A Team Special

I was thinking of the season 1 Lawn Chair Larry-like prison escape.

The team have gotten themselves arrested (on purpose) and into a prison where the warden runs illegal fights between inmates for bets.
B.A. takes on the role of a deaf mute fighter, so as to infiltrate the fighting organization and to have Hannibal, who plays an obviously gay hairdresser who pretends to know sign language, escort him everywhere and speak on his behalf.
Murdoch is placed in the psychatric cell block and drives the staff there bonkers by screaming for trash bags all the time.
Face takes on the role of a prominent prison psychiatrist who believes in the reform of inmates through occupational therapy and job training and with the help of Amy, who pretends to be writing a story on this project, convinces the warden to start up a hair salon in the prison.

This all leads up to the escape plan.

When the salon is up and running, complete with hair styling gadgets such as curling irons and hairdryers, and Murdoch has enough trash bags, the team proceeds to strap these bags to a lawn chair and fill them with hot air from the hairdryers, allowing Murdoch just enough air time to make it over the prison wall and escape, so he can later help the others escape.

I'm guessing it's a big fat no for making this work with the relatively few bags they had on hand in the show (a big clue is that you could see by the way the chair moved that it was faked), but is it possible to use plastic trash bags - if you have enough - and hot air to get airborne, just like Lawn Chair Larry did with his helium balloons, or would the temperature of the air have to be so high that the bags would melt long before you were able to get any real lift out of them?

Eh? This is comment going over my head like a 747, can you please explain.

Ok got it now. Ta!

well, not if you admit it...

that would mean I would need to watch at least some of it...

As clearly evidenced by you now having called it "Logan's Heroes" twice, when it's actually called "Hogan's Heroes"

Sadly, it's all too common for episodes to be dropped when shows go from country to country.

It could be that the country's censors objected in some fashion. For example, the infamous "beach episode" from the first season of Pokemon has been in and out of rotation due to it depicting a 12-year-old Misty and a cross-dressing 17-year-old James both competing in a swimsuit contest.

It could be that someone involved in the production wanted one or more episodes withheld. For example, an episode of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime has reportedly been withheld from international broadcast because the producer was dissatisfied with the poor quality of the animation.

It could be rights issues or even litigation. For example, the Japanese government has "banned" all subsequent broadcasts of the infamous "seizure episode" from the first season of Pokemon; although the government has no authority to prevent the episode from being broadcast outside of Japan, North American importer 4Kids! has chosen to comply.

It could be that the episodes were dropped in order to make the series move at a faster pace. For example, the original American broadcast of Dragonball Z deleted 14 episodes' worth of material; while some of it was to remove "objectionable" material and other cuts were made to delete individual characters (Z was the middle part of a trilogy but was the first to be imported), the rest was done to improve the pacing.

It could be that the importers have opted to withhold episodes due to sensitivity issues. For example, 9/11 resulted in several episodes of Transformers: Robots in Disguise being withheld from American broadcast (they were confirmed as having been shown in Canada, Australia, and the UK), while at least one episode was simply never dubbed.

Then every once in a while, we get episodes that are deleted for no apparent reason. For example, an episode of Transformers: Energon was simply never dubbed into English; no explanation for its absence has ever been given.

The episode in question dealt with terrorism, or at least the fine line between 'freedom fighter' and 'Terrorist'*. In the episode Data gives historical examples of occasions where the use of force/terrorism worked...one of these was the reunification of Ireland in 2024.

This would have been highly offensive in the UK at this time for a number of reasons, not least because bombings and killings were still being carried out at this point - it would be a few more years before there was any kind of peace settlement. To give those of you who are not British, or too young to remember the troubles, some idea as to how this would have gone down. This would have been rather like someone on Doctor Who claiming that the 9-11 attacks were a good thing.

It wasn't banned by the Thatcher Government, since the original airdate in the US was 1990 and the UK didn't get the third season of TNG until 1992 or thereabouts. At that point Thatcher was out of power and John Major was the Prime minister. It is also unclear if the episode was banned by the government, Ofcom (the UK's equivalent of the American FCC) or the BBC (and later other broadcasters). Since the episode was shown with the offending line cut at later dates, and uncut in 2007, it is more likely that it was the BBC and/or Ofcom who 'banned' it than the govenment.

(*Even leaving out the part about Ireland the episode itself isn't as smart as it seems it wanted to be. And is in fact rather dull)



The McGyver films were shown more than a few times - one of the TV films was filmed at the Battersea Power Station in London - But I can't remember any of the series having been aired in the UK. At least not on terrestrial channels, no doubt it can be found on cable/satellite channels somewhere.

(In this period we were getting the A Team, Knight Rider, Magnum PI, Remington Steel, Airwolf, Manamual(sp?), Murder She Wrote, Miami Vice, RipTide, Highway To Heaven, Dukes of Hazard and T.J Hooker to name but a few off the top of my head. So it's not like broadcasters were shy about airing US shows)

MacGyver is sort of known in the UK indirectly, since 'McGyvering' entered US English and ended up being used in other US TV shows. But I'd be surprised if many UK viewers know much more than McGyver was a TV series that stared the guy who was in Stargate.

Although MB do, naturally, concentrate on US related myths and TV shows they also need to keep one eye on the overseas markets - the show is broadcast in over 40 different countries after all. There is not much point in them dealing with series that are simply unknown outside the US, at least not for a 'special' episode. Taking a single myth from such a series is fine, because the myth would hold up on its own and the series itself isn't expected to 'sell' the show.

None of which has anything to do with the OP, as in A-Team myths.

There are other 80's and early 90's shows that *might* be well enough known and loved outside the US to be able to support a special. But if you look at the list of shows that were aired in the UK above you'll note that a LOT of them wouldn't have much testable material in them. Knight Rider, for example, is far too sci-fi to throw up much in the way of myths. In fact when taking a look though that series the only testable myth was driving into the back of a moving truck...which MB already tested.

In fact the only TV series on that list that *might* provide usable material, was a world-wide success and still fondly remembered is Magnum PI.

well, that's due in about 10 years...