Poll Says MacGyver Character Is Disaster Preparedness Top Hero

In the event of disaster, Americans have chosen a 1980’s TV show character, “MacGyver” to have by their side. That was one result in a survey released this week in which participants were given a choice among seven fictional heroes for help in an emergency.

The poll, commissioned by the Chicago-based McCormick Tribune Foundation, has a serious purpose: Urging Americans to become better prepared for disasters.

Still, the fact that a television character who triumphed by using everyday objects and scientific principles was the favorite surprised and delighted Don Cooke, the foundation’s senior vice president for philanthropy.

“I love ‘MacGyver.’ You could give him a sock and a piece of string and he could somehow create electricity for the whole city,” joked Cooke, an astronomer by training.

“MacGyver,” portrayed by Richard Dean Anderson, ran from 1985 to 1992 on ABC. In the survey, 27 percent of respondents chose the character.

He was followed by Indiana Jones (16 percent); John McClane from the “Die Hard” films (14 percent); James Bond and Jason Bourne (8 percent each); and Lara Croft of “Tomb Raider” and Jack Bauer of “24” (7 percent each).

For the survey, Opinion Research Corp. interviewed 1,049 randomly selected U.S. adults by telephone Aug. 24-27. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In other questions, seven in 10 respondents said it was very or somewhat likely that their community would suffer some kind of disaster during the next 10 years.

About a quarter of respondents thought the most likely disaster to hit their community would be a tornado; about 6 percent said a terrorist attack.

Six in 10 respondents said they had set aside an emergency kit featuring a flashlight, a portable radio and water, among other items.

Less than a third said they had a plan on where to meet family members in the event of a disaster preventing them from going home or contacting each other.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters