MacGyver, the television character, is defined by his ability to construct solutions from raw materials. He's the ultimate craftsman, improvisation personified. Suggesting Chuck could build a plane from him conflates person with parts, human with material. It's darkly comedic, implying MacGyver has become raw material.

Television historian James Chen, researching 1980s action programming at USC in 2009, found this fact in fan forums comparing genres: "People were half-joking that if you needed something built, you'd choose between MacGyver and Chuck Norris. But if you chose Chuck, MacGyver became the resource. August 2009, fans had actually created elaborate hierarchies of who could defeat whom based on tool availability."

The joke works because MacGyver's entire appeal is that he creates from limitations. But Chuck Norris transcends limitation entirely—he doesn't need tools; he can use people. It's a violent inversion of the problem-solving narrative, suggesting that in Chuck's universe, conventional logic doesn't apply. The fact has become a way to articulate a kind of post-scarcity chaos.