GenX Martial Arts Craze
About This Episode
From movie theaters to living rooms, martial arts were all the rage during our GenX youth. Many of us took up nunchucks, learned a bit of kung fu, and, for a moment, believed we could be the next Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris. In this Backtrack, we reminisce about the pop culture phenomenon that was the Martial Arts Craze!
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Show Notes
- A Shroud of Thoughts: The Kung Fu Craze of the Seventies Part One » bit.ly/4hA7xBC
- Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting at Marvel in the 1970s » bit.ly/3NSqdz1
- 9 Martial Artists Who Changed the Film Industry » bit.ly/3AiHn5P
- How Bruce Lee Became a Pop Culture Legend » bit.ly/4eiTRrK
- 101 Chuck Norris Jokes » bit.ly/3AuC6YM
- Watch All of the Green Hornet Episodes » youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6fJmjt84zZijUX52K1F24557XEatByGT&si=m5ogbmnlWfDoOjth
- Mail the show » podcast@genxgrownup.com
- Visit us on YouTube » GenXGrownUp.com/yt
TRANSCRIPT
| Speaker | Transcript |
| Jon | Welcome back. Gen X grownup podcast listeners to this, the backtrack edition of the Gen X grownup podcast. I am John joining me as always, of course is Mo. Hey man. |
| Mo | Hey, how’s it going? |
| Jon | Wouldn’t be a show without George. How you going, George? |
| George | Hey, how’s it going, guys? |
| Jon | In this episode, from movie theaters to living rooms, martial arts was all the rage during our Gen X youth. Many of us took up nunchucks, learned a bit of kung fu, and for a moment, believed we could be the next Bruce Lee or Chuck Norris. In this backtrack, we reminisce about the pop culture phenomenon that was the martial arts craze. And I just swallowed a gnat. Flew right in my throat. um Goodness. Saw him buzzing. |
| Jon | martial arts craze. And this one, this has been on our list to do for a while. And you guys are much more than martial arts craze fans. In fact, I wouldn’t have thought of it as a topic. So I’m curious, what is it in your youth that sparked the idea for this episode? Either one of you open question. |
| George | I think it was just that I remember the things you talked about in the intro there. yeah I remember watching Bruce Lee movies and I remember getting a pair of wooden nunchucks for Christmas one time and bashing myself in the skull repeatedly trying to learn how to swing them around. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | So as the years went on, I have always been fond of anything to do with martial arts, ah whether it be in TV shows, movies, video games, whatever. And it dawned on us that it’s something we haven’t really talked about and it kind of permeates the culture as we found out through doing the research. |
| Mo | Yeah, absolutely. |
| Jon | It’s a big slice of stuff that we haven’t talked about. You’re right. |
| Mo | Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Cause even, I think it even, you know, the fact that I grew up in, you know, the city, it it was there as well. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Like it was everywhere. You know, like you said, like, like Chris says, I can’t tell you how many kids I could talk to a chip teeth because they were practicing dumb chucks and smacked themselves in the mouth, you know, um, or with throwing stars or whatever, or, you know, going to watch the latest movie, you know, I mean, it, it was, it was a thing, you know, |
| Jon | Mm, yeah. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | Yeah. Well, I think it’s long overdue that we talk about it. So we’re going to jump in. This is our first foray into that whole martial arts end of our pop culture. So we’re going to get into that. But first, it’s time for some fourth listener email. We have a couple of emails from a couple of fourth listeners. The first one is Christian W. And he dropped us a line and said, he dropped us a line over on Patreon about our 84 Olympics backtrack. |
| Mo | Oh, okay. |
| Jon | ah Christian says, the 84 Olympics podcast was awesome. Thank you. We’re glad you enjoyed it. ah Now in that episode, I heard you guys wondering out loud where Mary Lou Retton was from speculating that perhaps she was from the Midwest. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | So to set the record straight, I wanted you guys to know that Mary Lou Retton was born and raised in Fairmont, West Virginia. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Mo | Okay. |
| Jon | All right. |
| George | Oh! |
| Jon | He says, I know this because I used to work in a school near there a few years back. They even named a street in the town after her Mary Lou Renton drive. |
| Mo | Ah, well, there you go. |
| George | Well… |
| Jon | So there you go. |
| Mo | Straight, straight from the source. |
| Jon | Now we know. Yeah. She was kind of that Midwest corn raised sweetheart kind of personality. So that was a good enough guess, but now we know authoritatively. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Thank you, Christian. And one more quick email. This is Phil P dropped us a line. The subject was Sim City. Hmm. |
| Mo | What? |
| Jon | Okay. |
| George | okay |
| Jon | yeah So he says, hello Gen X grownups, longtime fourth listener, first time writer, then doing a second listen through the podcast. Wow. |
| Mo | Well. |
| Jon | What? Okay. Well, I’m at the gym this year. Today, my second listen was the evolution of digital storage episode. |
| Mo | OK. |
| Jon | That had to be year one, maybe year two. |
| Mo | Is it was early days, it was definitely early days, yeah. |
| Jon | It’s a long time ago. Yeah, yeah. but Anyway, during one of my sets, he’s in the gym room. remember During one of my sets, I cracked up laughing at the public domain SimCity comment. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | they Pretty strong idea who brought that. That might’ve been the origin of the public domain, George, when you started talking about SimCity. |
| Mo | yeah |
| George | Anything’s possible. |
| Jon | Had to gather my composure before listening. had to gather my composure before finishing that set. Thanks for the entertainment. Love the show, Phil P. |
| Mo | Cool. |
| Jon | Cool, thank you, Phil. Phil and Christian, we love that you took time, but ah obviously to listen, but you took time on top of that to write in and tell us how you’re enjoying the show. If you would like your email featured here on the show, look, it’s drop dead easy. |
| Jon | All you gotta do is fire off an email to podcast at Gen X Grown Up. We read all of them, every single one, and most of them will eventually make the show. All right guys, we get back from the break. |
| Jon | We’re going to jump in with a, I don’t know. What do you guys do? A big jump kick flip or what are you doing? Kung Fu? I don’t know. We’re going to jump into it somehow right after this. |
| Mo | God. This is gonna be painful. |
| Jon | I’m going to, yeah. |
