MacGyvering: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"With what?" Spencer asks. "Don't tell me you know how to make a bomb with a stick of chewing gum." Wow, the first ever MacGyver joke was actually in the first ever episode of ''MacGyver''. That's actually kind of impressive.''|'''[[The Agony Booth]] [http://www.agonybooth.com/agonizer/MacGyver/Pilot.aspx?Page=4 recap]''' of the first ever episode of ''[[MacGyver]]''}}

*** This is somewhat subverted in that it took 4 years for Setsuna to show himself and in this case, it was less of a case of MacGyvering and more of a case of scrounging for parts that he needed. The replacement Camera eye was probably dug out of a Tieran while a lot of the missing pieces of armor may attribute to him breaking them down for spare parts. This is less of a case of MacGyvering and more of a case of replacing a broken car tire with a sturdier but smaller tire.

* Yusei from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'', in episode 88, disarmed a high tech battle royal collar with a nail.

 

 

* [[Lex Luthor]], on the other hand, ''has'' been known to build a teleporter out out of stuff lying around his cell. During his appearance in the short-lived ''The Joker'' comic, he improvised a jetpack out of a couple of bottles of pop and some paint flakes.

** Spectacular jailbreaks based on his MacGyvering skills were a huge part of [[Pre Crisis]] [[Mad Scientist]] Luthor's character. One story has him consider that it has reached the point where his guards won't allow him to have ''anything'' other than a pad of paper and a pen. He knows perfectly well how to turn to the ink, metal, plastic, wood pulp, and glue into a high explosive to blast his way out... but he would never ''do'' that, because then they wouldn't let him have a pen and paper any more.

* Mocked, inevitably, in [[Mad Magazine|Mad's]] spoof of [[MacGyver]]. MacGyver remarks the [[Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard|the room the bad guys have locked him in]] has nothing he can use to escape, to which the woman with him points out that the room is full of explosives. He complains about the indignity of having to actually use explosives as explosives instead of improvising.

* ''[[Tintin]]'' tends to resort to this after being kidnapped by the villain-of-the-week. Interestingly, while they're still ingenious a lot of his inventions are surprisingly plausible.

* ''[[Batman]]'', of course, has pulled this off several times, usually on those rare instances where he is without his utility belt.

 

* In ''[[My Stupid Reality]]'' [[Death Note|Light]] modifies a cheap laptop to work better with pieces ripped out of L's refrigerator.

** [[Truth in Television|Somewhat grounded in reality,]] believe it or not; the heat-exchanger from a fridge would be powerful enough to counteract a hell of a lot of overclocking.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]],'' the character Violet uses her skills as an inventor to create gadgets off-the-cuff with available materials, often in dire situations.

* The characters in most [[Cormac McCarthy]] novels. Could be considered [[Author Appeal]].

* Also, the classic, [[Older Than Radio]] example called ''The Mysterious Island'', where a few people build a civilization on a remote island with nothing but two watches and a metallic dog collar.

* Ragnar Benson has written multiple books on how to make deadly weapons from stuff lying around the house. These are ''encrusted'' with warnings that doing so before the [[Day of the Jackboot]] will land you in prison, hospital, or the morgue.

** There's also a prank executed for the bloopers reel in "Solitudes," (planned by Amanda Tapping and episode director Martin Wood) where Carter and O'Neill are stranded in a glacier, and she laments that she's "stuck in a glacier with MacGyver" and he can't figure a way out for them.

{{quote|'''Carter:''' We got belt buckles and shoelaces and a piece of gum: build a nuclear reactor, for crying out loud! [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}J847OF_jZ20 (RDA's face is priceless)]}}

* Real life example: Alton Brown of ''[[Good Eats]]''. Basically, his credo of cooking is "the only single-purpose item in your kitchen should be the fire extinguisher".

* In an episode of ''[[Chuck]]'', Casey handcuffs Chuck to a counter in a frozen yogurt shop (long story). After failing to get the [[Action Girl]] to come free him, he freezes the chain with some kind of nefarious yogurt device and breaks it in two. His quip afterwards was something along the lines of "all those years of watching MacGyver finally paid off."

** No, saying three out of four does not do it justice. {{spoiler|1=In true MacGyver fashion, they managed to escape the first part of the obstacle course, then had to use items found at a campsite to signal for pick up by the helicopter. The original plan was that they would build a [[Improvised Weapon|Potato Gun]], instead, they built a kite out of the same materials, plus [[Chekhov's Gun|the rope they were tied up with at the beginning of the segment]].}}

** The one task they failed was because they lacked the scientific knowledge to develop a roll of film. The apparatus they set up would have worked had Adam been able to remember one key aspect of the process.

* In ''[[Person of Interest]]'' Finch makes a WiFi antenna using a Pringles can.

