Rocket City Rednecks (2011– ) User Reviews (2)

Funniest Science Show I Have Ever Seen

[murray_mg · 9 November 2011]

Simply put, the Rocket City Rednecks put every other Science/entertainment show ever done to shame. Bill Nye, Beakman, the MythBusters and Effin' Science cannot hold a candle to this kind of ingenuity and humor.

The title conjures up images of Larry the Cable Guy and Jeff Foxworthy, but the reality is far from that. As a High School Science teacher, I would love to show this in class, except that I would get in trouble because every episode has at least two or three references to drinking beer. Other than that, this show is BRILLIANT! I have read that Travis Taylor has done other science shows, and now I'd like to see them as well. (spoiler) Here's the premise: The principle scientist Travis Taylor is a real-life aerospace engineer at the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville Alabama, and holds multiple advanced degrees in Physics and other Sciences. He is a 2nd generation NASA rocket scientist; his father was a machinist who helped build rockets(we do not learn if his father has a degree, but he is clearly a genius as well)for the Apollo program. Travis' family and friends all consist of genius IQ individuals and his brother in law is also a NASA engineer. So what do a bunch of geniuses in Alabama do on the weekend? Well, they drink a lot of beer, and build a working two-man submarine out of an industrial size fertilizer tank and some beer kegs, and it really works! Then they drink some more beer, and build a real-life Iron Man suit complete with missile launcher out of old car parts. Then they drink some more beer and build a working radio telescope that picks up x-ray emissions from the cosmos. And it just keeps getting better with every episode. This show sparks my imagination, and makes me feel like a kid again, like when my best friend and I tried to recreate Tom Sawyer's river raft using a wood palette and a dozen empty gallon jugs (it sank like a rock, but it didn't stop us from trying). I thank the Taylor family and friends for showing how much fun it is to use your intellect creatively. I hope this show becomes the biggest success the NatGeo channel has ever had. Safety 3rd, folks! (you gotta watch to understand what they mean by that)

Need to take it in the right spirit....

[innocuous · 6/10 · 1 September 2014]

Accepting this as being similar to Mythbusters is very difficult, and rightly so. Your best bet is to just sit back and pretend that it's a fictional show about rednecks trying to achieve some engineering feats and how they might go about it. I live in NC and so the accents are not off-putting to me, but there are a few negative aspects that I had to make allowances for. Among these are: (1) The constant statements about how useful their inventions and concepts might be to the world or to the military. In fact, virtually everything they try has either been done before (and done much better), is impractical in the real world, or just doesn't work. (2) I would also expect that they could anticipate a few of their problems by doing more math before they try something. (3) Some of the outcomes are obviously exaggerated, either by selective editing or other methods, to the point that you might call them "fake." (4) Contrary to the statements about making do with what they've got at hand, they obviously spend thousands of dollars on some of the projects, purchasing multiple high-tech motors, blu-ray players, high-tech materials, and similar supplies. On the whole, Mythbusters is a lot more scientific and reliable as to results.