Time Warp (2008) s01e16 Episode Script

LIEBERMAN: Hit it.
NARRATOR: What happens when a drummer beats -- and we mean that literally -- the world speed record Look at that! NARRATOR: when a samurai sword More bone, more flesh.
NARRATOR: runs amok in the kitchen [Grunts.]
NARRATOR: and when a man -How was that run, Matt? -KEARNEY: That was awesome.
NARRATOR: walks on water? What happens? "Time Warp"! KEARNEY: Uh-oh.
[Laughter.]
NARRATOR: Take two guys whose slo-mo cameras can stop the world in its tracks I'm gonna run down there and catch all the action.
-Good luck.
-All right.
Matt, you ready? All right, Greg, I reset this camera.
We're gonna take a look at your takeoff this time.
NARRATOR: add a high-tech laboratory, where anything can and will happen and toss in some of the world's wildest talents.
- [Electricity crackling.]
-Aah! [Barking.]
What happens? Now, you might remember when we tried to walk on water.
LIEBERMAN: It's time for a hoedown.
KEARNEY: A hoedown? NARRATOR: It only took a ton or so of cornstarch to get it done.
I am gone, man.
NARRATOR: But there's got to be an easier way.
And now Kevin Williamson Jr.
is going to demonstrate another "feet" of science.
One run would be probably 30 seconds.
All right, you gonna capture all that stuff? KEARNEY: Absolutely.
NARRATOR: Kevin is ranked fifth in the world for barefooting.
You got it -- water-skiing without the skis.
Our cameras went along as Kevin strutted his stuff.
KEARNEY: All right.
We're going.
NARRATOR: Now, barefooting involves four variables -- wind, waves, speed, and body position.
Together, they determine whether Kevin glides or sinks like a stone.
Ouch! That doesn't even seem easy on any level.
NARRATOR: This is no easy feat when the feet are pushing against the water at 45 miles per hour.
Wow! LIEBERMAN: How was that run, Matt? That was awesome.
That looked great.
All right.
Sounds good.
NARRATOR: At 500 frames per second, we reveal Kevin's technique for doing the impossible.
The really difficult part is trying to keep balanced while going from laying down to sitting up to standing up.
KEARNEY: I'm just watching your feet bouncing around like that.
They're not killing you right now? My feet are killing me watching you.
They don't hurt unless you hold on for a long, long time.
Then they'll start to burn.
Normally, you have a couple square feet of surface area.
Now you have much less surface area.
You have to put a lot higher pressure and force on your feet to deflect the water downward to keep yourself lifted.
And that means a lot faster velocity on the boat and a lot more spray.
You're just pushing water a lot faster in general.
It's extreme.
NARRATOR: "Extreme" might be considered an understatement.
LIEBERMAN: Look how calm you are.
WILLIAMSON JR.
: This hurts the rest of your body.
LIEBERMAN: It almost looks like a trick.
How dangerous is this when you fall? Oh, it can get pretty dangerous.
It feels like concrete going that fast.
The thing is to learn new tricks.
I mean, you have to find that balance between keeping yourself healthy and, you know, getting better at the sport.
NARRATOR: The transition between stunts is typically the hardest time to stay up.
LIEBERMAN: So this is a really hard transition, from front to back.
-It seems so disorienting.
-Yeah, that's a tough one.
You kind of have to feel where you are, especially in the rough water.
LIEBERMAN: Amazing.
Kevin, you got one more run in it? Oh, yeah.
Get back out there.
All right.
NARRATOR: Now, we can never leave well enough alone, so back to the water for one more demonstration.
LIEBERMAN: ♫ Are you ready for some high-speed? ♫ [Laughs.]
NARRATOR: Because the water has become choppy, Kevin uses a boom pole off the side of the boat to avoid physical injury.
This might make it even easier for Matt to angle in on the action.
Look at this -- toehold tumble turns and a whole lot of spray.
LIEBERMAN: [Laughing.]
Yeah! Oh, my God.
It's so much more fun to watch it when it's 5 feet away than when it's on a tow line.
You see everything.
You see every detail.
It's really amazing to see, and it is amazing to see how much less spray you put on when you're using your entire back.
The surface area -- You switch back to a smaller surface area, and suddenly you have to move the water a lot more.
The spray going everywhere.
LIEBERMAN: I'm amazed that you don't need more speed when you go on one foot, given the whole surface area suddenly cuts in half.
Does your other foot compensate? Does it dip lower into the water to catch more water? Well, you have to lean back a little more.
I don't know if you can tell from this, but when I lift one foot up, I'm leaning away so I, obviously, don't fall.
Well, that makes sense because you need to deflect the water at a greater angle to keep the same upward momentum.
KEARNEY: I mean, that's just cool-looking.
-Water is fun.
-Yeah, that was cool.
LIEBERMAN: That is amazing.
NARRATOR: Ready, everybody? Let's go.
This is a "feet" of nature, fortunately without the agony of "de-feet," "feet-ured" on "Time Warp.
" Ah, we think you'll agree it's time to wrap this up as we have exhausted every possible stupid play on words.
Perfect height.
