History Series / TheATeam

* IneffectualSympatheticVillain: Colonel Decker.

** Colonel Decker in Season 2 and 3.

''The A-Team'' is one of the most famous of the 1980s action series, running from 1983 to 1987. The plot can be summed up by the OpeningNarration:

A [[Film/TheATeam big-screen version]] was released in June 2010, with LiamNeeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley and Quinton Jackson as the team. The trailer can be seen [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM0ypzvuphg here]]. Tropes go to the respective page.

!!TropeNamer for:
* ATeamFiring: Nobody is ''ever'' shot in one of the shootouts.
* ATeamMontage: ...at about the 48-minute mark in ''every episode''.

!!''The A-Team'' provides examples of:

* '''Sergeant Bosco "B.A." Baracus''' -- played by MrT, he was the team's strongman with a famous fear of flying.

'''Face''': ''(mouthing)'' "Hey Jude?"

* [[CantGetInTroubleForNuthin Can't Get In Trouble For Nuthin']]: The team in "Pros and Cons", trying to get into prison, until they crash their car ''into'' the police station.

* CatchPhrase:
** "I pity da fool!" ([[BeamMeUpScotty Which B. A. never actually said]]... though MrT did outside of the show.)

** In the fifth season premiere, they ''were'' cleared of the robbery when [[spoiler: a former Vietnamese colonel testified in their court-martial that their commanding officer sent them to rob a bank in order for them to be captured by the North Vietnamese]]. Of course, by that time [[spoiler: the A-Team was being tried for the murder of their commanding officer]].

*** They follow the [[ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia Always Sunny]] model much better, actually: Hannibal is The Brains, Face is The Looks, Murdock is The Wild Card, and BA is The Muscle. The Useless Chick was a variety of, well, useless chicks.

* HeelFaceTurn: General "Bull" Fullbright, shortly before he was [[KilledOffForReal Killed Off For Real]].

** Lampshaded in one episode by Hannibal.

* {{MacGyvering}}: Generally once an episode, involving vehicles.

* NitroExpress: There was an episode where they were transporting dynamite - which is not normally volatile until/unless it has a blasting cap attached - but it was really really hot and as a result the sticks of dynamite were sweating nitroglycerin.

** The team comes up with a plan that's {{Crazy Enough to Work}}...

** There's a bit of {{MacGyvering}} in an ATeamMontage...

* StuntCasting: A special appearance by the game show ''{{Wheel of Fortune}}'', in which Murdock won a truck and a trip to Hawaii.

* TheVietnamWar: The A-Team of course, as well as Decker, having served in the war. The show is credited as being one of the first to portray it, and in a positive light to boot. "A Nice Place to Visit" had the A-Team attend the funeral of a soldier in their unit, with each character descending into hero worship over his actions in Vietnam before going on a {{Roaring Rampage of Revenge}} against his killers.

* XMeetsY: NBC President, Brandon Tartikoff pitched the series to StephenJCannell (the co-creator) as a cross between ''TheDirtyDozen'', ''MissionImpossible'', ''TheMagnificentSeven'', ''MadMax'', and ''HillStreetBlues'', with MrT driving the car.

** There was also George Peppard's allusion to his role as {{Banacek}}, where he played a similar role, by having Hannibal spout even more off kilter words of wisdom.

->''In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the LosAngeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... [[TitleDrop the A-Team]]. ([[EarWorm Dun-Dun-Dun! Dun-dun-dun...]])''

** B. A. says about Murdock, "The fool is crazy." (Or some variation on that.)

* ActingForTwo: George Peppard as Hannibal, and a mook Hannibal impersonated, in "Judgement Day".

** "I pity da fool!" ([[BeamMeUpScotty Which B. A. never actually said]]...though MrT did outside of the show.)

* ClothingDamage: Played for laughs. To impersonate a gangster and inflitrate a meeting, the team kidnap him and send Murdock in with his clothes. The gangster escapes and blows Murdock's cover in the middle of the meeting, but stops people from shooting him so as to not damage his clothes.

* NitroExpress: There was an episode where they were transporting dynamite - which is not normally volitile until/unless it has a blasting cap attached - but it was really really hot and as a result the sticks of dynamite were sweating nitroglycerine.

* EstrogenBrigadeBait: Face. He probably also counts as a ParentalBonus since the show was technically aimed at children.