| Jon | a Okay. So I’m going to, I can start with the Kung Fu fighting thing and then I’m going to release the reins and, and right along. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | All right. |
| Jon | Uh, let me see real quickly. When was that episode last reference? It was back in 2020. It was a way ago. Okay. All right. And five, four, three, |
| Jon | Back in 2020, just been a few years ago, we did a backtrack all about 1970s, one-hit wonders. And I think the number three or four on that list, after we did all of our voting and everything, was the Carl Douglas song, Kung Fu Fighting, right? Where everybody was kung fu fighting. I bring that up, not only because it’s a great segue into this, because it’s maybe the most I know about the martial arts craze. So it’s my opportunity to have something to say about it. |
| Jon | But you guys are right. And you mentioned in the opening segment that the whole and and and that’s the beginning of my ignorance. Kung Fu is a type of martial arts or is it kind of thing? |
| Mo | Yes. It’s a style aside from China. |
| Jon | OK. Is it a style? OK, but it was everywhere. Ninjas were huge. you know Weapons were huge. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Jon | Started to seep into all of our pop culture and all of our entertainment. And it just it makes sense that we take time here on a backtrack to dig into it. |
| George | Yeah, the most probably, I don’t want to say important, but the the thing that really kind of was the most permeable, I think, thing that impacted our society at the time were the training centers. So if you think about it right, in the 70s especially, karate training centers started popping up all over everywhere. everywhere ah People wanted to learn what Bruce Lee knew, even though he was kung fu, but karate became |
| George | the most popular training centers going around the country. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | um You started seeing ah people wearing white little pajamas, as they would call them, but they were, we know they were geese, yeah. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah. or Or the shoes, though the like the slipper shoes. Yeah. |
| George | ah Slipper shoes, if anything, most of the time barefoot. um ah People would start, you know, talking about, oh, I’m a black belt and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because they wanted to show how tough they were. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | I think it was, it was just interesting timing. um It, you know, really started to hit when I was a young child in the seventies and we started to see it because of all of those things around us. |
| Jon | I always wondered, it was interesting because it kind of became the, instead of taking your kid to baseball or to soccer, or maybe in addition to, but it became one of those very, very common, oh, well, my son has got karate class today, and then tomorrow he’s got piano or whatever different thing. |
| Mo | mm hmm. |
| George | Sure. |
| Jon | It was, you’re right, it was pretty much everywhere. It became a thing a lot of kids were doing. It’s good physical fitness, but it was also a chance to act like you could whip ass a little bit, I guess, with your belts. |
| Mo | Yeah. The other thing is that ah and there was so like, there were so many training centers open that were just crap though. That’s the other thing. Cause people were just jumping all over the craze and it’s like, they would have some nebulous credit credits from, Oh, so I learned from some random person who, you know, this name I made up and from Japan or from China or whatever, you know, and then it’s sort of, they just made up the crap as they, or they bought a book or something like that. |
| George | sure right |
| Jon | Hmm. Oh. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | I mean, and so the hard part was finding like reputable schools that actually taught the real stuff. Um, but again, it’s like, it was just that it seemed, I don’t know, maybe it seemed like it was possible for you everyone to do it. |
| Mo | Like you’d saw something in the movie and you’re like, Hey, I, maybe I could do this thing, you know, and then the TV commercials, Hey, do you want to learn how to kick ass? |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | Mm. |
| Mo | You know, and, duda and and it seemed plausible. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | So maybe that’s all helped with the popularity. |
| George | I think it probably did. There’s also the fact that very early on, it kind of became a second daycare center after school program for a lot of parents, especially in the inner city. |
| Mo | Oh God, yeah. |
| Jon | oh |
| George | ah They were affordable, they were fairly cheap, and you could have your kids go from their school, whether it be walking down the block or being picked up in a bus or something, to the martial arts training center for a couple of hours, |
| George | so that the parent could get off from work and come pick them up and take them home. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | um And I know that in know at least a year in my hometown, they were direct competition for a lot of those after-school care places. And ah they took up some of the marketplace. |
| George | It became a big business and industry. Even to this day, there are business models for these ah martial arts training schools that um have even franchised out, you know, we see, you know, Cobra Kai, right? |
| George | We see that, you know, this one rich guy, I’m going to open up dojos all over the city. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | mu But the truth of the matter is these places have become big business. |
| Jon | and As a parent, it’s like, here’s ah there’s an after-school activity that will wear my kid out and he’ll actually go to sleep at night. and it’ss Physical fitness, it’s not just like a ah chess club or it’s not you know going to play D and&D kind of thing. I could see why it would be something that would be attractive to parents. Look, you want to be like your TV and movie stars? Great. We’ll get you the thing in this and you’ll be too worn out to cause trouble at home. |
| Mo | yeah It was like when I was teaching kids karate, it was like a lot of parents also liked it because they they felt that the kids would somehow get discipline from that. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | You know what I mean? Like, like, because it’s such a discipline thing that you supposed to do that it was a way like like parents like, OK, this kid’s out of control. Some of the karate school, I’ll doubt it. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | I’ll solve all their problems, which it didn’t. But I mean, but it does help. Absolutely. I mean, I think it really some valuable stuff in there. But like George was saying, though, it was like, you know, fill up the kid’s time, something that even the parents felt was worthwhile because again, you know, stranger danger, or you know, having your kids able to feel like they could somewhat defend themselves is not a bad thing necessarily, you know. |
