io9
The greatest science fiction heroes are resourceful, building high-tech devices out of whatever crap they find laying around. In the right hands, a paperclip and some bubblegum can become an interstellar wave modulator. The more ridiculous those moments of gadget improvisation are, the more they make you feel as if you could create your own otherworldly tech and access other planets using the materials you already have — if you only knew how. Click through for our roundup of the greatest MacGyvers of sci-fi.
The greatest science fiction heroes are resourceful, building high-tech devices out of whatever crap they find laying around. In the right hands, a paperclip and some bubblegum can become an interstellar wave modulator. The more ridiculous those moments of gadget improvisation are, the more they make you feel as if you could create your own otherworldly tech and access other planets using the materials you already have — if you only knew how. Click through for our roundup of the greatest MacGyvers of sci-fi.
Doctor Who. The Doctor may be the king of the MacGyvers, constantly improvising incredibly complex devices out of whatever garbage he finds. But his craziest moment of jury-rigging is probably in "The Time Monster," when he builds a space-time disruption machine — which renders time-travel impossible — out of a wine cork, a yoyo and a fork. I loved that scene so much when I was a kid, but now it's a bit embarrassing. And yet, still kind of inspiring!
Star Trek. Over the decades of Trek, there's been a lot of people building weapons out of translators, or technobabbling their way into creating Everything machines. But the man who says the phrase "jury-rig" or "Jerry-rig" the oftenest, and in the craziest situations, is Scotty, our ingenious engineer. He's the guy who builds a nuclear reactor pump out of bits and pieces in "Devil in the Dark," and coverts an ancient ship's shields to hold a Dyson sphere open in "Relics." Not to mention retooling a transporter to keep him in stasis, in that same episode.
Stargate: Atlantis. Rodney McKay famously asks "What am I, MacGyver?" in this spin-off from the Richard Dean Anderson-starring Stargate SG1. But he actually does work technological marvels at regular intervals, making sense of Ancient technology. He built an atomic bomb for his sixth-grade science project. Not to mention, in "Condemned," he totally one-ups Scotty when he says it'll take two days to cobble together a new "Dial-Home Device" from secondary systems... and then downgrades that estimate to ten minutes in a pinch.
Can Of Worms. We have to send a shout-out to Mike Pillsbury, who manages to transform his family's satellite dish into a communications device to contact alien life forms. Watch our awesome video here.
Eureka. Henry Deacon, a former NASA engineer, is the mechanic for the small town of Eureka, and literally every other episode revolves around him building some crazy gadget out of nothing in particular. Need a pocket-sized gizmo to erase someone's memories of an alternate timeline? Or a quick cobbled-together device to undo the effects of a paranoia ray on a whole bunch of bigwigs? Henry's your guy.
E.T. Okay, you don't really think of that wormy-faced, big-eyed cute alien with the glowing cockfingers in the same breath as Scotty and McKay. But just think: who builds an interstellar communications device out of an old Speak & Spell toy using a coat-hanger? It's not Scotty. 
Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure. The only people less likely than E.T. to come on your MacGyver radar are Bill and Ted — but they do fix their time machine using only a fruit can and some bubble gum. You have to give them props for that.
Fantastic Four. I hesitated to include Reed Richards, the super-scientist who's always building rockets and weird toys out of bits and pieces, because he has a huge lab and doesn't really just use scraps. But then I saw this panel, from the alternate-universe Last Planet Standing, and had to give it to him: 
Buckaroo Banzai is another wacky inventor who has a lab and an ample supply of parts, but we're still blown away by some of the things he throws together, like the Oscillation Overthruster, which transports matter into parallel universes. Not to mention the Jetcar.
Thanks to Angel and Kevin for research help.
Comments
Scotty also kept himself alive for 75 years in a transporter, so he could pull off the, in comparison, easy starship door stop.
A stunning bout of hypocrisy, in the article saluting Macgyver, he doesn't make the cut.
Let's not forget the episode of Stargate when Richard Dean Anderson's castmate Amanda Tapping actually used the term "MacGyver."
