Gary McIntire brings Legoland to Mythbusters

Legoland’s master builder and all-around great LEGO community guy Gary McIntire has helped out the Mythbusters crew with a LEGO related myth. Check out the press release:

LEGOLAND® California Model Builder Helps “Mythbusters” Dispell Myth!

Popular Discovery Channel Show Highlights Family Theme Park in Upcoming Episode

CARLSBAD, Calif. (April 28, 2009) – “Mythbusters” reached out to a Master Model Builder at LEGOLAND® California to help dispel a myth regarding a giant LEGO® ball on an upcoming episode of the popular international show airing April 29, 2009 on the Discovery Channel.

“It was an honor to be included in the project,” said LEGOLAND Master Model Builder Gary McIntire. “I have always been a huge fan of the show so for them to come and ask for my help was really a proud moment in my career!”

Show hosts Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara trekked down to Carlsbad, California from the show’s home base in San Francisco to use McIntire’s expertise on how to build a nearly 10-foot LEGO sphere.

The myth originated with a YouTube video in which Indiana Jones fans reenacted the famous boulder chase scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with the “boulder” being made of five-million LEGO bricks. The boulder is rolled down a steep street in San Francisco, crashes into a car, and remains somewhat intact. The “Mythbusters” team set out to discover if a boulder of that size could really be made entirely of LEGO bricks and still roll so smoothly down a steep hill without breaking apart into millions of pieces. In order to debunk the myth, McIntire and 20 others worked on building the ball using nearly one million LEGO bricks over the course of nearly two weeks.

“We have more than 15,000 LEGO models here at LEGOLAND California,” said McIntire, “and this is by far the singularly largest creation I’ve ever helped to build!”

The “Mythbusters” team spent a day at LEGOLAND California researching models similar to the one they needed to build studying sphere shapes such as the head of the giant 17-foot-tall pharaoh in the Park’s newest area, Land of Adventure and the dome of the Griffith Observatory in Miniland U.S.A.

To discover the results, tune into the Discovery Channel April 29, 2009. Please consult your local TV guide for channel and times in your area.

I was hanging out with Gary this weekend (all this travel has been keeping me from blogging) and he’s really excited about this episode. He said to keep an eye out for a time-lapse video of his hands building the Mythbusters logo. I’ll definitely be tuning in tonight to watch.

20 comments on “Gary McIntire brings Legoland to Mythbusters

  1. Joedward

    I dobnt get why they’re doing this when that video with Indy and the Giant LEGO ball was a sort of ‘hoax’. Just a polystyrene ball cobered with baseplates….

  2. Dan Post author

    I gather that there is some disagreement or question circulating online about whether it was a hoax or not.

  3. Morgan19

    Maybe because not everyone’s seen the video in the first place and might think it’s a neat idea when they see it on the show? Or maybe some people hadn’t heard that maybe it was fake?

    Seriously, what difference does it make? It’s a fun show, a fun idea to test, and will grant good exposure for LEGO. Win-win.

  4. Puddleglum

    Hoax or not, I say the properties and behavior of giant balls of LEGO is an area that we lack definitive information on , and certianly merits more reasearch and investigation! :D

  5. Ochre Jelly

    The existence of giant Lego balls is a myth, a scientific conspiracy perpetuated by plastic manufacturers. There is no way such ‘balls’ could ‘spontaneously’ come into existence in nature through so-called Legowinian Legolution. The only sensible explanation is some kind of “Intelligent Building”, orchestrated by an omnipotent moCreator.

  6. Shmails

    I thought the Classic Spacemen found some giant balls on one of their journeys into the unknown! LEGO and Mythbusters, it is gonna be a good night!

  7. Andrew

    @Thanel: I’ll do the same and you can watch it the next time you’re up here (if it doesn’t show up on YouTube sooner).

  8. Pete

    I hope they crash it into a car!

    The boulder in the video was pretty obviously fake and nothing really happened when it hit the car. But I would think a real LEGO boulder could do some real damage.

  9. Ochre Jelly

    I just caught the segment. Very silly! I love the way Nathan was being so flash and casual about loaning them the extra 500,000 bricks. He’s the Bill gates of Lego! The big question is… what happened to all those bricks? Perhaps there are Lego tumbleweeds blowing around that desert now.

  10. Nolnet

    Here’s a 4:25min video of the experiment. The actual show was probably a little bit longer, but for those who couldn’t watch it and don’t want to be left out of the fun…

    Also: LOL!

  11. Puddleglum

    Wow, that is crazy. I can’t help but wonder how different construction techniques would have affected the outcome. I guess they had to stick to the “we’re trying to do what they claimed to have done” thing, but still . . .

    Also, 500,000 bricks is a pretty staggering number. Consider: The total number of used and new 2×4 bricks in red, white, blue, and black for sale on Bricklink is just about 150,000

  12. Repoort

    Did anybody see the Chinese flag, American flag, or big smiley face on the big bricks?

    Those were made by myself, Brendan Mauro, and Bram Lambrecht!

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