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The A-Team TV Show General Information
The A-Team Themes and Characteristics
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The A-Team and The Vietnam War
Connections With Other TV Shows
The A-Team and The Vietnam War
The origin of the A-Team is directly linked to the Vietnam War , during which the team formed. The show's introduction in the first four seasons mentions this, accompanied by images of soldiers coming out of a helicopter in an area resembling a forest/jungle. Besides this, The A-Team would occasionally feature an episode in which the team came across an old ally or enemy from those war days. For example, the first season's ending episode " A Nice Place to Visit" revolved around the team travelling to a small town to honor and avenge a fallen comrade.
An article in the New Statesman published shortly after the premier of The A-Team in the United Kingdom, also pointed out the The A-Team's connection to the Vietnam War, characterizing it as the representation of the idealization of the Vietnam War, and an example of the War slowly becoming accepted and assimilated into American culture.
One of the team's primary antagonists, Col. Decker, had his past linked back to the Vietnam War, in which he and Hannibal had come to fisticuffs in "the DOOM Club" ( D a Nang O pen O fficers' M ess). At other times, members of the team would refer back to a certain tactic used during the War, which would be relevant to the present predicament the team was in. Often, Hannibal would refer to such a tactic, after which the other members of the team would complain about its failure during the War. This was also used to refer to some of Face's past accomplishments in scamming items for the team, such as in the first season episode "Holiday in the Hills", in which Hannibal fondly remembers Face being able to secure a '53 Cadillac while in the Vietnam jungle.
The team's ties to the Vietnam War were referenced again in the fourth season finale, "The Sound of Thunder", in which the team's introduced to Tia ( Tia Carrere ), a war orphan and daughter of fourth season antagonist Gen. Fullbright. Returning to Vietnam , Fullbright is killed (and his murderer, a Vietnam colonel, is killed in retaliation) during the mission and Tia returns with the team to the United States ( see also: casting ). This episode is notable for having one of the shows relatively few truly serious dramatic moments, with each team member privately reminiscing on their war experiences, intercut with news footage from the war with Barry McGuires Eve of Destruction playing in the background.
The show's ties to the Vietnam War are fully dealt with in the opening arc of the fifth season, dubbed "The Revolution"/"The Court-Martial" in which the team is finally put on trial for the robbing of the bank of Hanoi. The character of Decker makes a return on the witness stand and various newly introduced characters from the A-Team's past also make appearances. The team, after a string of setbacks, decides to plead guilty to the crime and they are sentenced to be executed. They escape this fate and come to work for a Gen. Hunt Stockwell, leading into the remainder of the fifth season.
The A-Team's Popularity
The A-Team was one of a wide variety of successful television shows from prolific television producer Stephen J. Cannell. Cannell is known for having a particular skill at capitalizing on momentary cultural trends, such as the machine guns, cartoonish violence, and joyful militarism of this series, which are now recognizable as trademarks of popular entertainment in the 1980s. Cannell had been producing shows for ABC in the early 1980s, but was fired by the network for not producing a hit for them. His next project would be The A-Team.
The show became so popular that in 1984 the main cast members of the A-Team, George Peppard, Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz were invited to the Netherlands. George Peppard was the first to receive the invitation and thus thought the invite pertained only to him. When the other cast members were also invited, Peppard declined, leading only Mr. T, Benedict and Schultz to visit the Netherlands . Unpredicted, however, was the immense turn-out for the stars, and they were forced to leave early as a security measure. A video was released with the present actors in which Dwight Schultz apologized and thanked everyone that had attended.
The show has achieved cult status through heavy U.S. and international syndication . It has also remained popular overseas, such as in the United Kingdom, where the show has been on-air almost continuously in some form (ITV network, ITV regional re-runs, satellite) since it was first shown in July 1983.
In 2003, in research conducted by web-portal Yahoo! amongst 1,000 television viewers, "The A-Team" was voted as the one "oldie" television programme viewers would most like to see revived, beating out other popular televisions series from the 80s such as The Dukes of Hazzard and Knight Rider .
As of February 2008, NBC has recently begun posting the first season of the A-team online for free with the option to download (pay for download).
Connections with other TV Shows
A late episode of Stephen J. Cannell's previous hit, The Rockford Files , "The Hawaiin Headache", features a character called 'Colonel John "Howling Mad" Smith', names that would evolve into Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith and Captain "Howling Mad" Murdock in The A-Team. Another early Rockford episode, "The Kirkoff Case" (the first regular episode after the Pilot) features a character called Tawnia Baker. Similarly, the villain in the first season episode "West Coast Turnaround" is called Chuck Easterland. Cannell has used this name in a number of penned episodes of various shows, including the first season Hunter episode "A Long Way From L. A.". A villain in the third season A-Team episode "The Bells of St. Mary's", also by Cannell, also has a notably similar name, Zeke Westerland.
Episodes
Many of the episode titles (and plots) are plays on those of famous movies. For example, the early episode "Black Day At Bad Rock", is a play on the classic 1955 movie Bad Day at Black Rock . An early Knight Rider episode, 'Good Day at White Rock' is also a similar play on the title. Both episodes also contain notable parallels, with both stories involving a biker gang terrorizing a small town.
In "Pros and Cons", Face pretends to be Dr. Dwight Pepper, the author of a book on prison reform. The photo on the back of the book (supposedly the actual Dr. Dwight Pepper) is a photo of Stephen J. Cannell, the producer of the series. The name is a gag on the soft drink of the same name , although some have noted that Dwight is Dwight Schultz's first name, and Pepper is similar to Peppard.
A 'lost episode', "Without Reservations", aired for the first time during re-runs in March 1987. This episode was meant to air before the final episode "The Grey Team", which is reflected by the fact that in "Without Reservations" Murdock's T-shirt says "Almost Fini" while in "The Grey Team" it says "Fini". Apparently, the axe fell on the series more suddenly than expected, leaving the episode too short to be broadcast. To make it long enough to air, the entire pre-opening credits sequence was made up of footage from the first season episode "Holiday In The Hills", re-edited with a new fifth season-style backing score, and a shot of Frankie added from the fifth season episode "The Crystal Skull". "The Grey Team" is also more likely to be the 'proper' final episode, as Hannibal tells General Stockwell that the team will not work for him (Stockwell) any longer after being mislead one time too many, and at the end of the story, the team ponders their future.
The final episode of the fourth season at one point may have been the last, as Murdock's "All Good Things Must Come To An End" T-shirt hints. But the show returned, re-vamped, for one more season.
Professional wrestlers
The show featured professional wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan , Professor Toru Tanaka , Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat , The Dynamite Kid , Bobby "The Brain" Heenan , "Mean" Gene Okerlund , Davey Boy Smith , Big John Studd , and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine .
The Wrestler Hulk Hogan
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