For over 35 years, Billy Zabka and Ralph Macchio have played arch nemesis in the Karate Kid movies and the followup series Cobra Kai, but how do they feel about each other in real life?
Jenny McCarthy asked Zabka if they are friends in real life on her radio show? He told her, “We are good friends in real life.” He says that they are “different but the same”. In fact, they ride together to the set and jam to music as they get lost. A lot like a scene in season one of Cobra Kai.
Talking about their series, does Johnny Lawrence do his own fighting on it? Believe it or not, he does. He is 53 (can you believe it?) and still doing his own stunts! That is why they say Cobra Kais never die.
I hope the show never does either. Watch all of season two streaming on YouTube Premium now. Can I tell you it is even better than the fantastic first season?
Many critics including me said that Cobra Kai was the best new show of last year. The second season is finally here on YouTube Premium and it is actually even better. How that is possible, I don’t know. But they found a way to do it.
The season starts off exactly where it left off with John Kreese (Marty Kove) coming to visit Johnny Lawrence (Billy Zabka) at the Dojo. It is not happy a reunion, and the two men finally have that fight that has been decades in the making. Who wins? Not the studio because the two of them destroyed it. There is even a fire that began in a really smoking way!
After that fight, it is time for Cobra Kai to begin training. Lawrence is not happy how Miquel (Xolo Maridueña) and Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) won their meets and tells his students that no mercy does not mean winning at any cost. You need to win fairly or not at all. Mercy (Kove) is not going to like that.
Meanwhile, Danny LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) is getting back into the Karate business by teaching Lawrence’s son Robby (Tanner Buchanan). He will teach him, like how Mr. Miyagi taught him. Lots of waxing cars and painting fences. Since you cannot just have one student LaRusso’s daughter Sam (Mary Mouser) asks to be trained too.
While LaRusso has two students, Lawrence has a lot more. LaRusso wants to get more students, so he does a showcase at a local event. Cobra Kai crashes it and gets even more students. Somehow, the rivalry between the two Dojos heats up and there will be many points of not returns.
At one point Miyagi-Do gets destroyed and LaRusso thinks Lawrence did it. He confronts him at Cobra Kai and that actually helps him steal some students. This won’t end well, especially when a former Cobra Kai writes a bad Yelp review about the Dojo. That review will lead to an epic fight at a mall in the fifth episode. One that is so good, you will need a break to get your heart rate down.
Which is good because that is what the sixth episode is about. There is a Cobra Kai reunion because of one them is dying. Lawrence and his friends will make his final days special. That friends words will convince Lawrence to go on a date with someone. On that date, who will walk in but LaRusso and his wife. The two women convince the men to join their tables and the four of them break bread. It looks like these two will finally get along, but you know that will not last. Something will come between them and they have a fight that is 30 years in the making.
That fight is pretty awesome, but the best one is yet to come. Miguel’s love triangle comes to head when the two ladies decide to fight over him at school on the first day. This is the start of a ten-minute fight, throughout the halls of the high school, that will leave multiple people hospitalized. It is the most epic fight in cinematic history. If I still smoked, I would need a cigarette. Hands down to everyone who made it look so cool.
That fight is not the end of the season, but the last few minutes shape things up for the third season. Which we had better not have to wait a year for because we cannot wait that long to find out what happens next.
When I was a kid, I loved the Karate Kids movies. However, as I got old Dick Flicks were no longer my thing. Cobra Kai makes me feel like a kid again but as an adult. The continuation is so brilliantly done; you cannot help but to love this show. I mean the concept of making the bully the underdog and the underdog the bully in the sequel was genius. Whoever thought we would root for Johnny Lawrence, but we are. That alone is a reason to tune in, but that it is just a tiny one. Cobra Kai is perfection. It is the type of series that everyone can enjoy. It is testosterone and heart, a mix you so rarely find. Yet everyone involved with Cobra Kai executes flawlessly,
Now, go to YouTube Premium and watch Cobra Kai. I have been telling one and all to watch this show ever since I saw pilot. That is how amazing it is.
The first full trailer for Cobra Kai season 2 is out now and I need some oxygen because I lost my breath. I am not the type of girl, who is into Dick Flicks, but there is something so exciting about this first look for the YouTube Premium show that is back on April 24th. I felt like I was there with Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence and all of their students as I watched it.
If someone would have told us 35 years ago that we would be rooting for Lawrence, no one would, but Barney Stinson, would have believed that person. The creators of the companion series for the 1984 movie have done such a great job they make us feel sorry for a hated character and see a beloved on in a new dark light.
Both Billy Zabka and Ralph Macchio have done such great jobs with the role reversal, it blows my mind. It also makes wonder how all the television award shows ignored them.
Not only because of their acting, but this was last season’s best new show. Like a good potato chip, you cannot just watch one episode at a time. You need to binge them all and then you are pissed there are no new episodes to watch. Therefore, you watch it over and over and over again.
If you missed the first season, then watch it on YouTube premium now. I am not the only person who said this is the best new show of last year. Find out why so many of us are saying this. Like the original film, everyone can enjoy it.
To me, YouTube Premium’s Cobra Kai is the best new show of last year, so I was curious if they would be able to recreate the magic for the second season. Unlike Karate Kid 2, I think they will not only be able to match it but they will even exceed it.
I say that because once I saw that Daniel-sun (Ralph Macchio) is teaching karate classes for free in the trailer, I was like, oh sh!t. I knew that was going to piss off Johnny (Billy Zabka). Which means their rivalry will continue on, 35 years after it began.
If you are not familiar with the YouTube Original series, it is the follow up to Karate Kid, but this time we see things through Johnny Lawrence’s eyes. Now the bad guy is the good one and Daniel LaRusso is the bully. How freaking awesome is that?
If you missed the first season, I highly recommend watching it ASAP, 55 million people can’t be wrong, can we? I would even tell strangers to watch it because that is how much I love it. Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald created a true masterpiece that everyone can enjoy, so go enjoy it.
Before you go watch it for the first time or the 34th, mark down April 24th on your calendars because that is when John Kreese (Martin Kove) comes back to rattle things up at Cobra Kai. The bad a$$ show got even more bad a$$!
Conan O’Brien made like an Alphaville song and was Big in Japan. Like his previous trips, he brought know-it-all Jordan Schlanksy with him. This time they sat down at a restaurant and talked about why the PA is so obsessed with the country.
Schlansky told his boss that he fell in love with Japan after watching Karate Kid 2. He spewed out that the fact that film starring Ralph Mahk-e-o was filmed entirely in Okinawa. He was proud he knew all of that information.
But then…Conan took out his phone and told his employee to press play. It was a video of Ralph Ma-chi-o telling him that movie was actually filmed in Hawaii. After the actor said “sayonara”, you can actually see Schlansky tear up as he found out a big part of his childhood was a fraud. Which has me and Conan laughing until it hurts!
I mean a simple IMDB search will tell you where the feature was filmed and was not Japan.
Finally, How I Met Your Mother was so right, Daniel-san was the real villain in the franchise.
