to miss a very expensive deadline. It can get out of hand pretty quickly. This is also why he has so much stuff stockpiled in that wall of boxes --often no time to go shopping or wait for things to be delivered. IDK how much the producers played up this specific personality difference for the sake of TV, but for the record, Adam's shop you see on his YouTube channels actually looks very neat; maybe they have slightly different baselines for cleanliness but I'm sure they both actually understand why it's important in general.
Anonymous44432@reddit
I mean, if I had a shop setup the way I wanted it and my employees came in and made a mess and didn’t clean up I’d be pretty annoyed too? Jaimie is nice enough to let them use his shop, they can probably put things back where they found them
Ampix0@reddit
At this particular time in the show it was being directed as a reality TV show and the producer wanted to cause fights and such for TV. He was later fired.