There’s life after MythBusters, especially for Adam Savage, who now gets to live a life
of building cool stuff and messing around all day while somehow still making a pretty
tidy living from it.
So what has Adam Savage been up to since MythBusters?
Keep watching to find out.
For Mythbusters Junior, Savage has replaced his old co-host, the stalwart, uber-serious
Jamie Hyneman, with a bunch of teens and pre-teens.
They're not just any teens and pre-teens, though; they're the sorts of kids who make
you reflect on your own life with deep regret and wonder why you weren't building robots,
programming computers, shooting off rockets, and inventing other stuff well before you
hit puberty.
Plus, Savage's new co-hosts seem like they might be at least marginally easier to work
with than Hyneman.
If nothing else, they at least express occasional emotion.
Savage said at the summer Television Critics Association press tour in 2018:
"When big things fall on big things, the pure delight on their faces, they can't hide it.
That's why we're doing this."
But don't let the presence of minors lull you into a false sense of responsible science
or anything.
"It's not a show about teaching these guys how to do stuff.
It's not a kids' show.
These are the new MythBusters and I'm their camp counselor and their advisor and sometimes
their test subject.
[…] They're going to be blowing up stuff just as big as we did."
So just to confirm, the show's premise is to give explosives to children and let them
blow stuff up on national television, right?
Cool.
Adam Savage is the bromance every dude wishes he could have.
Imagine hanging out in your workshop and building stupid stuff all day over a six-pack of beer.
Heck, even most women probably wish they could have a bromance with Adam Savage.
Sadly, the closest you'll probably ever come to being pals with Adam Savage is when you
read his book, which has the very relatable title Every Tool's a Hammer.
Because who among us hasn't beaten a doorknob to death with a heavy flashlight because you
locked your keys in the house?
One Boing Boing reviewer said, called Savage's book...
"[...] a wonderful read, in which Adam shares his own personal guidelines for creativity,
from inspiration to execution."
So if you've ever wanted to build a giant Totoro costume and all you really need is
some inspiration to get started, well, this book might help you out with that.
Savage calls the book, quote, "a chronicle of my life as a maker," but it's really a
love letter to other makers, and to those of us who want to be makers but still haven't
grabbed the airbrush by the trigger.
He wrote:
"Grab hold of the things you're interested in, that fascinate you, and […] dive deeper
into them to see where they lead you."
If you follow Savage's activities online, then you probably get the feeling that "making"
— which is essentially just the blanket term for the art of building random cool stuff
— is going to one day save the world and all of the universe, too.
In late 2016, Savage announced a new nonprofit called Nation of Makers, which helps makers
share ideas, projects, resources, and whatever else they feel like sharing with the broader
maker community.
"We are a nation of makers.
Of artists, of sculptors, of writers, of singers, of dancers, explorers and storytellers."
According to Nation of Makers' website, the mission is
"[...] to build a society where everyone has access to the tools, technologies, experiences,
and knowledge to make anything."
Naturally, Savage is on the board of directors, so the organization is off to a solid start
at "making" the world a better place.
Adam Savage is, among other things, a huge fan of sci-fi in general and Blade Runner
in particular.
And if you're Adam Savage, well, you can do things like call up the studio and say, "Hey,
I wanna be an extra," and then the next thing you know you're on the set of a Blade Runner
2049 short getting ready to play a street merchant in Future Los Angeles.
In the short, Savage appears in the background just behind Dave Bautista.
His character doesn't have any lines, but he can be seen trying to sell bags of blood
to a vendor, because the Blade Runner universe is gross.
But it's not a "blink and you'll miss it" appearance.
Any true MythBusters fan would be able to identify him without much effort, even if
they didn't know in advance he was there.
And filmmaking opportunities seem to keep presenting themselves.
According to Tested, in 2018, Savage visited Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop in New Zealand
and made a short film entitled Farewell to Arms, which features himself in a suit of
armor and a bright red skirt fighting some weird creature that looks like a Buffy the
Vampire Slayer demon mixed with one of the rubber suits from the set of the original
Star Trek.
After a short battle, the demon removes one of Savage's arms, Monty Python-style, complete
with gushing blood.
The film is presented as a part of a series, and it isn't just an original story with relatively
low-budget special effects.
It's also a behind-the-scenes look at how Weta Workshop puts together an epic film like
Lord of the Rings.
Both Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman seemed to be cool with the end of MythBusters.
After so many seasons of working with someone you don't actually really like that much,
it was comfortable for them to finally part ways.
But knowing Adam Savage the way we do, it must have been hard for him to put all that
geeking out behind him.
Because if there's one thing that Adam Savage clearly loves to do, it's geeking out in a
public forum.
"Ooh!
There we go!
It's actively moving!
Look at that!"
That's probably one of the reasons he signed on to host the 2017 15-part Syfy podcast called
SYFY25: Origin Stories.
The series featured discussions with some legendary names in science fiction, like the
voice of Yoda Frank Oz, Star Trek scriptwriter D.C. Fontana, and writer Ron Moore, who won
an Emmy for his work on Battlestar Galactica.
So not only did Savage get to spend lots of time talking publicly about science fiction,
he got to do it with some of the biggest names in the industry.
Savage told Space.com that the series was meant to examine science fiction not just
as a genre but as a cultural force that transcends petty human differences.
He said:
"That's what science fiction has always been to me — a wonderful Trojan horse that bypasses
people's partisan filters to talk about culturally important issues."
