Mr. T's Rebirth

Mr. T (photo courtesy of ABC 7)

WHEN I was in high school, one of my favorite TV shows was The A-Team starring the late George Peppard and Mr. T. 

It was an action-adventure series that hit it big in the 80s and was aired on Tuesday nights on GMA 7 when the Kapuso Network was still airing foreign shows on primetime instead of locally-produced soap operas.

Before The A-Team, Mr. T starred in the movie Rocky III as Sylvester Stallone's opponent, Clubber Lang. T's character was knocked out by Rocky in the ending.

The A-Team was remade into a movie in 2010 where Mr. T's character was portrayed by UFC fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson while Liam Neeson played Peppard's Hannibal Smith character. Unfortunately, that movie did so-so at the box-office and a sequel didn't push through. Incidentally, that A-Team movie also had Bradley Cooper in the cast.

The A-Team is still aired on reruns on some US cable TV shows nightly and the show still remains a cult favorite to this day.

Why are we talking about Mr. T here? Well, it's because he was just introduced as one of the celebrity dancers in the US TV dancing show Dancing with the Stars which premieres its new season on March 20. This marks his comeback to TV since his A-Team days and judging by the photo above, he still has his trademark Mohawk hairdo and some of his necklaces that he wore when he was still on The A-Team.

The new season of Dancing with the Stars also features a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, Normani Kordei, who will join her fellow groupmates for a Manila concert in April at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City.

Even figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is also joining DWTS. Kerrigan is best remembered for being attacked by fellow skater Tonya Harding in 1994. That attack is the center of a new movie starring Margot Robbie as Harding.

DWTS is best remembered for its controversy last year when two men went up on stage to attack Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte, who was then a contestant on the show but was coming off his scandal in the Rio Olympics where he lied to police authorities during a robbery at a gas station there. That resulted in Lochte losing his slot in the US national swimming team and losing his endorsement deals.

In the Philippines, TV5 tried putting up a celebrity dance show hosted by Congresswoman Lucy Torres-Gomez and basketball-playing twins Anthony and David Semerad. PBA player Gary David was a contestant there and he even won the grand prize. Unfortunately, that show didn't last long and TV5 now finds itself having financial problems resulting in many employees being laid off.

Will Mr. T be accepted back into the limelight? His stint on Dancing with the Stars should provide the answer.