CHUM Television is betting Mr. T still has some appeal in Canada. I Pity the Fool, hosted by the cantankerous pop cult icon, puts Mr. T into the reality genre with a mission for dishing out his own brand of self-help advice. The show’s first season aired on TV Land in the US this fall and on Star! in Canada. The six-episode series comes to TV Land Canada on Jan. 6 and fills Saturdays and Sundays at 9 am ET, 3 pm, ET and 8:30 pm ET. It is TV Land Canada’s only acquisition for the upcoming season.
The show could draw in fans who remember Mr. T as ‘Bad Attitude’ Baracus on the early 1980s action adventure series The A-Team, or as boxer Clubber Lang in Rocky III, or as a tag team partner to Hulk Hogan in WrestleMania – or even the Mr. T comic book. But the TV Land series is much more in line with Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool, the motivational tape he made in 1984.
I Pity the Fool puts Mr. T on a goodwill mission to motivate the unmotivated – from mentoring a dance troupe to pumping up car dealership employees. TV Land’s microsite for the show VOD bonuses, on-location and sneak-peak footage, along with some ‘Rules for Fools’ and a viral feature that allows users to send a ‘Mr. T-Mail’ to friends with a video sample attached.
