History Main / MacGyvering

* In the Danish ''Olsen Banden'' (''The Olsen Gang'') films, the leader, Egon Olsen, always makes heist plans that can be done using careful timing and everyday household objects.
* Vintage example: In the 1952 swashbuckler-spoof ''The Crimson Pirate'', rebel townsfolk cobble together a hot-air balloon, cart-mounted cannons, a proto-gatling gun, and a ''flamethrower'' from old barrels, wagon wheels, wickerwork and some stolen long guns.

* Spoofed in ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods''. While hanging out with Bea during a housecall to fix Mrs. Miranda's noisy furnace, Mae attempts to cobble together a fix of her own using the objects you find in the basement: a fan, a fishing pole, a badminton racket, and a garden gnome. There are a few options available, all of them look ridiculous, and [[RealityEnsues all of them just fall apart before you even get a chance to try it out]]. Oh, and while you were messing around, Bea already fixed the problem because she does this sort of thing for a living.

* In a similar vein, the Egyptians have a [[NationalStereotypes stereotype]] about themselves that they can always find a way to make what they need; unconventional solutions will often be complimented as "very Egyptian." A somewhat famous example is the time a European and American documentary team was trying to figure out some element of how the Pyramids had been built with the technology of the day; they submitted the question to some modern Egyptian laborers, and within a few hours they had rigged a system of levers and ropes that would both have been possible 4000 years ago and done the job. As it turns out, this might be true of Arabs in general, judging by the jury-rigged weapons systems of Hamas and Hezbollah in the UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict, and of the Libyan rebels in [[UsefulNotes/MiddleEastUprising2011 their Civil War]].

Note that the gadget has to be based on more science than simply, "Hey, I could kill someone with this random object." Look for those under ImprovisedWeapon. May involve NoodleImplements.

* ''VideoGame/ScrapMechanic'', as the name implies, features you playing as a GadgeteerGenius mechanic who can literally build vehicles and buildings out of scrap lying about, or out of repurposed industrial equipment.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''s Medic literally created a device that can heal people from the brink of death to full physical health within the minute, out of a Flower pot, blender, fire hose, several gauges and malfunctioning medical equipment. The Soldier has a cobbled-together rocket launcher, Pyro a flamethrower, and Medic once more, a syringe gun that's just as cobbled together as the Quick fix.

* The main character in the ''VideoGame/TexMurphy'' games is all about this. It's necessary to advance past dozens of puzzles throughout the games.
* Any of the ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'' games where Guybrush Threepwood has to use all manner of wacky items to save the day. One is in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'', where [[spoiler:you have to pour cooking oil on a guy's back so he'll get sun burnt and you can then peel off the skin on his back which just happens to have a map tattooed on to it]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}} 8'' has the gadgeteer class. Spell casters can obviously cast spells and bards can produce similar spell-like effects when they find the proper musical instrument. Gadgeteers will be collecting odd assortments of scrap and knick-knacks to assemble devices that allow them to do the same--like a lava lamp that hypnotizes enemies. Their unique weapon, the omnigun, also functions this way: it gets more powerful as the gadgeteer gains levels because they're installing upgrades and new functions. At first model omnigun is slow, inaccurate and uses musketballs and sling stones for ammo, the final model is very fast, very accurate, can cause a laundry list of debuffs, and can use ''every kind of ammo''.

* This is the superpower that fans have inferred Nitori of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' to have. She lives in a MedievalStasis world, but has access to books from the real world, and is nevertheless capable of producing working machines of the modern age (or even better than modern equipment, as with her stealth suit) without access to an industrial base, education system, or any kind of energy source (until the end of the tenth game, at least). Western fans even directly state [=MacGyver=] to be her personal hero/romantic fantasy.
* In ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', a character makes a bomb out of charcoal, "jellyfish juice" and gum base.
* In ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2'' you can make some gadgets out of random items you find. For example: duct tape and a steel tube can be used to make a barrel extender for your rifle, which increases its range (though it's prone to get fired ''off'' since it's only held on with duct tape), or combining a game system, an x-ray tube, and a couple other things to make an x-ray scanner (reports of massive doses of x-ray radiation when in use are "unconfirmed").
* Parodied in ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry7LoveForSail''. When you try to combine random objects, the announcers says something along the lines of, "Larry, sometimes you try to mix two things together, but what do you always get? An ass".
* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'': Jeff Andonuts. He's the BadassBookworm that can make anything from a Slime Generator from a broken iron to a Gaia Beam from a broken antenna.
* Fotbar Laboratory in ''VideoGame/ChoroQ HG 4'' allows you to make powerful parts out of spoon, wrist strap, piece of cloth, paper bag, and others. The strongest chassis of the game is happened to be made of eraser.

