Big guns, big explosions, cool catchphrases and a cool vehicle. The preceding was a list of things that, when you were a wee little kid in the ’80s, television was all about. Whether it was Airwolf, Blue Thunder, Street Hawk or Knight Rider, the screens were overflowing with action-packed hour-long shows. But none of them did it like the A-Team. And that was why it wasn’t called B-Team.
The A-team ran for 5 seasons, but they were all the same season, and they were pretty much all the same show, so it was essentially 98 episodes of the same show. And for a small moment in time, it was glorious. It was one of the only shows I was guaranteed to see the gun my latest G.I. Joe came with used. Machine guns, bazookas, stuff blowing up constantly, great theme song…yeah, you get the point. It’s been called a live-action cartoon, and that’s pretty much exactly right. But you know what it has never had ? That’s right; official, super-articulated, quality action figures of the original guys.
The A-team consisted of four members: John “Hannibal” Smith, Bosco Albert “B.A” Baracus, Templeton “Faceman” Peck and H.M. “Howling’ Mad” Murdock. The A-team fought pretty much everybody, everywhere. Four characters, and a gaping hole in the action figure world.
Now, that’s not to say it hasn’t had action figures in the past. Galoob did the best they could do, pumping out the team in both five inch and 3 ¾ inch scale. I actually have a set of the Joe-scaled ones, and they’re esentially G.I. Joe figures without the swivel arm feature, so there was a limitation. Plus, they weren’t exactly dressed the way they were on screen. But imagination caulked up the limitations and they were fun for a while, being just the right size to go head to head with Joes and Cobras.
But that was then.
I think it was NECA’s Clubber Lang figure that first made me realize that not having an updated A-Team collection was a tragedy. I’ve still got plans to customize my own B.A. figure, but I can tend to be lazy and an official set of the four guys would save me a ton of trouble. I haven’t seen an episode since it aired, and I’m pretty sure I lost interest before the entire 5 seasons ended, but none of that matters, because think of how many awesome guns this set could come with. Each figure could come in a box and the empty space in the box could be filled with weapons of all kinds. And if they sold well, maybe we could get an in-scale A-Team van.
I know, right?
NECA would be ideal to do a set of figures like this, but maybe they didn’t have to be the only team to take a whack at them. Maybe Hasbro could try. Marvel Legends A-Team figures for SDCC!
Ok, there’s probably one or two things wrong with that idea, least of which everyone would kill me if that were to come true. Maybe we should stick to NECA. By the way, I am the proud owner of all three issues of that series. And no, it wasn’t a limited series, it was just cancelled, with absolutely no warning. I have no idea why. It sits in my box of cancelled Marvel series with Questprobe.
Man, I have a lot of comics.
Anyway…
If the toys were put out with the quality of NECA’s latest offerings, I’d finally get to realize that dream I’ve had since I wrote this very sentence of teaming up Rambo, Dutch and the A-team to fight Predator Alien ’89 Batman and such. B.A. Versus B…A…tman? Is there anything in the world that could be more awesome? I’m sure if you give it some time you may think of something…like Sexy Samurai Nuns from Hell or something. But that’s too complicated. Better to keep it simple, and there is nothing more simple than the A-Team. If someone wants to make fully articulated modern figures of those four guys, they could be the Greatest Toys Never made.
Didn’t Funko get the license for A-Team about a month ago? So we might be getting some Legacy figures, Pops, and/or ReAction figures.
Hopefully not the last one, because I would hate to see A-Team figures with LESS detail and articulation than they had about 25 years ago.
New figures of these guys have been my holy grail for years and I’d been thinking I was the only one! I was 11 when the show aired, the perfect age to see it through. 7 inch figures would be fine, 4 inch, just as good, but I dream big, and I want Hot Toys quality 12 inch versions, with a full Aquamaniac suit for Hannibal and a 1/6 van! But they can feel free to ignore anything from the 5th season, where they messed with a good thing, changed the perfect formula and killed the show. Robert Vaughn and Frankie Santana and a horrible remix of the theme, ugh! And please, no retro styled versions, I’m immature enough to still want toys, but old enough to want some decent quality and detail applied to them
I loved the a-team figs as a kid. I had em all even the chick.
A-Team figs? Hells yes! I had all 4 of the GI Joe scaled ones back in the day and only had B.A for the 5 inch line. But back then I had a lot of Mr.T stuff (who didn’t)Lol. Some NECA styled original series figs would be awesome! I would think Mr.T would be on board since they made a Clubber Lang,and Dwight Schultz and Dirk Benedict hopefully wouldn’t be too hard to get. Certainly hope some company is trying to get these. Great article Benty!
either neca or funko toys should be the ones to finaly give the ateam their long over due plastic funko mainly given how it goes after licenses none of the big toy companies will touch like aliens or the rocketeer .plus they could also even as a con exclusive the van.
the Van in that line was awesome. Bet Mez has it on the 8inch radar. (hopeful)
I have long hoped that NECA would release the A-team as a set of action figures. I have the 5 inch Galoob figures but NECA could blow those guys out of the water easily. Anything done like their Rocky, Rambo, or Predator lines would be well worth the investment.
I pity the fool who don’t make A-team action figures!
Ah man – I had the full 5″ range as a kid (A-Team and those dodgy generic bad guys). I think they were probably the first action figures I ever had (never had any Joes or Star Wars figures, and only a few MotU’s – deprived childhood I tell ya!). Eventually traded all of them for a couple of those cheap nasty handheld game thingies from the mid/late ’80s. Eeesh… teh regrets…
I think the figures made for the 2010 movie aren’t half bad. Granted, they’re in the 3 3/4 inch scale, suffer from “diaper crotch” articulation and the TV show versions of the characters would be preferable, but they’re okay. The Baracus in particular has a great likeness to the actor, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.