@Git Em SteveDave: Yeah, meant to mention that... It's there now. I included it in the video clip at least.
What was the name of that movie form the 80s where the three kids build a space ship with a Commodore 64, the car form an old amusement park ride and a couple of D cell batteries?
@Geisrud: Hey, by definition MacGyver is a MacGyver... so it seems a tad redundant to include him! Plus, I was on the fence as to whether that show was really sci-fi or just action/adventure/spy.
Well, not truly science fiction, but you have to hand props to The Professor from Gilligan's Island. I'm amazed at the number of useful scientific and everyday items that can be made from coconuts, palm fronds, tree sap, and rocks. I'm still not sure why he couldn't invent a method for getting them off the island, but hey...
Tony Stark? Or, there was another Marvel character called "Forge" who's prowess in technological improvisation was so astounding, it was considered a mutant ability.
"you don't really think of that wormy-faced, big-eyed cute alien with the glowing cockfingers"
Heh. The article's worth it just for that line.
*applauds Buckaroo Bonzai* :)
One word:
MacGRUBER!
If Scotty had been on board Voyager, there wouldn't have been a show - he would have gotten them home by the end of the pilot.
@Gyrus: You may be thinking of the Thunder Road. See here: [io9.com]
@OnwardChristianLaettner: Totally. And then Torres would have punched him out.
@Spoony Bard: You think I can't do my job? Why don't you try it!
Looking at this list, all these years I thought I was an SF fan, but it turns out it's all just directly related to my MacGyver fandom.
@Gyrus: I think that's Voyagers. Two of the kids who built the space ship (named "Thunder Road," after the Springsteen song, and wasn't the door from a washing machine?) were played by Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix, and one of the aliens is voiced by Robert Picardo.
@Nivair:
I'm still waiting for the World Crime League movie.
You have to include Doc Savage on this list. See Wikipedia: Doc Savage: "...a physician, surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, researcher, and musician..."
Ahem, "Dial-Home Device".
@laughingacademy: It was Explorers. [en.wikipedia.org])
And one was the smart kid, one was the bully(who got them the parts), and the other was a middle of the road kid who had a crush on a cute girl.
@92BuickLeSabre: But MacGruber, how will a used gym sock hold that vent so it doesn't expl
@NcSchu: Oh yeah... fixing that now...
@Gyrus: It's called Explorers and came out in 1985.
@Charlie Jane Anders: Close, you got the name of their ship, but not the movie.
@LaughingAcademy: You got everything right but the title of the movie :)
What about that kid from Meet the Robinsons? He made crazy stuff out of every day objects not to mention the stuff he invents later...
MacGyver is the Greatest.
You should also add Wallace & Gromit. After all, they went all the way to the moon, man!
@Wesman: Actually yeah... that's a good point!
@ed207: I knew the name of the movie! I was just in a hurry! You can see I wrote a whole blog post about it before... I'm all about the Tilt-A-Whirl spaceships!
The best is Data in STNG in "A Matter of Time" (Part II). The crew travels back to early 20th century Earth and Data gets trapped there. He proceeds to make a device that measures "Time shifts" out of an anvil, copper wire and a few other things. The time shifts are created when aliens coming to destroy earth appear to 'soul suck' humans. But I always thought that was very MacGuyver like.
The other STNG episode that covers this is in season 1 when there are 2 klingons on the ship that are detained for some reason (can't remember why) and they make a disruptor out of parts from their uniform including the raptor like 'claw' on their boots.
Glad to see the term "jerry-rig", which originated in WWII after German supply lines broke down and the German army had to improvise mechanical repairs. Having been a derogatory term like "jerry-built", I suppose it's politically incorrect, but considering what it describes, it always made more sense to me than "jury-rig". Nowadays, though, the dictionaries are guessing "jury-rig" came from the Old French term ajurie ('to help'). I remember looking it up in the past and not finding that definition, so I'm not sure how much I trust it. Oh, well. Just a Friday word-nerd moment...
And the award for real life MacGyver hacking goes to the crew of backroom engineers who cobbled together a working C02 scrubber interface using only the items aboard the Apollo 13 Command module and LM.
