Mythbusters S01E01 - JATO Car, Pop Rocks (Pilot 1)

Episode 1- "Jet-Assisted Chevy" (Pilot #1)

Myths tested:
Can a 1967 Chevy take off with JATO rockets, like in the tale of the JATO Rocket Car?
Can Pop Rocks and soda, when eaten simultaneously, cause the eater's stomach to rupture?

The story of the jet-assisted Chevy goes like this. The Arizona Highway Patrol stumbled across a blackened crater in the side of a mountain at the end of a long stretch of desert road. After an investigation, they learned that an Air Force sergeant from a nearby military base had attached a rocket-assisted takeoff unit to the roof of a 1967 Chevy Impala. He got up to about 80 mph, and then fired the things off. Within seconds the car was traveling at 350 mph. The crater was found in the mountainside 100 feet off the ground. Who do you think will be the "dummy" to test this myth? The Pop Rocks and soda legend concerns a boy known as little Mikey, who was featured in commercials for Life cereal. Some years later, Mikey was challenged by his friends to eat six packs of Pop Rocks candy with six cans of soda. According to the myth, the carbon dioxide in the candy combined with the carbon dioxide in the soda to create so much pressure that Mikey's stomach exploded and he died. Our MythBusters risk their lives for you, the viewer, in these two death-defying experiments.