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising''
** In ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'', Chuck can make a weapon out of every last thing he finds. These range from simple (Nails + Baseball Bat = Baseball Bat With Nails Through It) to creative (Knifes + Boxing Gloves = WolverineClaws) to really weird (Chainsaws + Paddle = Double Ended Polearm With Chainsaws at both ends) to just plain crazy (Gas Can + Super Soaker = ''Flamethrower.'')
** In ''Videogame/DeadRising3'', Nick can not only craft on the spot, but can also combine vehicles to make super vehicles, some of which are even armed with special weapons.
* Rikku in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', as part of her LimitBreak, she can create powerful bombs or healing items just by combining two often ordinary items.
* Most of the challenges in ''Return to Mysterious Island'' and its sequel are this trope.
* Technologist in ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' can assemble explosives, chemicals, guns and various mechanical devices from random junk. This includes a device which can ''resurrect dead'' and is made from a capacitor, snake venom and three different herbs.
* ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'' has the protagonist, Max, who is able to come up with ideas and create things out off photos he takes: trash can, belt, pipe, streetlight, hospital skeleton, tree, iron maiden, etc. Also, there's even more bizarre case where he can synthesize element out of bread to upgrade his weapon.
* In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2'' the protagonist, Isaac, builds a plasma cutter (the main weapon of the series) out of a flashlight and a surgical laser.
* ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'' takes it to the next level by having Isaac craft everything involving his guns including tiny upgrade chips from tungsten, semiconductors, transducers and yes, scrap metal. The whole thing gets then turned UpToEleven on [[HarderThanHard Pure Survival Mode]] where no ammo, health or stasis kit drops at all. Instead you get resources with which to craft all that stuff yourself.
* The entire equipment system in the rebooted ''[[VideoGame/TombRaider2013 Tomb]]'' ''[[VideoGame/RiseOfTheTombRaider Raider]]'' series revolves around this trope. Lara usually only receives the basic weapon of each class automatically, and everything more advanced needs to be assembled from parts she can find throughout the game. These weapons as well as other parts of her gear can then be upgraded with random pieces of scrap that need to be salvaged as well. ''Rise'' expands upon this system by introducing a wide variety of improvised weapons for Lara to craft on the fly, ranging from tin can grenades and smoke bombs over gas canister fire bombs and walkie-talkie proximity mines to rigging dead mooks with deadly poison gas traps that silently kill anyone who tries to investigate the body. And let's not forget about her arsenal of nifty special arrows up to and including cluster grenade arrows, all of which can be crafted from scavenged resources at any time as well.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', all the player has at the beginning of the game is their bare hands and the clothes on their back. They can fashion a crafting table after chopping down a tree and processing it into planks with their bare hands, use that table and those planks to make makeshift wooden tools, use those tools to gather cobblestone, which they can then use to build a furnace and upgrade to makeshift stone tools, which they can use in turn to gather coal and iron ore... and so on. With the right raw materials and a crafting table (which can be crafted on the spot in a pinch), the player can make whatever they need almost instantly.
* ''{{VideoGame/Unturned}}'' is similar to ''Minecraft'' in that you start with nothing and can eventually craft and construct supplies and shelter. In particular, some weapon attachments can be improvised using some rather unorthodox materials. For instance, using two tin cans and two cans of cola (cooked over a fire, for some reason), you can make an improvised silencer called the 'Muffler'. Another example is the "Zoomifier", an improvised scope made out of a pair of binoculars and some duct tape which has a fairly high zoom level but no reticule.

* Two-Hat Jack from ''VideoGame/SunsetOverdrive'' uses his considerable [[DisasterScavengers scavenging]] and design skills to craft extremely unusual firearms. Justified in that he lives in an apocalypse, and the game is very loose on what items would make for [[AbnormalAmmo ammunition.]] The rest of the guns he sells are obviously looted from enemy corpses.

