A poem in honor of the Feast of St. MacGyver

[revdorothyl]

"An Ode on St. MacGyver's Day" (Sept. 29, 2005 being the 20th anniversary of the airing of the MacGyver pilot episode on U.S. television.)

Hail to thee, Saint MacGyver,
for seven years a constant striver
after peace and eco-justice.
Your legacy lives on—just trust us!

This hallowed day (your pseudo-natal)
we dedicate to stunts non-fatal
and creative use of science lore
that ushered out an old, Cold War.

In Opening Gambits by Terry Nation
you first captured our imagination.
Your Swiss Army Knife and roll of Duct tape
got you out of more than one scrape.

We celebrate those seasons when you
became a social conscience venue,
and “All Things Considered” was a week behind
on liberal issues that you brought to mind.

Though guns you did not care to handle,
no well-armed thug could hold a candle
to your talent for turning all things found
into minor miracles upon the ground.

When relationship issues got too hairy,
Your “Serenity” was Legend-ary.*
And even arch-foe Murdoc couldn’t resist
returning to you, the one he missed.

So, here’s to health food and clean living! --
we can stand it for a day, to show thanksgiving
for one who taught but did not harangue us.
And we’ll never tell that you were baptized “Angus”!


*In the “Serenity” Old West dream episodes, MacGyver got a chance to work out a quarrel with best buddy Pete Thornton and then the suggestion from three of the women in his life that he was (gasp!) commitment-phobic — all the while sporting a shaggy mustache and manner that we would see again on Richard Dean Anderson’s short-lived UPN series Legend (a Science Fiction Western more reminiscent of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. than The Wild, Wild West, at times, with RDA playing Nicodemus Legend, fictional hero of his own dime novels, and John DeLancie as the Bohemian scientist who turned Legend’s imaginary inventions into reality and Legend himself into a reluctant real hero).

Comments

[bimo.livejournal.com]

Aw, MacGyver, the hero of my early teen years, the show that turned me into a TV fan for life...

So great to see good old Mac honoured with such a lovely ode. Thank you so much for posting this. There is no such thing as feeling all fuzzy, warm and nostalgic :-)

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Thank YOU for appreciating it. And so glad that there are still folks around who remember MacGyver fondly. That Swiss Army knife and roll of duct tape have provided me with a very useful metaphor, over the years, to describe how fandom and/or science fiction media work as therapy or religion in people's lives (they may not provide the best tools for the job, but they DO allow you to "macgyver" something together that may not always look fancy, but actually WORKS and does what you need it to do).

That's why I sometimes say that MacGyver is my "patron saint"!

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

Hmm, if the European tradition of "name days" is observed, I suppose we must congratulate the Anguses of the world as well as anyone with the first name MacGyver.

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me. After all, if your name is "Angus" in this day and age, you can probably use all the positive feedback you can get.

[sammywol.livejournal.com]

Angus! Wow! you learn something new every day on LJ! No wonder he used his surname.

I just love the way 'macgyver' has been turned into a verb on SG1! I hope it catches on.

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Well, I use the verb "macgyver" from time to time (ever since I got the idea from that first episode of SG1, when Sam mentioned that they'd had to "macgyver" together their own DHD on earth, since they hadn't found one with their gate, and O'Neill gave her a double-take for using that word). It's very useful, when you want to describe the process of taking whatever's available and making it into the very thing you need, which may not be pretty, but it does the job, thank you.

And the fact that MacGyver's long-concealed first name was actually "Angus" was first revealed in one of the later episodes of the final season, and revisited again in the final episode, where we found out that MacGyver has a son he never knew about, whose mother named him "Sean Angus Malloy," and who calls himself by his initials "S.A.M." because he doesn't share his deceased mother's strange fondness for that middle name.

Now you know all the dirt on MacGyver!