Jamie Hyneman (born September 25, 1956) is an American television presenter, inventor and special effects expert best known for his work on Mythbusters alongside Adam Savage from 2003 until 2018. He also featured in Comedy Central BattleBots as driver of Blendo, from Season 1.0 until 3.0.
Born in Michigan, Hyneman graduated from Columbus North High School in 1974 and He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from Villanova University in May 2010. In November 2011, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Twente for work to help popularize science and technology. He is also the owner of M5 Industries, the special effects workshop where MythBusters was filmed. He is the inventor of the Sentry, an unmanned firefighting robotic vehicle.
Blendo returned to combat with Hyneman and Adam Savage for the 1999 Las Vegas pay per view BattleBots event, and subsequently for the first three televised seasons on Comedy Central. Several years after BattleBots was dropped by the network, Hyneman and Savage joined forces again to present the highly successful Mythbusters.
Outside BattleBots[]
Hyneman's special effects and animatronics work saw him feature in such films as Naked Lunch (1991) and Flubber (1997), as well as The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolations (both 2003).Responsible for its electronics and control systems, Jamie Hyneman first competed in the 1995 US Robot Wars event with Blendo, where it was considered too powerful for the arena as one of the pioneers of destructive spinning weapons.[1] Blendo returned for the 1996 and 1997 Robot Wars events, but was again too powerful even for the upgraded arena.[2]
Unlike his Mythbusters co-presenter, Jamie Hyneman never returned as a guest judge on BattleBots, or indeed to the sport in any capacity. In a June 2013 interview, Jamie Hyneman described his experiences in combat robotics, detailing a lack of time as his main reason for not competing in more recent years.
- "I can't compete in the Combots or anything like that anymore because I had this reputation for being totally badass with Robot Wars."
- — Jamie Hyneman in a 2013 episode of Ask Jamie[3]
Trivia[]
- A brief clip of Blendo and Jamie controlling it was displayed during the intro to the MythBusters pilot.
The clip of Jamie controlling Blendo.