Learning Day: The Bullshit Puzzles and Mazes of the A-Team Action Activity Books

The A-Team was a perfect show. Wanted for a crime they didn't commit, they were a master of disguise, a guy who fucks, an unpredictable pilot, and the world's meanest van owner. In a single episode they would go to a new town, discover and recon a bad guy, get captured, invent an entirely new type of vehicle and mounted weapon system, have five fight scenes (3 fist, 2 gun), win without any casualties on either side, and escape their main villain, the United States military. I still use the show as the standard for story pacing. For instance, when my wife is eleven episodes into a Netflix series, I can tell her exactly how far into the third minute of any A-Team episode she'd be on. She loves and appreciates it.

The point is, the show ruled. I had all the stickers, toys, and action activity books, which brings me to my next point…

… these action activity books are fucking bullshit. That's my entire thesis statement, end of intro, let's get started.

What makes a good puzzle? Is there even such a thing as a good maze? How bad do you have to be at Murdock puzzles to be declared an enemy to society? This bad?

This goddamn puzzle is so stupid your brain will reject it as a trick. I didn't cut off some missing part that helps it make sense. These monsters, these soulless cows, gave us only two Murdocks, completely identical except for unmissable hat, and the puzzle is "WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? WHICH MURDOCK IS COMPLETE?". Complete? Complete for fucking what? Wearing a hat? Then, yeah, it's 1, you stupid fuck. Try again.

No. You morons, this Murdock matching is wrong in the exact opposite direction. He's a madman pilot! We should be matching him by plane debris and passenger limbs, not by parka wrinkle and philtrum definition. I shouldn't see an escaped mental patient and his five clones and think, "I am so goddamn bored deciding which two not to shoot."

What am I, your wardrobe supervisor? It's not a puzzle to just know the word for "vest." Two more important points: any real American should be able to do this from memory, and it has nothing to do with The A-Team. This is the same thing Mr. T wore to every television appearance he made in 1984, and you can check his IMDB– that was everything except three things, and that's only because he refused to work with Heathcliff. And Mr. T told every one of those costume designers, "It takes a full week to put 11,000 necklaces back on! I'm wearing what I brought from home, fool! Now, no one crosses this bridge unless they can describe a jacket without the arm parts!!"

There are three clowns in your mirror. Only one of them is you. Time for one last word if you hurry! Okay, enough screwing around. How is this macabre death trap in the same book as "Can you recall the name for shoes?" First of all, it's broken. None of these are his reflection. These stupid sons of bitches forgot how mirrors work one clown into a four clown drawing. And this might be the tiniest difference I've ever seen between two things. You can't erase a quarter inch of bald cap crease and call it a puzzle. Fuck you for that. That's absolutely within the margin of coloring book printing error. Let me put it another way. Three clowns appear with your face. The light hits one of their noses slightly differently, and one of them has blended his makeup 6% better. You're dead as fucking fuck if you considered any syllable of that last sentence important.

I firmly believe four OJ Simpson heads painted as clowns is inappropriate for a children's book, but I don't think the dark subject matter has anything to do with its failure. Let's take a look at a similar example from the genre.

In 1980's Jumbo Smurfs Games and Coloring Book, we can see one Smurf casually shoving another into an open grave. For what reason? But more importantly, who would care? More will hatch in the blood moon. All readers want is a clear, satisfying conclusion to the mystery of "do these smurficide victims have the same number of panic sweat drops?" But maybe this is a bad example because like the Hannibal mirror clowns, it looks like a lot of these differences were also made with (total bullshit) little dabs of Wite-Out. I'll find a better one.

Here we go, perfect. If you connect the dots you get a picture of a Smurf killing himself. Except the Smurfs are Belgian, so you "join" the dots. I forget what my point was. Let's get back to The A-Team.

"Hi, ladies. Call me Face. BECAUSE I'M ABOUT TO PUNCH YOU IN ONE."

This is the exact order these pages appeared in The A-Team Action Activity Book. Face is ready to fuck or fight, ma'am, and he's easy either way. This theme repeats itself later in the same book:

I don't know what it means, but whenever the author of this coloring book imagines someone seducing a woman, the second step is always a fist fight.