* The trapper character Jack in ''VideoGame/{{Evolve}}'' is quite skilled at this. Among his cobbled together devices are a satellite uplink and override, a motion negator, and a hybrid assault/medical droid.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'', after losing all his equipment in a fire, [[TheHero Solid Snake]] defeats [[EvilMentor Big Boss]] with a makeshift flamethrower made of a spray can and a cigarette lighter.

* In ''VideoGame/LostHorizon'', when Kim makes a sarcastic comment about the apparently useless junk Fenton keeps collecting, he is able to remind her that he recently took out a German fighter plane with just a pumpkin, a bag of flour, and some water.
* Spoofed in ''VideoGame/NightInTheWoods''. While hanging out with Bea during a housecall to fix Mrs. Miranda's noisy furnace, Mae attempts to cobble together a fix of her own using the objects you find in the basement: a fan, a fishing pole, a badminton racket, and a garden gnome. There are a few options available, all of them look ridiculous, and [[RealityEnsues all of them just fall apart before you even get a chance to try it out]]. Oh, and while you were messing around, Bea already fixed the problem because she does this sort of thing for a living.
--> '''Bea:''' "Way to go, Mae. Please don't fix anything ever again."
* ''VideoGame/{{Battletech}}'': Dr Farah Murad is somewhere between this trope and a [[MrFixit Ms Fixit]]. Her first notable accomplishment in the campaign is getting the battered hulk of a crashed starship powered up and ready to launch while her bodyguards were still trading shots with the bandit gang who'd taken up residence in it. The player's faction's chief Mech mechanic Yang Virtanen has his moments as well, since until you get hold of that crashed starship in an early campaign mission he's repairing and servicing battlemechs in the hold of a ''Leopard''-class DropShip, which is roughly equivalent to doing an engine-swap on a Humvee in the back of a C-130 ''in flight''.
* Most (if not all) of the characters in any ''VideoGame/LEGOAdaptationGame'' will automatically know what to build out of the piles of pieces lying around.
** A gameplay mechanic is ''VideoGame/TheLEGOMovieVideogame'' is that Master Builders can use green circles to highlight 3 groups of parts in a green aura and throw them into a green whirlwind to reassemble them into something else. However, the parts need to be within range of the circle in order to be selected.

* A gameplay mechanic is ''VideoGame/TheLEGOMovieVideogame'' is that Master Builders can use green circles to highlight 3 groups of parts in a green aura and throw them into a green whirlwind to reassemble them into something else. However, the parts need to be within range of the circle in order to be selected.
%%* [[BuiltWithLego Any]] VideoGame/LegoAdaptationGame.

* [[BuiltWithLego Any]] VideoGame/LegoAdaptationGame.

* The Doctor in ''Series/DoctorWho'' does not carry a gun (though he has used them on occasion), and often cooks up homebrew supertech. In the episode "The Time Monster", he built a "time flow analogue" out of cups, spoons, a pie pan, and other objects found in a small house.
** In "Time Crash" the Tenth Doctor lampshades this based on the fact that the Fifth Doctor never used a sonic screwdriver.

** The Kahler race introduced in "A Town Called Mercy" is described by the Doctor as being one of the most ingenious races in the galaxy, being able to build a spaceship "out of Tupperware and moss".

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Arena", Kirk manages to build a primitive ''cannon'' out of various ingredients (bamboo, sulfur, potassium nitrate, coal, and diamond crystals) he tripped over while stranded on a uninhabited asteroid. Partly justified by the fact that the asteroid was set up by powerful aliens so the combatants could fashion their own weapons, but still, a ''cannon''... (The Chinese used similar mortars out of bamboo or ceramics centuries before Europeans made cannons out of metal.)
** Busted in the ''Series/MythBusters'' first mini-myths episode. They simply could not refine the black powder by hand to a point where it would propel the crystals with anywhere near the velocity needed to wound or kill, and when they tried the same rig with ''real'' black powder, it backfired and "killed" their Kirk stand-in (played by Buster).

-->'''Spock''': I am endeavouring, ma'am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.

** ''Franchise/StarTrek'' does it again in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "A Fistful of Datas". Worf, stranded in [[PhlebotinumBreakdown an Old West simulation]], makes a forcefield out of telegraph parts and his communicator.
** And again in the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' two-part episode "Demons/Terra Prime", when Trip picks a futuretech lock using his zipper and belt buckle.

