Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1993 | Page 87

Reflections on the A-Team

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comments offered by a native New Yorker interviewed in The New
York Times in late 1989:
Kwame Tyrell, 13, has collected cereal boxes and soda
cans with images of Michael Jordan, Walter Payton
and other black figures "since I was little," he said.
"They had people on them that I knew and liked.
People who are black, I collect." Kwame, who lives
in ^ u th Jamaica, Queens, has sickle-cell anemia, a
genetic blood disorder. His favorite box is the one
with Mr. T. "He makes me laugh," Kwame said.
"He's strong and healthy, and I support him"
{TheNew York Times 12/14/89:C1).
Social Science Research Council

Kent Worcester

N otes
1. A version of this text was read over the opening credits during the first four
seasons.
2. 1 would like to thank the Scarlott family for their helpful comments on this
article.
3. This figure is quite remarkable considering that blood is never shown, that
the characters eschew sadism, and that for all of the team's destructive
potential they rarely injure their enemies.
4. Yet "The A-Team"'s opening credits are seldom related to the following
story, and while many of its images connote the action genre, they can
hardly be described as "brutal."
5. Fans of the counter-cultural Western, which ran from 1971-1973, will recall
that Hannibal Hayes and Kid Currie "never shot anyone," which is why
the two bank robbers deserved amnesty. The same can be said of the ATeam, who admittedly shoot off lots of rounds of ammunition —but only
in order to disarm, never kill, their opponents.
6. B.A. stands for Bad Attitude; his Christian name is Bosco. Schultz went on
to play J. Robert Oppenheimer in the film Fat Man and Little Boy (1989).
7. Mark Crispin Miller argues that Hannibal "employs Mr. T exclusively for
his brawn." (Miller, 1988:74) In many episodes he provides the A-Team a
diverse range of services, but it is nevertheless true that Hannibal's
relationship to B.A. is, as Miller suggests, paternalistic and therefore
reductive and offensive.