Let's look at a better way to tell a romantic, character-driven story in a coloring book.

In the 1966 Captain America coloring book, Captain America Coloring Book, we are introduced to Batroc The Leaper when he leaps through the wall and screams, "Zee Explosive! Give It to Me!" He speaks in Title Case because each page is its own masterpiece. It's not important. What's important is how Captain America responds on the next page.

You probably already guessed it, but He Bashes Him in the French Fucking Balls With His Mighty Shield & the Pow Makes Captain America so Happy.

Look at this shit. I have no idea what this move is, but I know This is More Intimate Than Most of Us Will Ever Be With Anyone. Back to the A-Team.

This is the MADMAN MAZE? This sane block of garbage? I've been in restrooms more bewildering than this. And thanks for the maze answer key, condescending dick. This'll be useful if I find myself heading toward any plainly visible dead ends. And let me point out the world's most obvious problem. Flipping over an A-Team maze to see the answer key, memorizing the five turns it would be impossible to fuck up, then flipping it back over and trying to remember them is so much harder than just, you know, not drawing a line into a wall like an ordinary maze owner. Or to put it another way, flipping over an A-Team maze to see the answer key is like swallowing thirty marbles and then swallowing fifty marbles. What the fuck are you doing, dipshit?

"The Madman Maze." Ha. These squares could never design a madman maze…

… oh. Oh, Jesus, I was so wrong. This is The Madman Maze, now and forever. This looks like a mascot that would teach young worms how to devour a human brain. "I'm Mazey! And I share your hunger!" it might say after a fun song. No, but listen: a demon should have ripped its way out of the artist the moment he finished drawing this. Destroy the device you're reading this on. We must keep this answer key out of The Order's hands at all costs.

MURDOCK'S MIND SCRAMBLE is a puzzle hiding the secret of "WHAT MURDOCK IS." And it's just the word "INSANE." Yeah, I guess, but this sort of takes the fun out of it. I thought they were going to say "PILOT" or "THE WILDCARD" or something. "A LOYAL FRIEND" might have been nice. But no. INSANE. This poor guy has, like, a medical condition. It's… I don't know, it's a lot to think about. Maybe he shouldn't have a gun and a helicopter? Fuck you for making me consider this, The A-Team Action Activity Book.

And again, I'm not upset at the subject matter. Go ahead and tackle mental illness in your coloring book. All I'm saying is you should try doing it in a fun way kids can enjoy. Like Captain America might:

See, A-Team? This is how you draw a mental breakdown in a coloring book. Lesson over.

I want to talk a little more about A-Team mazes. Does this count as one? You either take a hard right into the barbed wire at the start, or you've solved it. The only other turn is after the finish. Are you fucking serious? You think someone needs an answer key for this? And while we're here talking about the finish of this maze, look at it. Look at that sloppy little gap! You can't fit a van through that! This maze looks like rock bottom for the most alcoholic minotaur. If you were a dog in a movie who switched bodies with a maze designer, this maze is how Stephen Tobolowsky would uncover your secret.

This seems easy. With our decoding skills we can probably skip tracing the lines and brute force what Face is craving. So… HAOTOECLC. That's a scramble of… LATE COOCH? Well, I don't like the sound of that at all, coloring book.

This is the whole puzzle! They want me to figure out which B.A.thinks he's real but isn't!? Fucking what!? Why put it like that!? And my choices are one normal B.A., and a B.A. wearing no pants and flaunting his dickless mound! "Hint: It's me, fool! The one without the penis! I think I'm B.A., but am I n-not? I think you might have to kill me! I think I… I think that's what I want. Fool."

Once again, I'm not saying activity book authors need to avoid genital content entirely. Here's another perfect example of the right way to handle a delicate topic from Captain America.

See? Tasteful. Fun. This is how you sneak "Give me that fat French dick" past a 1966 coloring book editor.