** In-universe, Starfleet officers (engineers in particular) have this reputation. It's even lampshaded by a captured enemy who hopes for them to have "one of those famed Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators" so he can live the high life as a Federation POW, instead of starving on some empty rock or butchered by his soon-to-be insane troops.
* In the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "Grey 17 is Missing", Garibaldi makes use of a steam line and some bullets he had in his pocket to make an impromptu gun to kill a monster running loose on the level in the title.

** French call that ''système D''. A convenient way to do things without any annoying organisation.

* Shogetsu from ''[[Manga/HatenkouYuugi Dazzle]]'' got a can of mackerel for lunch... but no can opener. So, with a few tools he got from the school's kitchen and science lab and the graphite from a pencil, he made a welding torch in the hopes that it would open the can. It did, but sadly, [[http://www.mangafox.com/manga/hatenkou_yuugi/v10/c069/52.html it also burned the mackerel.]] Oh, and Rahzel and Fay both had can openers.

-->'''[=MacGyver=] Friend:''' Hey, man, we're out of papers.
-->'''[=MacGyver=] Smoker:''' All right. Then get me a toilet paper roll, a corkscrew and some tin foil.
-->'''[=MacGyver=] Friend:''' We don't have a corkscrew.
-->'''[=MacGyver=] Smoker:''' All right. Then get me an avocado, an ice pick and my snorkel.
-->[Friend looks at him funny]
-->'''[=MacGyver=] Smoker:''' Trust me, bro. I've made bongs with less. Hurry up!

* Owen, the protagonist of ''Film/TheAggressionScale'', is like a sociopathic teenage MacGyver when it comes to turning common household items into lethal weapons.

* Owen, the protagonist of ''Film/TheAggressionScale'', is like a sociopathic teenage MacGyver when it comes to turning common household items into lethal
weapons.

** In ''Film/IronMan1'', Tony Stark creates a revolutionary way of generating huge amounts of power and a bulletproof power suit whilst captured by terrorists and only some scrap weapons parts at his disposal. As explained in one of the quotes on the quotes page.

** In [[TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War,]] American soldiers, lacking suitable armor for their Humvees and trucks, created what came to be called "hillbilly armor" made from scrap metal, kevlar, bulletproof glass and even plywood. [[http://www.lostiniraq.com/images/hillbilly-armor-315_640x480.jpg The result]] looks like something out of ''Film/MadMax''.

** [=MacGyvering=] is a popular pastime in the Amateur Radio community. In the US at least, federal regulations give licensed amateurs quite a bit of leeway in building and modifying their own equipment. Plenty of people have fun figuring out what random objects they can modify into communications equipment, to include one fellow who used the HVAC ducts in his house as a radio antenna. "
* On ''Series/TheDailyShow'', Jon Stewart makes reference directly to [=MacGyvering=] when [[http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-7-2009/william-kamkwamba interviewing]] William Kamkwamba, a young man from Malawi who created a functioning windmill for his village during a famine, using only, according to Wiki/ThatOtherWiki, "[[BambooTechnology blue gum trees]], bicycle parts, and materials collected in a local scrapyard."

* Americans are known for coming up with crazy ideas that just happen to work like using human hair to soak up oil. At the Battle of Midway, the carrier ''Yorktown'' had been redeployed after improvised repairs were rushed after taking heavy damage at Coral Sea. The ''Yorktown'' was bombed by Zeroes, but the Damage Control units not only kept her afloat, but got her back up to speed, to the point that when the Japanese bombed her again, they thought they had sunk two carriers (which would have been a far more crippling blow to the U.S., as the only other active Pacific carriers at the time were ''Hornet'' and ''Enterprise''), rather than hitting the ''Yorktown'' twice. She did sink, but not before turning the tide of the battle by means of improvised repairs and sheer endurance.
** In [[TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]], American soldiers, lacking suitable armor for their Humvees and trucks, created what came to be called "hillbilly armor" made from scrap metal, kevlar, bulletproof glass and even plywood. [[http://www.lostiniraq.com/images/hillbilly-armor-315_640x480.jpg The result]] looks like something out of ''Film/MadMax''.
** Another example from Iraq: [[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-serious-use-for-silly-string/ Using Silly String to check doors for tripwires]]. As the article mentions, this kind of improvisational thinking is taught and encouraged in the US Army.
* In the wake of the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, basically everyone and their uncle came up with an idea to either A) get the oil from the water, B) fix the gushing oil pipe or C) clean the oil off the poor helpless animals. Almost all these ideas (well, maybe not the "stop the gushing pipe" one) usually involved simple materials that could be found in either the average home, the average High School, or the average supermarket. And most of them either ''worked'' or ''would have worked'', although not on a Gulf-wide scale.

