Product Description

George Peppard, Mr. T, Dirk Benedict, Melinda Culea, Dwight SchultzDirectors: Arnold Laven, Bernard McEveety, Bruce Kessler, Christian I. Nyby II, Chuck Bowman

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2853 in DVD
• Brand: DVD Boxsets
• Released on: 2004-09-13
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 5
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Dimensions: .71 pounds
• Running time: 660 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Guilty pleasures don't come more guilty than The A-Team, television's only tongue-in-cheek drama about the exploits of renegade Vietnam vets. The primetime series' 1983 debut season, gathered here was intentionally ludicrous, encouraging viewers to enjoy sundry talents of a colourful cast and laugh off storylines perhaps sillier than those on Charlie's Angels. Co-created by Stephen J. Cannell (Wiseguy) and Frank Lupo (Hunter), The A-Team introduced Lt. Col. John "Hannibal" Smith (George Peppard), the cocksure leader of a band of fugitive American soldiers framed for a crime in Vietnam and now thriving in Los Angeles. Hiring themselves out as soldiers of fortune, Hannibal's crew--including Lt. Templeton "Face" Peck (baby-faced Tim Dunigan in the pilot, Dirk Benedict thereafter), Sgt. Bosco Albert "B.A. (for 'Bad Attitude')" Baracus (Mr. T, outfitted with his trademark gold), and, most comically, Capt. H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock (Dwight Schultz)--assist (mostly) ordinary people having a problem with bad guys. The A-Team ostensibly charges large fees, but much of the time the guys seem to be doing pro bono work for the helpless.

Season One highlights include "Children of Jamestown," starring John Saxon as a Jim Jones-like religious cult leader who captures Hannibal, Face, B.A., and first-season sidekick Amy "Triple A" Allen (Melinda Culea). While the resourceful group invents a super-weapon out of farm equipment, crazy Murdock commandeers a helicopter and dynamite. Also good is "A Small and Deadly War," featuring Dean Stockwell as one of several uncontrolled L.A. cops committing murder-for-hire. "The Out-of-Towners" takes a page from the Death Wish movie series with a story about New York City shop owners harassed by a protection racketeer (Yaphet Kotto). Hannibal and company retaliate with machine guns (no one is ever seen killed in this series) and, more effectively, public humiliation of the villain. The best thing about The A-Team is the relationship between the four offbeat heroes, who may not always like each other (B.A. usually looks as if he'd like to leave Murdock in a shallow grave) but get the job done expertly. --Tom Keogh

Synopsis
Television producer Stephen J. Cannell (Hunter, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street) scored one of the earliest of his many 1980s hits with The A-Team. A group of Vietnam veterans falsely accused of a crime during the last days of the conflict, the A-Team was made up of cigar-chomping leader Hannibal (George Peppard), tough guy B.A. Baracus (Mr. T), suave con man Face (Dirk Benedict), and paranoid pilot Murdock (Dwight Schultz). The team survived through employment as soldiers of fortune, humiliating their foes, and standing up for the little guy.

Customer Reviews

Amazing A-Team Action
This is the best release of the A-Team on DVD yet, it consists of 14 episodes, those being;

Episode 1 & 2 - Mexican Slayride (Pilot - 2 hour)
Episode 3 - Children Of Jamestown
Episode 4 - Pros and Cons
Episode 5 - A small and Deadly War
Episode 6 - Black Day in Badrock (althought it says Black day & black rock on the case sleeve)
Episode 7 - The Rabbit That Ate Las Vegas
Episode 8 - The Out-Of-Towners
Episode 9 - Holiday in the Hills
Episode 10 - West Coast Turnaround
Episode 11 - One More Time
Episode 12 - Till Death Do Us Part
Episode 13 - The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing
Episode 14 - A Nice Place to Visit

Overall some good and some Brilliant episodes. Just a note, the episodes have NOT being digital remastered, so the sound and picture is original, having said this, I only noticed in the beginning of one of the opening sequences any distortion of sound, other than that I thought it was good quality. Cant wait For season 2 to be released, reminds me of many a happy saturday watching this at home. I'd recommend this to All A-team fans.