In an age of restraint and virtue, here's how a coloring book supporting character answers Steve Rogers when he whispers, "Are those booty cheeks ready to clap on America's cock?" Do you realize what this means!? It means this will be only the third article to win a Peabody and contain the phrase "booty cheeks ready to clap on America's cock." Okay, let's go back and look at how the A-Team activity books handled this type of subtext.

"Taking The 'F' Maze!" is a filthy euphemism for fucking. Disgusting. It sounds like a duck couple trying to explain sex to their teenager.

Again, I promise I'm not modifying these in any way. There's no context I'm removing. This action activity book showed us two pictures of Hannibal, told us to find the real one, and it's the one who doesn't look like Hannibal. That's fucking crazy. You can't assume someone is impersonating themselves because someone else looks less like them. At least that's what Scottie Pippen explained to me when I caught three of him in a YWCA locker room.

Speaking of wrong faces…

… nobody in this father grabbing seems to be wearing the right expression. Computer, enhance; zoom parameters: madness.

Fuck yourself, A-Team Activity Action Book. You shouldn't be asking a child to color this. But the thing is, there are plenty of moments from coloring book history that celebrate unexplained, unsettling menace the right way. Here's a great one from 1941's Captain Marvel Coloring Book:

"GIANT FROGS LEAP OUT, NOT REALIZING THEIR FATE" is all it says. It's all we'll ever know. Readers have never seen these giant frogs before, nor will they again. We don't know what they want or what precisely is about to happen to them. All we know is they're not ready for it. They are wearing unsettling underpants and they're surprising the wrong little boy wielding the power of six gods. You'll be haunted by these frogs' unrealizable fate long after you've colored their final moments. Okay, back to A-Team.

Let's assume you've solved the logistical problem of how two people on opposite sides of a coloring book can speedrun the same maze without punching each other. Or don't, because this isn't a maze. There literally isn't a wrong path you can take in this thing! And let's assume you're the most difficult asshole in the world saying, "It's not supposed to be a maze; it's a race. A test of line drawing speed and accuracy with Face." Oh, really, you stupid dick? Then why is there an answer key!?

Really look at it. Really think about it. Some dumbshit made a maze with no wrong turns and then a map for it. So the "answer" is an identical picture of it, but with a stupid line covering every last inch. The act of a piss-huffing lunatic. Is this for race judges to verify contestants took the correct (fucking only) paths? Are players allowed to pause the game to consult with this during the race? This is like asking someone to spell the letter A, giving them 25 hints, and all of them are harder-to-read letter As. If I made this maze for my daughter, she'd say "The world doesn't need another thin allegory for determinism, you hack. You drunk coward."

What I'm saying is no kid is dumb enough for this maze. There was a time when we treated readers of activity books with respect. Let's take a look at Captain Marvel and the 1944 Captain Marvel's Fun Book.

We used to have so much faith in young readers! It's a picture of the landing of the pilgrims and it asks, "Twenty-six Mistakes… How Many Can You Find?" I promise you, you can't conceive of how hard these are. Computer, enhance, sector mistakes:

In 1944, they thought kids could distinguish Comanches from other native tribes while they were holding an animal it was anachronistic for them to hunt? That's a trick question with a nested betrayal. Hold on, is this whole thing a trick? Did Captain Marvel accidentally print the textbook from a Timecop class? If not, how much did children smoke in the '40s that they'd be expected to spot incorrect pipe material? They had to keep track of hatchet manufacturing eras!? Why, I bet most people today could barely get twenty-five of these.

To solve a puzzle in a comic in 1944, a child had to know regional beans, cavalier hat plumes, umbrella history…

… you know what? We don't have to go through all of them. Let's get back to A-Team.

Yeah! Not every page sucks. Many parts of the A-Team Action Activity Book are, in fact, rad as fuck.

Oh, fun, I'm good at these. The first one is…NCO TITRSA… wait. ACORN TITS? I guess I take back the bad things I said about these books. 10/10

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Armando Nava, a fool that left Mr. T in awe. A beautiful fool, unbound by the tethers of society, free to live a fool's life of peace and tranquility. Mr. T had never seen a fool so pure, there was no way he could feel anything close to pity. Mr. T envied the fool. He envied and wept.

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