WWMD: What Would MacGyver Do?

Technical whiz. Humanitarian. Mediator. Mullet fashionista... In the 1980s, MacGyver was many a teenaged girl's Renaissance Man.

At least, among my circle of friends.

I was reminded of this recently, as conversation with some of these same friends-- recently reconnected due to the Seven Degrees of Separation Known As Facebook Stalking-- drifted back to the Swiss-Army superman we'd loved so well.

It was really only a matter of time.

MacGyver had absolutely topped our list of 80s heroes. Michael Knight of Knight Rider wasn't bad, but somehow deep-down we knew any guy who'd wear a black leather Member's Only jacket every single day, and whose best friend was his car, was just not relationship material.

I'd had a mysterious crush on Mike Nesmith of the Monkees-- the sarcasm, southern accent, sideburns and green wool hat was an acquired taste, I'll admit.

Harrison Ford was a particular favorite, too-- at least once I overcame the Kid-Brain Observational Barrier that prevented me from realizing Han Solo and Indiana Jones were actually played by the same person. (I don't exactly recall why it took me so long to figure this out. I can only say it was the same inconsistent value-assessment issue that caused me to think that Roddy McDowall was the Greatest Actor Ever because he played Cornelius in the Planet of the Apes films. I couldn't understand why he wasn't earning Oscars for this.)

And Johnny Depp as Tom Hanson of 21 Jump Street was a perennial on that list, prized not just because of his innate Depp-ness, but because that show was actually preachy enough it got my mom's Stamp of Approval.

But MacGyver.... Among my friends and I, MacGyver was a unifier. Someone we could all agree on.

Discussions around the lunch table covered all the normal drool-drenched fluff that hormonally-charged teenaged girls would dwell on. But inevitably, we would linger on MacGyver's impressive problem solving skills.

Yes, while boys would debate who would win in a fight, Superman or Batman, we would evaluate how our favorite TV hunks would get out of various jams.

"Who would be able to break out of prison first, Michael Knight or MacGyver?"

"Michael Knight would just call K.I.T.T. who would roll through the brick wall and bust him out."

"Yeah, but then the cops would know he broke out and be looking for him right away. MacGyver would weave his paper napkin from his meals into a super-tight string, and use it to either get the keys to his cell, or fashion it into an elaborate pulley-winch system, which used physics to bend the bars enough for him to get through."

(Science class was always disappointing to us, and I blame MacGyver. We never did cover making a bomb out of chewing gum, a can of baked beans, an aerosol hairspray can and a lighter. He set an example our teachers couldn't hope to live up to.)

In fact, no one quite compared. The A-Team members needed the whole team, a blowtorch and large plates of metal that happened to be lying around once a week, 15 minutes from the end of every program.

Magnum P.I. had personal connections.

Remington Steele had luck and Laura.

The Six-Million-Dollar Man had superpowers and a price tag.

Yes, when compared side-by-side to our other heroes, it seemed MacGyver was the only one who could get by entirely on his own innate wit and mechanical skill.

If we were stuck on a deserted island with only one TV leading man, we all agreed, you couldn't do much better than being stranded with MacGyver.

Plus, he's the only character from my youth that's had the distinction of becoming a verb.

Note: this post is dedicated to my high school lunch table friends, and was MacGyvered together from Grape Fruit Roll-Ups, duct tape, Superglue and a lot of coffee.

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Humorbloggers

1980s Rewind: The Lost, the Grody and the Totally Awesome

Come with me back in time...

To the era when MTV was new, Michael Jackson still had a nose, and a t-shirt reading, "Where's the Beef?" evoked high fashion and big laughs.

There are some excellent lists of "What it Was Like to Grow Up in the 80s" out there, but I figured today we'd tackle some of those details left unmentioned-- Cabbages style. So grab your jeans jacket and hold onto your slouch socks, my babies, because we're about to drive our muscle car up over that hidden ramp...

Can I get a "yeeeee-haw"?

• Shoelaces so funky, tying them was taboo. What was it about the 80s that had us so focused on our footwear? Even though Velcro had just been invented, the boys preferred these enormous fat shoelaces in their high-top sneakers. Sometimes two sets in two different colors, like red and black. But in spite of spending all that time lacing up those shoes, you never TIED them. Oh, no. You tucked them inside your shoe with no knot, no bow. That way, when you went to play kickball, your shoe would also soar up, up, up... giving an all-new meaning to those “Air Jordans.” Many a recess created one-shoed boys. Also the clomping and scuffing noise in the hallways was astounding. Note: Girls often had rainbows or hearts or smiley faces or unicorns printed on their shoelaces. We tied our shoes.
  

