Thirty years ago today, a TV hero with a taste for ingenuity in the face of a crisis made his début on screen: MacGyver. An action hero with an aversion to guns that the whole family could rally behind, the eponymous engineer could fend off Soviets armed with just a packet of chewing gum and a singular paperclip.

For seven seasons, the show made a star of its leading man, Richard Dean Anderson, who quickly became the quick-thinking geek that inspired a generation of boys and girls to covet Swiss Army Knives and plan a career in STEM, all while humming the theme tune.

Created by Lee David Zlotoff, along with John Rich and Henry ‘The Fonze’ Wrinkler, MacGyver spent 139 episodes in near-constant peril, with a scientific consultant and members of the public asked to submit ever wackier situations to escape from with ever more improbable solutions to save the day. Anything deemed too dangerous was usually still left in the show, though the producers kept a step or two out of the process to protect children from blowing themselves up at home in an effort to emulate their hero.

The Macgyver Dream Pocket Knife [Flickr/roy angeles]

As for the show’s star, Richard Dean Anderson showed very little in common with the role that made him a household name – and the apple of the eye of Patty and Selma Bouvier on The Simpsons; in 1986 after the first season’s wrap party, the actor found himself locked out of his home. After months of reading countless MacGyverism off of the script, the actor’s solution was a little bit more brawn than brain – he picked up a nearby bench and threw it through his window.

But on the show, he was a hero like no other. He could disarm a missile with a paperclip, use a rope and matches to get a rife to fire itself, use a smashed pistol barrel as a rocket thruster, smoke a cigarette to find hidden laser beams, and stop a sulphuric-acid leak with some milk chocolate. And that’s just the first episode. So what are the top 10 inventions MacGyver came up with?

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10. A bomb made out of a washing-up glove

Objects: Rubber glove, gas pipe, toilet bowl chunks, light bulb on a wire

Method: Attaching an orange rubber glove to a gas pipe, MacGyver inflates the glove, located underneath a live lightbulb. The hero then throws pieces of a broken toilet bowl – clean, as the scene takes place in a toilet factory – at the bulb, causing a spark and exploding the bomb.

9. Candlestick defibrillators 

Objects: Metal candlesticks, microphone cord, rubber mat

Method: MacGyver cuts the microphone cord, stripping back the rubber to expose the electrical wires inside and attaches these to the candlesticks. Wrapping the rubber mat around them, he makes a defibrillator, saving a friend suffering a heart attack.

8. An avalanche-solving bomb

Objects: Sleeping bag, vodka, tank of oxygen

Method: Trapped under snow in an aeroplane, MacGyver wraps the sleeping bag around the oxygen tank, placing it in a bucket of vodka. Then, using a string from the bag, he lights the bomb, covers, and explodes his way out of the situation.

7. A hang glider made from a crashed-to-earth satellite

Objects: A US spy satellite that has crashed to Earth, its parachute that didn't work very well, duct tape

Method: In a race against time while being shot at by several henchman, MacGyver manages to make a very professional looking hang glider out of the pieces, gliding to safety.

6. A fully functional hot-air balloon

Objects: Gas canisters, strips of nylon, a corrugated-iron shed, glue (homemade)

Method: MacGyver and friends sew together the nylon into a perfect hot-air balloon shape, creating a basket out of the corrugated iron. They then use the gas to escape the attacking Soviets, whose every gunshot misses the massive balloon and is deflected by iron.

5. A torpedo made from a water pipe

Objects: Sticks, rocks, rags, pipe and a boiler.

Method: MacGyver yanks a pipe bolted to the wall, filling it with the remaining objects and uses pressure from the boiler to blast through the wall, creating an escape route.

4. A fire-extinguisher bomb

Objects: Fire extinguisher, metal hooks, Duct tape and some bungee cords – conveniently to hand

Method: Using the hooks and the fire extinguisher, MacGyver cobbles together an explosive device. Then, using the taut bungee cords as a huge sling shot, the hero then expertly fires his device at a car. Upon impact, the hooks pierce the cannister, and it explodes.

3. A chewing-gum-wrapper fuse joint

Objects: Chewing-gum foil wrapper

Method: MacGyver, offering the stick of gum to the woman he's rescuing, uses the foil to join together the two contacts in a broken fuse. For what its worth, in the 100th episode of Mythbusters, both this MacGyverism and the chocolate stopping a sulphuric-acid leak were proven to be entirely plausible and scientifically sound.

2. An egg radiator patch 

Objects: Eggs, boiling water

Method: To fix a leaking engine radiator, MacGyver cracks open an egg from a nearby chicken coop, pouring the whites into the radiator and using the hot water to cook them, sealing the leak. This MacGyverism was crowdsourced from a member of the public, who received a $1000 prize.

1. A spear-gun escape route over ravenous dogs using an old telescope

Objects: Cleaning fluid, a telescope, moth balls, rope, handle bars and a pulley 

Method: Barricaded in an attic while enemies are trying to break in, MacGyver uses all of the materials to create a spear gun, firing it into a tree. Then the man with whom he is trapped glides to freedom – over the snarling dogs and a huge fence – before, without any explanation, the handlebars magically reappear in MacGyver's hands so he can do the same. 

All in a day's work...