Phoenix Foundation - A MacGyver Podcast

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: September 17th, 1990 —

A militant anti-drug gang sets off targeted bombs around town occasionally killing innocent bystanders.

MISSION: A covert team of corporate terrorists plan to take down all the companies who contribute to their local drug problem. MacGyver must bring these wannabe Robin Hoods to justice.

This week’s highlights include:

Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation (Television)

Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation is an American live-action television series produced by Saban Entertainment, which ran on the Fox Kids network from 1997 to 1998 based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles published by Mirage Studios. As of September 16, 2011, the series is currently distributed by Saban Brands, as Saban has recently regained the rights to the show from Disney.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_Turtles:_The_Next_Mutation.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: April 30th, 1990 —

MacGyver and Harry simultaneously enter a near-death state and visit relatives in the afterlife.

MISSION: The boat to the afterlife receives a couple new passengers when MacGyver lands in a coma after a fall and Harry suffers a sudden heart attack. Will MacGyver survive this episode of a show he starred in two more seasons of?

This week’s highlights include:

Styx (Mythology)

In Greek mythology, Styx (/stɪks/; Ancient Greek: Στύξ [stýkʰs])[citation needed] is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld (the domain often called Hades, which also is the name of its ruler). The rivers Styx, Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, and Cocytus all converge at the center of the underworld on a great marsh, which sometimes is also called the Styx. According to Herodotus, the river Styx originates near Feneos. Styx is also a goddess with prehistoric roots in Greek mythology as a daughter of Tethys, after whom the river is named and because of whom it had miraculous powers.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styx.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: April 16th, 1990 —

The testimony of a parakeet is somehow admitted into a high profile murder trial.

MISSION: MacGyver breaks every rule in jurydom to embarrass a defense attorney and solve the case on his own. A surprise witness to the murder is summoned in the form of a old lady’s parakeet.

This week’s highlights include:

Jury sequestration (Law)

Jury sequestration is the isolation of a jury to avoid accidental or deliberate tainting. Although sequestration is rare, publicity surrounding a trial and interested parties may interfere with juror objectivity; a judge may order that a jury be sequestered in order to prevent others from tampering with members of the jury through undue persuasion, threats, or bribes. This occurred most notably during the O.J. Simpson trial.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_sequestration.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: April 9th, 1990 —

Lisa Woodman returns and is promptly kidnapped by steel workers demanding their jobs back.

MISSION: MacGyver must rescue his old friend Lisa Woods; this time from a team of men her father had a hand in laying off.

This week’s highlights include:

Leverage (Finance)

In finance, leverage (sometimes referred to as gearing in the United Kingdom and Australia) is any technique to multiply gains and losses. Most often it involves buying more of an asset by using borrowed funds, with the belief that the income from the asset or asset price appreciation will be more than the cost of borrowing. Almost always this involves the risk that borrowing costs will be larger than the income from the asset, or that the value of the asset will fall, leading to incurred losses.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(finance).

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: March 19th, 1990 —

A long lost violin sends MacGyver and a friend on an adventure across town.

MISSION: When MacGyver is clipped by a negligent driver, she offers him a ride. What follows is a French new wave meandering around town in search of a centuries old violin with an impressive price tag.

This week’s highlights include:

RAS syndrome (P)

RAS syndrome (short for “redundant acronym syndrome syndrome”) refers to the use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym in conjunction with the abbreviated form, thus in effect repeating one or more words. Two common examples are “PIN number” (the “N” in PIN stands for “number”) and “ATM machine” (the “M” in ATM stands for “machine”). Other names for the phenomenon include PNS syndrome (“PIN number syndrome syndrome”, which expands to “personal identification number number syndrome syndrome”) or RAP phrases (“redundant acronym phrase phrases”)

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: February 26th, 1990 —

A submarine cloaking device is stolen, coincidentally the inventor’s dating a shady submarine salesman.

MISSION: The ERMA cloaking device was intended to hide police from drug dealers, but the opposite may be the case now that the device has been stolen. MacGyver must infiltrate the den of thieves as new crowd favorite character Dexter the nerd.

This week’s highlights include:

Cloaking device (Technology)

A cloaking device is a theoretical or fictional stealth technology that can cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. However, over the entire spectrum, a cloaked object scatters more than an uncloaked object.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking_device.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: February 19th, 1990 —

A deaf horse spells big bucks for a mobster planning to cheat the races

MISSION: When a good friend of MacGyver’s is killed, his daughter suspects foul play. Now, Mac, Pete, and Jack must con a conman into a murder confession and out of a large sum of stolen money.

This week’s highlights include:

Eddie Deezen (Actor)

Edward Harry “Eddie” Deezen (born March 6, 1957) is an American comedian, actor, and voice actor best known for his bit parts as nerd characters in 1970s and 1980s films such as Grease, Grease 2, Midnight Madness, 1941 and WarGames, as well as for larger and starring roles in a number of independent cult films, including Surf II: The End of the Trilogy, Mob Boss, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Beverly Hills Vamp and Teenage Exorcist.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Deezen.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: February 12th, 1990 —

A friend enlists MacGyver’s help in continuing her father’s quest for an ancient artifact.

MISSION: MacGyver reconnects with an old friend shortly after her father’s passing. She believes her father was killed just as he was closing in on an ancient treasure and she’ll need MacGyver’s help to prove it.

This week’s highlights include:

Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Facility)

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure seed bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) from the North Pole.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: February 5th, 1990 —

Loggers clash with environmentalists in a town slowly being taken over by the Yakuza.

MISSION: MacGyver visits an old friend only to find her quarreling with local loggers, one of which is her ex-husband. A trail of clues indicates some wrong-doing on the part of the loggers and MacGyver is running out of time to solve the case.

This week’s highlights include:

Planck length (Physics)

In physics, the Planck length, denoted ℓP, is a unit of length, equal to 1.616199(97)×10−35 metres. It is a base unit in the system of Planck units, developed by physicist Max Planck. The Planck length can be defined from three fundamental physical constants: the speed of light in a vacuum, the Planck constant, and the gravitational constant.

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length.

ORIGINAL AIRDATE: January 15th, 1990 —

MacGyver butts heads with a difficult but promising student while heading a Phoenix-sponsored educational experiment

MISSION: Phoenix Foundation sends MacGyver to a local school to work with faculty and students alike to reform a dysfunctional education program. MacGyver focuses his efforts on a notoriously difficult student until the student’s father causes new problems.

This week’s highlights include:

Here’s a link to my buddy John Kafka’s movie Dino Mom, which was later retitled Dino Time.

And here’s a link to the MacGyver Project’s interview with Jerry Wasserman.

Victor Frankenstein (Fictional character)

Victor Frankenstein is the title character of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. He is a scientist who, after studying chemical processes and the decay of living beings, gains an insight into the creation of life and gives life to his own creature (often referred to as Frankenstein’s monster, or often colloquially referred to as simply “Frankenstein”. This is acceptable as the monster is a ‘son’ or other erstwhile progeny to the doctor and, as such, would typically have the same surname. ).

Check out the article on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Frankenstein.