@MonkeyT: actually I enjoyed that moment ! informative
i'll just say "hence the word "sabotage"..." now <--- back to topic lame transition.
Joel from MST3k built four sentient robots with great senses of humor while trapped on a satellite, that's no mean feat.
Apologies if my first comment ever shows up, but I nominate Joel from MST3k for building four sentient, funny robots.
I think Spock deserves a mention for making a device (from depression era parts)that could access future newspapers in "City on the Edge of Forever," written by the infamous "Cordwainer Bird."
Re: Scotty: Best Mcguyver moment ever. Using an old Apple II to program super thick whale aquariums :D
Re: McKay: Scotty kept his time padding reasonable. 4x the actual time needed. McKay exaggerates like a bastard.
Re: Can of Worms: A Satalite dish IS a alien communication device, natch.
Re: ET: glowing cock fingers? WTF.
Re: Bill and Ted: Don't forget STATION! They/he/it built two robots out of homedepot/lowes parts while riding in the back of a moving van.
Re: Mr Fantastic's Popgun: So he built a giant version of the Orgasmotron?
@Adam_C: You get today's award for "Best Use of a Sci-Fi Quote" !!
@MonkeyT: "The victors" rewriting history is one thing, but -- ACK! -- political correctness rewriting etymological history?? ARGHHH!!
@phimuskapsi: That is a truly excellent example of Data's ingenuity, as is that episode where he loses his memory on the pseudo-medieval world and cobbles together his own Rutherford experiment, among other things. So Data definitely deserves an entry.
And FINALLY, I MUST say ... @Siggichurchill: is right. Samantha Carter could kick the pants off many folks in this list (including Rodney McKay -- who is WAY less practical than she, and has many times gotten inspiration FROM Sam !! --), and deserves to be near the very TOP of this list.
Right after the entry for MacGyver himself, of course.
@phimuskapsi: That doesn't count. Those parts of their uniform where added intentionally for that purpose.
@cde: "Computer? Hello, computer?" ... "Oh. Keyboard. How quaint." Yeah, that one is worth its weight in gold.
I was just thinking about how many moments Scotty has and about Star Trek tech in general. The Federation must have been geniuses of making their starship engines, weapons systems, and gadgets like tricorders and phasers completely hackable. I used to wonder why, if it was possible to make your tricorder into a bomb using only a paper clip (or whatever) they didn't just design it to do that in the first place. The answer must be that Star Trek tech is all rather poorly understood yet built to be hackable! Their technology evolved so rapidly, none of them really understand it -- until they need to. Now how could that culture have evolved in an atmosphere of military secrecy? Doesn't it seem more likely that Star Trek tech was open source?
@NefariousNewt: Russell Johnson RULES! He could build a nuclear reactor from bamboo, Mr. Howell's money clip and 4 coconuts!
Of course, there sure was a lot of useful stuff on that island, including deposits of lead(?) and giant spiders.
@RAHfanboy: Yes, stone knives and bear skins.
@tuckerch: Thank you for that. No fucking kidding. Not to mention repurposing a landing vehicle as your principle propulsion/maneuvering/lifeboat.
@Liz Henry: All star trek tech (startech for the uninformed :P) is based off the original communicator. It's canon. So the tricorder, the transporter, the warp engine are all based off of it, so learn the basics of one, and you know the basics of them all.
Or they had schematics on the inside of the casing :P
Oh, and they didn't make a tricorder be able to become a bomb with a push of a button for safety issues. Imagine a bad firmware update, or some unknowing person/alien picks one up. You had to make an effort, however small, to get it to blow.
hERE IS A PIECE OF OBSCURE SCI FI TRIVIA..ANYONE EVER see
a movie called "Robinson Crusoe on Mars"..astronaut survives a crash laning on mars..using his wits and some stuff he rescues form his downed ship...Early Sixties movie../.
Cmon, please put mention in the Star Trek section about Kirk battling the Gorn and building a cannon by grinding rocks into gunpowder and making the barrel from wood.
