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The spontaneous inventions have come to be nicknamed MacGyverisms and even led to the verb, 'to MacGyver' or 'to MacGyver-ize'. This word was used in Richard Dean Anderson's project Stargate SG-1, in a moment in the first episode when the character Samantha Carter (portrayed by Amanda Tapping) comments on the time and effort that had been required "to MacGyver" a replacement for the Stargate's long-lost control system. Anderson's character, Colonel Jack O'Neill, is seen to inwardly groan and roll his eyes, in the manner of one who is not being allowed to forget something. In a blooper later in the first season, while trapped under Antarctica with a seemingly broken dialing device (episode 18 "Solitudes"), Tapping complains that she can't "get the DHD working with duct tape and his army knife":

You spend seven years on MacGyver and you can't figure this one out? We, we've got belt buckles, and shoelaces and a piece of gum; build a nuclear reactor, for crying out loud. You used to be MacGyver, MacGadget, MacGimmick. Now you're Mister MacUseless. (crew & RDA start to laugh) Dear god, I'm stuck on a glacier with MacGyver!

MacGyverism is a derivative of the "robinsonade" genre, named after Robinson Crusoe (1719). In this genre, the protagonist is suddenly isolated from the comforts of civilization and must improvise the means of his survival from the limited resources at hand. MacGyverism is also an example of bricolage, and MacGyver himself is the paradigm of a bricoleur ("a person who creates things from existing materials, is creative and resourceful"). It was first used by Joanne Remmings (played by Pamela Bowen) in the second-season episode #3 "Twice Stung", in which MacGyver must con a con man. (The episode title is a reference to The Sting, with Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Dana Elcar.)

A Swiss Army knife is commonly called Macgybar Chakku in Bangladesh, Maekgaibeo Kal in South Korea, and Pisau MacGyver/Pisau Lipat MacGyver' in Indonesia and Malaysia. (Chakku, Kal and Pisau mean knife in Bengali, Korean and Malay, respectively.)[citation needed] In Malaysia, the term "MacGyver knife" (English) is also commonly used.[citation needed] In Poland it's known as the "Scyzoryk MacGyver'a", which means just "Macgyver's knife".[citation needed] In Norway and in certain areas of Finland, duct tape is commonly known, to some degree, as "MacGyver-tape", though it is more used in a joking manner.[citation needed] In Mozambique, fixing something by adapting locally-available parts is sometimes referred to as doing a "Macgyver".[citation needed] In Taiwan, a person who is knowledgable or skilled at a technical subject X is termed an "X magaixian" ("X MacGyver").[citation needed]

College theater programs have started an unofficial "MacGyver Society" to honor those students that are excellent problem solvers, or those that are good at thinking creatively. Members are commonly inducted at end of year award ceremonies within the programs, and are given a keyring sized Swiss Army Knife. They also recite a pledge about thinking creatively and staying calm, and pledging to continue "Making Something Out of Nothing."[citation needed]


[edit] In the media
In 2006, Anderson appeared in a MasterCard television commercial for Super Bowl XL. The spot poked fun at the character's ability to use everyday objects to perform extraordinary feats: In it, he manages to cut the ropes binding him to a chair using a pine tree air freshener, uses an ordinary tube sock as the pulley for a zipline, and somehow repairs and hotwires a nonfunctional truck using a paper clip, ballpoint pen, rubber band, tweezers, nasal spray and a turkey baster. In contrast to previous MasterCard commercials showing people making somewhat extravagant purchases to accomplish some mundane task, MacGyver is here portrayed as escaping from some sort of deathtrap using less than $20 worth of common household items. The commercial ends by showing him purposefully buying an assortment of such things at a department store with his credit card (as a tongue-in-cheek explanation for how Mac seems to always have items he needs on hand no matter where he goes). Although the commercial clearly indicates Anderson is portraying the role of MacGyver, he is never explicitly identified as such, possibly due to licensing issues related to the character.

The series is referenced in many episodes of The Simpsons, primarily detailing Marge Simpson's sisters Patty and Selma's obsession with the show and their crush on the MacGyver character. The sisters' regular viewing of the show is an unalterable element of their daily schedule to the point of death as demonstrated in the episode "Black Widower." The episode featured a fictional scene of MacGyver where he downplays his role in saving a village ("Don't thank me. Thank the moon's gravitational pull"). [13] In another episode, "A Star is Burns," Homer tricks Jay Sherman into insulting MacGyver in front of Patty and Selma; Sherman ends up being hung from the rain gutter by his underpants, and Bart asks "You badmouthed MacGyver, didn't you?" Anderson himself is an avid fan of The Simpsons, and even provided his voice for an episode of the show titled "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore", which first aired April 6, 2006.

