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The totally unofficial A-Team electronic mail newsletter
Submission address: [email protected] (note the change!!)
Administrivia: Nicole Pellegrini
Please use the following addresses for subscribe/unsubscribe
and back issue requests:
[email protected], [email protected]
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DATE: September 19, 1995
ISSUE: 26
VOLUME: 1
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Howdy folks!
Actually managed to get this one together almost on time this week (perhaps since with classes starting again it's a good excuse to avoid studying for a while longer...)
The good news this week is that it looks like our real-time mailer is back and behaving! Thanks to Robin for all the work on it.
I'll start this issue with some news about American TV's fall season of new shws that might be of interest to some of us here. First, Melinda Culea fans should be pleased to know that she's back on TV in a new NBC sitcom called "Brotherly Love." Yes, that's the show with Joey Lawrence, formerly of that always "very special" series "Blossom." The first episode aired last Saturday night and wasn't half bad IMO, and I normally can't stand most sitcoms. It's normal time slot is 7 pm Sundays (same as "Pinky and the Brain" and "Space Above and Beyond." Argh! Why do programmers torture us so?!) Also, I see Eddie Velez (aka Frankie) is back as well in at least a small role in UPN's "Live Shot," a show which probably doesn't have a chance in hell of lasting more than a dozen episodes or so, so if you want to see him in it better watch soon...
...as severeal people talked about this week and I warned everyone last issue, Dwight was in last week's episode of "Voyager," definitely one of the more interesting episodes of the series so far (at least from a humorous point of view. Can't say there was any real suspense about whether Voyager was really real or not...otherwise I truly doubt there would be a whole series about it to begin with. But I digress.)
Finally to wrap up this week's news, I'm going to propose a tentative date for the Philly A-Team fest I mentioned last time. Only one person sent me a list of no-good dates, so I'm just picking one of the better weekends from my standpoint.
So, how's the weekend of November 11th? (either Saturday the 11th or Sunday the 12th). If you want to come, DEFINITELY email me and tell me if one of those dates are ok and which one you prefer.
Before I get to finishing the Peppard interview from TV Guide, I have a few messages to pass on that were sent to me before the mailer was back up and working. First, we have the correct respone to last issue's trivia question:
>What are the rules for playing "Scotch," as explained
>by Murdock during the episode "The Big Squeeze"?
Lester got in the correct answer, which was (of course you must recite this in a thick Scottish accent):
>The game of 'scotch' is played in the scotish highlands. In the
>game, Kings,Queens, Jacks and numbered cards are wild, and the only card
>that is not wild is the three of spades, which is removed from the deck
>prior to the game, rendering that particular card useless.
This issue's question goes back to the episode "When You Comin' Back Range Rider":
>What was the name of the movie Face had "produced" in the beginning of
>episode, and where did he really get it from?
Onto the other messages...
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Return-Path:
Posted-Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 16:12:48 -0400
Received-Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 16:12:48 -0400
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 16:02:41 -0500
From: [email protected] (CHRISTOPHER BENDER)
Subject: On the Jazz submission
To: [email protected]
Content-Description: cc:Mail note part
Dear Nicole,
Here's some input from me....
An all time great quote, from the episode where they go to Vietnam:
Just as they are leaving, Murdock asks of Hannibal, "Colonel, did you think about it?" Hannibal answers, "I remembered it, but I didn't think about it."
Input:
Someone had asked about a recording called "Mr. T's Commandments." Well, I have that on cassette (CD was just coming out at the time I bought it.).
If anyone is interested, I could copy it for you at a nominal cost. I don't want to MAKE money, but I don't want to give charity either. I can not promise the quality of it, due to its age, but it has very little hours on it, so it would probably still give a good reproduction.
With respect to a question about George Peppard appearing in an early '80s post nuclear war movie, it is called "Damnation Alley" and is from 1977.
Questions:
Did anyone ever notice that sometimes the van has a cabinet behind the rear doors in which the team stores their guns, and sometimes there is no such cabinet, like in situations where it is handy that a character be able to easily enter the rear of the van, like during a speedy get away. This inconsistency has always bugged me, and I was wondering if anyone else has noticed this and has any comments.
