On The Jazz
On The Jazz Newsletter: Volume 1 Issue N°11

Date: January 26, 1995
Author: Nicole Pellegrini
Download: otjv01i11.zip

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The totally unofficial A-Team electronic mail newsletter


Submission address: [email protected]
Administrivia: Nicole Pellegrini
[email protected], [email protected]
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DATE: January 26, 1995
ISSUE: 11
VOLUME: 1 
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Welcome again,

A few little things to bring up this week, first some questions/info on collectibles...

I need to know about how much a complete set of A-Team trading cards are worth. Also, someone on rec.collecting asked me what the A-Team action figures are worth, so if anyone could let me and also [email protected] know about that, it would be greatly appreciated.

I also got this interesting message this week from someone on the 'net...

>I don't have any Ateam stuff, but I though you'd want
>to know this:
>
>there was a game cartridge for the atari 2600 called
>A-Team. its based on the show. Atari never released
>it in comercial form, but a few thousand prototypes
>were made. its worth $75 among us atari collectors.

Gee, I know I'd give anything to see that game, I'd never heard of it before! Something to keep yer eyes peeled for.

In other news, thanks to all who have sent in their surveys so far. In the next issue in two weeks I'll post the results. So, the rest of you still have time to get in your responses! Even if you can only answer a few of the questions, go for it!!

Ok, now, as promised, here's the first part of the TV Guide A-Team article from the March 10, 1984 issue. Have fun reading...I made one or two comments here & there...

SIX DAYS WITH THE A-TEAM? PITY THE FOOL WHO TRIES IT!
The boisterous group 'treats' a reporter to a week of risky stunts, explosions and high jinks.

By Tom Nolan

"I love America!" Mr. T is shouting. "I even love the Reagans! I might vote for 'em again--yes, again."
It's a Thursday afternoon at the converted warehouse in Culver City, Cal., that serves as home-base sound stage for NBC's The A'Team, and Mr. T--fresh from his Christmas-season trip to the White House--is fully launched on a running patriotic rap. Pacing the set in a U.S. Army Seargant's uniform, he repeats, "I *love* America! Only place where I could become a movie star, make all this money actin' the fool. You think this would happen in Jamaica? Forget it...do *you* love Areica?" he asks a passing crew member. "If you don't love America, go move to Grenada!"
I witness from a distance: a freelancer, a hired pen. My assignment, should I decide to accept it--and I already have--is to spend a week with the A-Team, documenting thier quirks and foibles, trying to glimpse their true natures. Day One is off to a boisterous start.
When an assistant director shouts at some workmen to be quiet, Mr. T jokes: "Yeah, 'specially when I'm talking, you know--or we'll send you back to 'Laverne & Shirley!'" Scene successfully completed, Mr. T, who plays B.A. ("Bad Attitude") Baracus, shoulders his imposing bulk toward the stage-door exit, announcing: "All right, I gotta go be in conference now with Tip O'Neill! You know where to reach me! I'm gonna let the Vice-President take over in my absence!"
An NBC press representative, meanwhile, has buttonholed George Peppard for the purpose of introducing me and explaining my visit to the "A-Team" star.
"Oh, OK. Sure. OK," says George Peppard, who plays John "Hannibal" Smith. He slowly peels off one of his black leather gloves to shake my hand. Then he spies my battered 10-year old hand-held Sony. "Is that a tape recorder I see?"
"Yes."
"Um hmmm."
Turning on his heel, he strides across the stage to an assistant director and murmurs some words in his ear. A moment later, the assistant director loudly calls for attention and makes this announcement: "Gentlemen! We have a representative from--" He looks to Peppard. "TV Guide?" Peppard nods.
"From TV Guide! He'll be here for a week--I guess he's doing an article on 'The A-Team'--and he has a *tape* recorder!" "Keep him away from T!" shouts one crew member, and the stage erupts in laughter. Even Peppard is wearing a thin smile as he walks back to my side.
"Fair is fair," he says. "You get to use it--but we get to know about it." And he walks away.
Nice meeting you, too, Mr. Peppard!
Twenty minutes later, all of the A Team--including the newest member, Marla Heasley (Twnia Baker), this season's replacement for the departed Melinda Culea--is assembling on a different part of the stage, where a crew has set up some wooden crates and a red backdrop for a cover-photo shoot. Peppard has changed into a spiffy blue-and-grey sweat suit. Dirk Bennedict (Templeton "The Face" Peck) shows up. Dwight Schultz ("Howling Mad" Murdock) wanders over. Then Mr. T appears, and the energy level leaps once more into the ozone.
"There's been a lotta rumors 'bout animosity on this set!" T trumpets, as the crew arranges the Team into a photogenic cluster. "Now tell me: anybody don't like anybody, tell me right now! Because," he concludes in mimicry of a certain tabloid's catch phrase, "Enquiring minds...want to know!"
T spots me standing on the sidelines. "George," he asks, "is that the guy you told me 'bout, from TV Guide? The little guy in the...maroon sweater? Looks like a...KGB agent."
Now the team is herded in tighter, with Heasley sitting on T's massive knee. "That's it!" he says. "Nancy Reagan got *that* knee!...Let's make up a scandal! I love scandals! Reporter, you could say, uh: 'This lady Had a Baby by A Team!'" (I swear, you gotta love this guy... - ed.)
Once the photo session is completed, my momment comes to meet Mr. T in person. "How you doin'." he says. "Yeah, I was wondering, man, I told my brothers to watch you. I thought you was a KGB agent or something. Or a Klansman!"

