So The A-Team has finally been made into a feature film which will soon be shown in theatres. Upon hearing this news I was propelled back to the 80‘s, when I watched the show religiously. Most adolescents these days won’t have even heard of The A-Team, but if you, like me, were a kid in the mid to late 80’s, then The A-Team must have meant something to you. It certainly did to me. It wasn’t just The A-Team though, throughout the 80’s and early 
90’s I was a sucker for most American TV shows and sitcoms, even Murder She Wrote (Why? I simply do not know.)
Watching MacGyver on Friday evenings, who always refused to carry a gun, escaping from his weekly conundrum, armed with some string, his pen knife and a shocking mullet, always made my week. His pen-knife was the most amazing piece of machinery the world had ever seen. Michael Knight talking to his car, the English butler of automobiles. Knight’s hair poodled into a permed homage to bad 80’s hairstyles. Magnum cruising in his red Ferrari. The prerequisite to owning such a beautiful car seemed to lie in the owning of a very tight pair of shorts and a moustache that was a marvel to modern science, and of course The A-Team, who no matter how hard they tried, never actually shot anyone, their enemies always diving out the way.
Ah yes, powerful memories that have stayed with me to this day. I decided to re-visit my childhood heroes, and once again breathe in this melting pot of 80‘s nostalgia. Before watching any shows though, I did a little research on the subject. A common theme began to arise; the fact that nearly all of these heroes were Vietnam Veterans. These included Stringfellow Hawk, Michael Knight, Magnum PI, Macgyver, and of course all four members of The A-Team. All these characters had served in Vietnam and were now freelance heroes or mercenaries, always available on hand to help. Maybe the writers of 80’s American shows were trying to tell us something, who knows.
I then proceeded with some excitement and revisited my old friends, thanks mainly to You Tube. As soon as the opening credits began, memories came flooding back. I was ten years old again. During my youth I never missed the intros. Like the famous canine experiments conducted by Pavlo, every time the shows would start a bell went off in my mind and I would feel the excitement bubbling up in me, and yes sometimes I would slobber. Watching them again brought a nostalgic lump to my throat. It was when the shows actually started that the problems began.
The first thing you have to get over when you re-hash 80s TV shows are the designs, clothing and Neanderthal technology used in the 80s. How times have changed. I couldn’t help but laugh at the ‘high tech’ gadgets that were used. After the shock of being surrounded by 80’s paraphernalia, another problem started to erode my senses. The plots. How most got past the cutting room floor remains a mystery. Were we that naïve as kids to believe these ridiculous scenarios? Would the kids of today be swept away in the super fast helicopters and talking cars like we did?
Knightrider was one of my favourite shows as a kid. The mysterious closing credits when Michael drives off into the desert in Kit, a darkish pink backdrop evoking the sense of the unknown. A rider searching for the storm. I remember as a youth when Kit graced our shores and was displayed to the public. Not going to meet that car seriously scarred me for life. I was devastated. Watching the show again changed my mind. I couldn’t take David ‘The Hof’ Hasselhof seriously, he seemed like a cardboard cut-out character. Whenever I saw him in his black leather jacket I was reminded of the fact that in years to come he would don our screens in red swimming trunks, constantly pulling his expanding beer belly in, his poodle hair reduced to a mere puppy of its former glory.
After watching a few fatal episodes of Murder She Wrote (which ran for 12 years and spawned 262 episodes) I was bored to tears. Jessica Fletcher was clearly a mass murdering author, pinning her crimes on others. Whenever she ventured out, people died. Coincidence, I think not. The local police, always clinging to her every word, needed the help of a granny to solve their crimes. Shameful.
I won’t even begin to write about the family sitcoms but shows ranging from Full House, Major Dad and Perfect Strangers (with the ‘hilarious’ goat herder Balki Bartokomous), to Too Close for Comfort, Mr Belvedere and the Golden Girls made me never want to switch my TV on again. I felt cheated. What stings the most was the time I spent watching these shows. I was more than willing to sit and watch an hour of Alf, an alien resembling a mole hill, rambling on about next to nothing. It all stank of mediocrity.
It suddenly dawned on me why these shows worked so well with the kids of the day. It wasn’t the bland acting, the moronic plots, or even the cashmere backdrops. It was the props. Knight Rider had Kit, Stringfellow Hawk had Airwolf, Magnum, his car and moustache, The A-team, their van and of course BA Barracus. All the ingredients kids loved. I wouldn’t be surprised if at the time, I was even paying attention to the plots. I just wanted to see stuff blow up and bad guys get their comeuppance, and of course when Hannibal proclaimed every week that he did indeed enjoy it when a plan came together.
Perhaps I’ve been unfair in my assessment of my once favourite 80’s shows. To compare my taste as a 30-something male to when I was 10, isn’t really fair. Sometimes the past needs to stay in the past. These days I wouldn’t be able to sit in my garden for hours playing with GI Joe and He-man, I could try but I fear my girlfriend would leave me, or insist I seek professional help. The only excuse to play with toys now would be if I had kids of my own and if I do have children some day, will I show them the TV shows I loved as a child? Yeah, why not, but I think they will laugh at me and at my pre-historic choices of old. Oh well, times as they say, are always changing.
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