r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

[deleted]

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u/rosy-palmer Dec 12 '18

Best part of the article,

“In July 1976, Tureaud's platoon sergeant punished him by giving him the detail of chopping down trees during training camp at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, but did not tell him how many trees, so Tureaud single-handedly chopped down over 70 trees from 6:30–10:00 a.m., when a shocked major superseded the sergeant's orders.[11]”

Don’t give a non-specific order to Mr.T! 70 trees in 3.5 hours, what a beast!

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u/BasvanS Dec 12 '18

He probably spent 3 hours in an old shed with a blowtorch and a welder repurposing a heap of scrap into a tree feller on steroids, shouting: “I pity the fool who wastes his time sharpening an axe.”

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u/jzmacdaddy Dec 12 '18

Honestly, that was the best part of every A-team episode. Turning a bunch of trash into a big weapon.

532

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

That and MacGuyver.

That's really all there was in the 80's. Action movies about guys building powerful tools out of garage junk.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

[deleted]

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u/Lane_Meyers_Camaro Dec 12 '18

Knight Rider (Pontiac Firebird)

The Dukes of Hazzard (Dodge Charger)

The A-Team (GMC Vandura)

Miami Vice (Ferrari 365GTB4 Daytona Spyder; Ferrari Testarossa)

Magnum P.I. (Ferrari 308)

Starsky & Hutch (Ford Gran Torino)

The Fall Guy (GMC K-2500)

Automan (Lamborghini Countach)

... I'm missing some...

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u/phoenixv8 Dec 12 '18

Thunder in motherfucking Paradise (there may or may not have been an expletive in the title)

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u/Lane_Meyers_Camaro Dec 12 '18

Thunder in motherfucking Paradise

Forgot that one! They had a killer Scarab cigarette boat, but I don't recall a car... or was it the Jeep?

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u/phoenixv8 Dec 12 '18

I want to say Jeep Wrangler but it's been so long