*** Hannibal (after a giant truck of destruction has burst out of a shed): Where, exactly, did you lock my team.
*** Bad Guy: In the old equipment shed.
*** Hannibal: [[SarcasmMode What an original idea. I wonder where you came up with that one]].

* DestructiveSaviour: If a sane person were in charge of the army, he would've pardoned the A-Team just so that they'd stop racking up billions of dollars-worth of property damage.

** At the end of one episode, Hannibal claims to be an agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency. The "A" actually stands for "administration", although it is an easy and common mistake to make.

* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: One episode has the team knocking out B.A. (again) so they can get on a plane. This time however they're in the middle of a mission, so they can't wait for him to calm down. Hannibal decides that the only way to solve the problem is to let B.A. take his revenge after the mission is over, which Face and Murdock are horrified about. B.A. is creepily cheerful throughout the rest of the episode, and the Team dreads what he'll do to them. Finally, when it's all over B.A. prepares to punish them...he lines them all up and calls them out on their flaws and why they annoy him. B.A. also reveals that instead of flying back, he's chartered a boat. As part of their payment, the rest of the team has help with the upkeep as well as repaint the whole thing. The team decides they would've preferred if he just beaten them up.

* {{Novelization}}: There were ''ten'' books published in the 1980s; some (like ''When You Comin' Back, Range Rider?'') were based on double-length episodes, others blended together two basically unrelated episodes (like ''Bullets, Bikinis And Bells'', based on "Bullets And Bikinis" and "The Bells Of St. Mary's"). Only one book was based on one standard-length episode (''Till Death Do Us Part'') and only one wasn't based on an episode at all (''Operation Desert Sun: The Untold Story''). The first six books came out in the US and UK, the rest were only published in the UK.

** According to both Dirk Benedict and George Peppard, Triple A and her counterpart were only there because of studio demands, and the male leads felt that a female on the show slowed the action down too much.

* ClearMyName: The premise of the fifth season, though it never came to be before the show was cancelled.

The show ran for five seasons, with several minor cast changes along the way; the show's eventual decline was attributed to the constantly-recycled and extremely formulaic plot. Attempts to win viewers back, by both changing the overall premise and having the A-Team overseen by a former antagonist, only worked for a short while.

Logic and credibility were usually ignored for the series' trademark over-the-top explosions, but the show never took itself particularly seriously, anyway -- most of Hannibal's disguises were paper-thin, the villains were usually mostly-inept and somewhat one-dimensional, and the weapons that the Team [[MacGyvering cobbled together from miscellaneous parts]] were invariably more effective than the machine guns that the episode's villains used.

** FridgeBrilliance: Face, though not a coward by any stretch, often showed signs of not liking violence that much. He probably likes trying to con people so they can get away without a shootout or fistfight - not that he doesn't enjoy the con for it's own sake, mind you.

They would go along to the location of the activity in their CoolCar, which in their case was actually a distinctive-looking custom van -- [[FridgeLogic an odd choice for a group who are supposed to be in hiding]]. There they would do a lot of ATeamFiring, beat up the baddies and often [[MacGyvering MacGyver up]] an armored vehicle.

It features the ATeamMontage.

* XanatosGambit: Stockwell sets up the team in the final season.

* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: Believe it or not, the series had a few of these. The most notable is the season 4 finale, involving their pursuer General Fullbright enlisting their help to back to Vietnam to find his illegitimate daughter. The humor of the show is replaced by a somber mood, as the team reflects on their experiences in Vietnam.

* ADisgraceToBlackbeard: "El Cajon" (The Coffin) and his river pirates in "The Bend in the River".

* {{Novelization}}: There were ''ten'' books published in the 1980s, some based on double-length episodes (the first book was based on the pilot movie), others blended together two unrelated episodes (like ''Bullets, Bikinis And Bells'' based on "Bullets And Bikinis" and "The Bells Of St. Mary's"). Only one book was based on one standard-length episode (''Till Death Do Us Part'') and only one wasn't based on an episode at all (''Operation Desert Sun: The Untold Story''). The first six books came out in the US and UK, the rest were only published in the UK.

* NobodyCanDie: Since it was classified as a children's show, you have the ridiculous premise in which the A-Team amasses a massive arsenal of machine guns and weaponry, faces off against a similarly armed force, exchanges thousands of bullets -- '''and everyone lives'''. It wasn't until the series 4 finale that a recurring character actually ''died'' on camera. Discussion ''of'' a death was permitted, and you see at least two people executed (with GoryDiscretionShot at the ready), at least in the first couple of seasons.