LOS ANGELES — Is it really possible that a combination of gasoline and a cigarette could blow you off a toilet? Will you get wetter walking or running through a rainstorm? Can a penny dropped off the Empire State Building kill you?

The answers to these and many other questions are on the Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters," perhaps the most unorthodox — and most entertaining — science show on TV today.

Hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage use scientific experiments to determine if common myths are true. Although calling it science might be exaggerating a bit — it's mostly good, clean fun. Or, perhaps, good dirty fun, as when in tonight's episode (10 p.m., Discovery) the guys fill a vat with quicksand and, well, test it.

They've determined that, no, you can't get blown off a toilet; it's better to walk through the rain; it's possible that a man, mistakenly believing a new car in the driveway belongs to his wife's lover, could fill it up with concrete; that you're never going to get the smell of a dead body out of a automobile, and many other fascinating facts.

"The classic case — which we all enjoyed doing — was whether, if you eat a poppy seed bagel, you can actually fail a drug test," said co-executive producer Peter Rees. "And that's completely and utterly true."

And the hosts get to blow up a bunch of stuff, which is cool.

Part of the appeal of "Mythbusters" ais that it looks so, well, underground. Low budget, even. You've got two sort of grungy, geeky hosts who obviously have great enthusiasm for what they're doing, and it comes through.

Hyneman runs M5 Industries Inc., a San Francisco company that fabricates props — many involving robotics — and toy prototypes. Savage is "a maker of things" who has worked in the special-effects industry, in addition to being an animator, graphic designer, carpenter, welder, painter, actor and writer. "They've kind of become counter-hosts because they're not really traditional television hosts," Rees said. "Jamie is completely monosyllabic. And Adam has kind of got attention-deficit disorder."

The guys sort of revel in that.

"When they first called Jamie," Savage said, "and asked him if he was interested, he said, 'Well, yeah, but I don't think I'd be interesting or dynamic enough. But I have this friend named Adam, and together we might make a good team.' "

Which they do. And it's oddly fascinating to see them prove or disprove popular myths.

"The stories that we love doing the most are always the ones where we don't know what the outcome is going to be," said Rees, who estimated that's about 60 percent of the total. "One of the ones that's probably the most frightening for Adam and I, and one that we firmly believed in, was, if you're on a ship and it sinks, you can be sucked down.