* In one episode of ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' Artie releases himself from handcuffs by making an electromagnet out of a hotel iron so he can get his toolbag. [[Lampshaded]] with "I was doing this [[While You Were in Diapers|when MacGyver was still trapped in his crib]]!"

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* In ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' a [[Mad Scientist|Genius]] can "kitbash" a Wonder together in hours, minutes, or even ''seconds'' if they're powerful or have bought the right merit.

** Ork players have been known to construct vehicles using strategies ranging from "leftovers from other vehicles" to "grab all the spare parts, put them in a box, pour in glue, and stick wheels on whatever comes out".

** Although it's not like non-Ork players don't get in on the action either. Because of [[Crack is Cheaper|the price]] of the hobby, any 40k player (or indeed, wargamer) worth their salt will have a [[Name's the Same|bitz box]] wether they are Orks, Humans, Eldar, whatever. It is the most efficient way to go about doing things and anyone who has played for a long time will have closets full of hoarded spare parts that they can cobble together into just about anything.

* Played for laughs in an early ''[[BattleTech]]'' sourcebook, as a pair of very efficient (but prank-prone) technicians repaired a lance of 'Mechs with various pieces of machinery... that included a lard rendering tank, a truck that advertised processed chicken, and metal labeled for Spam cans. Most of the Mechwarriors were amused, but one went after the techs with a wrench.

* In the ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' novel ''[[Magic: The Gathering/Test of Metal|Test of Metal]]'', Tezzeret performs an impromptu heart surgery on himself in a bare cave with no tools. Not even [[Iron Man (film)|a box of scraps]]! It takes him less than ten minutes.

 

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* The main character in the ''[[Tex Murphy]]'' games is all about this. It's necessary to advance past dozens of puzzles throughout the games.

* Another video game example would be any of the ''[[Monkey Island]]'' games where Guybrush Threepwood has to use all manner of wacky items to save the day {{spoiler|One is in ''Curse of Monkey Island'', where you have to pour cooking oil on a guy's back so he'll get sun burnt and you can then peel off the skin on his back which just happens to have a map tattooed on to it}}.

* In ''[[Fallout]] 3'', you can do things like make a gauntlet out of a monster's arm and a medical brace, make a nail-launching rifle out of a steam gauge assembly and a pressure cooker, or make a ''[[Flaming Sword]]'' out of ''motorcycle parts and a lawnmower blade''.

* In [[Fallout: New Vegas]], when faced with a broken world item (fuse box, food processor...), you can either: go hunt for parts or use a high repair skill to fix it. Special mention for the food processor at Camp Mac Carran, which you can fix with a repair skill of 80 by using a paper clip, a swiss army knife and other stuff.

** Even that example is outdone by the Jury Rigging perk, which enables you to, among other things: repair a [[Power Fist]] with [[Joke Item|boxing gloves]], repair an [[Techno Babble|Inversal Proton Axe]] with a pool cue, and fix an [[Techno Babble|Atomic Tri-Calence Radii Accentuator]] with a pair of sunglasses.

* Parodied in ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]]: Love For Sail''. When you try to combine random objects, the announcers says something along the lines of, "Larry, sometimes you try to mix two things together, but what do you always get? An ass".

* [[Built With Lego|Any]] [[Lego Adaptation Game]].

* Fotbar Laboratory in ''[[Choro Q]] HG 4'' allows you to make powerful parts out of spoon, wrist strap, piece of cloth, paper bag, and others. The strongest chassis of the game is happened to be made of eraser.

* [[Professor Layton]] has a habit of this:

** Othar wrote in his log about [http://twitter.com/Othar/status/1317066710 some] [http://twitter.com/Othar/status/1376637973 hardware] he built after being marooned.

* A parody on ''[[Ansem Retort]]'': Zexion made a new heart for Riku out of bendy straws and a Hot Pocket.

* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' space criminal Fructose Riboflavin has a knack for building alien [[Applied Phlebotinum|supertech]] out of odds and ends. Useful, since he spends so much of his life as a perpetual fugitive.

* Parodied numerous times in [[Real Life Comics]] - among other things, Tony has made a [http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/000302.html quantum space-time teleportation device] and a [http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/021017.html trans-dimensional portal device] out of random materials lying around.

* One instance of possible Mac Gyvering is found in the webcomic [[Ctrl+Alt+Del|Control-Alt-Delete]], where the main character, Ethan, makes a bipedal, sentient robot out of a single [[Xbox]]. This robot then develops a taste for gaming and becomes another character in the comic.

* Jenny 10 from ''[[Dex Hamilton Alien Entomologist]]'': "Last week I made a hadron collider from a broken hairdryer and a box of paperclips..."

