100 TV Shows #77 The A-Team #78-Banacek
Unfortunately I can't use 77 Sunset Strip in this spot, because like Route 66, it was before my time and I know it only through zeitgeist and osmosis.
So instead...a show that I only watched for one man, and a post that will be more or less a love letter to him and my favorite of his movies.
The A-Team
Banacek
So there it was, 1983. I'm still living at home after graduating high-school and (kind of) going to college at Bergen comedy Community College, and there's a new TV show and it stars....OMG....GEORGE PEPPARD!
Me and George go way back. One of my major, major movie star crushes from my pre-adolescent, staying up all night to watch movies on TV phase.
I mean come on people:
I mean, you wanna talk GUH and FEELS and CRAY CRAY and exploding ovaries?
Most especially in Breakfast at Tifanny's, but also The Carpet Baggers, The Blue Max, The Strange One.
Digression: The Strange One-Hey, slash girls-Check this one out. It takes place in a military academy, so it's pretty much already a slash-trope in the making and it stars very young and massively gorgeous George Peppard AND ZOMG Ben Gazzara, and it's totally subtexty, slashy, creepy etc. MRRRROOOWWW. If this movie came out now, it would have a slash fandom before the first trailer was released.
Then came Banacek, under the NBC Mystery Move Banner.
1972---I was nine. I wanted him BAD! I shipped him and Christine Belford as Carlie Kirkland so effin hard. I remember having those fantasies. Except the whole premise of the show and the relationship was that he was the genius insurance investigator and he had to beat her at finding the baddie AND generally humiliate her in the process every time, although I remember one episode where they did get together and he threw over some other girl for her and it was awesome. But it was probably horrible. I'd be really terrified to watch those shows now. Even then I knew he was a Male Chauvinist and I suspect for all his sexual attractiveness, it would be super cringeworthy now.
So, it's 1983, the salt and pepper is now pure white and he's in this show with a fairly ludicrous premise but OMG-IT'S GEORGE PEPPARD.
I think I made it through the first two seasons, before they did the obligatory changes to try and boost ratings. I told myself I liked the repeated schtick of having to bust Murdoch out of various mental hospitals. And it was true, right up until it wasn't. I mean it was a cute show, but it was the kind of cute that wears thin verrrrry quickly.
Another thing that sort of bothers me in retrospect is the "cutifying" of Mr. T. I remember when Rocky 3 came out and Clubber Lang was supposed to be (and to some extent was) terrifying. But then they made BA Barracus....cuddly. Oh he comes off like such a tough guy, but then he's always saving widows and orphans or whatever.
I don't think I picked up any slashy vibes there and I kind of had residual Dirk Benedict (if Benedict Cumberbatch married Dirk Benedict, his name would be....) hatred going back to the REAL Battlestar Galactica. (A show I hated, but am still defensive of since the new one.) It really just comes back to show that was cute for awhile, which I watched because I'd wanted to shtup George Peppard since I was 8 or 9.
Let's talk about Breakfast at Tifanny's:
I remember when Kevin Costner had his really good two or so years there: No Way Out/Untouchables/Bull Durham, I kept telling people he was as good-looking as George Peppard in Breakfast at Tifanny's because to me that is/was the pinnacle of male beauty.
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 4
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 5
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 16
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 30
Now I'm glad that Mr. Peppard had one last good run before he passed in 1994. He seems to have had a rough time of it towards the end, and Elizabeth Ashley writing nasty stuff about him in her memoir didn't help. (Although I only read it for the parts about him and somehow ended up still loving him like crazy.)
So instead...a show that I only watched for one man, and a post that will be more or less a love letter to him and my favorite of his movies.
The A-Team
Click to viewBanacek
So there it was, 1983. I'm still living at home after graduating high-school and (kind of) going to college at Bergen comedy Community College, and there's a new TV show and it stars....OMG....GEORGE PEPPARD!
Me and George go way back. One of my major, major movie star crushes from my pre-adolescent, staying up all night to watch movies on TV phase.
I mean come on people:
I mean, you wanna talk GUH and FEELS and CRAY CRAY and exploding ovaries?
Most especially in Breakfast at Tifanny's, but also The Carpet Baggers, The Blue Max, The Strange One.
Digression: The Strange One-Hey, slash girls-Check this one out. It takes place in a military academy, so it's pretty much already a slash-trope in the making and it stars very young and massively gorgeous George Peppard AND ZOMG Ben Gazzara, and it's totally subtexty, slashy, creepy etc. MRRRROOOWWW. If this movie came out now, it would have a slash fandom before the first trailer was released.
Then came Banacek, under the NBC Mystery Move Banner.
1972---I was nine. I wanted him BAD! I shipped him and Christine Belford as Carlie Kirkland so effin hard. I remember having those fantasies. Except the whole premise of the show and the relationship was that he was the genius insurance investigator and he had to beat her at finding the baddie AND generally humiliate her in the process every time, although I remember one episode where they did get together and he threw over some other girl for her and it was awesome. But it was probably horrible. I'd be really terrified to watch those shows now. Even then I knew he was a Male Chauvinist and I suspect for all his sexual attractiveness, it would be super cringeworthy now.
So, it's 1983, the salt and pepper is now pure white and he's in this show with a fairly ludicrous premise but OMG-IT'S GEORGE PEPPARD.
I think I made it through the first two seasons, before they did the obligatory changes to try and boost ratings. I told myself I liked the repeated schtick of having to bust Murdoch out of various mental hospitals. And it was true, right up until it wasn't. I mean it was a cute show, but it was the kind of cute that wears thin verrrrry quickly.
Another thing that sort of bothers me in retrospect is the "cutifying" of Mr. T. I remember when Rocky 3 came out and Clubber Lang was supposed to be (and to some extent was) terrifying. But then they made BA Barracus....cuddly. Oh he comes off like such a tough guy, but then he's always saving widows and orphans or whatever.
I don't think I picked up any slashy vibes there and I kind of had residual Dirk Benedict (if Benedict Cumberbatch married Dirk Benedict, his name would be....) hatred going back to the REAL Battlestar Galactica. (A show I hated, but am still defensive of since the new one.) It really just comes back to show that was cute for awhile, which I watched because I'd wanted to shtup George Peppard since I was 8 or 9.
Let's talk about Breakfast at Tifanny's:
I remember when Kevin Costner had his really good two or so years there: No Way Out/Untouchables/Bull Durham, I kept telling people he was as good-looking as George Peppard in Breakfast at Tifanny's because to me that is/was the pinnacle of male beauty.
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 4
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 5
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 16
30 Days of Movies Meme-Day 30
Now I'm glad that Mr. Peppard had one last good run before he passed in 1994. He seems to have had a rough time of it towards the end, and Elizabeth Ashley writing nasty stuff about him in her memoir didn't help. (Although I only read it for the parts about him and somehow ended up still loving him like crazy.)