| Jon | Yep. |
| Jon | No, no. |
| George | Yeah, and good. |
| Jon | And you go go ahead. I’ve just got to work into the weapons. If you’re you’re doing that, go ahead. |
| George | Yeah, that’s what I was going to do. |
| Jon | Okay, good. |
| George | The one thing that ah these training centers all had up on the walls were the the different instruments of death that you might see, right? |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Mo | Oh yeah. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| George | They, nunchucks in size and bo staffs and all the pads that you might need to practice safely and whatnot. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | But the way that weapons from the martial arts community came into my existence were really through magazines and comic books. |
| Mo | Mhm. |
| George | You could order them through these different |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | you know like Black Belt Monthly or you you know whatever ah comic book you might see in the back ads you know just like along with the x-ray specs and whatnot um it was it was an interesting time because some of those things were quote illegal or at least you thought they were somebody said they were like throwing stars right um |
| Jon | No. |
| Mo | It should be. |
| Jon | Probably are for kids, at least. |
| George | Yeah. ah And oftentimes you would get the thing and it would not meet your expectations just like anything else you might do through mail order, right? |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | I specifically remember getting the throwing stars and they were not sharp. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | They were literally just had a flat edge on each side. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | ah So in order to make them real throwing stars that would stick, I had to you know put them on a grinder and give them a real sharp razor edge in order to tournament. |
| Jon | Did you do that? |
| George | Yeah, of course I did. |
| Jon | You you sharpened your toilet. |
| George | That’s what I wanted. |
| Mo | The useless otherwise there’s just decoration. |
| George | I didn’t want the little flat thing. Yeah. So exactly. |
| Jon | I can’t kill a guy without that. |
| Mo | The, uh, a ride grew up in New York. You could go down to Chinatown and buy pretty much anything you wanted, you know? |
| George | Oh, I bet. Yeah. |
| Mo | Um, yeah. I mean, now again, were they the, real with quotes around a deal maybe may not but these things were sharp I mean they had points they had this now maybe maybe you throw them once and they break apart but you know and I can’t tell you how many like we talked at the at the yeah start of the thing about you know nunchucks and stuff and |
| George | Sure. |
| Mo | You know, those take a lot of skill ah to do. I mean, they take a lot of skill. |
| George | yeah |
| Mo | And, you know, like I said, kids were able to go out there and buy these and they were relatively cheap, too. ah Maybe like 14, 15 bucks you get a pair of like heavy wood nut chucks and kids were just knocking themselves on literally knocking themselves unconscious with these things. |
| Jon | well to to mirror Moe’s experience, where I grew up in the woods, you could go down to the flea market and get anything you wanted. |
| George | Yeah. Hmm. |
| Jon | It it was a similar Wild West in our flea market, so you’d go in town, and nobody was checking to see. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | First, quality is questionable, just like you got in the comic book, or maybe you got in Chinatown. |
| Mo | No. |
| Jon | Second, it was maybe, or maybe, like was it a was it actually like a practice one? It was like made of rubber or foam or something, but more often than not, they were They were made of wood or metal or that that that’s a way to clock yourself in the head of those things. |
| Mo | z |
| Jon | And I remember seeing them. I’m sure I picked up the throwing stars was more interesting to me because they look so cool. You know, like a little little tiny razor blade and stuff. |
| Mo | They look very cool. |
| Jon | but I never bought the nunchucks, but I always knew a kid that had them. |
| Mo | Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, he started talking about like what it takes to learn to actually use these weapons and stuff. You know, I think that also learns in the other appeal and other stuff, which is, you know, the whole kind of the philosophy behind, you know, Eastern martial arts stuff, you know, like you said, it was the whole thing about, you know, training and discipline and things I think people wanted, right? |
| Mo | They wanted to get that value. They wanted to feel like they were accomplishing that kind of stuff. So I think that also was a real big reason why people sort of gravitated to it, especially in the seventies when things were kind of crazy, you know, and now they had this philosophy of like, you know, you know, oh, and a lot of it was very Zen, very calm, you know, you know, inner self and you know, you learn to fight so you don’t have to fight and all that kind of stuff. |
| Jon | Hmm. Hmm. |
| Jon | I can see that being attractive. |
| George | Well, think about the the culture of the United States at that point. We had just come out of the 60s, free love kind of stuff. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| George | And we were into the 70s where people really weren’t sure what America was, right? Because we had had this you know divide in the country during the late 60s era. |
| George | Now we’re in the 70s when ah martial arts is really starting to take root take hold and I think a lot of people especially young people were looking for something something different than what their parents did because there was that Disenchantment with the established franchise of America like I don’t want to be what my parents are I I want to rebel against that as most young people and teenagers do and |
| Jon | who |
| Mo | Yep. Hmm. |
| George | The martial arts felt exotic. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | It felt unique. |
| Mo | Mhm. |
| George | It felt different. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | And I think through ah movies and TV, which we’re going to talk about later, it appealed to that audience specifically. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | And I think that audience really drove its cultural impact ah into the American subculture because yeah you talk about Mo the Zen philosophies and the peace and the discipline and the protect yourself and the honor and everything else that comes along with the martial arts philosophies that were being put out at the time. |
| Mo | Mhm. Mhm. |
