I’ve decided to take the advice of frequent Dothan Eagle online commenter Anonymous and refrain from writing about trivial subjects such as baby toys and the wisdom of my cat and take on a weighty, serious subject truly worthy of the front page of section E of this fine publication.

I speak of course, about the upcoming big screen re-make of the A-Team.

For those of you unfortunate enough to be female or to have been born after 1980, the A-Team was quite possibly the most awesome television series ever to grace the small screen. For starters, it did not involve a bunch of trashy people living in a house together feigning affection for some has-been celebrity or Internet hoochie. Instead, the A-Team featured a merry band of four heroes who travelled around the country in a black custom van fighting clearly defined, morally unambiguous villains by throwing them over cars. Already awesome in its basic premise, the show’s greatness was exponentially increased by the presence of Mr. T., who as we all know, releases awesomeness from his sweat glands.

Director John Singleton recently announced that the new A-Team movie will be released sometime next year. The movie has yet to be cast, setting off a storm of debate among the A-Team fan community about who should fill the shoes of the original actors George Peppard, Dirk Benedict, Mr. T. and Dwight Schultz.

I’ve decided to set up a fantasy league, where dorks with no lives like myself can come up with their own plot and cast for the upcoming movie. Here’s a few suggestions for starters:

Hollywood movie A-Team

Hannibal Smith -- George Clooney. Clooney’s sole qualification for this role and his entire acting career is the fact that he has gray hair but doesn’t appear to be old.

Face -- Katee Sackhoff. Hey, it worked for Battlestar Galactica.

B.A. -- Forrest Whitaker. Only an Oscar-winning actor such as Whitaker could hope to fill the shoes of master thespian Mr. T.

Howlin’ Mad Murdoch -- John Tuturro. I’m actually serious about this one.

Plot: The team is hired by the Fed to end the nation’s financial crisis. The team tries multiple tactics with little success until they realize that by selling off B.A.’s gold chains they can raise enough capital to shore up the country’s lenders and pay off the national debt.

Dothan City Commission A-Team

Hannibal -- Pat Thomas. The guy managed to get draft beer and a sales tax approved in Dothan. In short, he’s probably gotten more done in one term than most people could in three. That takes planning, and we all know that Hannibal loves it when a plan comes together.

Face -- Taylor Barbaree. That boy’s got a purty mouth.

B.A. -- Larry Matthews. Obviously, the only commissioner cool enough to fill the shoes of Mr. T.

Howlin’ Mad Murdoch -- N/A. If this whole newspaper thing doesn’t work out for me, I’m going to need a job with the city digging ditches. Referring to one of the commissioners as Howlin’ Mad Murdoch probably won’t help my employment chances. But then again, comparing them to characters from a lame 80s television series probably ain’t exactly the equivalent of one of those gold career readiness certificates from Wallace Community College, either.

Plot: In this version, the A-Team is locked in the City Commission chambers by former Mayor Kenneth Everett. Luckily, a large amount of construction and welding equipment paid for by the one-cent sales tax was also left in the chambers. The team uses this equipment to build a tank to escape, and incidentally, level all of the run-down buildings in downtown Dothan.

Adult film A-Team

Hannibal Smith -- Ron Jeremy. Only Jeremy, the elder statesman of the adult film industry, has the gravitas necessary to take on this role.

Face -- Joe Francis, president of Girls Gone Wild.

B.A. and Murdoch -- I haven’t seen enough of these movies to cast the rest of the roles. No really, I haven’t.

Plot: Yeah, like anyone’s watching this one for the story. Anyhow, it probably has something to do with installing some cable and the music’s going to all be done with a wah-wah pedal.

Presidential candidates A-Team

Hannibal Smith -- John McCain. The original A-Team series was probably based on stuff this guy really did.

Face and B.A. -- Barack Obama. Because Obama is so awesome that in between his usual daily tasks of turning water to wine and splitting the atom he can believably play both roles.

Howlin’ Mad Murdoch -- Hillary Clinton. Her recent hallucinations about sniper fire in Bosnia make her perfect to play that crazy fool Murdoch.

Plot: After years of unsuccessfully trying to capture the A-Team, Col. Decker is promoted to general by the Bush Administration and put in charge of drawing up the occupation plans for a Middle Eastern country the government intends to invade. Of course, the plan goes awry and the A-Team is called in to recover the situation. The film includes a funny scene where the team busts Hillary/Murdoch out of a VA mental hospital, where she is having delusions that she’s the U.S. president.

Local media A-Team

Hannibal -- This role could go to no other than the king of all media, Rickey Stokes. Stokes loves it when a plan comes together. Sentence structure? That’s a different story.

Face -- John Mack Taylor, the smooth operator himself.

B.A. -- Reginald Jones. “I pity the fool” catchphrase will be replaced by “News 4 first told you fools....”

Howlin’ Mad Murdoch -- Competition for this role was tight between myself and Larry McKee, but I have to award the role to myself based on the fact that McKee actually makes sense sometimes, whereas I am always a babbling moron.

Plot: Hannibal, Face, B.A. and Murdoch will have to find a fact and manage to accurately and objectively report it. This premise may be asking the audience to suspend their disbelief a little too much, however.

If you have a problem, and no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire Jim Cook by e-mailing jcook@dothaneagle.com.