Richard Dean Anderson - Seattle Post-Intelligencer: MacGyver appeals to our inner heroes

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA):

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MacGyver appeals to our inner heroes

'80s icon lives on in 'MacGruber'

By DANIELLE FRIEDMAN
COLUMBIA NEWS SERVICE

For Will Forte, a seven-year veteran performer on "Saturday Night Live," transforming into MacGruber is easy: All he has to do is slip on a mullet wig, look in the mirror and -- bam! -- he's ready to defuse bombs with a rubber band, a bottle cap and a thumbtack ...

... Years before "SNL" created MacGruber, Ira Glass, public-radio demigod and host of "This American Life," recognized that MacGyver's appeal extended beyond nostalgia. In 2003, he dedicated an episode to the character, elevating him to high culture. A few years later, Brendan Vaughan, a journalist, compiled and edited "What Would MacGyver Do?," a collection that paid homage to the hero through tales of real-life MacGyverisms. Pop culture commentator and Esquire columnist Chuck Klosterman (who originally shared his story on "This American Life") and A.J. Jacobs contributed to the book, further elevating MacGyver. And, of course, over the past decade, the character has achieved the ultimate status of becoming a verb: To "MacGyver" something is to fix or improve it in an exceptionally resourceful way.

The original ABC show had a wide fan base, especially among guys. For most of its seven seasons (1985-1992), it aired right before "Monday Night Football" in the East, fostering many a father-son-bonding moment. And the men who helped make the show a hit -- Richard Dean Anderson and Henry Winkler, who produced it -- seemed very much guy's guys.

In each episode, MacGyver, who works for the Phoenix Foundation, a fake government counterintelligence agency, is either assigned to or finds himself in the middle of high-stakes trouble. Sometimes he's fighting Russian spies; other times he's protecting an orphanage or other noble institution from being destroyed by heartless villains. The tricks MacGyver pulls off are typically more sophisticated than just using a paper clip to jiggle open a locked door -- there's often hard-core science involved ...