I once talked about the intro to the Chuck Norris cartoon that wanted to be the Mr. T cartoon but never really talked about the intro TO the Mr. T cartoon. Let’s finally correct that oversight.
The bodyguard turned actor formerly known as Laurence Tureaud is best known for playing Clubber Lang in Rocky III and B.A. “Bad Attitude” Baracus, the child-loving, fool-pitying mechanic and muscle of The A-Team. Mr. T (first name Mr, middle name the period, last name T) would also appear in family sitcoms like Silver Spoons and Diff’rent Strokes as pretty much himself. He became a great hit with kids, which led to toys and other merchandise–even his own breakfast cereal–and of course his own cartoon.
Produced by Ruby-Spears, Mr. T (I’ve seen it written online as Mister T but we all know the proper spelling of his name) was one of the few shows about a celebrity that actually had the celebrity voicing him. I don’t mean something like Wishkid or The Gary Coleman Show, where a famous person played a character. (In fact Gary Coleman’s character was based on a TV movie he did called The Kid With The Broken Halo, about an apprentice guardian angel.) Since there was nothing unintentionally funny about it and anything for kids is immediately considered “dumb” the portion of the T-Fan arm that just likes to see him toss guys around–seriously, at one point in the early years of the internet when I finally got on there were a series of poorly edited photo comics about Mr. T throwing dudes “hella far” while drinking milk, calling Murdock a crazy fool and driving the A-Team van into outer space to occasionally fight aliens–they have immediately wrote off the show. Even Mr. Enter put the show down, but ask any 80s kid worth talking to and they’ll tell you the show was awesome!
