{"id":56943,"date":"2020-07-14T01:34:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T06:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=56943"},"modified":"2020-07-14T01:34:11","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T06:34:11","slug":"56943","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=56943","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Grant Imahara, Host of ‘MythBusters’ and ‘White Rabbit Project,’ Dies at 49<\/a><\/p>\n

An electrical engineer and roboticist by training, he worked for a long time at Lucasfilm’s THX and Industrial Light and Magic divisions.<\/p>\n

Grant Imahara, an electrical engineer and roboticist who hosted the popular science show\u00a0MythBusters<\/em>\u00a0and Netflix’s\u00a0White Rabbit Project<\/em>, has died. He was 49.<\/p>\n

Imahara died suddenly following a brain aneurysm,\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>\u00a0has learned. “We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant. He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family,” a representative for Discovery said in a statement on Monday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

An electrical engineer and roboticist by training, he joined Discovery’s\u00a0MythBusters<\/em>\u00a0in its third season, replacing\u00a0Scottie Chapman and was with the show until 2014 when he left with co-hosts Kari Byron and Tory Belleci. The trio would reunite in 2016 for Netflix’s\u00a0White Rabbit Project\u00a0<\/em>which lasted for one season. On\u00a0MythBusters<\/em>, Imahara used his technical expertise to design and build robots for the show and also operated the computers and electronics needed to test myths.<\/p>\n

While part of the\u00a0Mythbusters<\/em>\u00a0team, he sky-dived and drove stunt cars, on film sets he came into contact with some of the most iconic characters in screen history, installing lights onto\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>‘ R2-D2, creating the robot Geoff Peterson for\u00a0The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson<\/em>\u00a0and working on the Energizer Bunny.<\/p>\n

On Monday evening, Imahara’s\u00a0MythBusters<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0White Rabbit Project<\/em>\u00a0co-host Byron\u00a0tweeted<\/a>, “Sometimes I wish I had a time machine,” and included a picture with Imahara and Belleci.<\/p>\n

Later on Monday,\u00a0Mythbusters<\/em>\u00a0co-host Adam Savage\u00a0also tweeted<\/a>: “I\u2019m at a loss. No words. I\u2019ve been part of two big families with Grant Imahara over the last 22 years. Grant was a truly brilliant engineer, artist and performer, but also just such a generous, easygoing, and gentle PERSON. Working with Grant was so much fun. I\u2019ll miss my friend.”<\/p>\n

Born in Los Angeles, Imahara studied electrical engineering at the University of Southern California (though he briefly had doubts and wanted to become a screenwriter) before combining the two passions and landing a post-graduation gig at Lucasfilm-associated THX labs. In his nine years at Lucasfilm, he worked for the company’s THX and Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) divisions. In his years at ILM he became chief model maker specializing in animatronics and worked on George Lucas’\u00a0Star Wars\u00a0<\/em>prequels, as well as\u00a0The Matrix Reloaded<\/em>,\u00a0The Matrix Revolutions<\/em>,\u00a0Galaxy Quest<\/em>,\u00a0XXX: State of the Union<\/em>,\u00a0Van Helsing<\/em>,\u00a0The Lost World: Jurassic Park<\/em>,\u00a0A.I. Artificial Intelligence<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In 2000, Imahara also competed in Comedy Central’s\u00a0BattleBots<\/em>\u00a0with a robot he built himself called “Deadblow” that won two Middleweight Rumbles, was the first season’s Middleweight runner-up and became the third season’s first-ranked robot.<\/p>\n

As computer graphics began to supplant model-making in the aughts, former ILM colleague Tony Belleci suggested Imahara come aboard\u00a0Mythbusters<\/em>, the Discovery show Belleci co-hosted. As a co-host, he became a self-described “human guinea pig,” though if they determined a situation unfit for humans, they created machines to test them in their place.<\/p>\n

Imahara also starred in several episodes of the fan-made web series\u00a0Star Trek Continues<\/em>. He played Hikaru Sulu, a lieutenant, helmsman and third officer on the USS Enterprise, in the show that was an unofficial continuation of\u00a0Star Trek: The Original Series<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In a 2008 interview with\u00a0Machine Design<\/em>, Imahara told the publication that he wanted to be an engineer because “I liked the challenge of designing and building things, figuring out how something works and how to make it better or apply it in a different way. When I was a kid, I never wanted to be James Bond. I wanted to be Q, because he was the guy who made all the gadgets. I guess you could say that engineering came naturally.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grant Imahara, Host of ‘MythBusters’ and ‘White Rabbit Project,’ Dies at 49 An electrical engineer and roboticist by training, he worked for a long time at Lucasfilm’s THX and Industrial Light and Magic divisions. Grant Imahara, an electrical engineer and roboticist who hosted the popular science show\u00a0MythBusters\u00a0and Netflix’s\u00a0White Rabbit Project, has died. He was 49. … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-passages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56944,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56943\/revisions\/56944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}