TREAT YOUR MOTHER RIGHT

This segment begins with some short kid with an afro having a snaps contest with some man-beast of a girl. They make fat jokes, skinny jokes, age jokes, ugly jokes...but when they dare to cross the "Yo Momma" threshold, T is there to intervene. All he says is something nice about mommas and these two archrivals embrace and walk off together. Mr. T, what a peacemaker!

Oh, the next thing that happens here is a song. And it's definitely one of the finest songs ever put to music. Mr. T, in camouflage hotpants, is joined by three middle-aged women wearing housedresses and other hideous articles of clothing, for the "Treat Your Mother Right" song. And without too much adieu, here's the lyrics for said song:

    

Treat her right
Treat your mother right
Treat her right
Treat her right

Mother
There is no other
Like Mother
So treat Her right
Mother
I always Love Her
My Mother
So treat Her right, treat Her right

M is for the moan, and the miserable groan
from the pain that She felt when I was born

O is for the oven with it's burnin' heat
where She stood makin' sure I had something to eat

T is for the time that She stayed up at night
and took my temperature when I wasn't feelin' right

H is for the hard earned money She spent
to keep clothes on my back and try to pay da' rent

E is every wrinkle I put on Her face
and every worry that I caused when I stayed out late

The last letter R is that She taught me Respect
and for the room up in Heaven that I know She'll get

She's a Queen
Second to none
Take care of Mother
You only get one

Oh, and lots of footage of kids treating their mothers right. Sometimes too right.

    

Mr. T was assisted in the rapping portion of this special by another famous "T": Original Gangsta himself, H-U-S-T-L-E-R Hustla Ice-T. While this is definitely the best song, overall the segment is pretty weak. 5/10

WORKOUT.

In this segment, Mr. T does his best to torment a fat kid. No, really. Basically, the gist is like this: a bunch of kids are sitting around on a bench stuffing themselves with junk food when T walks by. He breaks it down just how bad that stuff is for them, to which the fat kid actually pulls out the most smart assed line I'd ever imagine from him: "I'm waiting for the new gym to open."

    

Not picking up on the dripping sarcasm, T explains that there's no need for a gym, because the whole world is a gym. to demonstrate, he starts doing deadlifts with a 10-pound boombox. The other kids demonstrate their abilities with the lifting, until the fat kid steps up...and can't lift it.

    

Not content to just humilitate the kids one way, he places a bag of popcorn on his head and starts doing squats. Now I'm not exactly a workout guru, but I'd guess that a bag of popcorn on the head doesn't exactly provide a lot of resistance. But sure enough, while the other kids have no problem with it...

    

...the fat kid falls on his ass.

    

T attempts to whip the kids into shape using some more Absoludicrous techniques, including sliding down a sliding board, climbing a pole, and doing what my mother used to want to beat me for doing: jumping from a moving swing. Of course, our fat kid fails at all of them. All of them. He can't even slide down a sliding board properly.

T, after suddenly getting through a costume change, becomes Drill Sergeant T, and continues to torment the fat kid by poking him in the gut Pillsbury Dough Boy style. They do jumping jacks, more squats (which again causes fatty to fall down), and other various calisthenics. And then, finally, a la Leonard Lawrence in FULL METAL JACKET, fatty McGee freaks out and runs into the ocean with T and company following right behind.

Fat kid humor is so passe. I give this segment a 4/10.

FRUSTRATION (IV).

This time, as T tries to play, the upstairs neighbor (on a sound stage?) tells him to keep it quiet and bangs on the floor until the ceiling caves in. Yawn.

This segment keeps getting worse and worse. I give it a 3/10.

I AM SOMEBODY.

Well, at least the title says "I am Somebody". Mr. T may have had some trouble reading that, however, because he just says "Rappin'" .

Several of our friends are hanging out on a set street with a parked VW bug. Kelly tells us that Rappin' is like street poetry. Then the white kids tell us everyone has to rap but that nobody works on it. Then the little black kid says rappin's gotta rhyme, but does so in a rhyming couplet. Brilliant.

    

So then Mr. T treats us to a rap song, and I don't just mean any rap song. I mean the worst rap song I've ever heard. Worse than the worst shit MC Hammer ever did in his dark periods. Worse than anything the Beastie Boys ever did, even. In his rap he tells us he has a college degree, and I'm wondering just what the guy majored in. Must not have been English.

    

Then the kids join in for the chorus. And it keeps going for like 5 more minutes before T tells us that we need to write our own raps. Vanilla Ice and Snow must have been watching this thing when it came out and were struck with inspiration, because this shit is on a level with their talents. The segment overall blows. Boring, not much to it, not even any good humor. 2/10.

FRIENDSHIP.

Professor T is standing in front of a classroom, decked in full gold chains and feathered earrings and after bringing back the camouflage hot pants, teaching the kids about Friendship. I don't know where these kids live, but that dress code woulda gotten a teacher fired where I come from. T tells us that where he comes from a friend is someone who would suck poison out of your big toe. I guess there's a lot of rattlesnakes running around Urban Chicago where sir T grew up. Then a creepy Freddy-Kreugeresque voice off camera says that it's been bit by a snake in the big toe, and T gleefully bounces off to remedy the situation.

And now, Special Guest Bonus Time!

Folks, it's Valerie Landsberg, star of TV's "Fame"! Now this is star power, folks. I hear that Burt Reynolds and Sly Stallone and Harrison Ford were trying to get this part, but none of them had the appeal of Val here. She sings a really boring song either about friends or getting laid. I can't really tell. Then she waves to Mr. T and the gang on the pier.

And if you can't pick up on the heartfelt vibe of the segment from this review, then let these captions speak for themselves:

    

    

By this point, I'm under the impression that this entire video was filmed on a 150-square foot plot of land that included a pier, a sound stage, and a playground. Oh yeah, and this sketch sucked, except for the toe-sucking fetish demonstrated by Mr. T. 4/10.