Mythbusters: Brer Rabbit Edition
Adam: And I'm Adam
Together: And we are the Mythbusters
Adam: You know, Jamie I was just reading through the Brer Rabbit stories the other day--
Jamie: Oh, those southern African-American stories?
Adam: Yeah, those. And I ran across something peculiar.
Jamie: What's that?
Adam: Well, in one of the stories a turtle tells this bear that he is stronger than that big bear.
Jamie: Well that does sound dubious.
Adam: Yeah, but what caught my attention was the trick he played on the bear. They each took an end of the rope and the bear's goal was to pull in the turtle. But the turtle went into a patch of water and tied his end of the rope to a clay root.
Jamie: Oh, so the bear couldn't move the root which makes it look like the turtle wins.
Adam: Yeah, but I was wondering if that would work.
Jamie: Well, we could test it. But, we probably shouldn't just attach a bear to a rope.
Adam: No, I think we need to build a pulling machine instead.
Commercial
Adam: So we're here at the shop, and Jamie and I are working on making a mechanical arm that will pull with the strength of a bear.
Jamie: You see, we need to not only get the strength right, but also the angle and the swiftness of the pull.
Adam: In the myth, the bear both does a few quick, powerful pulls and tries to steadily pull while walking. We need to be able to replicate both.
Jamie: So what I am doing is calibrating the arm to do a powerful jerk type pull when I push this blue button and a less powerful but steadier pull when I push this yellow button. We will try both and see if either can get a clay root to budge.
Adam: So, Jamie, how do we know how strong a bear is?
Jamie: Well I called up an expert at the Sacramento zoo so that we can be as accurate as possible.
Adam: And you are using those estimates to calibrate your little buddy over there?
Jamie: That's right. And it is almost ready for testing.
Commercial
Adam: So we're here at a secret site that has a creek running through it and we've got our bear-o-matic. So what we're going to do, is we are going to tie this rope.....to this root down here......and to the bear-o-matic.
Jamie: and from behind this blast shield I will first press the blue power button and then the yellow pull button just like the sequence in the story.
Adam: Alright, here we go, Jamie hit it!
WOAH!!! THE ROPE BROKE
Jamie: Well I think we can say that with an average rope this myth is busted.
Adam: No doubt about that, the rope breaks before anything can move! But I want to do a real match up so lets use some steel cable next.
Jamie: Sounds good.
Adam: Alright, so now we have attached the steel cable to the root and the bear and we are going to try this again. Jamie, 3....2.....1..... go!
Jamie: Well the sharp tugs didn't work, so lets try the steady pull.
3.....2.....1.... initiating
Adam: So basically, we are now just going to wait until something happens........
Commercial
Adam: Well it has been a full two minutes so we are going to end the test. Let's go look at the root and see how it is faring.
Jamie: Well it looks like the root did actually move a little bit.
Adam: Yeah, it's still in the ground, but it has definitely moved.
Jamie: So the myth is definitely busted, but with a steel cable it appears to be plausible.
Adam: I agree, completely plausible.
End Episode.
Author's Note: This week I read the Brer rabbit unit that comes from Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings. These are a collection of southern African-American stories mostly centered around Brer Rabbit and his friends. This episode of Mythbusters is based around the story Mr. Terrapin Shows His Strength. In this story, Mr. Terrapin brags that he is stronger than Mr. Bear and so they come up with a test to see who really was stronger. No one believed that a little turtle could beat a bear. The test was that each would take an end of the rope and Mr. Bear would see if he could pull Mr. Terrapin out of a small body of water. Mr. Terrapin was clever and tied the rope around a clay root in the water and Mr. Bear was not able to make it move. When the bear came closer to tell the turtle he won, Mr. Terrapin quickly untied the rope and held onto it. I chose this story for a Mythbusters episode because it made me wonder if a bear would actually lose to a clay root. I still do not know the answer, but it made for a fun story to write.
Bibliography: Mr. Terrapin Shows his strength from Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings by Joel Chandler Harris (1881)
I really liked your story! Great job! I liked how you went about telling it as a Mythbusters episode. The whole tim eI could just image the story being told as it was airing on TV. Just like an actual episode of Mythbusters. Just as you said this was a fun story to write, it was also a fun story to read! Great story!
ReplyDeleteI love Mythbusters, so this was really fun for me to read. It was a very creative idea to use. I read a similar story but it was an elephant not a bear I believe. When I read it I had the same reaction as you- would that really work? So I enjoyed how you answered the question in your retelling by busting the myth with regular rope. You paid great attention to detail by calling in an expert to tell the average strength of a bear. Great job!
ReplyDeleteI love that you wrote a story from the mythbusters point of view (that was always one of my favorite shows growing up). I also really liked the formatting style you chose to use for this particular story. The dialogue makes it easy to read and allows to characters to come to life! Great job, I really enjoyed reading this story!
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