A Comparative Analysis
Topic: Television and Media
Today's subjects: MacGyver Vs. The A-Team.

Why? Well, to quote one "Bluto" Blutarski, "Why not?" You don't like it, then you can go to the hampsterdance page. The rest of you, take notes. This is all testable.

Comparison:

Both were just a T.V. show. Stop drooling.

Contrast:

Lots.

1: Weapons
The A-Team: Everything. Power tools, vehicles, bricks, boards, broken branches, and B.A. Oh, and guns. Guns. Lots, lots, lots of guns! More guns than you could find in an armory. Praise The Lord, and pass the ammunition. Calling all cars, shots fired. More shots fired than anywhere else in the history of the universe (actual statistic, but probably not true). Oddly, nobody ever died.
Mac: A swiss army knife. Mac hated guns. Oddly, people died.

2: Vehicles
The A-Team: B.A.'s van, apparently inspired by Starsky and Hutch's Ford Torino. But they also had helicopters, tanks, jeeps, trucks, big trucks, bigger trucks, and whatever else Face could score.
Mac: Company car. Okay, he did occasionally drive a personal vehicle, but it changed now and then. Usually it was a jeep. Not a military G.P. vehicle, but your mass-consumer type, 'cos the military is bad, mmmkay?

3: Plans
The A-Team: Hannibal loved it when a plan came together. They didn't do anything haphazardly. Even Murdock planned, in some far-off dimension whose colors we cannot begin to imagine but exist only in processed cheese spread. They always had a plan. Sometimes, they had several. Success ratio: 100%
Mac: He'd heard of plans, but they cramped his style. Success ratio: 100% Coincidentally, he seemed to get captured about as often as The A-Team too, and they both always escaped. When, oh, when will the bad guys learn to execute their prisoners on the spot?

4: Women
The A-Team: First, they had Amy, and considered her a team member. Then, they had Tawnia, who left the show shortly after joining it because her name was too smegging pretentious. There weren't a lot of love interests, though.
Mac: Who had time for women? Actually, there were always women on the show, both professionally and as a "love interest" hinted at from the wings, but he always mishandled it and it was the most boring part of the show, and so I never paid attention. I'm not gay, I just don't like watching guys fail to impress ladies, even when they can use an old inner tube and the car's exhaust as an auto jack.

5: The Boss
The A-Team: "If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team." It's amazing how often civilians with no skills whatsoever found The A-Team, but the entire manpower of the U.S. Army's military justice department couldn't. They didn't get paid often, either.
Mac:Steady job, working for Pete Thornton at The Phoenix Foundation. I don't think they ever quite explained what it is that The Phoenix Foundation did. I don't even think it was in Phoenix. But at least Mac got paid regularly.

Conclusion: The A-Team was a lot cooler, but really weren't all that cool. MacGyver was a lot more resourceful and clever, but really wasn't all that cool. The A-Team had some resourcefulness, in that no matter where they were, they somehow found not only power tools, but the electricity needed to operate them, and raw materials on which to use them. ("There we were, trapped in a lifeboat at sea, nothing for miles. Luckily, we had power tools. We built a 130 ft. yacht out of the water around us, and sailed home. Face got some great pics of Murdock water-skiing on the way back.")

The bottom line is that these were both kid's shows, like Knight Rider (which can occasionally be seen masquerading as science fiction to this very day). They were bad T.V. Yet they were almost embarrassingly (to our race and society) popular. Please don't watch these shows, but if you do, at least choose Macgyver over The A-Team. At least Mac will teach you how to do something that looks very cool, and might even work in this reality. But if you really want to watch a kid's show, make it Bill Nye, The Science Guy. He's smart, funny, you'll learn something, not a single shot gets fired, and nobody dies. Not even your brain cells.