Last night I watched a MacGyver episode from 1989 that revolved around the plight of the Black Rhino. The episode ended with a voice-over from Richard Dean Anderson explaining that (as of 1989) there were less than 4,000 of them left in the entire world. He went on to say that with the then current level of poaching, unless something was done, they’d be extinct by the year 2000.
That was 17 years ago. Curious about their current status, I went to Google and typed in “Black Rhino.”
On an intellectual level, I know it was just some mindless computer program with no idea what the words meant or why I was looking them up. That’s the intellectual version. But after watching a TV show about people killing the animals just to sell their horns, the one ad on the side of the page was somewhat disturbing:
Black Rhino – Find it on Ebay.
2 thoughts on “Automatic revulsion”
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That is pretty disturbing.
Having watched a few more episodes, it seems like MacGyver’s fifth season was more of the “Makes you think” type of episode as opposed to Mac just happening to have all sorts of esoteric knowledge.
Which isn’t to say he doesn’t come up with ingenius solutions. In “The Madonna” along with making everyone’s Christmas go right (including his own), Mac turns a set of dumbbells into wheels and in “The Ten Percent Solution” he comes up with a way out of a sealed room.
Definitely a cool show. If I ever get the chance to meet Richard Dean Anderson, it won’t be a Stargate photo I’ll be asking him to sign, it’ll be a roll of duct tape or a pen knife. (Not that he’s my role model or anything.)