NARRATOR: One thing you've got to know about this show -- We never leave well enough alone.
Remember James Williams, the samurai-sword-wielding martial-arts expert and his katana sword? You wouldn't have seen that coming till your head was gone.
NARRATOR: Samurai believe the katana's real power lies in the hands of the swordsman.
As I cut, I'm actually sending a wave of energy through my body.
NARRATOR: The samurai transfer their own kinetic energy through their arms to victims.
All right.
Don't believe it? Jeff sure does.
All right.
NARRATOR: We never get tired of watching that.
All right.
I've had enough.
NARRATOR: But that's not what got us thinking.
We watched James cut through a forest of wet tatami mats.
Why? They put up as much resistance as a human torso does.
KEARNEY: Yeah, I'm looking at it, and I'm still thinking that looks like a rolled-up window blind.
NARRATOR: The mats were cool but, in our humble estimation, not cool enough, which got us thinking again.
So we should get him with his crazy katana blade and have him destroy some serious things.
NARRATOR: Ask and ye shall receive.
LIEBERMAN: We got a kitchen table full of things.
KEARNEY: All kinds of squishy stuff that are not tatami mats.
NARRATOR: First victim, an egg.
KEARNEY: That's extraordinary -- the fact that you can cut a little cap off of it.
And leave the yolk intact, please.
Oh, you did.
Thank you.
NARRATOR: The "yolk" is on us.
[Clears throat.]
Sorry about that.
Moving on up the food chain, it's time to go fishing.
The salmon barely moves at all as the razor-sharp katana cuts diagonally through its backbone.
Looks like a real efficient way to chop somebody in half.
WILLIAMS: Not a lot of resistance to the blade.
As you can see, it just moves right through it.
NARRATOR: We mentioned we found the tatami mat boring because, although it simulated human flesh, it still looked like, well, a rug, which influenced our next choice of target.
Pork, anyone? This is totally human.
NARRATOR: But it could have been worse.
Japanese used to test their swords on prisoners, condemned prisoners.
And one particular very large-limbed guy, nobody wanted to test the sword on him because the possibility of cracking the jung bong.
NARRATOR: Jung bong -- that's Japanese for the hardened edge of the sword.
You're really cutting through human-feeling tissue now.
It even looks like an armpit.
That is an armpit.
NARRATOR: Thanks for sharing, Jeff.
Now we won't be able to get that image out of our mind.
So this should be a much more real challenge.
This feels to me pretty much how a human shoulder blade does.
Actually, pigs don't tend to have much marrow.
Their bones tend to be very thick and hard.
NARRATOR: Enough with the human stuff already.
Go for it, James.
All right.
Look how big that bone is.
NARRATOR: James's katana cuts clean through porky's bone, even on the diagonal.
Th-Th-That's all, folks! LIEBERMAN: I still don't see barely any deceleration when you hit that bone.
I can feel it click through.
But it's gone through by the time -- you know, it's gone.
NARRATOR: Watch again.
Now back to the butcher shop for another target.
All right, so, bigger pig, more resistance, more bone, more flesh.
NARRATOR: Testing the upper limits of sword and swordsman, the "Warp" crew hang an even larger hunk of pork.
Will it make a difference? [Shouts.]
LIEBERMAN: Okay.
I think the difference was the scream.
You totally didn't do that before.
Last time was committed.
It was going through.
Before, we're cutting more technically.
That was a cut to cut him down.
Period.
NARRATOR: Porkchopped.
LIEBERMAN: Bones are just what evolved to make us structurally stable, and any kind of metal is so much harder than anything in the human body.
NARRATOR: Now, you Warpies know that we often ask guests what they want to see in slow motion.
Fortunately, James did not ask for some condemned prisoners.
[Drums playing.]
NARRATOR: Here at the "Time Warp" labs, the beat goes on and on and on.
Thank you.
Mike Mangini, one of the great drummers, in our studio.
Thanks for coming out.
Them's some quick hands right there.
Yeah, it's pretty much invisible, what you're doing.
How do you do it? Passion and a good practice method.
-Lot of practice.
-Lot of practice.
NARRATOR: In this case, practice has made perfect.
Mike set a world speed record with an incredible over 20 beats a second.
[Cheers and applause.]
But what happens when stick meets drum kit and drum kit meets human body? Time to find out.
We would love to get some of this technique on high-speed, figure out how to do it for ourselves.
Absolutely.
NARRATOR: First, a little warm-up on the Drumometer, a device that calculates beats per second.
So we're set up for just a 10-second run as fast as you can go.
NARRATOR: Let's see if Mike can match his record.
[Exhales slowly.]
A deep breath, and he's gone.
Now watch the numbers fly.
That's pretty amazing.
NARRATOR: Top drummers are nothing if not amazing and consistent.
In warp time, Mike's precise moves are clear.
The action really is all in the wrist.
As the sticks fly up and down, the rest of his body barely moves.
But what happens when Mike lets this blur loose across his entire kit? Mike, do you like heat and lights, and did you bring your suntan lotion? Si.
NARRATOR: This is one drum solo nobody will want to walk out of.
MAN: Hit it! Nice.
