Well- I've been trying to clean out some old files and stuff I still have- and I thought perhaps some news articles and such on the 2003 "Young MacGyver" pilot that the WB never did pick up as a series (thank goodness)- might be of interest, to be added to the site- or whatever.

From TV Guide-

<<Meet Hollywood's New It Guy Tuesday, April 1, 2003 Be afraid, David E. Kelley. Be very afraid. Out of Harvard for just five years, playwright Samuel Baum already has two series in the works — and, just for good measure, a feature film, too. First up for the scribe — a handsome palooka who looks like he ought to be auditioning to play bashful hunks on Aaron Spelling soaps — is the WB's youthful MacGyver update, with Gilmore Girls sweetheart Jared Padalecki as Clay, the nephew of Richard Dean Anderson's character from ABC's 1985-92 hit, and original executive producer Henry Winkler on board once again. "It's been an excruciating writing process for me," Baum tells TV Guide with a laugh, "because I, of course, have to try all these [makeshift gadgets and] MacGyverisms out before I write them. I've actually blown off every finger on both hands rigging all the things that Clay uses." Also on Baum's drawing board is Hometown, an NBC/PAX dramedy about a young politician who is forced to share quarters with his incorrigible grandmother after she's kicked out of her retirement community for "gross misbehavior." "There aren't as many explosions in this show," its creator says, tongue in cheek, "but by Season Four, whoa — huge action!" All kidding aside, if Baum's wit alone doesn't put Hometown on the map, he could always call on old friends to provide guest-star power: The sometime actor has shared the stage with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. For the moment, though, Baum's head is still spinning from the whirlwind of activity that followed the optioning of his first play, Breakfast All Day (think a modern-day Diner), by the suits behind the sexy indie sleeper Kissing Jessica Stein. "I moved out to L.A., and five months later," marvels the native New Yorker, "I was writing MacGyver and working with the Fonz!" Can a photo op with Michelle Pfeiffer be far behind? — Ben Katner>>

2003 "Young MacGyver" pilot articles

From Zap2it.com

<<Dushku, Padalecki to Star in PilotsTue, Feb 25, 2003 11:45 AM PDT LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - The good news for fans of Eliza Dushku and Jared Padalecki is that they might have regular roles on TV come fall. They just might not be on the shows where viewers are accustomed to seeing them. Dushku, who's played rogue vampire slayer Faith on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and its spinoff, "Angel," has agreed to star in an untitled drama pilot for FOX. Padalecki, Dean on "Gilmore Girls," has taken the title role in The WB's "MacGyver" pilot, according to The Hollywood Reporter. John Feldman, creator of the FOX pilot, says he had Dushku in mind when writing his lead character, a young woman who discovers she can go back in time and relive a day in order to save lives. "Onscreen and off, she is smart, strong, beautiful and embodies all the characteristics that are imperative to the character," Feldman says. Dushku will play Faith on three episodes of "Angel" beginning Wednesday, March 5, and is also slated to appear in several "Buffy" episodes later this season. There has been talk of a possible Faith spinoff for UPN, but it apparently has yet to advance past the talking stage. Padalecki, meanwhile, is staying in The WB fold with "MacGyver," an update of the 1980s series. He will play the nephew of the original MacGyver -- played by Richard Dean Anderson on the ABC show -- who's brought into his uncle's Phoenix Foundation, a think tank/crime-fighting organization. >>

2003 "Young MacGyver" pilot articles

From CNN.com

Coming to the WB: 'Young MacGyver'Thursday, October 17, 2002 Posted: 9:17 AM EDT (1317 GMT) HOLLYWOOD, California (Reuters) -- The man who can short-circuit a nuclear missile with a paper clip and stop an acid leak with a candy bar is back -- but this time in the guise of "Young MacGyver." The WB has made a production commitment with producer Paramount Network Television to pick up a new version of the action drama "MacGyver." But the new version of the series will focus on MacGyver's nephew. The original series starred Richard Dean Anderson and ran from September 1985 to August 1992. The WB is a unit of AOL Time Warner, as is CNN. "Young MacGyver" will follow the twentysomething hero as he leaves school and winds up joining the Phoenix Foundation -- the good-guy organization his uncle belonged to -- on a lark. Once there, he discovers that he's incredibly adept at stepping into Uncle MacGyver's shoes. "Our MacGyver will be a little more irreverent than the original," said Carolyn Bernstein, senior VP of drama development at the WB. "It will have a lot in terms of the same elements of the original series, but with a brand-new cast of characters and updated for present day," WB and Paramount plan to start casting for the new "Young MacGyver" shortly. It is targeted for a 2003 bow. The original "MacGyver" was the last show to pop a solid number for ABC in the pre-"Monday Night Football" time slot. Indeed, Paramount first approached ABC about the "Young MacGyver" project, but the network passed. "Young MacGyver" comes on the heels of another franchise that the WB reinvented with a young slant -- the teenage Superman of "Smallville." "We would never look a gift horse in the mouth, if given a familiar, adored franchise that came our way and we could age down to make it appealing to our audience," Bernstein said.