Secondly, with respect to the color scheme of the van, I had always thought that the van was totally black with the exception of the diagonal stripe, which was red. The first time it ever occurred to me that that was not the case was a few years ago, but already after the show was canceled, when I went to the Philadelphia International Auto show at the Spectrum. As a part of the specialty vehicle display they had the "original A-Team van." This van was black on the bottom, and gray on the top, with an orange diagonal stripe separating the two colors. At the time, I was pissed and I said to myself that this was really lame because they couldn't even get the colors right on the "original A-Team van." However, in subsequent viewing of reruns, I took a closer look and in some of them, the van does appear to have gray as the upper color. Now I don't know if it is my TV or the quality of the rerun prints being distributed, but I can not say with any certainty of what I thought I saw on TV, but I KNOW what I saw at the car show. Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter?
Is Lance Legault the name of the actor who was also Magnum P.I.'s navy commander? I know that there is a common actor between these two shows,
however, since the A-Team changed "military bad guys" just about every season, I still haven't gotten then totally straightened out. Any help?
Those are my thoughts for the moment...
Chris
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Never noticed the different back ends of the van before, but I thought I heard somewhere once (maybe even from someone on this group or in an article somewhere) that there were two different vans used throughout the series. And the paint job did definitely change, I think it was early on in the 3rd season to the grey on-top, but I never noticed too closely if the color of the stripe changed as well.
Finally, here's the conclusion to the Peppard interview from the 8/31/85 issue of the U.S. TV Guide:
Cannell gets upset when he thinks Peppard is telling stories against himself. "I would say to anyone who wants to go to work with George, 'Do it,' Cannell says. "He's a total pro...I told him when we started I'd always listen to him. If he has a bad idea, I just stonewall him."
"I think he goes over the script with a magnifying glass," says co-executive producer Frank Lupo, who describes Peppard as being "like the captain of the tug-of-war team."
Dwight Schultz thinks the producers like "the turbulence" of working with Peppard. "Conflict is the source of the best things you do in life," he says.
Two seasons ago, ad-libbing got a little out of hand, though. "I called George," Cannell says. "I said, 'If that's the way it's going to be, you're not going to see any more scripts out of me'." Peppard apologized, according to Cannell, and there's been no ad-libbing since. Peppard has not stopped calling the production offices. "If he's floating around in Europe or Vegas or New York and he passes a street sign and it gives him an idea, boy, he'll find the nearest phone and he'll call you up so he doesn't lose the thought," Frank Lupo says, laughing. "Sometimes," says Cannell, "he calls just to see how I'm doing. And that's great."
At 56, Peppard admits to a certain amount of pleasure at the thought of his old enemies gnashing their teeth over his comeback. There's a line of A-Team dolls, and he and his 17-year-old son, Christian (from his marraige to his second wife, actress Elizabeth Ashley), have discussed the endless possibilities of what might be done to the Hannibal Smith a k a George Peppard model. "'OK, take that'," says Peppard, imitating a vengeful Hollywood executive. "'Snap its little head off. Rip off its arms and legs.' When I get a twinge in my hip socket, I think perhaps...."
Last December, Peppard married Alexis Adams, 31, who now calls herself J.J. Peppard. It's her first marraige, his fourth. He met his first wife, Helen Davies, at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival. She's the mother of his two other children, Bradford, 30, and Julie, 26. His second wife, Sherry Boucher, was a former Miss National Physical Culture. They married in 1975 and were divorced four years later.
"Some people do better on their own. I don't. It sounds stupid to say, but it's true. I *like* women. I like them when they're little tiny babbies, and I like them when they're old ladies, and I like them all in between. They *please* me."
He's always been attracted to creative women. "I don't think I could live with someone for whom just married life was enough," he says. "Unfortunately, three times I picked actresses who really *wanted* to be actresses." Luckily J.J. has given up acting and is now an artist.
It's taken Peppard a long time-and four or five therapists-to learn certain things, he points out. One of those things is that he's difficult. About 20 years ago he told a group of friends about something or other that had happened to him. "Well, you know me," he said. "I'm easy going." He got no further. Everyone began to laugh. One friend laughed so hard that he slid from his chair onto the carpet. It hurt Peppard's feelings then. Now it amuses him. "There's nothing easy going about me at all," he says.
He has to leave to pick up his son. I've made arrangements to have the check taken care of (gracefully, I think) without any fanfare at the table.
"What do you mean, 'All taken care of'?" says Peppard. "That's *tactics*." He turns to the waiter. "I understand the lady has *outwitted* me." He looks back at me. "There," he says. "*Feel* better?"
The end.
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That's all from me for now.
Until next time!
nicole
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Quote of the week:
"Anyone can spend their afternoons playing golf--but don't
you think this is more fun?"
- Hannibla from "The Out of Towners"
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