| George | It definitely had a huge impact on American society and our culture. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. So that brings me to, as we were talking about, there are so many different things that might have attracted um American teens and youth that we were back then to this, you know, kung fu martial arts, all the things. Is it the peace? Is it the training? Is the discipline? Is it whatever? And since I wasn’t part of it, and we’ve not really talked about it before, I wanted to ask each of you What was it about martial arts that drew you to it and made you interested in it? What about it do you think appealed to you personally that of all the things that could be, you know, after attractive, what was it for you, George? |
| George | I mean pretty much what I was just saying it was um it was unique it was different. um There was the um the opportunity to learn how to fight and protect myself which you know as a young person you get picked on a lot in school, and you want to find a way to protect yourself and defend yourself. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Jon | Sure, kids. |
| George | um the weapons of course were flashy and interesting and all but ah believe it or not even the the honor systems built into the martial arts philosophies and the teachings and everything really appealed to me at a kind of a kind of a subconscious level because I think for the most part most of us want to be good people And ah there’s a there’s kind of a hidden romanticism in it. |
| George | Like if you learn these martial arts and you learn this discipline, you can learn to do these um credible feats of strength that you can then use to protect the weak and underprivileged. |
| Jon | Oh. |
| Mo | Mm |
| Jon | It’s almost like the low key superhero, the way you’re describing it a little bit. |
| Mo | hmm. Yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | What about you, Mo? What drew you to it? |
| Mo | it actually what kind of drew me to it was like, it’s, um it’s kind of the almost like an older school version of respect, you know, that we kind of lost a little bit, you know, like, I mean, we were probably all the same. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | When we were kids, you never called an adult by the first name, right? Unless it was like a, you know, like a very special, i even married as a kid, you know, some adult saying, Oh, you call me John. |
| Jon | No, sir. |
| Mo | And my dad’s like, no, you don’t. |
| George | right |
| Mo | He is Mr. |
| Jon | right at best and right At best it’s Mr. |
| Mo | so-ands So-and-so. |
| Jon | John, find out his last name even better. |
| Mo | yeah Exactly. |
| Jon | yeah |
| Mo | you know and you know And it for me, again, it’s like, you know if there’s an older relative, you had a certain level of respect, you had to give them. like it was just That was just the way I was raised. You had to do that. That kind of got, I think it’s been lost in a lot of sense. you know Like I said, like my niece and nephew call me Moe. When I’m like, eh, it used to bother me. I kind of like, OK, it’s over. you know I guess that’s the way it is. um But when you go into martial arts, it is all about respect. You come in, like there’s a hierarchy in there you know that people who have been there the longest garner a certain level of respect, you know, when you go into the room, that also has to give you have to give that a certain level of respect. |
| Mo | And while you’re in there, you know, when we were done with training, um we mopped the floors. You know, that was a student’s job, you know, to clean the studio after we were done, you know, I mean, yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. That was like, like respecting the space then is that like, was part of the interesting, huh? |
| Mo | It was part of it, you know, and it’s also part that, you know, that’s part of our paying our dues, you know, so that when you get past that, then you’re like, okay. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | And when you didn’t treat people like crap below you, cause you’re like, I know what you’re going through. You know, I went through that. I understand why you’re going through that, you know, and that’s what really I liked about it. It was like, it almost felt like it was very clear as far as like, you know, how to behave and what she had to do. |
| Mo | And you didn’t have to worry so much about, you know, what not to, how not to address somebody they told you. |
| Jon | Right, it was it was unambiguous. |
| Mo | It’s also, it is very unambiguous. |
| Jon | You knew what the rules were. |
| Mo | Yes, very much so. |
| Jon | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Though I wasn’t involved in it like you guys were, I could feel it seeping into the pop culture because the part of pop culture I was paying attention to in the arcade and games, I started to see, where did all these ninjas and kung fu stuff come from? |
| Mo | Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jon | You had like, like Yee-Yar kung fu and karate champ and ah Mortal Kombat had ninjas in it. |
| George | Mmhmm. |
| Jon | Ninjas like seem to be intertwined with kung fu and shinobi and stuff like that. |
| Mo | yeah |
| Jon | and It wasn’t just the games though. I played all of those, but you started to see it in TV shows and movies and other places. We get back from this break. We’re going to jump into a lot of the other places that started to get super saturated during that martial arts craze. |
| Jon | So stick around. |
| George | We’ve briefly mentioned it in the previous discussion, but TV shows certainly ah were marked with ah Kung Fu martial arts, TV mar kind of shows. |
| Jon | yeah ah Yeah. |
| George | so They kind of started to take over from the Western movement that our parents had, I would say, and the cops and robbers a little bit. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah. Yeah, I kind of did. |
| George | um and ah There are some hits and there are some misses, I would say, in this realm. |
| Mo | Yeah, I’ll say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| George | ah One of the misses would probably be sidekicks, the Gil Gerard, Ernie Reyes Jr. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| George | kind of thing. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | um It, you know, I did a interview a long time ago that we put on the channel where we talked to Gil Gerard about Buck Rogers because that’s what he’s most famous for. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | But during that interview, he also talked a little bit about sidekicks and we did like a little separate video on it. And that’s probably all that anybody needs to do as far as investigation into that show. |
| George | I would really just avoid sidekicks in general. It’s not one I would recommend you go find in the public domain and put on your Plex server, in other words. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | It felt the most forced. Like Gil Gerard wasn’t doing kung fu or martial arts or karate or anything. They brought a little kid who could do it and then teamed them up. It felt so artificially inserted into this other series. |