Okay- that seems to be the lot of it. Of course, I also still have the 2003 issue of TV Guide that had a brief mention of the "Young MacGyver" pilot as a possible show The WB might pick up in the fall.

I've added these news clips to our Young MacGyver section on the site.

Nice.

I actually own that framed picture of MacGyver from the Young MacGyver pilot (as seen in the clips in the beginning of the pilot). I bought it a couple of years ago off eBay from a guy that worked at Paramount. He said that they were just going to "throw it out." I won the auction for $10 but with the shipping it was around $100. The framed picture is HUGE!!! I'd post a pic but I don't know how to.

Well, that's cool.

I just ran across this pretty cool "Young MacGyver" video on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh9Q1E9ocD0

A fanmade "intro" for the show, using the classic MacGyver theme song we all know and love! After seeing this and some clips from the Pilot, I've started thinking this could have been a really good venture- if they had changed the premise a bit. I could have accepted this a lot better if they had using the existing character of Sam, rather than create a non-existent nephew which goes against all the established continuity of MacGyver.
Oh well- I guess now the pilot just serves as an interesting footnote...

interesting that young MacGyver hurts his hand when he punches people as well.

Seems like at least some of the production team had a clue about the original.. just a pity they where so off with the main premise of being MacGyver's nephew.

Yeah - MacGyver was an only-child, right?
I recall that his grandfather raised him... well, sorta raised him anyway

Exactly. Pete even directly mentions upon meeting Sam in "The Stringer"- "I thought Harry was your last living relative." (and he had died in "Passages")
Thus, if MacGyver has no living relatives other than his newly discovered son, there's no way he would have a nephew! (Unless you want to pull some highly improbable storyline about MacGyver having a brother or sister that he never knew about who had a son as well and- somewhere in there it gets to be a bit ridiculous, especially when we already went through that with MacGyver suddenly having a son).
And aside from that, I'm not totally sure I liked the whole idea of basically redoing MacGyver, with a younger lead to pretty much do the same sort of things MacGyver did. Perhaps if RDA had actually been involved and on hand as Angus MacGyver that would have been cool- but if that had been the case, I'd have wanted to see him there with Dalton James as Sam.

I totally agree with you on that one.

Why mess with perfection - so to speak.
There will only be one MacGyver, so why not look back with love instead of forward with with loath...

This video is pretty neat too-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxNokocq0fI

It's got the fanmade "Young MacGyver" intro that I posted earlier in a split screen with the classic MacGyver credits we know and love (looks like 3rd. Season or so, I think)- interesting comparison.

There is one way that Mac can end up with a nephew: if he marries someone with siblings. He would then be the uncle of the children of those siblings. Of course, it would not be a genetic relationship, and the nephew wouldn't have inherited the brains even indirectly. Might have served as a role model, though.

Another possibility is the kind of loose, informal para-familial relationships that often develop amongst people who are close, but whose blood families are scattered. I know quite a few informal aunts and uncles who are not legally related to their "nieces" and "nephews".

except I think the idea is that this nephew had inherited the MacGyverism gene.

Although even that idea is messed up because the voice over at the start says that his uncle had trained him.

Maybe SAM followed in his fathers footsteps and had an illegitimate child as well.
.. although that would be Grandpa Mac instead of Uncle Mac then wouldn't it.

Yeah, I'd thought about those too- it is possible, but it just seems kinda unlikely.
I guess it seems like it'd be much easier to use the established continuity of MacGyver's son, Sam, who was already shown to take after his father in "The Stringer". (Though I suppose it would have been too much to hope to see Dalton James in that 2002 production- I'm sure he would have been considered "too old" for The WB's viewers by then.)