In the Beavis and Butt-Head episode, Citizen Butt-Head (1993), the pair are abruptly confronted by a member of the Secret Service, to which Beavis says, "Look, it's MacGyver!"

In the season one episode titled "Brian: Portrait of a Dog" from Family Guy, Peter writes a letter to Richard Dean Anderson asking him to save his dog using the enclosed items from the envelope: a rubber band, a paper clip and a straw. Anderson puts these together and hits himself in the eye with the rubber band.

The New Zealand sporting skit show Pulp Sport had a running gag called "McIvor" in which the MacGyver theme is played, and a prank involving Sky TV sports presenter Steven McIvor is played out. This gag, instead, now targets TV3 sports news presenter Hamish McKay (dubbed "McKay-ver"). The pranks usually involve the office area (a mobile phone taped to the under side of a desk) or something happening to the car of the victim (placing a goat in the back seat).

In 2007, the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live featured a parody of MacGyver called "MacGruber" with Will Forte as the title character. The intros for these skits featured scenes from the MacGyver series. There were three installments of the pretaped, three-part sketch; one set in January in an episode hosted by Jeremy Piven[14] and another in May, hosted by former castmember Molly Shannon.[15] The sketch returned for the October 7, 2007 show, with host Seth Rogen,[16] and again on March 15, 2008.[17]

G4 aired a small series of MacGyver parodies about a young corporate cubicle worker known as MacGunner. He would construct ridiculous items out of cubicle materials, such as several dozen markers hooked end to end in order to reach over to his arch-enemy's cubicle and type a scathing email to the boss.

In Randall Munroe's xkcd comic on July 2nd 2008, he made a comic depicting a potentially lazy MacGyver.[18]

In the song by British band, the Million Dead of the same name where MacGyver is killed after being mugged by a group of kids. Some MacGyverisms are also referenced but MacGyver is unable to help himself and dies as a result of the attack

In 2008 the "What would MacGyver do?" phrase was used in a New Zealand television commercial for Gregg's "freestyle cooking" range of herbs and spices. The commercial featured the word MacGyver unfolding like a puzzle with a potato peeler and chopping knife opening out like the blades of a Swiss Army Knife.[19]


[edit] Mythbusters
In February 2008, the popular science show Mythbusters featured a MacGyver special which tested several of MacGyver's tactics. The first test examined MacGyver's famous cold capsule bomb, which utilized the explosive reaction of alkaline metals with water. Supposedly, dropping 1 gram of sodium metal into water will cause an explosive reaction powerful enough to blow a hole through a cinderblock wall. However, despite using 100 grams of sodium metal, the wall remained completely intact. It was "busted," along with MacGyvers's ultralight aircraft built from bamboo, garbage bags, duct tape and a cement mixer engine which failed to sustain flight and immediately crashed after travelling off a cliff.

However, some of MacGyver's tactics were confirmed. The Mythbusters were able to pick a lock using the filament of an incandescent lightbulb. Another "confirmed" MacGyver tactic was building an electromagnet using ordinary household batteries, tape and insulated wire (the insulated rubber surrounding the wire was removed with a cheese grater.) They then successfully used this device to magnetize an unfolded paper clip (by passing it repeatedly over the magnet) and then, by embedding the paperclip in a piece of cork and placing it in a small bowl of water, the paperclip acted as a compass (because it was magnetized, it pointed to the North Magnetic Pole.)

It was also implied, although it was not successfully tested, that it is possible to develop a roll of film using orange juice as an acid and ammonia as an alkaline fixer while holding a garbage bag over the setup to create a darkroom.

Another implied, but not successfully tested, tactic was creating a potato cannon using hairspray as a fuel, a camp stove as the ignition, and PVC pipe as the mortar (while hairspray might be a somewhat-plausible propellant, it doesn't have the required explosive force to make a workable potato-cannon fuel). [Note: A potato cannon of this type is not only plausible, but is simple to make and works perfectly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_...ion_launchers]

Also, in Episode 15, in July 2004, a portion of the episode titled Car Capers featured the Mythbusters testing if an egg placed into a radiator of a car would subsequently cook and plug holes in said radiator. This was featured in an episode of MacGvyer titled "Bushmaster", and interestingly enough, was originally an idea sent in by a fan. The myth was deemed plausible by MacGyver and Mythbusters alike.


