MacGyver

If you called me out on Tuesday nights some time in the 80’s when I was in secondary school, I’d probably have to say ‘no’ on the account of a TV show – MacGyver. Everyone of my friends watched that show – guys and girls. It was so popular that anyone who is good at fixing stuff with junk is still called ‘MacGyver’ even today.

For the young punks, the show starred Richard Dean Anderson (who later starred in StarGate SG-1) who works for an ambiguous organization called the Phoenix Foundation doing non-profit work. He’s the regular only star of the show, the only other cast member to appear on and off is his boss Pete (Dana Elcar). Most of the time he’s called on to carry out simple missions that get complicated like stop a smuggling ring, retrieve a precious item from the jungle, rescue a politician’s kidnapped daughter, etc.

Every episode had our intrepid hero using his scientific knowledge, and everyday objects to build something in the nick of time – like buiding a rocket launcher using garden products, building a bomb to blow down a down using stationery, saving a person from hear-attack with liquid from a copier machine, etc (not exactly, but something like that la). This part was usually the highlight of the show, and while most of the time, the scientific reality of it was believeable, some of the episodes were a little far-fetch even to someone with a college degree. But of course to a 10-year old kid like me it was like awesome, man… Two items he always carried with him was his trusty Swiss Army knife and duct tape. Typical guy la.

There are a few things that I remember about MacGyver:

• He believed in non-violence, and never killed anyone. He only mostly damaged property with his inventions. He was the 80’s environmental warrior – some of his tasks dealt with this. He also drove a low mileage open top jeep. Mainly to drive the fangirls wild with his wind-blown hair.
• Every other episode involved with a beautiful girl, either working with him or him rescuing her. They’d always be like, infatuated with him, but he’d be cool about it… i wonder why… (come to think of it…)
• Other than Mac and his boss, a few other regular guest-stars appeared a few times each season. One of them was Jack Dalton, his seedy friend that is always on some scheme to get rich but getting both of them in trouble. The other was Murdoc, Mac’s nemesis that always seemed to get away.
• The technical aspect of the show started to deteriorate in later seasons, and sometimes even repeated. Probably because the writers started to run out of ideas.
• Mac’s first name was never given, until the last season when it was revealed to be ‘Angus’.

A check with Wikipedia showed that the show ran for 7 seasons, although i don’t remember following the last few seasons closely. But it was a great show during its peak… also encouraged lots of kids to take apart their parent’s washing machine or telephone ‘to be like MacGyver’…!