I finally saw the show itself yesterday, and was surprised once again. It didn't quite match up with what I was expecting based on the hype that's been shrouding this project. I thought it would turn out rather like the Adam West Show that was featured on an episode of Johnny Bravo, where Mr. T would go help out young kids who were being hassled at school by throwing their bullies, or possibly assisting malnourished highschool children by insisting that they have milk machines at regular intervals throughout the school. Perhaps he would appear in a school's welding lab to help the kids construct a tank out of construction paper and rubber bands. Alas, all these assumptions proved unfounded.
Instead, Mr. T's first task turned out to be something much more commercial, closer to 1-800-Collect than a Kindergarten Cop variant. His mission in this episode was to pick up slumping sales at a Nissan dealership and throw them all the way back into the black. Possibly clever analogies aside, we all know that Mr. T can throw helluva far, but can he actually sell cars? Those skill sets don't exactly have huge overlap. Now if his plan was to flip cars, he'd be totally set! Unfortunately, in this instance, that would be bad for business.
In any case, Mr. T decides to address the problems at the car dealership by teaching them all about Motivation - and trust me: the italics are totally implied. This seems to involve Mr. T jogging over to the dealership and totally freaking out about the fact that they're going to sell twenty cars in two days. He's shouting, waving and shadow-boxing all over the place; basically, acting just like you would expect him to act based on his reputation. His other tactic for instilling motivation is to make a whole bunch of car-based puns, accompanied with a side order of his usual catch phrases. Yet somehow, this method seemed to succeed in getting the dealership out of neutral, allowing them to switch gears and take the high road with their customers. Couple that with the rumbling tuba musical cue that accompanies Mr. T selling a car and some giant T logos and you've got a show that I'll be watching for weeks to come.
So what's up next for this show? I suspect it might involve something like Mr. T stabilizing the Stock Market. That's next time, on Mr. T saves capitalism! And there couldn't really be a better savior than a man with only a capital as his proper name.
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