Adam Savage is a Mythbuster, a maker, a special-effects guy, and now, a purveyor of travel accessories.
Yes, one of Savage's latest projects is selling bags made out of recycled sails.
According to Wired, he designs the bags in collaboration with a San Francisco company
called Mafia Bags, and markets them under his "Savage Industries" brand.
Wired reports that the recycled sails give each bag, quote, "unique quirks," as well
as a "broken-in look."
They have magnet closures instead of velcro or snaps, and a system of springs inside the
lip that keep the bag open while you're rifling around inside it.
You can also get a Savage Industries beach tote or cooler.
Most of the bags come in white only, presumably because sails also mostly come in white, but
there's also a black version of the smaller bag available.
Don't be put off by the mostly-white options and the dirt that will inevitably and permanently
collect on the surface of your $225 bag, though.
Savage says the dirt is actually a "patina," so it's all good.
Even though everyone knows that "patina" is just a fancy word that antiques dealers use
to make their customers feel good about the filth.
Savage's biggest post-MythBusters project is Tested.com, where he serves as editor-in-chief.
Tested.com is an online magazine that focuses mostly on scientific topics like nature, exploration,
emerging technologies, groundbreaking new products, and Adam Savage being in a Blade
Runner short.
In case you're not sold yet, here are a few recent examples from the Tested lineup of
awesome topics: A video profiling a spacesuit replica builder, another video that follows
Savage as he builds a liquid nitrogen powered engine for a Starbucks video, and yet another
video that follows him around while he visits the Space Shuttle Discovery in Dulles, Virginia.
It also seems like Savage chronicles many of his activities at the website, meaning
you can geek out vicariously through someone who has enough time and money to actually
geek out as a profession.
If you've missed Adam Savage on MythBusters and you think all his other projects just
can't fill the void, well, you can have the experience of a lifetime at one of his live
stage shows.
In 2015, Savage launched "Tested: The Show" which is evidently loosely based on the Tested
website.
The show debuted at San Francisco's Castro Theatre, and also ran in 2016 and 2017.
It has included an appearance by Simone Giertz, otherwise known as "Queen of Crappy Robots,"
but is mostly a celebration of multimedia, costuming, and Adam Savage's huge collection
of cool stuff.
But alas, it seems to have only happened a few times.
But wait: according to Boing Boing, there's also the "Brain Candy" show, a live touring
show billed as
"[...] crazy toys, incredible tools, and mind-blowing demonstrations for a celebration of curiosity
that's an interactive, hands-on, minds-on theatrical experience like no other."
"Brain Candy" wasn't a one-man show.
Savage teamed up with YouTuber Michael Stevens for the event that did, in fact, feature explosions.
Sadly, it only ran through May 2018, so don't bother frantically Googling for tickets.
Anyone who's followed Savage, even since before he left MythBusters, knows about his comic-con
tradition.
When he attends a big convention, Savage dresses up in a super impressive, head-to-toe costume,
and goes incognito through the crowd, though it's kind of easy for people to figure out
his identity just based on how awesome his costume is.
Over the years, he's been Chewbacca, Hellboy, Kylo Ren, Totoro, and King Arthur.
But his most epic costume was the one that he spent 14 years and $15,000 building.
He told CNBC:
"That's going to have to be Kane's suit from Alien.
I replicated John Hurt's spacesuit costume from the movie Alien."
All those years he spent on the thing included researching the costume, gathering the pieces
to make it, and figuring out how to make it all fit.
And Savage isn't just content to build a costume that's almost perfect.
He even hired people to help him with the castings and molds.
Some of the materials came from as far away as Italy and China.
Admittedly, $15,000 is a lot to spend on one costume, but Savage says it helped that it
took him so long to actually complete the project.
"I spread it out over 15 years, so it didn't hurt my wallet as bad as it would have in
one fell swoop."
Adam Savage is a dad, and like all dads, he has a special appreciation for kids and young
people.
So when he decided to undertake a huge project in celebration of the Apollo 11 moon landing,
he recruited 40 different makers from all over the country, including a group of students
from Kennedy High in Richmond, California.
Together, the group created life-sized replica pieces of an Apollo 11 command module hatch.
According to Tested, Savage used 3D scan data and original drawings kept in the Air and
Space Museum archives to create a digital model of the hatch.
It was then separated into individual components, which were distributed to the 40 makers who
helped Savage complete the project.
Unlike Savage's other projects, though, there was room for artistic license.
The makers were free to create their components in any color or finish, as, quote, "a celebration
of different fabrication techniques, some traditional, some cutting edge."
The pieces were sent to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., where
Savage assembled them live, in front of an audience, into a complete command module hatch.
Savage must have truly missed life as a TV star, because it didn't take him very long
to settle back into yet another series.
This time, he doesn't have to share the limelight, and his name is even in the show's title.
Called Savage Builds, the series airs on Discovery Channel and follows Savage as he, well, builds
stuff.
The show launched big, with an episode featuring Savage building a flying, bulletproof Iron
Man costume.
Savage 3D printed the suit out of titanium, then he shot a gun at it to prove it was bulletproof.
Then he enlisted the help of inventor Richard Browning, who's famous for building a working
jetpack.
And yes, the suit could actually fly, although Savage himself wisely decided not to be the
pilot after he had some trouble mastering the whole jetpack thing.
Browning made the test flight, and it was pretty impressively successful.
No word yet on when the duo plans to start fighting crime.
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