* Nuclear physicist Ted Taylor, while waiting out a delay during a nuclear weapons test, found a parabolic mirror. He placed this outside the observation bunker and used wire to fix a Pall Mall at the mirror's focal point. When the bomb went off, the mirror focused the heat flash on the cigarette, and Ted Taylor became the first person to [[MundaneMadeAwesome light a cigarette with an atomic bomb]].

** [=MythBusters=] testing has also showed that while [=MacGyver=]'s improvised explosives like the sodium gell capsule are all chemically plausible, they aren't sufficiently powerful to do any real damage. This was likely intentional on the part of [=MacGyver=]'s producers
* On the Apollo 13 mission an oxygen tank explosion left the command module uninhabitable. Using the lunar module as a lifeboat had been discussed earlier, and the crew evacuated into the LM for the rest of the trip to the moon and back to Earth. Among the problems they had to solve was that the carbon dioxide scrubbers were being used up too quickly, being designed for the requirements of two astronauts for 1½ day, not three for four days. There were spare canisters in the command module, but those were cube-shaped and large, not cylindrical and small as in the lunar module[[note]]the phrase "square peg in a round hole", while certainly ''apt'' to this situation, doesn't ''come'' from this situation; it originated in the early 19th century[[/note]]. Ground Control put together a team with the objective to find a way to use items available on the spaceship (and ''only'' those items) to build something to make the CM canisters usable. Using things like plastic Moon rock bags, cardboard from log book covers, space suit hoses, and ''[[DuctTapeForEverything duct tape]]''[[note]]available on every American spaceship since the Gemini Program[[/note]], they [=MacGyvered=] a working adapter.

** Using duct tape or plastic bags to temporarily seal a sucking chest wound is actually a fairly standard Macguyvering technique for administering first aid to a sucking chest wound, in the absence of proper materials. Likewise, using the outer casing of a pen as tubing for an improvised tracheotomy.

** When the ferry ''Wahine'' foundered in Wellington Harbour on 10 April 1968, the extra-tropical cyclone responsible for the ferry's demise prevented aircraft flying the footage to the South Island. Instead, a camera crew drove north to Kaikoura, within range of Wellington's transmitter, and filmed a television set broadcasting the North Island news. They then rushed the footage to Christchurch and played it over the South Island network.
** The inter-island network was supposed to be completed in time for the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, but it got delayed. As a stop-gap, outside broadcast vans were strategically placed to relay the signal between the islands to ensure everyone got to see the event at the same time.

* [[http://www.greatbigstory.com/stories/how-tootsie-rolls-saved-the-troops The US Army]] had to do this. During the Korean War in 1950, US troops were stuck at the Chosin Reservoir. The fuel lines of their tanks were cracked from the harsh winter cold. They were running low on ammo and called in for an ammo drop using the code name "Tootsie rolls". Because of some error, they were dropped boxes of real tootsie rolls. While confused, they quickly realized if they chew one tootsie roll enough to thaw it, the roll could be made into a putty and they used them to cover the cracked fuel lines. When they refroze, they could safely drive the tanks out of there and were saved.

* Both subverted and played straight in ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': the KND's self-parodying BambooTechnology equipment mostly consists of random objects, pieces of wood, and duct tape, fondly referred to as '2x4 Technology.' It was played completely straight (and exaggerated) in Operation: E.L.E.C.T.I.O.N.S., he escaped from a cell by slugging Lunk (who was guarding him) stealing Lunk's bubble gum, and turning the gum into a makeshift skeleton key. (Which, likely [[RuleOfFunny for the sake of humor]], was given the 2x4 designation [[FunWithAcronyms G.U.M.M.B.O.]] right on the spot, standing for Gooey Unlocking Mush Maximizes Break Outs.)

** In the finale, [[spoiler:a [[MoreDakka M60 machine gun]] and a car engine]] are used to make a remote-activated automated turret that kills six people: [[spoiler: five of the seven Aryan Brotherhood members and [[TakingTheBullet Walt himself]]]].

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