Mythbusters May Have Fired More Than Half Of Its Cast

By Brent McKnight | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

MythbustersMythbusters is light years better than the vast majority of reality TV out there (I’ve seriously been unfollowing people who tweet about Big Brother). And no matter how you feel about it, Mythbusters is about to undergo significant changes.

Hosts Adam Savage (the red-headed guy) and Jamie Hyneman (the guy who looks like a grumpy walrus) are the main faces of the show, but they’ve also have a trio of supporting players—Kari Byron, Tory Belleci, and Grant Imahara—as back up. Or at least had, because according to reports, the three members of the “Build Team,” who have grown quite popular in their own right, are leaving the show. It actually sounds very much like they’ve been fired, but since we’re not privy to that kind of insider information, we can only speculate.

The announcement came at the end of last night’s episode of Mythbusters, but given shooting schedules, post production, editing, and all of that noise, the three have been unemployed for much longer. Maybe they already have new gigs lined up.

Byron took to social media to says her goodbyes:

I guess you guys are finding out the news right about now. After a decade of the MythBusters, we are no longer with the show. Thank you to all the fans who have supported us. The show is taking a new direction. It was an amazing run. I learned so much about myself and the world. I love you all @MythBusters. I am sad for an ending but there will be exciting new adventures for us.

The idea of the show taking a “new direction”—it has, admittedly, been doing the exact same thing for years—definitely makes is sound like they got the axe, and if they did, there a number of reasons why that could be. Mythbusters isn’t quite as popular as it once was, and if Discovery Channel truly is looking into to doing something different, to break from an overly repetitive tradition, they could very well be planning to tinker with the formula moving forward.

And then, of course, there’s always money. As the three sidekicks gained a larger following, it’s possible they wanted more money than the network was willing to shell out. After a while that gets expensive. That happens all the time in the entertainment business, where each side has a different take on just how much a performer is worth to a particular show or franchise. Tightening the belt some and lowering the budget is also one way to stave off cancellation for another year or so if they’re struggling financially.

Who knows why this happened, it’s likely we will never know the precise reason, but fans of Mythbusters are in for something that may look quite different in the future.