| Mo | yeah |
| George | Well, because I think what had happened, they saw how he quote, fought aliens in Buck Rogers and noticed that a lot of his stuff was, was karate based. |
| George | Like he had his hands in the chopping motion. |
| Jon | Oh, oh yeah. |
| George | He would do those little kicks and drop kicks and whatnot. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | And then they said, well, everybody loves martial arts. People love Buck Rogers. Let’s put those two together and throw them into, and it just wasn’t good. |
| Mo | Yeah, did not work. |
| George | Now, |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Another show that my parents truly watched religiously, like every week, and was very popular, especially in the South, ah starred one of the martial arts pioneers, you might say, Chuck Norris. |
| George | And that’s Walker, Texas Ranger. This damn thing was on forever. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| Mo | Oh my God. It was, how many seasons at the run? |
| Jon | Yes. |
| Mo | It was a ton. |
| George | I like 40, I think, or 60. I don’t know how many seasons it ran, but it was a crazy amount. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | It had to be. It might have hit 10 seasons. It went up for a long time. Yeah, it was decent too. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Mo | I think what kind of part of the appeal is like, here is a law man that doesn’t have to use a gun, right? |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | The gun is not his, |
| George | Yep. |
| Mo | choice, right? It’s, he has, oh, he has alternatives, you know? |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Um, and I mean, I watched it. We’re quite honest. Cause I do try to ignore us. I was a big Chuck Norris fan and you know, it was, it was a, so I thought it was a solid show. |
| George | Right. |
| George | And he had a real world pedigree in martial arts. |
| Mo | Oh, absolutely. |
| George | Like he wasn’t like an actor who was pretending to do martial arts. |
| Jon | Yes, right. No. |
| George | Like he was a real world badass who had won competitions in no, you know, in full contact karate and, uh, been a student and and friend to Bruce Lee. |
| Mo | No. Yes, he was. |
| Mo | Mm-hmm. |
| George | So he had the whole martial arts rub going for him. |
| Jon | Yes. Yeah. |
| George | So it’s no wonder that a show that featured his real world talents would be successful because he wasn’t having to act in that part. |
| Jon | Yep. |
| George | He knew what he was doing. |
| Mo | Right. Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, he was definitely skilled. and I might not have watched much of that. I saw a few episodes. I didn’t watch it regularly. But I was working in television ah in the early 90s around the time that it aired. And it aired at 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock. |
| Jon | It was the last thing on before the local news that I was about to direct. So I saw the last five minutes of a lot of those episodes. |
| Mo | Well, those are the best parts, though. |
| Jon | And so I, right. i I see the final fight. I see him beat the bad guy or get the girl or solve the crime. So they’re all spoiled for me. Cause I’ve seen the last five minutes of all of them, but they do, they all have that heroic payoff. You were saying earlier, almost how there is a superhero aspect and Mo you said like, well, here’s a, here’s a hero that doesn’t have to use a weapon. He has his own, you know, his body is his weapon. It’s kind of a superhero. And every one of those episodes of Walker, Texas Rangers seem to be, look, |
| Jon | I am skilled. I can take care of you. I can protect others who are weak and I’m happy to do it. And I, you know, don’t ask for any recompense or payment. I’m just a hero. |
| Mo | Yeah, um just I just do it because it’s my goal, yeah. |
| Jon | Right. It was it. It was a morality play. and It was well received. |
| Mo | Yeah. There was a show that came on, uh, way earlier, uh, early seventies and late sixties, early seventies. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Um, it was the green Hornet. |
| Jon | Oh, hell yeah. |
| Mo | And, and the reason why I bring that one up is because, uh, Bruce Lee played Cato, you know, that was his first television thing. |
| George | Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. yeah |
| Mo | And honestly, that’s the big reason why I watched those was because of that, because, you know, |
| George | It’s really the only reason anybody watched him, because if anybody can tell me the actor who played the Green Hornet, I’ll give you five dollars. |
| Mo | Yeah. the Yeah. |
| Jon | I can tell you his car is the Black Beauty and it’s awesome. It has green headlights. Does that count at all? |
| Mo | yeah |
| George | Yeah, but you don’t know his name, do you? |
| Mo | and No, he doesn’t. |
| Jon | ah Black Beauty is the car’s name. I do not know the guy’s name, no. |
| Mo | There you go. |
| Jon | Britt reads the character. Does that count at all? No partial credit as best. |
| Mo | You know, but but yeah I mean, and they brought him in too, because, you know, he added just like, uh, and I think I love most about what those shows is that he was such a badass in that is like, when he would beat up like a group of like five or six people, he would sit there, see if someone moved and kick him again to make sure they were down. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Yeah. I was like, okay. yeah He doesn’t walk away. So somebody can sneak up behind him. He’s like, no, I’m going to make sure everybody is completely unconscious before I move on. |
| Jon | i think Make sure you stay dead. Stay down. |
| Mo | Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, it didn’t last very long. |
| George | Now. |
| Mo | Uh, it only had, I feel very few episodes, I think like 12 or 24 episodes or something like that. |
| Jon | Was just a season or two at best? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Maybe not even two. |
| Mo | At best. Not even two. Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | I still remember they did the Batman crossover. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. |
| Mo | The Adam West. |
| George | Oh, the 70s, yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | He was in the building, right? They were in the building when Batman was going up. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. Yeah. |
| Mo | Yep. So, uh, okay. |
| Jon | Bruce Lee in. Yeah. |
| Mo | So, you know, but again, there was a, there was a TV. I mean, definitely reflected a lot of the kung fu stuff that was going on at the time. |
| Jon | yeah You know, my favorite martial arts also, you know, my favorite martial arts TV show also only lasted one season, though I’d swear it had two or three. There was the animated series starring the voice of Scatman Caruthers as Hong Kong phooey. |
| Mo | Oh no. Oh God. Oh Jesus. Oh God. |
| Jon | Number one super guy. |
