The Screaming Celt Are there any shows today that use ingenuity and mastery to solve problems? I remember he inspired me to try and make things and go on adventures. Now it seems like all these shows are designed to make you want to buy things not create them. I’m probably just being nostalgic.
A lot of 80’s TV always had a “throw darts at the wall and see what sticks” approach, and it is interesting to see what came out the other end with some shows.
Ah yeh, that is one of my strongest memories too. i watched it the same year in the Swedish Alps on a Hotel room alone in the dark... I didnt sleep that week and refused to go out skiing after dark LOL! There i also watched Hulk Hogan Wrestling and Super Mario Bros.
Love Mac, fav show of the 1980s. Just straight up fun, as a kid I loved it all and still get very nostalgic watching it. Like how the early episodes had the opening gambit that was unrelated to the rest of the episode. Mac/Hunter/Crockett&Tubbs my 1980s TV heroes. Biggest mistep was never casting Penny or Murdoc in the TV movies.
Great job Michael! Well articulated! MacGyver is my favorite show of the 80’s and the reason I carry a pocket knife of some kind or another every day. However, as you touched on in the video, it was not a polished gem it’s first season and, especially in later seasons, struggled with balancing action and adventure with social justice and environmental messages. I’m very much looking forward to future videos in this series!
Probably my favorite show of all time. I mean it's top 2-3 at least. That theme song pulls you in, and you stay for the problem solving. A hero that beats ya with science! Lol
Great video, Michael! It's really great to see someone covering such a great show. I remember watching MacGyver on METV for the first time when I was a Freshman in High school. I never missed an episode. I think what hooked me from the start was the way the show explored the more technical side of the problems Mac encountered, it was, and still is very fascinating. It has to be one of my all time favorite tv shows, and one I wholeheartedly recommend.
Out of all the 80s live action shows that I watched. The A-Team, knight rider, air Wolf, The fall guy, The greatest American hero, and many others. MacGyver was the pinnacle of my fandom.
I remember that thing with the candlestick & microphone cable defibrillator from when I was little! Mind. Blown. 🤯 That’s a fun show. Thanks. 🙏 New RetroBlasting episodes can’t come at a better time! Best. 💯👍🏻❤️🙏
Waw I'm so impressed by the stock footage used. When I was a kid, the "ant episode" felt like a blockbuster movie, I couldn't believe it. That explains it
I remember that MacGyver had the best possible time slot it could imagine - as the lead-in to Monday Night Football. If it wasn't for this show, we'd never have Burn Notice.
my mom loved macgyver thats how i end up liking the show. the most memorable episode for me was the reason he didnt use guns flashback. but i always assumed macgyver was cia engineer turned field operative.
MacGuyver was huge in South Africa. I swear, the country shut down almost completely on a Friday night as most everyone was glued to their sets. I remember that army ants episode the most for some reason.
I hadn’t thought of Macgyver in some time. Nor did I realize the first season was so drastically different than the following ones. Good start to a retrospective.
Dukes, Knight Rider, and MacGuyver are my top three all-time favorite shows, man. Some shows, when I went back to them after growing up, I laughed that I ever enjoyed them. Those three never lost me. And nowhere is your point about how series start versus where they wound up, if you never saw the first five epsiodes of Dukes... heh. Now THAT was a practically different show.
I took an old slightly used tp role, the non-sticky side of an envelope, and the inner workings of my dead hampster and now I can watch MacGyver in 16k on my Smart Toaster.
Omg i havent seen an episode of this show sence it aired and the minute u said hersey bars i remembered everything about that episode.. Thank u retroblasting that was amazing
I watched two MacGyvers today, and now this video. The power of the Triple Mac! Stock footage aside, i love the practical stunts in the show which to me punch above their weight.
Thanks for putting Peter Jurasik in the video. As a B5 fan I loved seeing him acting. I also enjoyed John Anderson as his grandfather. Also look on UA-cam for the clip of the Stargate SG1 where they make fun of Macgyver. Classic! Thanks for another great video.
