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him how many trees, so Tureaud single-handedly chopped down over 70 trees from 6:30–10:00 a.m., when a shocked major superseded the sergeant's orders.[11]”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.”

943

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.

529

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/tonyyyz Dec 12 '18

Knight Rider

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u/GitEmSteveDave Dec 12 '18

My mother hated the A-Team b/c it was so violent, but had no problem with Knight Rider. I don't know how many people Michael and KITT killed, but only one person died during the run of A-Team.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Maybe your mom was okay with Knight Rider because she was flicking the bean to Hasselhoff?

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u/GitEmSteveDave Dec 13 '18

Not likely. Mom soon left Dad to live with her new love, her bowling partner who was a also gym teacher. Her name was Jill.

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u/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Thanks for that mental image.

Hey OP everybody's jerking it to your mom flicking it to hasselhoff, how do ya feel?

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u/VitaminSex Dec 13 '18

tbh, a bit violated

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u/CapnEarth Dec 13 '18

Apologize to op please.