TOMORROW is my last day of shooting Mythbusters ever and we’ve got some very large kind of spectacular explosions and things like that we’ve cooked up for the final send up. We’re revisiting the cement-truck dynamite myth but this time we’re doing it with many times more explosives. Because we (Hyneman and co-host Adam Savage) can. It’s what we do.

We’ve been on for 14 years, which has got to be something of a record, and we wanted to go out when the material was still strong.

The nature of the myths has changed: when it started it was primarily urban legends and then we started doing aphorisms and sayings and movie myths and things like that, so it got broader. Personally I’m more into science and engineering types of things, not so much into testing Star Wars myths. We did an episode (in the new season) testing lightsabers and such that I personally found a bit of a stretch.

Usually we do the math (and know the likely outcome of a myth before we test it). A lot of times the more surprising stuff is the little things that happen. The myth about whether elephants are frightened of mice which is something on the face of it you would say ‘of course they’re not, a mouse is in scale like a flea to us and so why would it be afraid of it?’

We tested that, the elephant came along and we were just hoping the mouse wouldn’t get squished. But it was like watching a cartoon. The elephant sees the mouse and braces on all fours, backs up a little bit and literally tip toes around the mouse to the side before continuing. We were just gobsmacked. If I had one word to describe how I feel at never having to work with co-host Adam Savage again it’d be relief.

Adam and I have known each other for over 25 years now and we’ve never once sat down to have dinner alone together. It’s pretty amazing. There are a lot of things we have in common in terms of our attitudes and interests and there are a lot of things we don’t and what’s kept the relationship workable is we both try and maintain a healthy sense of respect for each and for what we bring to the table. So even though we’d both like nothing better than to never have to work together again at all, it’s all in all been a very productive relationship that I think we’re both quite happy with.

We’re both executive producers of (an untitled new scripted TV series for CBS) and in that sense we will be working together some, but largely as creative input on the series. I’m not at liberty to give away what the plot’s about but it’s going to astonish quite a few people when it comes out I believe. It’s going to be very action adventure with a lot of tech and engineering involved. Our function is to make sure that science and engineering is both creative and also realistic.

I have a lot going on, I’ve been doing some work on the side for the Office of Naval Research here in the United States, I’ve got a fairly large project that involves designing and building a full scale naval vessel for them and I’ve got other things (I’m building) like robots for fighting these wild fires happening in the western US, and so I’m doing a lot of R and D.

Mythbusters Star Wars special The Mythbusters put some of the most famous Star Wars action to the test in their new season. Courtesy: Discovery Channel

Mythbusters, SBS, Friday, 7.30pm

— Jamie Hyneman spoke to New Corp Australia’s Andrew Fenton