Esquadrão Classe A

Nothing defined the eighties so much as the television we watched. Dallas. The Young and the Restless. The Dukes of Hazzard. He-Man. The Greatest American Hero. Airwolf. Knight Rider.

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they did not commit. They promptly escaped a maximum security stockade into the Los Angeles Underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they exist 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.

With a script any eight year old would love, the four members of the A-Team went off every week to somewhere in America to help someone who couldn't find help anywhere else. They battled impossible odds (with impossible storylines) and managed to stay one step ahead of the law. They were always predictable, heroic, and fun. God bless the eighties, and long live TV Land.

What constitutes a really really good TV show? I think it has to have good characters, good stories,action, car chases, villains and it has to be totally crazy and unafraid to show the impossible.

The A-Team had it all. It is the type of show one can watch over and over again and still enjoy it. I have very fond memories of The A-Team from the 1980's. I get all nostalgic when watching it. Why is it that the TV writers and producers from the 1980's produced such good stuff? Why can nobody write a good show nowadays.

The storyline for the A-Team hardly ever changed. Some underdog such as a farmer or small business owner would be getting hassle from some rich guy who wanted to put them out of business. The underdog would call in the A-Team. The A-Team would thrash the bad guys. The bad guys would get hold of as much weaponry as they could. The A-Team would then get hold of even better weaponry. There would be a good scrap at the end and plenty of gunfire (although neither the good guys or bad guys could hit anyone). The A-Team would beat the baddies and leave them for the police. That was the story for most the episodes. There were deviations from the normal formula (particularly in the last season)at times. In one episode a mercenary called Kyle tries to put the A-Team out of commission. In another episode Howlin' Mad Murdock was wounded whilst the US Army were on the Team's trail.

The really good thing about the A-Team was that it was totally crazy and didn't take itself seriously. There were so many odd things about this series.

For example, the A-Team never seemed to have a permanent house. I guess they lived in that van but I never saw any suitcases or personal belongings in their van.

There were other crazy things. The Team used to bust Murdock out of a psychiatric hospital when they needed him. Perhaps the hospital chiefs should have put a 24 hour guard on his door. The other funny thing was the way the Team always used to put B.A. Baracus to sleep when they needed to fly. They never failed in doing that. In short, the Team could do anything. They could evade the US Army constantly and they could build anything from scrap. The only thing they couldn't do was shoot anyone-they always missed. It was all these crazy things that made the A-Team great.

The characters were brilliant. The late George Peppard was Hannibal who always had a plan and only enjoyed himself when there were bullets flying past him and things getting blown up. Mr T played the grumpy B.A. Baracus whose heart was in the wrong place. He was tough but scared of flying. Dirk Benedict played Faceman who was the ultimate conman. He could play any part and get anything for the team. Dwight Schultz played the mad howlin'Murdock who may have been mad but he could certainly be counted on. Throughout the series the Team were joined by the likes of the beautiful Amy Allen and the slick Frankie Santana. The last season deviated from the normal formula but it was still good.

All in all, it was a great show which brings back great memories whenever I watch it. It was just one of the many shows which made the 80's great. A big pat on the back must go to everyone involved in this wonderful show. I hope the big budget film is good but nothing could ever be better than this show.

The A-Team was one of three shows - the others being The Cosby Show and Miami Vice - that rescued NBC in the 1980s, and this mixture of action and comedy still holds up as an entertaining concoction.

The show succeeds primarily on the personalities of the cast. George Peppard's career was drying up and looked half past dead when he was cast as flamboyant Colonel John H. "Hannibal" Smith; his performances gave his career the boost it otherwise would not have gotten as in the manner of Leslie Nielsen he found his niche in comedic flamboyance after nearly two decades as a straight lead or in a character role.

Dirk Benedict brings Starbuck to Earth (best shown in the show's most overt and best in-joke, the shot of a Cylon centurion guide at Universal Studios walking past Templeton Peck with the intimidating hum of its eye scanner added to the soundtrack) and scores again as the slightly decedent but ultimately sympathetic rogue who is the team's primary scam expert. Peck is something of the dry-witted observor of the crazy happenings to the team during its adventures.

Mr. T had become a household name in Rocky III but it was The A-Team that cemented his persona with his trademark "Shut up, fool!" and general attitude with a heart of gold. Bosco Arnold Baracus was always feuding with the team's pilot, Hector M. Murdoch, committed to a VA psycho ward due to insanity concocted in the Vietnam war - insanity that is just a ruse for Murdoch to better help the team.

It may seem odd to think of Dwight Schultz as a qualified Broadway performer, but his career has been in that vein, and his role of Murdoch made him a true TV star; Schultz gave Murdoch his personality but he also tempered him with believeable torment, best shown in the show's warmest episode "Bounty," co-starring Schultz' reallife wife Wendy Fulton. Murdoch can be funny, but as Wendy helps bring out in this episode, Schultz is also a qualified dramatic performer.

Ultimately fleshing out the show was the Gerard-esque pursuer of the team, Colonel Roderick Decker. Lance LeGault portrayed Decker and made one of TV's best recurring villians. Decker gained sympathy from his determination and it showed in one of the show's weaker episodes, "Incident At Crystal Lake" where he and his executive officer Captain Crane are attacked by four criminals and brutally beaten; no pleasure is derived from seeing Decker and Crane brutalized; if anything the viewer despises this scene precisely because the two Army officers are so humiliated. This sympathy angle is best shown in the show's flashback episode "Curtain Call" where Decker has the team cornered and they offer no resistance to arrest and also in a later episode where Hannibal needs to protect the family of his client from mobsters, and the only way he can is to draw Decker into the fray.