A remarkable surprise
My memories of 'The A Team' have been filtered through many distorting lenses since the series was originally shown, but I nevertheless thought I had a reasonably good idea what the series contained: lightweight dialogue, a hail of bullets with no-one seemingly copping any injuries, and ludicrous machines concocted from tinfoil and paper clips.

Having just finished enjoying the first series, I must confess to having been wrong on all counts. Firstly, whilst there is plenty of surprisingly gripping action in the series, it is unquestionably dialogue-driven. The interplay between the four leads is nothing short of wonderful: Hannibal is edgier than I remembered him, and Face more self-deprecating and less suavely confident than my memories suggested. BA could not be further removed from the two-dimensional muscle-bound lunk of my recollections, and his character is hugely appealing, with a dry wit underpinning all the 'crazy foos' and 'suckas'. His ongoing commentary throughout the series on Hannibal's 'jazz' is particularly entertaining. It is Murdoch, however, who is the unsung hero of 'The A Team'. His deranged brand of humour was clearly a massive influence on Jim Carrey, and the surrealist strain he introduces into the series is one of the reasons for its enduring appeal. You too will start singing 'garbage, ho!' every time you put the dustbin out. If you start petting an invisible dog, talking in rhyming couplets, or eating shaving foam, however, you should probably give this set a rest for a couple of weeks. Watching Mr. T corpsing at Dwight Schultz's antics is a joy; it must have been a tough job keeping that scowl set on your face with such a hilarious character actor bouncing around at your elbow.

To turn to my other observations: people do get injured in 'The A Team' (one episode begins with BA having received a potentially fatal leg wound), and in this first series at least, the episodes go to some effort to make the cobbled-together inventions BA creates seem vaguely plausible. The vehicles do have a tendency to fall to bits, too, and there is never any suggestion that they have somehow managed to craft a production-line perfect version of whatever they have attempted to fashion.

All in all, this first series of 'The A Team' is most entertaining, and may well overturn your preconceptions of the program. Either way, you'd be a 'foo' if you didn't enjoy it.

TV How it should be
This is the first season of the A-Team. If you don't know the A-Team is the collective name for Hannibal, Face, B.A. and Murdock. They would be those four fellas on the front of the box there. These four guys are former soldiers and fugitives on the constant look out to avoid capture by the military police after they escaped from a military prison. That sounds like great fun to watch. But that's not all they also help people in trouble against bigger bad guys at the same time. Yup, that's right :- AMAZING!
Even more amazing is some of the ideas the guys come up with on how to acheive this. They will use their wit and Face's scamming skills to obtain just about anything in any situation. Then with seemingly random bits of junk they create something incredible that just whoops the bad guys. Not only do the plans work but they add several ounces of pure cheek and class on top - thank Hannibal for that.
As well as the clever build up of junk you can see an almost perfect dynamic between the four main characters. Hannibal is the leader as he was in army, he comes up with the plans and gets really excited when everyones lives are in danger (the jazz). Then there is Face, he is the charming con artist who can get absolutely any item no matter what, no matter where, he usually gets the girl too. Then there is Sgt. Bosco Baracus or B.A. as he is called which stands for 'Bad Attitude' played by Mr.T, he is the driver, the muscle and the man who builds things out of scrap. Finally is Howlin' Mad Murdock, the crazy pilot who adds some comic relief with his 'crazy rap' constantly annoying BA.
So the ideas are great and the characters are great too, but then everything else is great, the music - timeless. The stunts are off this planet - look at how close the helicopter sometimes gets to clipping the floors and hills and cliffs.
All of the episodes offered on this box set are great but for me the best two are 'Pros and Cons' set in a prison, and 'Beast From the Belly of a Boeing' set in a plane. Everyone has their personal favourites but those two show why the A-Team are the best in my book, a complex plan in one and some really quick thinking in the other.
If you remember the A-Team fondly then buy this. If you've never seen it before then still buy it as it really is classic stuff. Solid gold.