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| The A-Team Season One / Season Two Universal Home Video George "Hannibal" Peppard: "Now who did you scam to spring for this little extravaganza?" Dirk "Face" Benedict: "That's just it, Hannibal. In Hollywood, when you get someone else to pay the freight, you're not scammin'... you're producin'. " As the producer and star of a whole slew of late '60s and early '70s psychotronic horror films, the late John Ashley knew a thing or two about scamming and producing. Filmed in the Philippines on a shoestring budget of about a buck fifty each, these schlock shockers were churned out so quickly that editing them was literally almost an afterthought. Indeed, there's one scene in The Beast Of The Yellow Night that actually ends with director Eddie Romero calling out "cut" off screen. Laugh if you will—I certainly did—but it was Ashley's encyclopedic knowledge of the Philippines that resulted in him being placed on the payroll as a producer when Francis Ford Coppola filmed Apocalypse Now there years later. But immortality finally came to John Ashley in the form of a 20 second piece of narration that he recorded to introduce his greatest production of all. Just reading the words automatically invokes Ashley's authoritative voice in your head: In 1972 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. Debuting in 1983 immediately after Super Bowl XVII, The A-Team wasn't just an immediate hit, it was an immediate global phenomenon. In a truly inspired piece of out-of-left-field casting, The A-Team single-handedly resurrected the faded career of movie actor George Peppard and turned him into the kind of pop culture star that his short-lived stint on Banacek never did. It made an even bigger icon out of Mr. T who, up until then, was only known to most people—if at all—as the menacing Clubber Lang in Rocky II. But as these two new box sets from Universal confirm, despite the overwhelming mega-stardom bestowed on Mr. T—hey fool, I didn't see you sitting on Nancy Reagan's knee at the White House—it's Peppard who's truly the star of the show. The old cheroot chewer repeatedly steals scene after scene as megawatt smiling Team leader Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, who always stands up for the oppressed little guy no matter what the odds. But it's the comedic chemistry between all four cast members that makes the four members of The A-Team the television equivalent of the four Marx Brothers. Think about it. Only watching Groucho Marx dishing out one liners while chomping on a cigar can surpass the sheer giddy glee one gets from seeing likewise wiseacre George Peppard chomping on a cigar and putting the verbal boots to yet another officious sleaze ball who's cruising for an abusing. Blustering and gruff but with a well-meaning heart of gold that always has a soft spot for kids, as all-purpose mechanic Bosco A. Baracus, Mr. T easily fills the well worn shoes of Chico Marx. That makes Dirk Benedict the amiably baffled romantic lead equivalent of Zeppo Marx. Which, of course, leaves Dwight Schultz's unpredictable turn as ace air pilot "Howling Mad" Murdock as the perfect surrealistic counterpart of Harpo Marx and, by extension, Chico T's inevitable foil. Scary, I know. Most of the episodes take place either in a big city setting; a small town; or a third world despot laden dictatorship—the latter of which always necessitates a ruse to knock out the protesting flight-fearful Mr. T ("I told you Hannibal, I ain't gettin' on no plane!") and get him on board and up into the air. And, of course, they always manage to take whatever spare parts happen to be lying around (i.e., a rusty old acetylene torch) and somehow convert them into fully functional weapons (i.e., a flamethrower). Arguably one the series' finest early outings can be found on the second season box set in the two hour western episode titled "When You Comin' Back, Range Rider?" Ostensibly about the Team's attempt to save an endangered herd of wild horses from being sent to the glue factory, what this extended episode really does is provide enough ample time to develop an increased level of character development and humorous interplay that the usual one hour time slot didn't allow for. The "Range Rider" episode also introduces stone-faced Lance LeGault as the Team's no-nonsense Lee Van Cleefish nemesis, Colonel Decker.
After five seasons, the Team were finally acquitted of all charges in the whimsically titled final episode "The Grey Team." But the long AMC van ride up until then remains one of the high water marks of television's action-comedy genre—especially these first two seasons which made nary a wrong move.
By the way, as you watch the beginning of "When You Comin' Back, Range Rider?" take special note of the tuxedoed gentleman called "The Mick" who's being pitched by Face to finance a psychotronic horror film called The Beast Of The Yellow Night. That's John Ashley. And he's not scamming, he's producing.
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—Jeffrey Morgan October 2005 |
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