@Ddoom: You know, we discussed that while putting this post together... But while Kirk improvised a weapon, he didn't really create a high-tech gadget, which is what this post was about. He created the equivalent of an old-school cannon or pistol.
Station is the MacGyver of Bill and Ted.
The five castaways of Jules Verne's Mysterious Island are the original MacGuyvers. They were able to make fire from a pocket watch!
Any list that doesn't include them isn't much of a list, IMHO.
My vote is for Scotty. Aside from the fact that my middle name is Scott, I loved watching Star Trek as a kid and watching him come up with creative solutions to problems. That character was the major reason I became a computer engineer. I still have a 30-year-old baseball card in my planner from the original series with Scotty installing a Romulan clocking-device in the Enterprise.
Buckaroo Banzai! \o/
Charlie Jane, I bow to you and your superior listing capabilities.
You can check your anatomy all you want, and even though there may be normal variation, when it comes right down to it, this far inside the head it all looks the same. No, no, no, don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to.
BBR mcryder
Don't forget
* Caractacus Potts, inventor of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and sundry other devices
* Professor Branestawm, whose many inventions were often illustrated by Heath Robinson.
* Willy Wonka
* The Professor on Gilligan's Island
* Q (James Bond)
* Hubert Farnsworth (Futurama)
* many villains: Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Doc Oc, ...
@hitmouse: Bond's 'Q' has a building full of flunkies and a near-inexhaustable black budget. Fail.
Artemus Gordon, steam punk rules!!!!
@hitmouse: FYI Caractacus Potts and Q were both creations of Ian Fleming.
I love this list, and yes Artemus Gorden should be on it.
Perhaps some honorable mentions should go out to:
Captain Nemo need I say more. How could you miss this one.
Dr. Morbius from Forbidden Planet (He figured out the Krell tech)
Solon from Dr. Who- He put the brain of Morbius in a patch work body that would have considered ethically bankrupt by Dr. Frankenstein.
How could this list put Bill and Ted on the list and miss Captain Nemo?
@MonkeyT: Oh, God, you think that's un-PC? God, you should hear what I've heard some people use. I can't even type it. Let's just say it makes "ghetto-rig" seem polite.
No Poll?
How the hell is Short Circuit and Bill and Ted getting remakes but Buckaroo still hasn't gotten his sequel yet... I need my fix of rastafarian aliens
Bill and Ted are geniuses. Who else could fix a time machine with bubblegum?
Gotcha! It works! I am the person who designed and built ET's communicator. Steven Spielberg wanted a space communicator built with parts within the understandable realm of Elliott. Actually, the first design I made used the microwave oven for a transmitting source. The microwaves were reflected out the door of the microwave by a spherical hubcap and directed into a waveguide made of flexible air conditioning tubing. The tubing ran out the kitchen window where an upside down aluminum patio umbrella was used as an antenna reflector. I also designed a scanning television camera made from rotating Christmas tree ornaments and lenses. The result was that Mr. Spielberg wanted something portable, that could be carried on Elliot's bike. The movie uses my second design, certified by IEEE members (and my ham radio compatriots at Bell Labs) as an operational beacon transmitter modulated with a message produced by the Speak and Spell and programmed by the rotating saw blade on the phonograph.
Henry Feinberg (K2SSQ)
Gotcha.. It works! I am the person who designed and built ET's Communicator. Mr. Spielberg wanted a space communicator to be built using parts understandable to a 12-year old, like Elliott. My original design used the microwave oven in Elliott's kitchen as the transmitter. I directed the microwave energy out the oven door with a spherical hub cap and used flexible air conditioning duct as a waveguide. The waveguide led out the window to the patio where I wanted to use an upside down aluminum patio umbrella as the parabolic reflector. I even designed a scanning-type TV camera using spinning Christmas tree ornaments, lenses and a solar cell as the light detector. (This was years before digital cameras.)
However, Mr. Spielberg wanted something portable enough to be carried on Elliott's bike. What you see in the film is my second design using a Speak & Spell as the message generator, a saw blade rotating on a phonograph as the programming device,