Mr. T Actually Needs Work!

You may or may not know that I publish a semi-regular column in this blog called Mr. T Needs Work!. It revolves around celebrities and the embarrassing situations they often find themselves in. The name is derived from a TV Funhouse sketch on SNL in February of 2000. Here is a heavily (and poorly) edited clip of that sketch...



I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have been a fan of Laurence Tureaud since I saw him in Rocky III. My father used to take me to the Rocky movies when I was a kid. The memories of those movies are some of the few good ones I have of my father from childhood. So Sly Stallone and his creation, Rocky, and the characters from those movies hold a special place in my heart. Mr. T was always my favorite, probably because of my love for black people and their culture. From a very young age, I have been fascinated by black culture and considered African-Americans my brothers, though not many of them would claim my pasty-white, dumb-ass.

As my staff will confirm, this article will violate several of my rules: "No Articles That Have Been Out Of The News For More Than A Month", "no articles longer than 4 paragraphs" and my "don't source Wikipedia" rule, but I'm the boss and I was watching a rerun on TV Land of Mr. T's recent, failed reality program I Pity The Fool this week, and it brought the subject to the front of my mind.

While Mr. T may look and speak like a jack-ass (don't give me none of that jibba-jabba) he is actually a very entertaining, intelligent and impressive man. He is the oldest of 12 children from a rough Chicago neighborhood. He served as an MP in the U.S. Army, then found work as a body guard to the stars. In 1982, Sly Stallone spotted him at a "toughest bouncer" contest and his career bloomed from there. While Mr. T came from adversity, he found his niche early on and owned it. You have to respect a person for owning who they are and being proud of it. To that point, in Pity The Fool Mr. T uses his motivational style - pretty much yelling at people and scaring them with military-style advice on life, to help them not be a$$holes.

The world needs more Mr. Ts. There are a lot of, as Jon Stewart would say, douchebags out there. If more folks stood up to obnoxious people, maybe there would be less of them. Jeez people, stand up for yourselves. I see people getting walked on every day. Take a lesson from T and stand up for yourself. I'm not saying pick a fight with some bikers, but when the lady at the DMV is obviously wrong, call her on it. You'll feel better.

I'm calling on you, my loyal readers, to contact TV Land and demand they renew I Pity The Fool for another season. Mr. T Needs the work!