Mythbusters: OJ film developer???

[srs5694]

I just watched tonight's episode of "Mythbusters" (on the Discovery Channel on US cable/satellite systems). For those not in the know, this show is devoted to testing urban legends, myths, etc., "scientifically." (Their scientific rigor seems to be about on a high school science fair level.)

Anyhow, tonight's episode was a "MacGyver Special," in which they tested some feats shown on the TV show "MacGyver." In one task, the hosts had to solve a number of MacGyver-style problems, one of which was developing a roll of film using their choice of a dozen or so common kitchen liquids. The hosts failed at this particular task, but viewers were told that the "correct" solution (presumably taken from the MacGyver TV show) was to develop in orange juice and fix in ammonium. This seems extremely wrong to me, but I thought I'd toss it out for opinions. The OJ would be at a very wrong acidity to develop film, would it not? Would there be any chance for it to work even if you added enough sodium carbonate or some other base? As for fixing, would plain household ammonium do anything at all? I thought it was the thiosulfate part of ammonium thiosulfate that was more critical in fixing film.

[JBrunner]

They should have picked coffee.....

[gainer]

OJ alone, no way. OJ + Tylenol + pH Plus or household ammonia stands a good chance.

[titrisol]

OJ has vitamin C, I would guess that adding Soda (carbonate) so that pH is alkaline it may work.
But as gadget said it is quite imporbable

[jim appleyard]

They'd have been better off using Kryptonite!

[Akki14]

homemade developer - instant coffee & washing soda (sodium carbonate)
homemade fix - allegedly the "make water safe for fish" drops contains sodium thiosulphate so in a pinch you could use that MAYBE but it's way more costly than fix so few people have tried it. I know a 250ml bottle of Tetra Aquasafe costs about £8 and there's lots of other stuff in it so it's probably not at the right concentration either.
Edit: actually Tetra Aquasafe is one brand that DOESN'T contain Sodium thiosulphate apparently (when I googled)

[Christopher Colley]

i wonder how many people made a mess AND ruined some film lastnight/today/whenever the reruns happen

[Toffle]

I'm more more inclined to use alternative chems for paper developing than film. I guess I'm just too afraid of ruining the raw material for printing. Also, the results on the print are readily apparent and can be applied to virtually any good negative. I have had some pretty good (if inconsistent) success with printing using Caffenol. In the case of Caffenol, the effect is more like that of toning developers.

If you're interested, here is an article I produced following my experiments with printing in Caffenol:
http://tomoverton.images.googlepages.com/caffenol

Cheers,

[Photo Engineer]

Orange juice contains vitamin C, ascorbic acid. They had bicarbonate of soda as well on the shelf. Those mixed until the foaming stopped and then addition of more bicarb would have made an alkaline solution of ascorbic acid. That might have developed film in about 1/2 hour or so. The ammonia would have fixed the film at least to the extent of rendering the image stable for a short time and viewable.

PE

[pauliej]

If the Mythbusters show was only about 10 or 15 minutes, without all the repetition and cerebral-ness (duh factor) it would be watchable and sometimes entertaining. As is they take all the fun out of it and take forever to get to the last 2 minutes where they finally shoot something or blow it up or whatever. What was the last show, showing how long it takes for grass to grow or paint to dry? BORING!!!

paulie