The kid in the pilot wasn’t MacGyver’s roommate, but his “Little Brother”, as in the Big Brothers program. It was just the first nod to the idea of MacGyver’s altruistic idealism.
Absolutely loved this show, would never miss an episode when it aired. But there was this one time when my parents made me come with them to a dinner with some boring adults, making me miss one single episode. And what episode was that? The next day at school all my friends talked and talked about the AWESOME GIANT ANTS on Macgyver! Still to this day havent seen it and i never quite got over it.
I can honestly say this show passed me by completely in the 80's. I don't know if that's because it wasn't big in Britain, or if it was there but I just missed it. My only pre-internet awareness of the show comes from a CD of TV themes I bought in about '91, which had the theme (which I liked - TV themes from the 70's and 80's were incredible).
I just got MacGyver on the Blu-Ray box set. One interesting thing is MacGyver goes to a foreign country and everyone speaks English. I really liked his house boat. I had wanted to live on a house boat when I grew up because of MacGyver.
Probably my favourite show from the 80's . I was just going on 10 when it premiered. As a young kid, those MacGyverisms were so cool. I used to try and make crazy stuff myself. I think I'll throw in a few DVDs this weekend and binge a bit.
Wow Mike. You really did your homework on this one. Very informative! Your journalistic pedigree shines through. While my friends nor I ever watched this show, we always yelled "Macgyver " whenever confronted with a bike tire blow out or a broken shoelace. So i guess you're right in that the show was more a cultural phenomenon rather than a campy family "sit around " kinda show.
Thanks for THIS one! The original MacGyver was simply one of the Best 1980s TV series. Season 1 was the best. It was a show with heart, especially MacGyver's relationship with his grandfather & Jack Dalton. He was really at his best as a James Bond style hero. A crossover I do wish they had done was having MacGyver deal with The A-Team. Nice! The original Magnum P. I. intro. The original Faceman in The A-Team pilot was played by Tim Dunigan, later known as Captain Jonathan Power in Capt. Power and the Soldiers of the Future. Hope you'll do similar videos on The A-Team. Another pop culture icon who's proven to have a touch of MacGyver is Tony Stark, as seen in Iron Man & Iron Man III.
I feel like the A-Team also did some 'MacGyvering' - towards the end of an ep they would be trapped in a warehouse that conveniently had everything they needed to improvise an armoured car and bust out. MacGyver did it better of course and without the need for guns. :)
MacGyver was one of the shows that had the biggest impact on my childhood. My mother, who raised me alone, didn't want me to become a TV junkie when I was a kid so she always recorded certain shows for me to watch when I was on my own (5 year old me was quite adept with the VCR), and she clearly must have thought that MacGyver would be a good role model for me (post S01 that is) because I remember having a lot of Macgyver tapes as a kid. Alongside Capt. Picard, Macgyver was my biggest fictional hero as a kid and teenager. Also , as a side note on the progression of Mac's character.; I'd personally say that S01E07 "Last Stand" was the moment where the show finally "clicked". It, and the following episodes are quite jarringly different to the swaggering action-man episodes that came before it, and I'd even say that "Last Stand" works as a kind of a perfect microcosm of what the entire show was (or rather would be). If I ever end up recommending this show to someone who didn't grow up on it, that's the episode I'll tell them to start with.
I do miss the opening gambits of the earlier episodes, they really got me excited to watch the show. I remember that Richard Dean Anderson was on a TV award show to present the "best stunt" award for the scene where Macgyver and the guy he was rescuing used a flare gun to launch themselves off and plummet down a cliff.
I remember being a kid and marveling at the Swiss army knife kiosks in the mall. The large motorized Swiss army knife display, beckoning me to one day obtain the tool of MacGyver.
Reminds me of what happened with the old ITV series "The Avengers" show creator Sydney Newman just thought the title sounded good, and they had Ian Hendry who seemed to be a the only good thing in a early cop show called "Police Surgeon" and decided to give him a new show which was the Avengers. You ask most people nowadays about it they immediately think of Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, it took four seasons to get to that combo, and ALOT of changes along the way.