As Crane, future director Carl Franklin displays superb chemistry with LeGault throughout the run of the show, and it was a mystery when, after two episodes of the show's 1985-6 season, Crane was curiously dropped.

This is a show where everything revolves around personality. The plots and production values are deliberately on a budget; it is the personality of the characters that drives the show and makes it work. Hannibal always loves it when a plan comes together, B.A. is always cantankerous and terrified of flying (except, curiously, in one 1986 episode where Peck is rescued and they fly out in a helicopter), Templeton Peck always has a scam running, and Murdoch is always engagingly nuts.

And it all works, each episode, of a pivotal action comedy series of the 1980s.

This is one of those shows where I can truly say that I have seen every single episode. Thanks to the reruns, off course, which made me watch it over and over again when I was just a young, little boy. Not seeing (or perhaps not wanting to see) how bad the action, how boring and slow the story was. And how every episode was almost the same as the previous one. The fact that people only shot at other peoples legs (not in the head or chest) didn't bother me either in those days. Now it does bother me and I'm always wondering why I was such a fan in my youth. Luckily I found out after some thinking.

When I was a fan of Hannibal, Murdoch, Face and B.A. (and Amy) I saw a group of friends, very good friends helping out good people who were oppressed by the bad people. They always won, every episode ended as a feel-good-one, there were a lot of laughs, justice was served and my friends Hannibal, Murdoch, Face and B.A. (and Amy) took me home where I was waiting for them to pick me up for another adventure. And I thank them for that joy and adventure they gave me.

"The A-Team" is a guilty pleasure for the two generations of viewers who have embraced the series. It never attempted to be "Masterpiece Theater", but 'cotton candy for the brain', with the best episodes replaying the same scenario over and over (Underdog gets mauled by Big Bad Villain and his Baddies...calls in Our Heroes, who end up defending the Underdog on a 'deferred payment' plan...Our Heroes Stomp the Baddies, then get themselves captured...in true "MacGiver"-like fashion, they use the materials at hand, creating homemade lethal, yet non-fatal weapons in insanely short order...the Baddies are Crushed, and Our Heroes split, seconds before the Authorities arrive to arrest them). What made the series so popular was never the 'ritual' of the plots, however; if you loved the show, it was because of the chemistry of the stars. Hannibal, B.A., Face, and Murdock were all likable guys, and seemed to enjoy every moment together...and fans of the series have always 'picked up' on that camaraderie.

The brainchild of Stephen Cannell and Frank Lupo, NBC loved the concept of the show, and gave the series a prime 'starting' point, airing the pilot episode after a Super Bowl, guaranteeing great initial ratings. Featuring Tim Dunigan as 'Face' (Dirk Benedict was unavailable for the pilot), the show benefited enormously from Mr. T's presence, as ROCKY 3 had made him an overnight star. Another 'plus' was George Peppard's return to weekly television; his "Banecek" had been a much loved NBC series, until he walked off the show (Cannell, one of the writers of the earlier series, understood the ex-alcoholic Peppard's occasional mood swings, and offered him a large salary and a lot of creative control in the new series, resulting in one of the happier periods in the actor's tragic life).

A major discovery for "The A-Team" was Dwight Schultz, as 'Howling Mad Murdock'. A remarkably versatile actor, Schultz was adept at accents, physical humor, and rapid-fire one-liners, and his exchanges with Mr. T were funny without ever being demeaning. Peppard took a liking to the young actor, as well, and the warmth between the pair could be seen in nearly every episode. With Benedict's arrival (he had been the break-out star of "Battlestar Galactica", and had a large female following), Peppard had all the elements he felt were needed to make "The A-Team" work...which didn't bode well for the one female regular, Melinda Culea, as reporter Amy Allen. Although she gave the show a more balanced slant, and was excellent in her role, Peppard always considered her a 'fifth wheel'...and when Cannell did not renew her contract for the third season, it was generally assumed that George Peppard used his leverage to oust her. A new female character was introduced, played by Marla Heasley, but her character would remain less active, and would have a story 'arc' that would have her leave the series in 1985.

A television show with a single concept, no matter how enjoyable the cast, can't run indefinitely, and by the end of the fourth season, "The A-Team" had pretty well exhausted all the variations the writers could imagine. Entertainment figures (Hulk Hogan, Boy George and the Culture Club, Rick James, Isaac Hayes) appeared in weak efforts to bolster ratings, and NBC pressured Cannell to make major changes to the series.

Bowing to network pressure, the fifth season began by having the A-Team finally captured and court-martialed. Escaping with the aid of new regular Frankie Santana (Eddie Velez), the team soon found themselves 'prisoners' of a secret government agency run by Gen. Hunt Stockwell (Robert Vaughn), who offered them full pardons if they would take on a number of assignments "too risky" for the U.S. intelligence community to handle. The episodes sank to formulaic "Mission Impossible" clones, with George Peppard's authority lost to new boss Vaughn, and the 'blue-collar' charm of the earlier seasons sadly absent. When the series was canceled, while fans mourned, few were surprised.

What has been a surprise is the 'cult' status the series has achieved in the years since it left the air. While George Peppard never lived long enough to see it happen (he died in 1994, from pneumonia), the still-growing popularity of the show has been a source of pride and amazement for Benedict, Schultz, and Mr. T (who nearly died of cancer, but has made a complete recovery), and the show is about to re-emerge as a feature film, with Stephen Cannell producing.

Not bad for a 'single concept' series!