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- Winker Refuses Un-Cool Things For 'MacGyver'
Most established stars are quite blase about interviews and press
conferences. Meeting the press is just a hohum necessary part of the job.
Henry Winkler approaches these sessions like he's still the new kid who is
desperately trying to make a good impression. He's all over the place-shaking hands
and introducing himself to every critic in the room. He exudes enthusiasm and all the
aw-shucks sincerity of a Frank Capra hero.
In Hollywood, a town full of cloyingly phony "sincere" types, Winkler's demeanor
may seem suspect. But the man either is for real or he's become a parody, knowingly
or unwittingly, of a typical Tinsel Town personality.
Listening to the actor/producer push his company's new ABC series,
MacGyver, I opted for the less cynical verdict. After all, here is the Fonz, and he
isn't afraid to show journalists that there's a cheerleading, eager-to-please
businessman behind that leather jacket.
Yet like Fonzie, the role he played for about a decade on Happy Days, Winkler won't
tolerate certain un-cool behavior. That includes disrupting a positive working
environment with worrisome talk of ratings.
"As an actor on a set," said Winkler, who is producing MacGyver with his partner,
veteran director John Rich. "I have seen too much energy and too much time wasted
because the actors look at time periods and ratings points. We have no control over
that. We have control over being the best we can be. If the staff or the cast have major
conversations about time periods and/or ratings points, they will be fined."
There will be a box on the set, he said, and offenders will be required to deposit a
nominal fee.
An action/adventure series scheduled to air 8 p.m. Sundays (sorry, Henry,
but that is a bad time period for ABC), MacGyver stars Richard Dean Anderson as a
government agent who uses his scientific savvy to solve seemingly impossible problems.
Using routine items like chocolate bars and cold
capsules, this one-man Mission: Impossible team stops acid leaks and fashions bombs.
"From (the first) concept of the court of last resort," Winkler said during a Los
Angeles interview with about 20 critics, "we went through three or four variations, of
which I cannot tell you about, because they're all good enough to be a series on their
own. And then we came to MacGyver, a man who takes what is around him, listens to the
people around him and solves a problem by his wits, by using household items.
"Rather than having him so electronified and machofied that he is no longer relatable
to people, we have a very human character who is in tune with the world around him."
All of the scientific data in the series will be accurate, Winkler promised, but
MacGyver won't be Mr. Wizard joins the Secret Service. Far from professorial, Anderson
is a young actor capable of believably carrying an action series.
"There's nothing extraordinary about my career so far," said Anderson, who's appeared
in two prime-time series, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Emerald Point, N.A.S.
"I've done a daytime show (five years as Dr. Jeff Weber on the daytime soaper General
Hospital) and made a transition into nighttime. It didn't work out for whatever reasons
I'm not embarrassed by what's going on. I make transitions and adjust as any normal
brilliant, talented human being will do."
Although there will be a great deal of James Bond-like gimmickry in MacGyver, Anderson
isn't afraid that his character will be lost in a high-tech shuffle.
"I'd been turning down a lot of things for the last year or so," he said.
"I'm trying to let integrity be an intergral part of my personality. This character has
a lot of the qualities that I've been looking for. He's a very physical character, (but)
there's a humanity about the character that is very attractive to me.
"He's not relying on an underlying vein of machismo to get through all this I'm going
to embellish the hell out of this character. They have no idea how well they cast this."
Winkler and Rich were supposed to have two ABC series starting in the fall, but Mr.
Sunshine, a situation comedy about a blind university professor, got bumped when the
network scheduled Spenser: For Hire.
Mr. Sunshine, however, begins production in July as a possible midseason replacement.
"I like to make televsion that I'd like to see on television," said Winkler, who
produced the TV movie indictment of the tabloid press, Scandal Sheet. "I wouldn't mind
being the character of MacGyver. This guy is great."
Mark Daeidziak, "Winker Refuses Un-Cool Things For 'MacGyver'," Akron Beacon Journal,
26 June 1985, Sec. Life Style, p. B6.
MacGyver
MacGyver is sort of a modest James Bond, a resourceful Indiana Jones.
Give him a Swiss Knife and whatever he can scavenge in the immediate
vicinity and he can wreck a convoy of baddies, bring down helicopters,
rescue anyone from the strongest of strongholds. When all other means of
solving problems are exhausted, a call goes out (you're never quite sure
who's placing the call) for old Mac, and so far this season he hasn't
found a deed so derring he couldn't do it.
The nice part about him is that he carries no weapons and when there's
shooting going on, he's likely to be found running like mad, knitting
spider webs into a bulletproof vest or manufacturing an escape car out of
some handy paper clips. We exaggerate -- but not by much. Besides being
terrific looking (our source for this is quite reliable). Richard Dean
Anderson is just right as the brilliant, wry MacGyver, who starts his
assignments with a knapsack he carries, "not for what I take but for what
I find along the way." His part doesn't call for much heavy acting, but
Anderson, a veteran of General Hospital and a couple of brief CBS
prime-time series, manages to play it with just the right amount of
tongue in his cheek. They know what they're doing: the writing is
generally sharp, the directing on target and the special effects
impressive.
Most adventure shows open with a "hook" -- exciting scenes from the
episode' designed to keep the viewer from switching channels. MacGyver
begins with what the producers term an "opening gambit," which is a five
or 10-minute mini-adventure featuring our hero. When that ends, the
night's main story begins. It's an effective gimmick, serving both
increase the show's entertainment value and to lighten the main story.
Thus one program began with MacGyver in a auto junkyard interrupting the
sale of missile secrets to espionage agents. He snags the valuable
briefcase with one of those huge moveable magnets, is captured by the
agents, trussed up and tossed into the back seat of a car about to be
flattened. He escapes through the trunk and, using available
machinery,leaves the bad guys suspended about 50 feet in the air. Then
come the opening credits and MacGyver is off to Burma to recover a
canister of deadly poison that was lost when an Army cargo plane crashed
near a village where the natives are slaves to an opium warlord. He not
only recovers the canister but helps the villagers regain their freedom
by using whatever items are lying about to defeat the warlord. In the
final scene, MacGyver manages to tie a wire cable from the downed plane
to the warlord's helicopter and reel it in. Nothing is taken too
seriously. Early in the episode, when MacGyver is staked out in the hot
sun by the warlord's soldiers, his voice is heard remarking, "My mom used
to make great broiled chicken, I'm starting to feel real sympathetic
about those chickens."
It's a charming adventure show, less violent than most, and just right
for young people in its early-evening time on ABC's Wednesday schedule.
By young, of course, we mean young at heart. Stay with it, ABC.
Don Merrill. "Review," TV Guide, Feb. 1 1986
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