Three episodes I remember? Killer Ants for some reason. Escaping a POW camp with a makeshift glider, for some reason. MacGyver escaping a trapped mansion, for some reason.
I know this has been up for ages, but I wrote for the series for 3 years (3-6) -- Zlotov had no big concept in mind. He was hired to write the pilot as part of a development deal. He had NOTHING to do with the subsequent series. That's why the first season was nutz -- it was as you suggest it was searching for an identity that did not come together til season 3 (when I came on - NOT taking any credit). John Rich was very difficult at times, but Henry Winkler was great
My being a tinkerer and kitbasher as a prop maker for a local theater group had them calling me MacGyver. They needed a gun that could be fired safely on stage. I built a prop gun using the flash mechanisim from a dispable tourist camera. Odd thing is I was never into that show. My sisters followed Anderson to the series from General Hospital. To me he was that soap opera guy.
Before the tern MacGyver was used, it was Meatball Engineering. In fact that is the term I have on my resume, for making something work with available equipment to get to the end of shift where i can be repaired correctly.
MacGyver was my favorite show growing up and that first season was my favorite.... having said that, I totally get what you’re saying... now... i never noticed. i actually never saw the last 3 seasons as they were not shown in south america. One more entry for the buckett list I guess.
Ah yes. I remember the episode with that god damn three staged bomb (we see a little moment in the beginning at 6:42) One of my alltime favorites for some reason :D
Impressive that Michael filmed this using only a fishbowl, a car battery, two shoelaces and a cup of fulminated mercury.
And his hair looked amazing the entire time.
Only 3 men , out of all humanity, ever made the mullet look good:
1) Patrick Swayze
2) Kurt Russell
3) Richard Dean Anderson.
Dont forget Mel Gibson's Lethal Weapon mullet
You forgot to mention David Spade! 😂😂🤭
And Michael Douglas in Black Rain. Probably the best mullet of them all
Wrong. There was a fourth. Wayne Gretzky.
@@summer20105707 Then the prophecy is fulfilled.
My wife purchased the first season in Amazon and my kids instantly became addicted to this show.
The Screaming Celt Are there any shows today that use ingenuity and mastery to solve problems? I remember he inspired me to try and make things and go on adventures. Now it seems like all these shows are designed to make you want to buy things not create them. I’m probably just being nostalgic.
@@paulsmith5150 I agree completely.
Good parenting, kids need a great role model nowadays, todays actors are too soft.
@@paulsmith5150 Thank you. :)
@@paulsmith5150 Burn Notice was the closest.
A lot of 80’s TV always had a “throw darts at the wall and see what sticks” approach, and it is interesting to see what came out the other end with some shows.
Now I’m reliving the terror of watching the Bigfoot episode Ghost Ship alone on a Saturday night in ‘87 aged 8.
Still creeped out in 2020.
Ah yeh, that is one of my strongest memories too.
i watched it the same year in the Swedish Alps on a Hotel room alone in the dark...
I didnt sleep that week and refused to go out skiing after dark LOL!
There i also watched Hulk Hogan Wrestling and Super Mario Bros.
I demand a part 2!
MacGyver: sciencing the shit out of stuff long before Matt Damon was attacked by Ice Warriors on Mars.
I remember an episode of MacGyver repurposing some G1 Shockwave toys to look like they were part of a midway carnival game.
The ant episode and him killing Murdock numerous times are my favorites.
What happened in the ant episode?
I don't remember MacGyver without a mullet
Great part 1....I cant wait for the next two episodes. Thanks for the work Michael
Have they made Parts 2 & 3 ???
I just came across this channel and want to see more, but there are none to be found.
Thank you!
I've been wanting to see a MacGyver retrospective for the longest time.
Love Mac, fav show of the 1980s. Just straight up fun, as a kid I loved it all and still get very nostalgic watching it. Like how the early episodes had the opening gambit that was unrelated to the rest of the episode. Mac/Hunter/Crockett&Tubbs my 1980s TV heroes. Biggest mistep was never casting Penny or Murdoc in the TV movies.
