Mr.T vs. Captain Apollo

Colonial Warriors Fail to Recognize Similar Fashion Excesses

It’s got to be nepotism, really.  How else could Captain Apollo have gotten promoted?  Sure, he was a faithful “company man” and always ready to follow dog-food slinging Ben Cartwright’s orders.  But honestly, his character was written as a bit slow on the uptake.  A good man, certainly, but not the brightest cog in the mighty Battlestar machine.  Starbuck, his good pal of questionable morals, not only was a better card player, but also seemed quicker on the draw and a lot more skilled in tactics and flying a Viper.  So did Boomer.  So did Sheba.  Heck, so did Jolly…and he couldn’t even make Lieutenant (err, there might have been a weight requirement).  For all his extra salary and responsibility under Daddy Adama, Apollo never lost that “gee whiz” attitude toward life.

Mr. T, on the other hand, never seemed to have a “gee whiz” vibe at all.  He rarely smiled, and his public persona in the media was largely all action and anger.  So much so that he became an Internet legend, and the “Mr. T vs.” online phenomena was born.  Long before LOLcats, Photoshop was weakening Western Culture by allowing the creation of online comics showing Mr. T fighting everybody.  They’re all the same, of course.  Mr. T drives the van, beats up bad guys, and saves the Youth Center.  He proclaims that either he, or his van is “Hella Tough”.   Barney, Pokemon, Space Ghost…pretty much anybody you can think of.    It’s kind of mind numbing and hypnotic, and once you open one, it’s hard to quit.  But think about it, if you had to pick someone to whoop everyone in the universe, who better?

Mr. T, of course, initially garnered much of his fame from The A-Team, playing opposite Dirk Benedict, fresh from his halcyon (Ha! Cylon?) Galactica days.  He wore a lot–and I mean, a lot–of gold chains, the weight of which would crush a lesser man.  But, if you think about it, the Colonial Warriors were pretty blinged-out, too; losta clasps, pins, patches, gold trim, capes…so who are they to judge?  Granted, Apollo wore his feathers as emblems sewn into his shirt instead of dangling from an earring loop, but if I had to put my money on one of them, I’d say it was Mr. T who probably figured out the right way to accessorize.  Oh, yeah, and “TR3”, on Mr. T’s belt buckle is the name of some kinda car wash or polish he was hawking back in the 80s.  The TV commercial is findable online, and T says of the product in question: “Goes on easy, stays on hard.  Makes your car beautiful, like me.”