| Mo | i have I have, I have mixed feelings about that show. |
| Jon | i |
| Jon | i I and I understand that I get it. It was kind of it was almost borderline insensitive to the Asian culture. It was appropriating the Kung Fu thing in a way that was kind of weird. The theme song was ah as I was just kind of humming along was very like typical of, you know, like almost like an Asian ah timber or a theme or instrumentation. |
| Jon | but it was it was very much like Green Hornet. We were just talking about Green Hornet and Cato, Bruce Lee, did the job of kicking all the butt. Hong Kong Fui, who was a janitor who turned into a super ninja guy, he was totally inept. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | And it was his his pet cat, or his buddy cat, who actually did all the work, but didn’t let him know it. And so he thought he was a big superhero, and he was really a bumbling fool who had a very capable sidekick, just like the Green Hornet had, which worked out really well. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | I loved that series, even though I know, I know the problems it has, it’s still cute. |
| Mo | Oh yeah, yeah, I liked it too. I mean, don’t get me wrong. |
| George | ah You want to talk about cultural appropriation. The last one we want to talk about in this segment is probably one of the biggest offenders simply because of how the TV show even came into being and that’s Kung Fu. |
| Mo | Yeah, it was a huge show though. |
| Jon | Oh, oh, huge. |
| George | Now, there’s |
| Mo | I mean, and I watched it every single time it came on. |
| Jon | e |
| George | Yeah there’s probably quite a few people who already know the backstory that this was an original idea from Bruce Lee himself that he pitched to TV studio executives that they then cut him out of and gave to a white guy David Terradine to play a Chinese actor who had come from China and you know was |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Jon | yeah |
| George | going through the West with his flute and that was basically it. His flute and his bare feet were all he needed to right the wrongs in the American West. |
| Mo | of the Wild West. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, that was, you know, we talk a lot of times here about separating the art from the artist. This is a case of like, I enjoyed this show so much. |
| Jon | So I mentally have to separate the art from the art, because it did come into being in such a way that was like, that shouldn’t even be a thing. |
| George | Yeah, this is this has got a dukes of hazard kind of vibe to it. |
| Jon | But it was so enjoyable. It kind of is. It was so enjoyable. And Carradine was perfect for this role. Aside from being entirely the wrong race, his portrayal of that personality was great. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | But I always had that and back of my head, like, this is kind of weird, right? |
| George | Yeah, I mean to this day I still have a fever dream of wondering what it would have been like and maybe AI will give us this someday of if Bruce Lee had actually been given his due and put into that lead role ah for that series. |
| Jon | Oh, man. |
| Jon | Oh, can you imagine? Hmm. |
| Mo | oh |
| George | I don’t know if it would have lasted only a season or if it would have lasted 20 seasons, who knows, but I think It was indicative of the time they saw that martial arts was a big, huge craze going on at the time, and they wanted to capitalize on it. |
| George | And it was at a time when Bruce Lee himself was becoming very big. |
| Mo | Oh, massive. Yeah. |
| George | And I know we are going to talk a lot about him in the next segment because of what it is. But yeah, it feels like the series missed the mark on what it could have been. |
| Jon | Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. What if |
| Mo | and And one thing I would say about the Kung Fu show, which I thought they did pay a lot of respect to the art, you know, the show itself did, you know, like, it wasn’t, you know, they didn’t, you know, of course, I never had to walk across rice paper. |
| Mo | That’s kind of silly. |
| George | right |
| Mo | But the but still, though, like, it was like, you know, when they did the little flashbacks and the stuff and when he was learning and growing up and all that stuff. |
| Jon | whole grasshopper. |
| Mo | you know, I think they paid that a decent amount of respect. Like they didn’t try to, they didn’t make that like, you know, people with, you know, talking with funny accent, you know, like overly done accents and that kind of stuff, you know, so I give them some credit for that. But yeah, it was, it had issues. But again, I watched every single episode. |
| Jon | That’s that separation of you know the basis of the show versus the caliber of the show. like I always appreciated yeah the flashbacks. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | And it was, again, it seemed to be, at least to me, my memory, reverent, reverential to the discipline of martial arts, to the respect of martial arts, to the |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | to putting in the work, almost like the wax on wax off thing of Karate Kid of the, well, it’s gonna take a lot of grueling effort, but the result is gonna be these incredible skills you’re gonna get. And that’s what those flashbacks in Kung Fu did. |
| Jon | I feel like we could do a whole backtrack on Kung Fu in such a strong series, but it was an amazing, amazing show. |
| Jon | And though we didn’t get a Kung Fu starring Bruce Lee, we did get lots of quality Bruce Lee media. We get back from this break. We’re going to talk about Bruce Lee and many of the other great actors that fleshed out the movies featuring ah martial arts. |
| Jon | Stick around. |
| Mo | Like you mentioned, John, before we left the last segment, I mean, movies, I think, drove a lot of this cultural stuff that came out of it. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | you know um And of course, we can’t talk about Marshall’s movies without talking about Bruce Lee. Like you said, I mean, he his movies were just massive hits. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. The man. |
| Mo | i can’t yeah and ah And they were big hits in China as well as the United States. |
| Jon | He’s the dragon, man. |
| Mo | and the I still remember as a kid, there was a theater on 14th Street that my dad would give us a couple of bucks and they would play every one of his movies, like one after the other. So he’d sit there in the theater and just watch one mostly movie, the next movie, the next one, next one, next one. yeah And let me tell you, every time they had that, I was there every single Saturday watching those things. um He had He was something special as far as his presence and the stuff that he was able to do, which I could see why it just skyrocketed the popularity of of karate or martial arts in general. |
| Jon | yeah |
