I want to congratulate you on "Cobra Kai."
I have watched I think almost all of them.
I am loving the show, I'm really enjoying it.
It seems like the perfect show right now
because it's this nice dose of nostalgia.
It's really fun and the show has a great sense of humor,
so I'm enjoying it, it's a great quarantine show.
What's the response you're hearing from people?
Well, I'll take the great show no matter what,
but it is, I call it the comfort food, you know,
it's that big fat nostalgic embrace
and yet it's telling relevant stories for today
and a great young cast
and it's just hitting on all cylinders
and that's this sort of blessing.
I mean, this has been I call it the second rebirth
of the rebirth of the original movie.
You know, we came out a few years ago on YouTube premium
and now on Netflix it's just blown out of the water
all over the world and it's a great time for the show
and it's nice to be an alternative to the hell of it,
where we are living with every day.
I'll tell you how you're affecting my life,
which is one of the ways you know, right now,
in addition to quarantine,
we also have so much smoke in the air here in the west.
You can't go outside.
I have a treadmill in the basement.
It's in a tiny room and there is a small TV there
and I will binge watch "Cobra Kai" and I'm on the treadmill.
And what happens is when it builds up to a fight scene,
I crank the treadmill
so I'm running at like 60 miles an hour, bare chested.
It's not a pretty sight.
I'll give you a picture cause you clearly want one,
but I'm running full out as the kid
is beating up the bullies in the cafeteria.
And I'm like, ahh!
And my family comes running downstairs
because they think I've had a major heart attack.
A heart attack, right.
(laughs)
And the show is laced with this great 80's homage music.
You know, at that time the training montages
and all that stuff.
It is kick ass in that way and that's awesome.
Well, I'm glad to help out in your cardio
and everything else.
Yes, you mentioned 80's and nostalgia.
I've got some pictures here, I'm sure your life
has been being confronted by these pictures.
This is you, yeah exactly.
First of all, let's sue the guy who convinced you
to do that pose.
I know, I know, there's so many, there's many others.
I'm actually glad that was the one you,
well, let's see what's next.
Oh no no no, I've got this one too.
Oh well that's from a movie, that's from a movie.
That's "Teachers," the movie with Nick Nolte.
I know, I know, I know, but any kid who's wearing that hat
to school needs to know karate.
That's right.
(laughs)
You know it's funny, because all these pictures--
You and I think are just about the same age
the saving grace for me is there are no photographs of me
until I'm about 30, I was unphotographed.
I'm like someone that was born in the 1850s,
there's no photograph of me
and then they start around the time I'm 29 or 30.
What's it like for your kids when they're on the internet
and this pops up and they say, "Dad, what the (beep)?"
Yeah, what the (beep), and it gives them leverage,
great amounts of leverage.
It's you know, I mean, what are you going to do?
It's kinda fun cause when my kids were--
My daughter was like four when she first saw
"The Karate Kid," maybe five.
And so it was one of those things,
I was doing a Broadway musical around the country
called "How to Succeed" and I was playing lead in this show.
And every city we would go to these Planet Hollywood's,
which were big deals back in the early 90s,
and we'd grab lunch there with my kids
and my daughter would see this memorabilia up
and ask these questions like,
"Why are the people standing on one leg
and holding their arms up in the air when they see daddy
and what is that headband, why are they wearing it?"
And then finally it was like well,
you know, it's time to sit you down, honey.
Daddy's not like all the other daddies.
And then I showed her the film at four years old.
You showed her "Karate Kid" at four?
Yeah, five years old, like it was five
because we got back when she was five and I showed her that
and thinking that I would make her proud and not thinking
that I get my ass kicked in every other scene.
And she's watching her dad be beaten to a pulp constantly
running out of the room.
So that was an epic parent fail by me.
Yeah, you scarred your child for life.
Although, I have to say my children at any point
in their lives would love nothing more than to see
footage of me being beaten.
Yes, it might've changed to that
when she got through middle school, but at five she really,
you know, I was a hero for a moment.
And my son on the flip side found all those teen magazine
kind of pictures when he was about the same age
and ran into the family room to my daughter and said,
"Look, dad was huge and we missed it."
(laughs)
So fortunately for me right now with the "Cobra Kai" show,
Dad may not be that huge, but they're not missing it.
Well, you guys have been like the number one show on--
Yeah we are huge, let's say it, I'm huge.
I mean, let's just say that.
And you know, another thing I wanted to say about the show
that I really love is there's a real funny sense
of humor and self awareness about the show.
So I love, there are the scenes where Johnny Lawrence,
you know, the bully in the original "Karate Kid,"
he's struggling and he doesn't understand
that the 80s are over and watching scenes
where he's like trying to hock his,
he's trying to sell his Atari console
and we don't give a shit about this anymore.
He's very good at tapping into,
it's almost in a comical way, he doesn't understand
that it hasn't been the 80s for a long time.
He missed, someone didn't tell him that things have changed.
Yeah, it's refreshing to have a character like that
who is not politically correct in any way, shape or form
and represent a lot of what many people think,
but can't, or won't say, so I think there's a release
with that because we're so overprotective of everything.
The antihero and you know, you root for that redemption.
That's the cool thing about the show is it really,
your allegiance to each character
can change episode to episode cause it dives more
into the gray areas of who these guys are.
And even the young characters,
as opposed to the black and white
of what "Karate Kid" was good or evil, you know.
Well, what's happened interestingly enough
is that initially, "Karate Kid" and I remembered seeing it
in the theater when it came out was about, you know,
you are clearly the protagonist, you're the underdog,
you're the hero and then it's clear
who the bully is, Johnny Lawrence.
What happened over time, and it's kind of a tribute
to the film is that people got into these discussion groups
and it sort of became part of almost a cultural question
of who is the real bully?
Because he has the cruel sensei and you have
the nice sensei, you take his girlfriend, you know,
those are the intellectual discussions of our time,
basically.
(laughs)
You've laid it out beautifully.
It has become pop culture.
I mean, it's really become that.
There are fan videos, theories, the crane kick was illegal.
You know, you say he took his girlfriend.
Well, you know, she was,
I mean we could go on and on about that.
I defend LaRusso, but it's fun that people care.
I mean, they've cared for 35, 36 years
and now it's lifted to another level.
But Ralph, Ralph be honest.
There were times when you wake up in the middle of the night
covered in sweat screaming, the crane kick was legal.
It's totally legal. More often than you know.
(laughs)
I must confess on the Conan O'Brien show.
Do you ever do that, you're getting a latte
and someone's just giving you a look.
It was legal, it was legal!
I'm doing that the whole week now.
I love it. Every day this week
I'm doing that.