MacGyvering: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'': Tony Stark creates a revolutionary way of generating huge amounts of power and a bulletproof power suit whilst captured by terrorists and only some scrap weapons parts at his disposal.

* ''[[Half Baked]]'' had some fun with this:

'''MacGyver Smoker:''' Trust me, bro. I've made bongs with less. Hurry up! }}

* [[Truth in Television]], according to the man's autobiography: in ''[[The Right Stuff]]'', Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier with the help of a sawed-off broom handle.

* ''[[Mallrats]]'': Silent Bob is said to have a knack for this kind of thing.

* This trope is invoked in ''[[Zack and Miri Make a Porno]]:'' "You give me a two popsicle sticks and a rubber band and I'll find a way to fuck it, like a filthy [[MacGyver]]!"

* Common in the ''[[Tremors]]'' films and series, whenever they run out of ammo and need to improvise defenses against the latest Graboid life-cycle stage or [[Monster of the Week]].

*** One [[Expanded Universe]] novel mentioned that that episode was turned into a training exercise that was considered hellishly difficult, and that 90% of the people who tried Kirk's approach ended up blowing themselves up when the cannon misfired. Riker's solution was to use the makeshift cannon as a giant mine, and clubbed the Gorn with a rock while it was disoriented from the blast.

** And in ''The City at the Edge of Forever'' Mr. Spock builds a computer with 1930's technology, complete with a [[Rule of Cool|very cool but pointlessly energy-wasting]] Jacob's Ladder.

** [[Mr. Fixit|Scotty]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|gets a shuttle to run on the energy from phaser weapons]] in "The Galileo Seven."

** ''[[Star Trek]]'' does it again in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "A Fistful of Datas". Worf, stranded in [[Phlebotinum Breakdown|an Old West simulation]], makes a forcefield out of telegraph parts and his communicator.

** And don't forget the one-shot Stargate in "Ascension", made out of (among other things) toaster parts.

** 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.

* When ''[[The Wizard]]'' does not have a high-tech toy handy, he can also macgyver one to save the day.

* 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 one of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' gags, Homer makes a powerful bomb out of a can of soda pop and a packet of pop rocks.

** The episode where [[Richard Dean Anderson]] starts [[Actor Allusion|doing this in]] [[This Is Reality|real life]], such as making "MacGyver-burgers" out of Slim Jims and rubber bands. Also contains this quote:

** In "Black Widower," Patty, Selma and Sideshow Bob watch an episode of ''MacGyver'', which concludes with this exchange:

"Don't thank me. Thank the moon's gravitational pull." }}

* Subverted in ''[[Dave the Barbarian]]'', where Dave makes a megaphone out of " a squirrel, a string, and a megaphone.", and was simply a squirrel tied to a megaphone.

* Grampy from the old ''[[Betty Boop]]'' cartoons usually did this. A prominent example comes from the 1937 cartoon "Christmas Comes But Once a Year", wherein Grampy MacGuyvers together several Christmas toys for a group of downtrodden orphans, using nothing more than common household items.

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

* Both subverted and played straight in ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'': the KND's self-parodying [[Bamboo Technology]] equipment mostly consists of random objects, pieces of woood, and duct tape, fondly referred to as '2x4 Technology.'

* 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":

** And it worked, too!

* ''[[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.