| George | You know, what’s interesting, you talk about that the theater you went in showed all of his films back to back to back. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | I don’t know if they showed all of his films. Cause you know how many films Bruce Lee is credited with being in 37. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | No, how many? What? |
| Jon | Woo. |
| George | Exactly. See, I had the same reaction when I looked that statistic up because I was like, like 15 that I could think of. |
| Mo | That’s what I would think. I would think at the high end, a high end 15. |
| Jon | Yeah, I can think of six or seven myself. Yeah. Wow. |
| George | Yeah, he’s apparently he’s credited with 37. |
| Jon | 37. |
| George | I haven’t verified that. That’s just what the interwebs are telling us. But I mean, if if Bruce Lee, whether he was in one film, which I would argue that almost every person who knows any martial arts movie knows the one film Enter the Dragon, which you guys have already mentioned, ah I would say that |
| Jon | They don’t lie. |
| Mo | He never lie. |
| Mo | Yeah. Yeah. |
| George | One film or 30 some films didn’t matter. The man was so goddamn charismatic. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | oh yeah. |
| George | All it takes is one Bruce Lee film to get you hooked into what that man created and. I think he is the largest reason why somebody like a Chuck Norris who has no charisma on screen, what to speak of whatsoever. |
| Mo | Oh, absolutely. |
| George | That man is a flat board of charisma as far as I’m concerned, but he, he got the Bruce Lee rub and became the super sensational star that he is. |
| Jon | Yeah. Yeah. He’s like cardboard box stone faced. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | I mean, you know, he’s a, he’s a damn internet meme at this point. And I think it’s all due to Bruce Lee. |
| Mo | Yeah, I always kind of like Bruce Lee to Muhammad Ali, just because of like Muhammad Lee was like very deaf when he did interviews, he was rhyming, he was making and Bruce Lee in his movies when he was fighting the the little sounds. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | You never heard that before. |
| George | They had some interactions, the two of them. |
| Mo | Oh, today. |
| George | I believe so, I think I remember seeing that they had, yeah, that they had met and but well, no, I’m not talking about like a match, but I mean, like they had met and talked philosophy and things like that. |
| Jon | You talk about it’s about Ali and yeah. |
| Mo | Oh, they might have done a convention. Oh, they did like a match or something. like I get exhibition. |
| Jon | Ah. |
| Mo | Oh, okay. Okay. But, you know, again, he was doing things that just like when he was cocky, which again, most martial artists were very subdued, very calm, right? |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. Deservedly, so he earned it, though. |
| Mo | Yeah. He was very cocky and the sound, like the way he would make like the little sounds and stuff like that, that people, yeah, that now you hear it. |
| Jon | Oh. |
| Mo | Everyone’s that’s why everyone copies, right? That’s what everyone does. |
| George | Great. |
| Mo | Even though that wasn’t really the norm, you know, that was, that was, |
| Jon | No, when I was playing Ninja in the yard, I was making those noises and didn’t know what the hell I was doing. |
| Mo | Absolutely. Yeah. |
| Jon | Whoa, I couldn’t hit nobody. |
| George | Well in. I mean, even outside of his films, you think about it, he’s the person credited with starting to teach Eastern martial arts to Americans because apparently before him, it was taboo according to like 15 different documentaries that have been about Bruce Lee. |
| Mo | yeah |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | you know He has some you know fight with some guy that you know in order to be allowed to teach the martial arts to white men and whatnot. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Huh. |
| George | and I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t know that there wasn’t some guy in Midwest Ohio who’s been teaching martial arts for 30 years before that, but it’s what he’s credited with. And that’s what I mean by his films and impact, because I think without his impact on society, I don’t think the craze would have had the steam that it did. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Mhm. |
| Mo | No, not. |
| George | Now I mentioned earlier, one of his proteges and, you know, kind of the guy who kind of fed off of his fame, Chuck Norris, |
| Mo | Absolutely. |
| Jon | Mhm. |
| George | He’s no slouch in his impact in the martial arts craze. |
| Mo | Oh, absolutely not. No. |
| George | Like I said, I don’t think he’s the most charismatic of the people we’re going to talk about, but he certainly had a huge impact. |
| Mo | no |
| Mo | Yeah, for sure, because he was, um, well, when I think he Americanized it for one of a better term, right? |
| George | Mm-hmm. Sure. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Um, he had the chops. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | I mean, he had the credentials to do these things. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | He was not like some guy who just, they threw in and say, okay, we’re going to teach you how to do these moves. He knew how to do all those things. Um, and when Bruce Lee, his first acting role, I think, or his one of his early ones was in the Bruce Lee movie, you know, when him and Bruce Lee fight at the end, you know, which is one of the greatest fight scenes on any martial arts movie. |
| Mo | You want to see one, um, you know, He went from that again. I think people saw him and he, he, he does have that kind of like that quiet charm, but I agree. He’s not like a huge, like I would never prick him as leading man. |
| Mo | Normally like a leading man kind of actor, you know, like he just says he’s not like a big presence normally, but you know, he carried off the roles he was given. |
| Jon | Yeah, I guess not. Yeah. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | You know, he had the missing in action films and all that stuff, which he did, you know, which were fun. |
| George | Mhm. |
| Mo | and And again, I think he was also, he was great because he is a genuinely seems like a nice person. So he gave kind of a good face to it as well. |
| Mo | Like it wasn’t, you know, you know, again, like some other people who didn give such a good face to it. |
| Jon | I guess. |
| George | Sure. |
| Jon | Yeah. Yeah. and |
| Jon | I don’t know how you could tell. I’m not even sure what Chuck Norris’s personality is. It just, he is kind of flat, like George had said a little bit, but unlike Bruce Lee, who we talked about the charisma, like when he walked on the screen, you’re like, pay attention. |
| Mo | Yeah. Yes. |
| Jon | Like he demanded and Chuck, more Chuck Norris is more almost like a, like he is, he blends into the background until he steps out and does something very, very subdued. |