[edit] MacGyver's gear
MacGyver's Swiss Army Knife was constantly changing throughout the series. His first and most often used knife was a "Tinker-Small" model from Victorinox. In "Thief of Budapest" he gives it away; in the next episode he is using a "Handyman" model from Wenger, as noted by its long keychain. He is soon back to his "Tinker-Small." A few times he uses an Orange Peeler blade found on the Victorinox "Executive." It was used in "The Heist," "Hellfire," "Last Stand," "Countdown," "Ugly Duckling," and "Slow Death." In "Slow Death" it appears he is using a Huntsman to create a whistle, which would also mean he took two knives with him as he boarded the train. He also used the Sportsman ("Lost Love pt. 1 and 2"), the Recruit ("GX-1", "Widowmaker," and "Jack in the Box"), and the Climber ("Three for the Road"). "Kill Zone" sees the sole appearance of a Super Tinker. It is probable that he used the now-retired Standard model in "Cleo Rocks," a model featuring no toothpick, tweezers, or keyring. It also appears in "Hellweek". In "Tough Boys" he uses a Tinker (with the key ring removed) to unlock a large padlock. In the final episode he uses a metal saw of a cheap multi blade Swiss Army style knife, however it is a counterfeit inferior knife, most probably made in Asia. Several of the knives were bought by someone involved with MacGyver and printed with "MacGyver" on the handles as promotional items for the show in celebration of 100 episodes. This is particularly ironic given the theme of that episode. Another peculiarity is the appearance of the 111mm series from Victorinox, a larger size knife. It appeared in a few Episodes between "Runners" and "The Ten Percent Solution." It was a stunt double of sorts, as it was used for rather brutal tasks, such as chiseling ice twice and being hammered through a door with a rock. He also had a couple of non-production models that were obviously modified for the series. In "Serenity," he has a knife with wood handles on it, to flow with the time setting of the episode. In "Strictly Business" he used a Climber promotional model with the Victorinox shield on the back handle of the knife instead of the front. He seems to have used all of the slimmer models available at that time. The Tinker was (and still is) available in the standard size, which he may also have used. The Sportsman, Tourist, and Spartan are virtually indistinguishable with the blades closed, so he may have used any one of these three, or only one. In "Good Knight MacGyver Pt. 2" he carried a Compact model. Essentially, he almost always used a 2 or 3-layer Victorinox knife, and all of the implements he used could be covered with one knife, the Victorinox Mountaineer. He used the scissors very infrequently, and the file/saw but once, so really a Victorinox Sportsman encompasses virtually all of the uses MacGyver had for his Swiss Army Knife.

In addition to his Swiss Army Knife, MacGyver often carried a roll of duct tape in his back pocket, flattened out to make it fit. Other items he often seemed to have on hand were: a watch, strike-anywhere matches, a handkerchief, a paper clip, wire, fishing line, a flashlight, and lock picks. It could be argued that he had time to prepare in advance when he brought things like the lock picks or flashlight, however, it is certain he always had a Swiss Army Knife, his watch, and duct tape. The duct tape was Shurtape brand, as can be seen printed inside the roll in "The Heist." His watch was a Timex Camper for most of the series, with a black and silver chronograph watch appearing on his wrist towards the end. In the episode "Nightmares" which aired January 15th, 1986, MacGyver's captors gave him a Chronosport Navigator watch that had a timer.[20]

MacGyver rarely had any kind of a wallet with him. Although in a few episodes he was shown with a thin ID holder, most often money and IDs were loose effects in his pockets. Whenever forced to empty his pockets for an enemy, a minimal number of things would turn up, usually just an ID card, watch, his knife, and occasionally duct tape or matches. In "Ugly Duckling" it is shown that he had a toolbox in his Jeep, so it seems he had a tendency to keep things close at hand more often than in his pockets. Despite carrying more in his pockets than most people, he still appeared to have been a minimalist about it.


[edit] Vehicles
MacGyver drove a Jeep Chief Cherokee for the first part of the first season, which quickly changed to the Wrangler for the first half of the series, California license plate 1RJQ104. The last half saw him first driving a 1946 Chevy truck, and finally a 57 Nomad he inherited from his grandfather. For the final season, we see the brief return of the Jeep Wrangler. At different points in the series, he commandeered several exotic vehicles such as a Camaro Z-28 and a Ferrari 308. During a visit to Arkansas, he chose a Mustang convertible as his rental vehicle. He was also an able pilot, but perhaps unlicensed, as he usually left the task to Jack Dalton or other pilots, opting for the passenger seat.