I'm 44 so remember and love most 80's shows. Do more
In order for me to post a comment on this video I need some chewing gum, a rubberband, some wood shavings and a keyboard.
Well, it looks like you found all of them....
WHAT!?! No thumbtack or a AAA battery?
I'm calling B.S.
still no second part? I guess more of Mac is forgotten here -- but I'm glad to have found this
The 1988 MacGyver season was the best
Great job Michael! Well articulated! MacGyver is my favorite show of the 80’s and the reason I carry a pocket knife of some kind or another every day. However, as you touched on in the video, it was not a polished gem it’s first season and, especially in later seasons, struggled with balancing action and adventure with social justice and environmental messages. I’m very much looking forward to future videos in this series!
Probably my favorite show of all time. I mean it's top 2-3 at least. That theme song pulls you in, and you stay for the problem solving. A hero that beats ya with science! Lol
Early MacGyver with the cold war emphasis and the opening gambits were the best episodes!
Great video, Michael! It's really great to see someone covering such a great show. I remember watching MacGyver on METV for the first time when I was a Freshman in High school.
I never missed an episode. I think what hooked me from the start was the way the show explored the more technical side of the problems Mac encountered, it was, and still is very fascinating.
It has to be one of my all time favorite tv shows, and one I wholeheartedly recommend.
he's Richard Dean Anderson he probley got all those skills
Out of all the 80s live action shows that I watched. The A-Team, knight rider, air Wolf, The fall guy, The greatest American hero, and many others. MacGyver was the pinnacle of my fandom.
I remember that thing with the candlestick & microphone cable defibrillator from when I was little! Mind. Blown. 🤯 That’s a fun show. Thanks. 🙏 New RetroBlasting episodes can’t come at a better time! Best. 💯👍🏻❤️🙏
Waw I'm so impressed by the stock footage used. When I was a kid, the "ant episode" felt like a blockbuster movie, I couldn't believe it. That explains it
"Know your limits, Mr. MacGuyver."
"MacGuyver has no limits!"
This is brilliant and I look forward to more MacGyver episodes. Great Video my friend!
Mike Damone ticket scalper from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Oh and that was Robert Englund.
Thanks Michael. I'm looking forward to part 2
The Bigfoot episode was pure terror.
I remember that MacGyver had the best possible time slot it could imagine - as the lead-in to Monday Night Football.
If it wasn't for this show, we'd never have Burn Notice.
my mom loved macgyver thats how i end up liking the show. the most memorable episode for me was the reason he didnt use guns flashback. but i always assumed macgyver was cia engineer turned field operative.
Why doesn't he use a gun?
in the episode he accidently shot one of his friends as a kid.
MacGuyver was huge in South Africa. I swear, the country shut down almost completely on a Friday night as most everyone was glued to their sets. I remember that army ants episode the most for some reason.
I hadn’t thought of Macgyver in some time. Nor did I realize the first season was so drastically different than the following ones. Good start to a retrospective.
Dukes, Knight Rider, and MacGuyver are my top three all-time favorite shows, man. Some shows, when I went back to them after growing up, I laughed that I ever enjoyed them. Those three never lost me. And nowhere is your point about how series start versus where they wound up, if you never saw the first five epsiodes of Dukes... heh. Now THAT was a practically different show.
Beloved series !
I took an old slightly used tp role, the non-sticky side of an envelope, and the inner workings of my dead hampster and now I can watch MacGyver in 16k on my Smart Toaster.
Awesome show. Brings back great memories growing up with it.
6:03
Yep, that is pretty much spot on.
Omg i havent seen an episode of this show sence it aired and the minute u said hersey bars i remembered everything about that episode.. Thank u retroblasting that was amazing
That was soooo goood! I loved it! Your analysis really makes me appreciate MacGyver that much more!
I watched two MacGyvers today, and now this video. The power of the Triple Mac! Stock footage aside, i love the practical stunts in the show which to me punch above their weight.
looking forward to part 2
Favorite show right here!
