Replies

Dwight Schultz is an outspoken conservative. It’s cost him some roles. I think Dirk Benedict may lean right, since he has written for Big Hollywood (a non-political column).

You may be right about the effect the A-Team had, but I think the reason they went with no deaths was to make it more kid-friendly more than any kind of statement. A couple of scripts in season two did seem to be trying to shill for the Democrats in that year’s presidential election. Peppard was a Democrat for sure.

You may be right about the effect the A-Team had, but I think the reason they went with no deaths was to make it more kid-friendly more than any kind of statement.

All the shows of that time (1975-1985) are anti-gun. MacGyver (1985) never uses a gun. Even the hero's who have guns don't shoot to kill. Even on Dukes of Hazzard the hero's never use a gun, the excuse in that show being that they were on probation. The A-Team was the last of that line. The idea of mercenaries that never actually shot anyone was so farcical that instead of delivering the liberal message, it became a punchline.

Magnum P.I. (1980) was one of the fist to break the taboo about the good guy actually killing the bad guy. And even then not in the earlier shows where the shooting and missing followed by a fist fight was the norm. The turning point came in my favorite episode of that show. The Russian Spy who had tortured him in Vietnam is about to walk away because he has diplomatic immunity. This is usually where we expected the good guy to take his defeat like a man because he obeys the law. Instead Magnum asks the Russian if he had seen the sunrise that morning. And then blows his head off. The scene was shocking, not because it was illogical, destroying a dangerous and evil enemy is a rational act. But because it was something that a "Hero" wasn't supposed to do. And you would never have seen B.A. Baracus do that.