The A-Team/Trivia

• Acting for Two: George Peppard as Hannibal, and a mook Hannibal impersonates, in "Judgement Day".
• Actor Allusion:
  • In an episode with a science fiction con, a guy in a original Galactica Cylon suit walks past "Face". In the episode in question, it's actually Hannibal in the costume. The Actor Allusion was all Dirk Benedict's idea. While filming at Universal Studios for the second season episode "Steel", Dirk spotted a park employee dressed as a Cylon, and decided he wanted to film a little nod to his days as Starbuck. The director told him it was a dumb idea, but let him do it anyway. So, they had the Cylon-clad actor stroll nonchalantly across the frame while Face was all "don't I know you?" Fortunately for Dirk, the scene ended up being quite funny and they kept it in the credits up to season 5.
  • 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.
    • Another one for Peppard. In the episode "The Rabbit Who Ate Las Vegas", Amy mentions that it's a shame Hannibal's being chased by the military as he is "a terrific actor" after Hannibal goes to great lengths explaining how he'll play his "character". A reference to Peppard's infamously stringent adherence to method acting, even when playing unchallenging roles.
• The Other Darrin: In the two-part pilot episode, Face was played by Tim Dunigan. The role was recast after the pilot as Tim Dunigan was much taller than the rest of the cast and the producers felt after the fact that he was simply too young to play a Vietnam veteran (as Dunigan noted, the war ended when he was still in high school).
• Screwed by the Network: More like Actively Sabotaged by the Network. The show was considered politically incorrect (showing a positive view of Vietnam veterans, among other things) and its success completely unexpected; it was subjected to Invisible Advertising, the network officials and producers actually badmouthing the show to the press, it was made a 'bad move' to write for, so despite its popularity it eventually succumbed to cancellation.
• Stunt Casting: A special appearance by the game show Wheel of Fortune, in which Murdock won a truck and a trip to Hawaii.
• Throw It In: An extremely frequent occurrence, if grudgingly. There was a heck of a lot of Improv going on by the actors and notably Dwight Schultz, and though the writers frequently got mad by how the actors would go off-script or ad-lib lines, they often (if grudgingly) agreed that it should be kept in.

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