I Pity the Fool who don’t like Mr. T!
You have to love Mr. T. He’s this huge muscular guy who could snap anyone who thinks of messing with him in half, he’s sporting a mohawk, communicates by shouting things like “Enough Jibba Jabba”, and to top it off, he’s wearing about 60 pounds of bling-bling around his neck – need we define the term classic any further? It just doesn’t get any better than this. Mr. T was an icon of the 80’s and if I had it my way, Mr. T would still be just as big today. Mr. T is the ultimate real-life super hero. I mean, you have to respect the guy. He has the power to crush you without even trying, and yet he’s not simply a hulking jerk. Mr. T also knows how to win over the crowd. You know he knows how ridiculous he looks in his outfits, but he wears them anyway. Why? Because he wants us to feel comfortable with him. Mr. T wants us to like him. He’s like a WWF Superstar, but for real.
I mean, if Mr. T didn’t wear those chains, would we all flock to him like we do? Of course not. We’d be petrified of this guy. But like the great guy he is, Mr. T has gone that extra step and proven to the world that while he’s a serious guy and a force to be reckoned with. Mr. T knows there’s a lighter side to life, and if possible he’d like to make it just a bit lighter for us. That’s the beauty of Mr. T. He’s a people’s hero. Mr. T knows what we want, and he delivers it every time. He could be like his character in Rocky III and try to make a name for himself, by being the baddest sucka out there…
But instead, Mr. T has decided to take the high road – be a hero to all the youngin’s out there, and give us someone to look up to. In the end, this has been a very lucrative decision for Mr. T. His family-friendly entertainment has spawned a plethora of merchandising opportunities. Second only to his fame as an actor/wrestler, Mr. T is best known for pumping out a quality breakfast product that people of all ages can enjoy.
Although it’s no longer available on the shelves of your local grocer, Mr. T’s cereal has been immortalized in the great film classic, “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure”. There’s not a true fan of the classics that doesn’t remember the Pee-Wee’s line – “I pity the fool who don’t eat my cereal!”. It was one of films finest moments. Of course Mr. T has spawned other promotional opportunities.
Does anyone else remember these things? I love shrinky dinks. For those of you who either don’t remember or weren’t born soon enough, shrinky dinks were these sheets of plastic paper with a picture on them. You colored in the picture and then cut it out and stuck it in the oven for a while. And magically, it shrunk and formed a hardened plastic chip-thing of the character. It may not sound like much now, but believe me, shrinky dinks were a way of life for any child born in the early 80’s. The fact that Mr. T supported such a quality product is just further proof of how great he is.
And then like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Mr. T appears in a series of 1-800-COLLECT commercials. I hadn’t seen this guy in years and there he was gold chains and all playing Inspecta Collect. It was a glorious moment in television history. Last I had heard, Mr. T was diagnosed with cancer, and for all I knew the guy was dead. And then, he was there. Looking healthy and as wonderfully strange as ever. I’ve since heard that Mr. T has professed to becoming a Christian, and this has been backed up by me seeing him on the cover of a Christian video, although I can’t find the picture to show you. So it seems that all is going well with the greatest hero of our time – Further proof that the classics do endure.
