Features | Invention Mysteries | Announcements | Honors & Awards
The Chamber Report | Economic Development Council | Main Street Corner News | Job Hunt
Classifieds | Calendar | Lottery Numbers | Business News Elsewhere | Tech News Elsewhere
  

Would you believe… that you can make an airplane out of that? 
Send a link to a friend

By Paul Niemann

Sponsored by...

[DEC. 4, 2003]  A robot that's more intelligent than its fellow agents, an agent whose shoe has a phone built into it, a superhero who doesn't use a gun but can make an airplane out of just a few items like a fan, wooden poles and duct tape… Does it get any better than this?

Growing up in the '70 and '80s watching "Get Smart" reruns and the hour-long "MacGyver" series, there were plenty of gadgets, contraptions and inventions to entertain us on TV. Today we take a look at the characters who relied on these gadgets to foil the bad guys.

"Sorry about that, chief."

Armed with such devices as a shoe phone, a detonating pen that would activate all the booby traps in his apartment, and the cone of silence for top-secret discussions with the chief of CONTROL (which is not an acronym), along with other inventions too numerous to list here, the bumbling Agent 86, aka Maxwell Smart, had a high-tech advantage over the evil agents of KAOS (also not an acronym).

Smart's main foe was KAOS' evil Siegfried, whose official title on the show was "Vice President of Public Relations and Terrorism." Siegfried had a sister who was head of the KAOS Ladies Auxiliary.

One of the better contraptions on the show was Hymie, the humanlike robot built by KAOS. Hymie once kidnapped Max and Agent 99 but soon released them and defected over to CONTROL because they treated him better than KAOS did. Hymie was equipped with a TV camera, a built-in computer, a calculator bank and a Xerox machine.

But this show was about more than just clever gadgets. Like much of what comes out of Hollywood, there are some interesting stories behind the show. For example, ABC had a chance to air the show but rejected it. NBC then picked it up on the condition that one of their own guys, Don Adams, would play Maxwell Smart. After four seasons, NBC dropped it, and CBS picked it up for the fifth and final season.

Maxwell Smart's love interest, Agent 99, never revealed her name on the show. After they married and had twins, their twins' names were kept secret too. The reason probably had something to do with being in the spy business.

 

[to top of second column in this article]

"With this paper clip and that empty gas can, you've got all the ingredients for a homemade bomb."

OK, so MacGyver never really said that, but he did invent some pretty clever ways to get out of a jam, using only a few basic items plus his science background and a creative mind.

MacGyver could have used a gun to foil the bad guys like most action heroes do, but the memory of a childhood shooting accident caused him to detest guns. Instead he chose to use his Swiss Army knife, duct tape and any other items that were available to him at the time (such as a paper clip). The informal MacGyver had the unofficial title of "troubleshooter" while working for the mythical Phoenix Foundation.

MacGyver had his share of quirks too. He was afraid of heights, and he always shook his hand in pain after punching one of the bad guys -- you don't see many action heroes do that on TV. Like Agent 99, he also kept his first name secret; his friends usually referred to him as Mac. Even a college class picture referred to him by his last name only. During the seventh and final season, a dream revealed that MacGyver's first name was Angus, which is probably why he used only his last name.

As a result of losing his parents and grandmother in a car accident as a child, MacGyver was reluctant to get involved in serious relationships because he feared that he would lose anyone who got too close to him. In the series' final episode, though, he learned that he had a teenage son, making it possible that there could be a future MacGyver series starring the young Sean Angus MacGyver, or "Sam" for short.

Hmmm. The stars of both series have given us replacements for a future generation of crime fighters. Could we see more humanlike robots and homemade airplanes in the future? Stay tuned.

[Paul Niemann]

Readers: Are you looking for the perfect Christmas gift? If you enjoy this column, then your friends would probably enjoy receiving the "Invention Mysteries" book as a gift. It's available at www.InventionMysteries.com.

Copyright Paul Niemann 2003

 

Last week's column in LDN: "Can this inventor prove that the Loch Ness monster does -- or doesn't -- exist?"

 

Back to top

News | Sports | Business | Rural Review | Teaching & Learning | Home and Family | Tourism | Obituaries

Community | Perspectives | Law & Courts | Leisure Time | Spiritual Life | Health & Fitness | Teen Scene
Calendar | Letters to the Editor