* Played with on ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades]]''. Being fugitives on the run, it's a given. Duke manages to diffuse a bomb with a wad of chewing gum, but Roadblock's attempts to jury-rig an engine-cable for the truck don't go as smoothly.

* On ''[[Beast Wars]]'', [[The Smart Guy|Rhinox]] often had to improvise with whatever spare parts were available to build new useful tech. [[Lampshaded]] in "Chain of Command":

{{quote|"Make a device to extract physical molecular structure from an alien probe? Man, I gotta be a miracle worker."}}

* ''[[My Little Pony]]'': In "The Return Of Tambelon", the ponies are able to break out of Grogan's dungeon by using their gruel ration and Fizzy's bubble-making magic to turn a crack in the ceiling into a gaping hole that they can escape through.

* ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'': In "James and the Coaches", James' rough riding causes the brake pipe on one of his coaches to rupture, bringing the train to a standstill. The crew covers the hole with newspaper and pressures a reluctant passenger to hand over his leather bootlaces to seal it up. It works.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

 

* Brazil and Portugal are two nations whose whole philosophy is based on improvisation, and this is taught in schools. They even [http://www.cracked.com/article_17251_p2.html have a word for it]: ''desenrascanço''.

** That term is probably exclusive to Portugal. In Brazil, the improv way of life is usually called "Jeitinho Brasileiro", or "Brazilian (Little) Way", which is not limited to MacGyvering, but also any sort of problem-solving in non-conventional ways, including amoral ones.

** French call that ''système D''. A convenient way to do things without any annoying organisation.

* In a similar vein, the Egyptians have a [[National Stereotypes|stereotype]] about themselves that they can always find a way to make what they need. As it turns out, this might be true of Arabs in general, judging by the jury-rigged weapons systems of Hamas and Hezbollah in the [[Useful Notes/Arab-Israeli Conflict|Arab Israeli Conflict]], and of the Libyan rebels in [[Middle East Uprising 2011|their Civil War]].

* Cracked did an article on the subject, [http://www.cracked.com/article_16151_5-most-amazing-real-life-macgyver-moments.html here.]

* I know it's on the Cracked list, but it deserves its own line. The Apollo 13 astronauts found themselves with square air scrubbers and round air scrubber holes. The solution they cooked up was made out of a plastic bag, a hose, a sock, and, of course, some [[Duct Tape for Everything|Duct Tape]].

** Although, in fairness, they did call [[Mission Control|for backup]].

* During the [[American Civil War]], the South was strapped for cash and couldn't stand a protracted naval blockade, especially with the North's greater resources for building ironcalds. Considering that the South's main resource was cotton, they strapped bales onto the decks of merchant ships and used them to absorb enemy fire. Thus, the [[wikipedia:Cotton-clad|Cotton-clad]] was born.

* Americans are known for coming up with crazy ideas that just happen to work like using human hair to soak up oil. At the Battle of Midway, the carrier ''Yorktown'' had been redeployed after improvised repairs were rushed after taking heavy damage at Coral Sea. The ''Yorktown'' was bombed by Zeroes, but the Damage Control units not only kept her afloat, but got her back up to speed, to the point that when the Japanese bombed her again, they thought they had sunk two carriers, rather than hitting the ''Yorktown'' twice. She did sink, but not before turning the tide of the battle by means of improvised repairs and sheer endurance.

* In the wake of the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, basically everyone and their uncle came up with an idea to either A) get the oil from the water, B) fix the gushing oil pipe or C) clean the oil off the poor helpless animals. Almost all these ideas (well, maybe not the "stop the gushing pipe" one) usually involved simple materials that could be found in either the average home, the average High School, or the average supermarket. And most of them either ''worked'' or ''would have worked'', although not on a Gulf-wide scale.

* The phrases "Yankee ingenuity" and "Kiwi ingenuity" refer to the tendencies of early colonists in, respectively, [[Hollywood New England|New England]] and [[New Zealand]] to make do with whatever was available in order to perform the task at hand, such as using a pole saw to cut brush in the absence of a machete.

* The British Home Guard was left to fall back upon its own resources in the early days, as priority had to be given to re-equipping the regular Army. Their most deadly anti-tank weapon was a sort of self-igniting [[Molotov Cocktail]], so one especially enterprising Home Guard officer designed and built a mortar from a length of old drainpipe and some black powder to launch one of these further than it could be thrown.

* Averted probably more times than not in Real Life. Many an ER attending and trauma surgeon has put away some retirement money from homemade [[MacGyver]] devices. The tragedy is that most lay people can scrounge together just enough information, skill, and resources to build something that gets themselves really, really hurt. What professionals have is not only the ability to build devices, but do so safely with a low margin of error. As Adam and Jamie would say, don't try this at home. They're what you call professionals.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Drama Tropes]]

[[Category:Truth in Television]]