The A-Team

Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.

An action-packed 1980s television show created by Steven J. Cannell. It starred George Peppard as Hannibal, Dirk Benedict as Faceman, Dwight Schultz as Murdock, and Mr. T as B.A. Baracus.

The concept of A-Team actually exists in Green-Berets terminology. The largest infiltration teams are C-Teams, B-Teams are somewhat smaller and A-Teams are the basic smallest unit.

In the world of hip-hop, the A-Team refers to the musical teaming of Aceyalone of Freestyle Fellowship and Abstract Rude of Abstract Tribe Unique. These two have very complementary voices and lyrical styles.

They also recorded a short album thematically centered on the original A-Team (see above.) It is not coincidentally called The A-Team

I will attempt to summarize the main characters of this 1980's TV show.

Hannibal:

Played by George Peppard, he was the colonel who was the leader of the A-Team. He always smoked cigars and wore gloves and a members only jacket.

I believe his character was loosely based on the famous Carthaginian general also named Hannibal due to his constant use of the phrase, "I love it when a plan comes together," and due to his day job as a movie actor when not on a mission with the rest of the team. You see, Hannibal was one of the greatest generals of the ancient world. And one of his most famous triumphs was the Battle of Cannae where, through numerous deceptions, he was able to lure a large Roman army into a battle in which his forces were able to secretly sweep around and encircle the Romans and defeat them. This classic battle was partly an inspiration to Norman Schwartzkopf when planning the Gulf War. I believe the A-Team character's phrase is a reference to this "coming together" and encirclement performed by the ancient general's forces. And I believe the day job as an actor is a vague reference to the ancient general's deceptive tendencies.

B.A. Baracus:

His initials stand for Bad Attitude, supposedly. Played by Mr. T, this character was the A-Team's muscle man. He was also the owner and usual driver of the team's van. He was helluva tough! He usually got paired up in each episode's final fight with the bad guys' largest ruffian for an absurdly dramatic fight. There was usually a lot of one-upsmanship during this fight, with the two big guys breaking 2x4's or chairs over each other, and then being amazed at how ineffective each blow was against one another.

He was also deathly afraid of flying.

Faceman:

Portrayed by Dirk Benedict, he was the conman of the group who was always trying to run some sort of scam on the side. He always tried to dress and look well, and was a little bit prissy for a soldier. He often worked as the team's financier. His full name was Templeton Peck.

Murdoch:

His role was mostly comic relief, but he was also the team's pilot. This of course made him frequently at odds with B.A. Baracus. He was a deranged lunatic who had a new quirky behavior for each episode. Mostly harmless, except he'd often complicate a mission with his insane antics. Played by actor Dwight Shultz.

Colonel Decker:

This was the military police colonel who always chased the A-Team with a small band of soldiers, usually showing up in the wake of each episode's final battle. Played by Lance LeGault.

Anyway, here is the plot formula for any episode of the A-Team:

Good guys get terrorised by nasty bad guys. Head bad guy usually breaks something, or crushes it under his foot. Cue sinister music stab.

Good guys contact the A-Team. Hannibal gets the message during a break while filming his tv show. He calls the team together.

Damn - Murdock's banged up in the looney bin, and the team needs him for something. Faceman and someone else are sent to bust him out, under strict orders to use some overly elaborate scheme (like posing as doctors or brain specialists) despite the fact that the hospital seems to be one of those zero-security places where you can check yourself in and out. Also despite the fact that the same people check him back in after every adventure, and would presumably have power of attorney or whatever to take him out whenever they pleased, perfectly legally.

The team join up. They have to fly somewhere, but BA won't fly. They give him a drugged cheeseburger/glass of milk and knock him out for the flight, despite his protestations that he ain't goin on no plane, man, and he ain't takin no drugged milk. When they arrive, they convince him they drove there, and that he just slept for the long drive.

The team get to the location, and start sorting out the bad guys. During an over-confident moment, they are captured, and placed in a large warehouse/building. Things look grim.

Just as the situation seems to be hopeless, the gang decide to make one last bid for glory. In an amazing stroke of luck, they discover that the building they are in contains oxyacetylene welding gear, several sheets of bulletproof metal, one or more old cars/farming vehicles, and lots of petrol/gasoline/boomboom liquid (see also the later, weaker seasons of MacGyver). Then follows a montage, which contains at least one shot of BA welding something. The plan is crazy, but so crazy it just might work.

The gang bust out of the building, and cause all sorts of destructive mayhem. Murdock may or may not sing something in German, very loudly and comically. Thousands of bullets are fired, not a single one hitting anybody. The bad guys are caught off guard, and defeated. They may be in a helicopter that crashes, depending on that week's budget. Either way, they end up confused, weakened, and holding their heads in pain.