• Hair with its own zipcode. A girl in my junior high class said she used an entire can of hairspray on her hair each day, proving there really was something stronger than the Law of Gravity—80s Aquanet. I myself wasn’t quite that zealous, but I did experiment one year with bangs (for my British friends, “fringe”) which curled up high enough to tune in the aerial television set. If you wanted to wear a ponytail, you wore it in a banana comb, thus creating a sort of hair-covered mohawk look. You still teased your bangs.
  

• Murder, mayhem and mustaches. Every night there was at least one detective program on television. Hart to Hart…. Moonlighting… Magnum, P.I.… Simon and Simon…. Matt Houston… Remington Steele… Probe… Riptide… The list went on and on. And there was an 80% Chance of Mustache on at least one detective per program. One noticeable exception would be on Remington Steele, though I think Stephanie Zimbalist might have waxed.

• Paranoid Playlists. "Who Can It Be Now?"... "I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me"… "Eye in the Sky"… "They're Coming to Take Me Away..." Pink Floyd's entire "Wall" album... Kids in the 80s grew up in a time so paranoid, even our pop music was nervous.

• Safety pins plus beads equaled awesomeness. I recall spending amazing amounts of time putting small colored beads onto tiny safety pins and giving my chums these personalized works of, er, art. These went on our sneakers. If you were a girl who didn’t have any friendship pins, you were a girl without any friends. (Yeah, yeah, you could just make a bunch for yourself, but that was cheating. Also, don't forget-- each of us tried to have our own signature beads and beading style!)

• Made-for-TV horror movies that still cause nightmares. The 80s were great for cheesy, original, made-for-TV movies that scared the Kool-aid out of us kids. Like Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, where those little monsters lived in the fireplace. Or the Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black. Or Don't Go To Sleep with Valerie Harper. Or From the Dead of Night with Lindsay Wagner. Bad choices had ramifications. Even kid characters faced danger and possible death. No one was spared. And for some reason we, as kids, were allowed to watch ‘em.

• You started each school year with a new Trapper Keeper. This school binder had a place for everything, and everything in its place. Also, you could get it in cool rainbow, unicorn, tiger, denim or heavy metal looks. What they never told you was that in order for it to organize you, you actually had to be organized. So my Trapper never quite held up to its hype. I was a scholastic slob. Even the Mead Corporation could not save me.
  

• Blindingly fluorescent was cool beans. Girls -- and even guys-- willingly sported sweatshirts, tiny jogging shorts and socks in retina-burning, day-glo colors normally reserved for hunting season. During eighth grade band, the entire flute section seemed to pulse with color conflict, as Suzy, Kelly and the gang sat side-by-side in a vibrating rainbow of fluorescent shades. No wonder our band director got cranky.
  

• No one ever got hurt in ten car pile-ups. On television shows like the A-Team, CHiPs and the Dukes of Hazzard, cars would jump, flip, roll and even blow up from 37 different camera angles, but the passengers were never hurt. We know this because they would have a voice-over discussion about it, where even cold-hearted bank robbers asked their steely-eyed partners if they were all right. This made it non-violent. Also, Stephen J. Cannell seemed to think we wouldn't notice if both Hunter and the guys from Riptide used the catchphrase, "It works for me."
  

• Underwear went outer. Socks were pulled up over our pantlegs, belts went over our sweaters and boustiers went with skirts. I recall parents lamenting that, "Next, kids would be wearing their boxers and tightie whiteys over their jeans." Then Marky Mark showed up with his drooping drawers and visible undies. Yet, somehow we never quite saw that coming.

• The Rules about Rots and Rulez. At least in my school, things were broken into two categories. They either rotted, or they ruled. Decomposition, while a natural process, apparently had negative connotations for teenagers. Probably due to a bad experience in Earth Science classes. But since we were high school kids and, thus, optimists at heart, most things ruled. And honestly, ANYTHING could rule. You could get an "A" on your essay, find your misplaced Velcro KISS wallet, or get the new Yngwie Malmsteen album on sale, and it would all rule equally. Whereas Doug Sherman who sits behind you in homeroom and snaps your bra each morning... well, he rots.
  

So what springs to mind when YOU think the 80s? Drop me a comment-- I'd love to hear about your totally rad memories.

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