DAY TWO:
The team is shooting in Valencia, at a big RV and camping-supplies store. (Most of the show is filmed on location, with the Culver City stage seeing action only one or two days in six.) Benedict, a licensed pilot, is telling how he spent the weekend in Montana, trying (unsuccessfully) to retreive his snowbound aircraft. "Some of the coldest weather in the country there," he says. "Thirty-five below. Snowing hard. I'm getting over pneumonia, so I guess Montana was not the place to go, really."
I ask Benedict about job-related injuries. "Oh well, it's a physical show," he says. "I separated some ribs, the first episode this season. Then a rib went 'round and threw a couple vertebrae out, threw my back out. That was painful."
More trying than the physical hazards, he says, is the sheer drudgery of the schedule. "This is a grind. It consumes you. It's a bit like professional athletics: they use you up, you know? They'll push you. You do 12 pages, they want 15. Do 15, they want 17. The trouble with that is, something's gotta give. And working in today's economy, the days are numbered [that] you can put shows like this on television. (Sad but true. *Sigh* - ed.) When you can do an 'Alice' or 'Three's Company' in four days, on one set that costs $1.98, and get the same ratings, and come in each day at 10 and leave at 3 in the afternoon--I mean, who wants to do *this*?"
But wouldn't the ratings indicate he;ll be doing "this" for at least four years?
"In four years, " Benedict says, "we'll all be wearing hairpieces and pacemakers."

....that's all I got time to transcribe this week, the rest to
follow next time....
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Quote of the week:
"I *HATE* this movie!!!"
                        --Face in "The Bend in the River"
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The only submission this issue is from Laura, a flyer for her Distasis zine. If anyone wasn't convinced to pick this up from my rave last time, here's more info to wet your appetite...

Date: Sun, Jan 15, 1995 8:21 PM EST
From: LauraM3017
Subj: DISTASIS flyer
To: Nicpell

DISTASIS

A-TEAM article by Michele Lellouche
Been looking all over for an "A-TEAM Episode Guide"? (I know I have.) Well here it is, more than you ever knew there was to know about the A-TEAM.

(It's very well researched.)

A-TEAM story by Susan Garrett
What will Templeton do without his little black book? Does the A-Team believe in ghosts? Find out "When Shadows Fall."

A-TEAM story by Michele Lellouche & Laura Michaels
(Jewel of the Nile parody)
The Team runs into an old enemy, Kalem, from "Moving Targets". It's a job for "Pasadena Murdock and the Gem of the Sahara."

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA story by Sharon Monroe
Will Ortega outshine Starbuck and win the girl, glory, and everything? Find out at the Academy during "Maneuvers."

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE story by Tracy Revels
Has the I M Force come up against an impossible case, one even they can't solve? Find out during "Mission: Spaghetti."

STAR TREK article by Paul Pence
Ever wonder about Vulcan rituals? Learn some interesting facts about Vulcans in "Notes on the Nature of Pon Farr."

DOCTOR WHO/STAR WARS story by Gennie Summers The fifth doctor is having a bad time when the TARDIS ends up on Dagobah. Ever have one of those days when you can't shake "That Sinking Feeling"?

QUANTUM LEAP/BATTLESTAR GALACTICA story by Mary Wernke
Sam leaps into a Cylon and gets to meet some of the personnel from the Galactica. Find out how he gets there and why.
"Never Thought I'd Be Rooting For A Cylon." (Bet you didn't either.)

A-TEAM/STAR WARS script by Laura Michaels
Jabba's contraband carrying vehicles and B.A.'s prized van haved isappeared. Will the A-Team, Han and Chewie ever see these vehicles again?

"Wanted: Missing Vans"!

STAR TREK/ST:TNG/BLAKE'S SEVEN/STINGRAY/HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE story by Michele
Lellouche & Tracy Revels
Been dying to see your favorites back together again: Kirk, Spock & McCoy, Avon & Blake, Tasha, Worf & Data? Well "Everyone Comes to Milliways."

Plus SABACC & SEJ programs, artwork, poetry and more.

Prices currently $10 book rate, $11 first class, $12 overseas surface.

Contact Laura Michaels, 5910 Morningstar Cir, #303, Delray Beach, FL 33484 for further information or e-mail [email protected].
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On a slightly related note, I am seriously considering working on publishing at least a one-off zine of all A-Team fiction *sometime* this year, hopefully by around this summer. I have 2 or 3 stories of my own in the works but would like to get submissions for the zine from as many other writers/artists as possible. If you're interested in becoming involved in it at all, drop me a note and I'll send you more info. Or if you know anyone who does A-Team fiction put hasn't been having much luck getting it published in any mutlimedia zines, pass along the info. Short or long stories, original artwork, poetry, whatever, would be considered for inclusion. And cross-universal stories are particularly encouraged!

-nicole
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