Thanks for putting Peter Jurasik in the video. As a B5 fan I loved seeing him acting. I also enjoyed John Anderson as his grandfather. Also look on UA-cam for the clip of the Stargate SG1 where they make fun of Macgyver. Classic! Thanks for another great video.
I remember that ant episode terrifying me as a kid!
The kid in the pilot wasn’t MacGyver’s roommate, but his “Little Brother”, as in the Big Brothers program. It was just the first nod to the idea of MacGyver’s altruistic idealism.
Pretty good video laying down the Foundation of the MacGyver series. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next episode.
You really got me with the stock footage there.
8:10 wow, no shit?! Actors who appeared in other movies have played in MacGyver? That's crazy.
Absolutely loved this show, would never miss an episode when it aired. But there was this one time when my parents made me come with them to a dinner with some boring adults, making me miss one single episode. And what episode was that? The next day at school all my friends talked and talked about the AWESOME GIANT ANTS on Macgyver! Still to this day havent seen it and i never quite got over it.
www.cbs.com/shows/macgyver/video/621336232/macgyver-trumbo-s-world/
Please bring us a part 2!
I know this video was 3 years ago but please make part 2! This was so good!
Working on it.
@@retroblasting That's awesome, thank you!
looooove It! Looking forward to the next parts :) Thanks much for making my night :)
I can honestly say this show passed me by completely in the 80's. I don't know if that's because it wasn't big in Britain, or if it was there but I just missed it. My only pre-internet awareness of the show comes from a CD of TV themes I bought in about '91, which had the theme (which I liked - TV themes from the 70's and 80's were incredible).
part 2 pleassse! this was great
I just got MacGyver on the Blu-Ray box set. One interesting thing is MacGyver goes to a foreign country and everyone speaks English. I really liked his house boat. I had wanted to live on a house boat when I grew up because of MacGyver.
Probably my favourite show from the 80's . I was just going on 10 when it premiered. As a young kid, those MacGyverisms were so cool. I used to try and make crazy stuff myself. I think I'll throw in a few DVDs this weekend and binge a bit.
Great review. Best I’ve seen.
Thanks so much!
Wow Mike. You really did your homework on this one. Very informative! Your journalistic pedigree shines through.
While my friends nor I ever watched this show, we always yelled "Macgyver " whenever confronted with a bike tire blow out or a broken shoelace. So i guess you're right in that the show was more a cultural phenomenon rather than a campy family "sit around " kinda show.
Nice! Looking forward to the next video. 👍
Thanks for THIS one! The original MacGyver was simply one of the Best 1980s TV series. Season 1 was the best. It was a show with heart, especially MacGyver's relationship with his grandfather & Jack Dalton. He was really at his best as a James Bond style hero.
A crossover I do wish they had done was having MacGyver deal with The A-Team.
Nice! The original Magnum P. I. intro. The original Faceman in The A-Team pilot was played by Tim Dunigan, later known as Captain Jonathan Power in Capt. Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
Hope you'll do similar videos on The A-Team.
Another pop culture icon who's proven to have a touch of MacGyver is Tony Stark, as seen in Iron Man & Iron Man III.
Wow! Your ability to take in all that information and synthesize it and integrate it with other sources is second to none.
To underline your thesis, MacGyver is the only '80s show I still have fond memories of.
Great video Michael!!
McGyver was my favourite show when I was about 8 or 9... still love to make my own stuff. Never underestimate the power of stuff...
Yo stuff!!!
I feel like the A-Team also did some 'MacGyvering' - towards the end of an ep they would be trapped in a warehouse that conveniently had everything they needed to improvise an armoured car and bust out. MacGyver did it better of course and without the need for guns. :)
Wow, and I thought AI could compose text better than that...
Awesome Job!!
MacGyver was one of the shows that had the biggest impact on my childhood.
My mother, who raised me alone, didn't want me to become a TV junkie when I was a kid so she always recorded certain shows for me to watch when I was on my own (5 year old me was quite adept with the VCR), and she clearly must have thought that MacGyver would be a good role model for me (post S01 that is) because I remember having a lot of Macgyver tapes as a kid. Alongside Capt. Picard, Macgyver was my biggest fictional hero as a kid and teenager.