Very nice.
NARRATOR: Rock drummers work at the limits of human endurance.
They burn up to 600 calories an hour and are at risk for sprains, heart strain, and stress injury.
Even collapsed lungs have been reported.
I have to know what parts of my body have to be flexed so that I just don't lose control.
And it seems like a lot of people fall into the trap of injuries because they're depending on these tiny muscles to fix things that the big muscles should be doing.
You nailed it.
NARRATOR: The sticks lay loose in his fingers, he uses the larger muscles in his hand, and he lets his fingers stay relaxed.
You want to talk about looseness -- Look at your back hand doing the rimshot.
Your ring finger just completely shakes out three or four times, every time you're making that hit.
And if you were tense, you'd get all the tendinitis issues.
But you can see how loose your hands have to Be through all those motions.
NARRATOR: Watch Mike's left hand again.
His ring finger is loose, relaxed, while the rest of him is tense and working hard.
Just out of curiosity, how many steps ahead are you of your hands -- in your mind, with your eyes? MANGINI: Once I'm hitting the two hi-hat cymbals that are at the top, I'm thinking about hitting the ones that are at the bottom.
So when I'm hitting one thing, I'm thinking about the next thing I'm gonna hit.
KEARNEY: Your eyes are one or two steps ahead.
MANGINI: You can see that.
That's a flick hit.
Watch.
It's like hitting a fly.
[Laughter.]
Next fly that's in my house is getting that treatment.
It's a backwards slap.
Biff! [Cymbal crashes.]
NARRATOR: Wicked.
Okay, so much for the drummer.
Now, what's happening to the drum kit itself? MANGINI: Ohh! LIEBERMAN: Everyday normal scenario.
That's not funny.
Look at that! LIEBERMAN: It's an amazing thing, right? MANGINI: I-I don't believe what I'm looking at.
NARRATOR: The snare skin appears almost liquid as it absorbs the impact of Mike's stick.
MANGINI: And it doesn't stop until my stick touches the drumhead again.
We should look at one of your cymbals, set that up.
It's probably gonna look like -- ohh.
[Laughs.]
MAN: Hit it! [Gasps.]
KEARNEY: That's outra-- It's unbelievable.
LIEBERMAN: Watch the deflection you put in carry that wave all around the ring.
And now it just gets to the back.
And then it starts going nuts.
MANGINI: And it comes back to the front.
I've been beating the heck out of them for years, and they haven't broken.
I can't even believe what I'm looking at.
That's unbelievable.
NARRATOR: Clearly, "Time Warp" is on a roll, made in their shades.
[Laughs.]
That's how you end it.
NARRATOR: For people who break glass as often as "Time Warp" does, you'd think we'd know what to expect.
But sometimes the results are unexpected -- like when we fired a paintball at a light bulb.
Now, watch closely.
Notice something? After the paintball explodes this, the filament stays lit for, like -- I don't know what that is -- at least a second.
LIEBERMAN: It needs oxygen to do that.
As soon as you break that glass, a couple molecules of oxygen start getting in there and actually lights on fire, burns away the metal.
NARRATOR: How does a light bulb stay lit? Not exactly a question you ask every day, but since we brought it up LIEBERMAN: Pretend this is the filament of the bulb.
-It's just some metal.
-Steel wool.
LIEBERMAN: Now, when it's not in anything except a vacuum, it heats up, and it radiates light.
So if I just had a light bulb with no bulb around it, if I just had the filament glowing, one second or two seconds is all I'm gonna get.
If that.
Yeah, actually, what I'm setting up here is kind of that-on-steroids version where instead of just a very small current -- this is a couple milliamps -- I've got here, you know, and a much bigger piece of steel wool.
[Click, electricity hums.]
- [Crackles.]
-That is cool.
NARRATOR: Watch again.
The steel wool meets the electricity, hesitates, and then burns away.
Fire, smoke, and vapor -- ah, inspiration.
We don't know about art, but we sure know what Jeff likes.
He begins with a sheet of watercolor art paper attached to a makeshift easel, a strand of filament wire, and a couple of twists across some terminals.
-Am I gonna be safe here? -You're totally safe.
Just make sure your ear protection is on.
NARRATOR: Add 15,000 volts.
In an instant, high-speed cameras capture an exploding wire as hot as the sun.
LIEBERMAN: Now, look at what's left over.
Now, that happens in two separate phases.
There's the first phase where everything vaporizes.
NARRATOR: Smokin'! LIEBERMAN: And then the material of this thing forming a vapor deposits itself.
NARRATOR: The paper traps the vapor like a photograph captures light.
Traces of color come courtesy of chemical residue from the wire.
LIEBERMAN: So the colors are all because of the material that's in the wire.
So we have the typical green that comes from copper.
There's also some other things in there.
I even see some reds and yellows.
That's because it's not pure copper wire.
There's other elements in there.
NARRATOR: Every one of these flash cards is entirely unique -- the signature imprint of a single event in time.
Better living through electricity.
Something you want to see warped? Check us out on the Discovery Channel Website -- discovery.
com/timewarp -- and the warp you see just might be your own.
That's how you end it.