The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 221

MacGyver: TV's Unsung Hero Adventure Drama Gives Viewer Food for Thought i IT 1 -N If Is ii 1 fated By Bob Michals Staff Writer With all the criticism being raised of late about violence on television, it's somewhat surprising that a group like the National Coalition on Television Violence hasn't come out foursquare behind ABC's MacGyver (Sundays, 8-9 p.m., Channels 12, 10). Apparently there's more to be gained from crucifying television than praising it, because this is one adventure show that definitely has tried to tone down gratuitous Violence. Perhaps that's one reason hy it also continues to struggle in ratings. MacGyver is a thinking man's A-Team. The hero is a modern-day American hero not unlike Indiana Jones who is always at his best when the odds against him are at their worst.

He's the government's last-ditch hope when all else has failed, and his assignments are always the ones that have left everyone else stumped. His ace-in-the-hole is his resourcefulness. He's a human pack rat, who continually adds to his knapsack collection of seemingly ordinary everyday items on the chance they might come in handy one day. Of course that "rainy day" comes every week when he's forced to use a chocolate bar to stop a dangerous acid leak or improvise a cold capsule to make a mini-bomb. The plots often end up having a "Gee, Mr.

Wizard" ring to the solutions, but that doesn't diminish the fact MacGyver's ingenious scientific solutions often preclude the use of brut force. Executive producer Henry Winkler thinks television needs more characters like MacGyver, and he takes pride in the fact his hero can get out of trouble without his fists. "We're trying to get away from the idea that you have to shoot 'em up and have a violent show for adventure. One of the things that (co-executive producer) John (Rich) and I were drawn to is the fact that this guy figures things out with his wits and ingenuity and it's all scientifically correct. Everything we do on this show is scientifically correct it's not science fiction.

"He sits down and says: 'Come on, MacGyver, think. You know that somewhere in his predicament is logic. All the information is there, you just have to be perceptive and receptive to it, and then you can figure it out. If you or I were put in such a situation, we could do it too. Richard Dean Anderson stars as MacGyver "MacGyver is a great role model.

Why not tell the young people that they, too, can do anything they put their minds to and they don't necessarily have to bruise their knuckles? This guy is very real. He gets stumped and he uses the wonderful people around him to help solve his problems. That's a wonderful idea to put out into the community, that we're all human. "He will take information from anybody. He is not just interested in what he knows.

Ronnie Howard once told me you never know where a good idea is going to come from when you're directing. MacGyver is open to letting all people participate, which is also a great lesson for people to learn in this country, because I sincerely believe America does not know how to listen." And there's a lot to be learned from listening to MacGyver. This is probably the only show in the history of television that has a physicist as technical adviser. Many of the other ideas come from the most unexpected sources. "Believe it or not, we are very lucky to have a lot of people in this industry who are very smart.

We also have the students and faculty at Cal Tech, and we have the people on our own writing staff. We have one writer who was in the Special Forces and ingenuity is his middle name Dennis (Ingenuity) Bowen. "Seriously, our writing staff is really enjoying themselves. The restroom reading on our set is Discovery. I went in the other day and there was a sign 'Do not remove from the lending library' and all the magazines were like Discovery and Popular Science.

For instance, in our research we found that if you take wood and put it in ammonia for a while, you can make it so flexible that you can tie knots in it. Now I'm sure we're going to use that somehow." As important as the James Bond-like gags might be, however, the stories are not necessarily written after the fact to accommodate them, says Winkler. "We write scipts and they have fun trying to figure out the gag. Or.