Also , as a side note on the progression of Mac's character.;
I'd personally say that S01E07 "Last Stand" was the moment where the show finally "clicked".
It, and the following episodes are quite jarringly different to the swaggering action-man episodes that came before it, and I'd even say that "Last Stand" works as a kind of a perfect microcosm of what the entire show was (or rather would be). If I ever end up recommending this show to someone who didn't grow up on it, that's the episode I'll tell them to start with.
As always, awesome sauce!
Recicling movies secuences was very popular in action series of the 80s
Love the updated intro!
I do miss the opening gambits of the earlier episodes, they really got me excited to watch the show. I remember that Richard Dean Anderson was on a TV award show to present the "best stunt" award for the scene where Macgyver and the guy he was rescuing used a flare gun to launch themselves off and plummet down a cliff.
I remember being a kid and marveling at the Swiss army knife kiosks in the mall. The large motorized Swiss army knife display, beckoning me to one day obtain the tool of MacGyver.
Well done sir
great job, looking forward to more episodes in this series
phoenix from the ashes
Reminds me of what happened with the old ITV series "The Avengers" show creator Sydney Newman just thought the title sounded good, and they had Ian Hendry who seemed to be a the only good thing in a early cop show called "Police Surgeon" and decided to give him a new show which was the Avengers. You ask most people nowadays about it they immediately think of Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, it took four seasons to get to that combo, and ALOT of changes along the way.
This show was great! I definitely don’t remember it this way in the beginning though crazy how time plays tricks on you
Three episodes I remember?
Killer Ants for some reason.
Escaping a POW camp with a makeshift glider, for some reason.
MacGyver escaping a trapped mansion, for some reason.
An obstacle on your path? A problem you gotta deal with? Only one solution: The ol' trusty Swiss army knife!
I know this has been up for ages, but I wrote for the series for 3 years (3-6) -- Zlotov had no big concept in mind. He was hired to write the pilot as part of a development deal. He had NOTHING to do with the subsequent series. That's why the first season was nutz -- it was as you suggest it was searching for an identity that did not come together til season 3 (when I came on - NOT taking any credit). John Rich was very difficult at times, but Henry Winkler was great
My being a tinkerer and kitbasher as a prop maker for a local theater group had them calling me MacGyver. They needed a gun that could be fired safely on stage. I built a prop gun using the flash mechanisim from a dispable tourist camera. Odd thing is I was never into that show. My sisters followed Anderson to the series from General Hospital. To me he was that soap opera guy.
So Awesome!
I'm a fan. I loved that show.
MacGyver, the Jack Bauer of the day 😇
Before the tern MacGyver was used, it was Meatball Engineering. In fact that is the term I have on my resume, for making something work with available equipment to get to the end of shift where i can be repaired correctly.
MacGyver was my favorite show growing up and that first season was my favorite.... having said that, I totally get what you’re saying... now... i never noticed. i actually never saw the last 3 seasons as they were not shown in south america. One more entry for the buckett list I guess.
Whoa great vid rb i love the show
Saw an interview of Mr Anderson, and he is pretty much the down to earth nature guy that you see in the show. Top guy!!
I love the intros of those '80s tv series. I can't say the same to the new MacGuyver series of today.
Fantastic video, where's part 2?
The ant episode is the one that made an impression on me. It was creepy!
Liking the new into guys
Christopher Judge and they guy that played general Hammond in Stargate SG1 were in MacGyver too.
Ah yes. I remember the episode with that god damn three staged bomb (we see a little moment in the beginning at 6:42) One of my alltime favorites for some reason :D
I've never watched Mac first few episodes so I had no idea he was rooming with a kid.
The kid wasn't his roommate. Mac was a BigBrother.
My, that's a big paper clip you've got there!
I loved the episode where we learn why Mac hates guns.
Cool trivia: I can connect Richard Dean Anderson from Facts of Life to StarGate SG-1