Mister T

In 1982 Mr. T was spotted by Sylvester Stallone while taking part in "The World's Strongest Black Man" contest with Lee Dittrich. His role in Rocky III was originally intended as just a few lines. His catch phrase, "I pity the fool!" comes from the film, where he played a boxer facing Rocky Balboa in a match. When asked if he hated Rocky, he replied, "No, I don't hate Balboa, but I pity the fool."

After losing out on the role of the title character's mentor in The Beastmaster, Mr. T appeared in another boxing film, Penitentiary 2, and in a cable television special, Bizarre, before accepting the role of B.A. in The A-Team.

In an episode of Silver Spoons, he played his old role as body guard to Ricky Stratton and explained his name as "First name: 'Mr', middle name: 'period', last name 'T'." In one scene, the classroom erupts with paper balls as Mr. T throws his body in front of the objects, protecting his client.

In The A-Team, he played Sergeant Bosco B. A. Baracus (B.A. an abbreviation of "Bad Attitude"), an ex-army commando on the run with three other members from the U.S. government "for a crime they didn't commit." When asked at a press conference whether he was as stupid as B.A. Baracus, he observed quietly, "It takes a smart guy to play dumb."

A Ruby-Spears produced cartoon called Mr. T premiered in 1983 on NBC. The Mister T cartoon starred Mr. T as himself, the owner of a gym where a group of gymnasts trained. He would help them with their training, but they would also help him solve mysteries and fight crime. Thirty episodes were produced.

In 1984, he made a motivational video called Be Somebody... or Be Somebody's Fool!. He gives helpful advice to children throughout the video; for example, he teaches them how to understand and appreciate their origins, how to dress fashionably without buying designer labels, how to make tripping up look like breakdancing, how to control their anger, and how to deal with peer pressure. The video is roughly one hour long, but contains 30 minutes of singing, either by the group of children accompanying him, or by Mr. T himself. He sings "Treat Your Mother Right (Treat Her Right)", in which he enumerates the reasons why it is important to treat your mother right, and also raps a song about growing up in the ghetto and praising God. The raps in this video were written by Ice T. That same year he released a related rap album titled Mr. T's Commandments.

He entered the world of professional wrestling in 1985. He was Hulk Hogan's tag-team partner at the first WrestleMania. Hulk Hogan wrote in his autobiography that Mr. T saved the main event of WrestleMania I between them and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff because when he arrived, security would not let his entourage into the building. Mr. T was ready to skip the show until Hogan personally talked him out of leaving. Piper has said that he and other fellow wrestlers disliked Mr. T because he was an actor coming into wrestling and had never paid his dues as a professional wrestler. Remaining with the World Wrestling Federation, he became a special "WWF boxer," in light of his character in Rocky III and took on "Cowboy" Bob Orton on an episode of Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC. This boxing stint ultimately culminated in another boxing match against Roddy Piper at WrestleMania 2. He returned to the World Wrestling Federation as a special guest referee in 1987, before disappearing from the wrestling world. He reappeared as a special referee for a Hogan-Ric Flair match, seven years later in World Championship Wrestling, in October 1994 at Halloween Havoc.

From 1988 Mr. T starred in the television series T. and T..

Mr. T was once reported to be earning around $80,000 a week for his role in The A-Team and getting $15,000 for personal appearances, but by the end of the 1990s, he was appearing only in the occasional commercial, largely because of health problems. (In 1995, he was diagnosed with, coincidentally, T-cell lymphoma.) He frequently appears on the TBN Christian television series. He has appeared in commercials for MCI's 1-800-COLLECT collect-call service and on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. He has also appeared on some Comcast commercials, and in the United Kingdom and Australia during 2007, advertising the chocolate bar Snickers with the slogan "Get Some Nuts!".

"Hey sucka! You better not be talkin' to no invisible animals!"

HILLANDGLEN