When Duct Tape Saves the Day: A Film and TV History

LOST's "There's No Place Like Home" wouldn't be the last time the castaways utilized duct tape to save their lives.  But the ever-wily Frank Lapidus manages to make miracle use of the adhesive to patch a bullet hole in the helicopter's fuel tank, and successfully air lift everyone off the freighter.

I mean the helicopter crashes and they all died anyway, but that's really neither here nor there.

What would you do if your right hand became posessed and you were forced to chop it off?  Certainly not rent copies of Idle Hands and appreciate the irony.

Instead go the route of Evil Dead 2's Ash, who covers up the stump in duct tape and attaches a freakin' CHAINSAW on top of it!  Groovy.

Burn Notice's Michael Weston sure enjoyed getting creative with his duct tape.  In addition to keeping a roll in his glove compartment for use in the field, season two's "Noble Causes" showed off an exceptionally deadly use.

Pinned down by gunfire?  Well remove a microwave surge inhibitor, throw in some aerosol cans, duct tape it all closed and hit the popcorn button!  After retreating to a safe distance of course.

Need to learn how to escape from deadly bondage?  Richard Castle of the aptly named Castle arranged for his daughter to do exactly that in second season episode "A Rose for Everafter," so that the author could learn how a character in his latest book would free herself in the situation.

If we had Nathan Fillion tied up though (and we're not saying we do), it'd involve alot more Firefly marathons.

In a town that's already ridden with giant sandworms, how could life get any worse?  Well, when a government-developed bacteria strain mutates into a murderous cloud that feeds on both the water supply and the water in our cells, and Christopher Lloyd is powerless to stop it, that's how.

The solution?  Let's make an industrial vacuum airtight with the use of duct tape!  It never fails!

What do you do when Danny McBride threatens to call a pair of thugs on you, ratting you out to your eventual death?  Tie him up with duct tape of course! 

It won't undo the horror of Land of the Lost, but it gave our heroes time to escape.  Not to mention that by movie's end, duct tape was probably the only thing keeping Red alive.

We hope this isn't becoming a real-life trend, but the only thing holding Major League's Cleveland Indians' plane together was the duct tape on the right wing.

And really, the jokes about Charlie Sheen and things being destroyed, or unable to hold together are too plentiful to choose just one.

He may not have had the actual Survivorman skills to make in in the harsh wilds of Pennsylvania, but at least he had a roll of duct tape.

The Office's Michael Scott utilized the DT in re-fashioning his hat into pants (seeing as he'd destroyed his pants to make said hat) to escape the cold.  It then made an effective tented shelter.  Also made of pants. 

Look at him.  Look at his face.  Is there anything that Gran Torino's Clint Eastwood legitimately respects, instead of terrifying into the very ends of oblivion?

Why, duct tape, of course.  A real man can do half of his household repairs with nothing but a can of WD-40, some vise grips and a roll of duct tape.

What would be the pièce de résistance for Frasier Crane's living room?  Why of course, his father Martin's hideously tacky recliner contrasting with all his elegant art deco pieces. 

And the only way to make that bad boy shine out even prettier was to cover every tear with fabulous duct tape.  There's literally nothing it can't improve.

The Red Green Show series frontman Steve Smith made such an incredible advocate of the stuff that Canadan advertisers actually chose him as an endorsement!  Entire episodes were devoted to the use of duct tape, or in some cases, lack thereof.

Just don't try shaving your legs with it.

There isn't much you'd believe after watching the final hours of LOST wrapped up in "The End," but no matter what faith you profess, you'll come to believe in duct tape.

Miles and Richard, two men with nothing but a few contracting experiences between them manage to patch up an airplane's hydraulics with that miracle stuff, successfully getting the castaways off the island.  But would it really work?

MacGyver keeps duct tape on him at all times.  There is literally nothing he cannot accomplish with it.

If the problem was that MacGyver was out of duct tape, he would find a way to use duct tape to counteract his lack of duct tape, imploding the universe in the process.

Which he would then repair with duct tape.

Oh please, what CAN'T Mythbusters do with duct tape?  They devote entire hour-long specials to chronicling its many uses, and proving once and for all that the stuff will undoubtedly save the universe.

Let's see.  It patches holes in boats, makes entirely stable boats on its own, holds together cars, makes working rope bridges...it doesn't hold up too well when you drive a car through it at 60 MPH, but how many times are we going to face that problem?