Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 1, January 1993 | Page 84
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kidnapp>ers, "John Jones," leads them to the office of "Limelight
Management," a front of some kind which E.G. Fowler just happens to
work for. Posing as Henry Kissinger, Murdock phones Limelight
Management to invite Templeton Peck to "a friar's club roast." The
agent who picks up the phone, David Vaughn (played by "Voyage to
the Bottom of the Sea"'s David Hedi son), asks "Mr. Kissinger" if he
recalls meeting him at the "CIA bomb briefings in 1967." ("Oh yes,
David, how are you?", Murdock intones. "Nancy-wancy says hiseewisee.") The point of all of this is clear: the CIA has set up an
elaborate scheme in order to use Face for its own diabolical purposes.
The team must save their comrade from yet another conspiracy that is
about to be set into motion.
At this point, things begin to get a little complicated. While
Hannibal and the others are trying to determine what the CIA is up
to. Face is oblivious to any threat to his safety. When the team
catches up with him at an interview with children's TV personality
Chuckaluck the Chicken, Face insists that "all my antennae are up."
Naturally, the instant he steps out of the studio lot, ninja-style
warriors jump off of buildings, knock him out, and hoist him into an
awaiting helicopter. (So much for the antennae.) Eventually,
Hannibal, B.A., and Hunker catch up with David Vaughn and E.G.
Fowler arguing over Vaughn's methods in a hotel room. By hanging
Vaughn over the balcony, the A-Team learns that he is in charge of a
CIA team known as "The Shop," whose mission is to use Templeton
Peck to lure former Vietcong General Chong out into the open—Face
dishonored the General's teenage daughter during the war, which is
why Chong's forces have just nabbed "the cheese."
Following another commercial break, all hell breaks loose. As
CIA field operatives monitor the estate where Face is being held
captive, the A-Team prepares its assault. Inside the main building,
Chong is interrogating his prisoner, who wanly maintains his
innocence ("this old world behavior of yours is very unhip" is Face's
somewhat unreassuring response). Murdock, flying a stolen jet-pack,
drops grenades on Chong's men—"I'll drop those pineapples like a
crazed pigeon over a mounted statue," he promises Hannibal—while
B.A. and Hannibal storm the main gate. The team's flying ace rescues
Face and carries Chong into the general's own helicopter, and the ATeam makes its escape before the CIA has reached the grounds of the