The team have a last chat with the good guys, before Colonel Decker turns up (and just misses them). Sadly, the team can't stay and live with them, they're wanted criminals, and have to move on. They all say goodbye, then Murdock usually does something crazy. We freeze-frame as BA takes a swing at him/throws him into some water, while everyone laughs.

The End - repeat every week, until even the kids spot the formula. Ah, those were the days...

Hey Foo! Throw that Super Breakout jibba jabba away and get yoself a real cartridge. I pity the fool who don't play my game. It's A-Team for the Atari 2600! All the butt kicking action of the television show contained on one cartridge.

In this game you control BA Baracus on his mission to save Hannibal from the clutches of some unknown evil. Actually you control Mr. T's disembodied head, with no body to be seen anywhere, although your opponents have bodies oddly enough. On the first screen you are in the center of several vertical rows. You can move left and right, and fire in 4 different directions at your green gangster opponents. On the left of the screen the A-Team Space Shuttle slowly rises, when it gets halfway up you warp to the second screen (yes an A-Team Space Shuttle, apparently the A-Team had their very own space ship that you apparently never got to see on the television show). The second screen is completely open, and it pits you against a single seemingly undefeatable foe that fires bouncing shots at the player. You can move and fire in all directions on this screen, but the bouncing shots and undefeatable enemy are hard to avoid for more than a few seconds.

This may have been the only video game ever made about the A-Team, which is sort of a shame, as the series could really be done some justice with a modern 3-D engine, and a little tongue in cheek humor.

This game is emulated by all the popular Atari 2600 emulators (Z26, Stella, etc), which is your best bet for playing this game, as the actual cartridge is very hard to find.

This game was originally called Saboteur and it had nothing to with the A-Team at all. Atari decided to cash in on the A-Team craze, so they quickly swapped a few graphics and made Saboteur into a whole new game. But the game was never released because of the video game crash of 1983, the price of the A-Team license was too high to make the game profitable.

The value of this game fluctuates quite a bit. $200 is a good starting point. Always be careful when buying prototype cartridges, as they are very easy to bootleg. A real "A-Team" cartridge will be on a plain black cartridge that says


LOANER CARTRIDGE

A-Team

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        ATARI

Season 1: Origins

Season 2: Enter Decker

Season 3: Same Old, Same Old

Season 4: Welcome to the Real World

Season 5: Military Courts and Stockwell too

"Why are we in a falling tank?!"
"Because the plane exploded!"

Feeling the need for some mindless entertainment, I wanted to watch something that would feature explosions, amusing lines, and preposterous situations. Since I've seen every Bond film, I figured that I might as well check out this one out instead - it's what The A-Team is famous for, right?

Plot? The plot is that three madmen and one raving lunatic happen to be the best at getting results when it comes to high risk missions. Betrayed on a covert operation, they're imprisoned. They break out, they try to clear their names, their plans come together - but they get imprisoned again. They bust out for a second time, credits roll. It's an origin story for the A-Team. B.A.'s fear of flying? Check. Why the hell is someone like Murdoch in the army in the first place? Check. Van? It's there - briefly. Impossible helicopter stunts? Sure. Escaping an exploding plane mid-flight, in a tank? Okay then!

You might be thinking disbelief needs to be suspended. Suspending disbelief isn't enough - you should probably nail it to the ceiling. This film makes a lot of the Bond films look sensible. But it's okay, really. The A-Team is a live action cartoon; the film is a live action cartoon with a huge budget. It's not supposed to be realistic. In fact, the places it doesn't work are when the film tries to get serious or go for character development.

Character development? What's this? We all know the characters, because they've been lampooned on the internet for over a decade now. We don't need character development. We don't want lots of drama. We don't need the last quarter of the film to be serious.

If I wanted serious, I wouldn't be watching this film!

The fact that a premise which is supposed to be fun goes the way of serious business in the final act is disappointing. It feels like the writers were trying to stick to a generic movie structure while their ideas dwindled - the clue is that one of the main characters stands around silently doing nothing during the climax of the film. Which character? The one which provides the humour. The film also focusses on the most boring of the main characters. It's also a shame the female character (character, singular, since the other women are not really characters) doesn't do much beyond chase the A-Team around and provide support when they need it at the end. Of course, my expectations on this front were so low that the film was an improvement.

These points are even more disappointing because the rest of the film works. The main characters are done well enough for what they are, the plot is an interesting excuse for stuff to explode, amusing dialogue gets said... So, do the idiotic action sequences and cartoony main characters make up for the boring, annoying, or serious bits? I certainly found it to be fun. It's an enjoyable film when it's doing the action thing, essentially trying really hard not to be art, but to be entertainment - and succeeding more often than it fails. Which is about enough, really.

"Technically we're not flying."
"I know! We're falling, fool!"