| George | he’s that subdued martial artist that Mo was talking about, very much so. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Now that movie that Mo was talking about with the great fight scene, The Way of the Dragon, it’s not one of Bruce Lee’s best films, but it does have that great fight scene in it. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | But if you want to talk about charismatic martial artists who really make me smile, I don’t know that there’s a bigger one right now than Jackie Chan. And I mean that in the best way possible. |
| Mo | Oh, oh. |
| Jon | The most beloved. |
| Mo | Yeah. Yeah. |
| George | Oh, like he has, he did. |
| Mo | Oh, absolutely. he He actually brought humor to it. |
| George | And that was his whole philosophy. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Like he didn’t want it to be so super serious. He wanted it to be fun and funny. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | ah So much so that when he finally started doing really heavy dramatic films later in his career, it was a big shock. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | Like, cause you knew him as that guy that would karate chop something and go out and you know, have the crazy face. |
| Mo | Yeah, I heard his hands and. |
| Jon | but Ham it up. Yeah, of course. |
| George | Yeah, but Jackie Chan was awesome. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | You think about some of those early ah successes that he had like police story in the 80s, that whole franchise, I think it was like five or six films. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. Yeah, just too many. |
| George | Yeah, I mean, he definitely, um I think he benefited from the Bruce Lee effect. |
| Mo | Hmm. |
| George | Don’t forget he was in Enter the Dragon in two scenes. |
| Mo | Yes, he was. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | He was one of the henchmen that Bruce Lee beat up with the nunchucks in the underground layer. |
| Mo | Yep. |
| George | But um I think Jackie Chan evolved what Bruce Lee started. |
| Mo | Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, and the other thing Jackie Chan had that kind of made him especially for American audiences very, very different is that he did his own stunts. |
| George | Well, true, yeah. |
| Mo | And, and that, when you see, and we watched some of his, even though the, I’m sorry, Rumble in the Bronx was a terrible movie. It was just an awful, it was, it was an awful, but I watched it just to see the stuff that he actually did. |
| George | It’s not great, yeah. |
| Mo | You know, like he actually jumped between two buildings. |
| George | Sure. |
| Mo | He did these, you know, and, and to know in the back of your head that, oh, this isn’t special effects or some, so this is, he’s doing this stuff himself. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. |
| George | Mm |
| Jon | it’s It’s the real guy, yeah. |
| Mo | Matter of fact, he had one where he had to jump onto a boat and he broke his foot. |
| George | hmm. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | And so he had the cast on his foot that they painted the shoe on so he could finish filming. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | You know, I mean, and so I mean, he got hurt. Luckily he stopped doing that because otherwise I think he’d be dead at this point, but you know, he got that point in his career where he should just stop doing that. But he he definitely made the movies. |
| Mo | um They said they were entertaining and they were fun to go see, you know, and you didn’t go there to get some deep meaning or you just want to go see a fun movie in the summer, especially his role at big summer movies that pretty much everyone wants to go see when I was a kid anyway. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah, and he continues to be a huge box office draw. He did the what the rush hour films ah back in the 90s that hugely funny with was ah Chris Tucker. |
| Mo | Yep. |
| George | Oh, yeah. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | He was was that right? Is that the right getting that right? |
| George | Mm hmm. Chris Tucker. |
| Mo | Yep, yep, yep. |
| Jon | yeah Yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. And he’s still doing movies. He’s still doing stuff because he’s so beloved. He’s now I have to ask you guys, here’s one of those showing my ignorance things. If I were talking about movies that were indicative of the martial arts craze, the place I immediately go is Karate Kid. |
| Jon | I don’t know if that is diminishing the the martial arts craze because it was such a pop like a bubblegum mainstream kind of thing or no. |
| Mo | c |
| Mo | No, not at all. Actually, I think it’s just the opposite. |
| George | No, I think, I think it is the apex of the martial art craze because you take all of the stuff that Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, all of those guys started right back in the old day Mo, you know, I know you’re a big fan of the Kung Fu Wing Chun kind of style films from the late seventies stuff. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Jon | Okay. All right. Whoo. Good. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | You take all that stuff. It it reaches its apex in popularity with the mainstream American culture in the Karate Kid series. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | So yeah, popularity isn’t always equivalent to respect for, that’s why I was not sure how true fans of original kind of Kung Fu movies, how they felt about it. |
| Mo | Oh, no. |
| Jon | I love it, but. |
| Mo | and In actuality, the thing you kind of does like the the way Cobra Kai was portrayed, there were a lot of schools like that. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | there were a lot of schools that were like, you know, Oh, when you learn martial arts, you know, you are the bad ass. Your job is go out there and just kick, you know, don’t take shit from anybody, blah, blah, blah, you know? And which was not what it’s supposed to be, you know? |
| Mo | And so I think whoever wrote this, you know, they definitely saw that and said, Oh, here’s a, you know, a perfect antagonist right here for this, you know, this person. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | Um, but the thing about, you know, the karate kid, which was not only was about martial arts, but it was a fantastic story, you know? |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | And it was just, no, |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | It didn’t need to be karate, didn’t it? It could have been whatever it could. I don’t i can’t imagine what else, but. |
| George | Later on, it wasn’t karate, but that’s OK. |
| Mo | No. |
| Jon | Right, there you go, it wasn’t even karate, yeah. |
| George | wait |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | right it could It was a good story already before they had, what was the method of competition? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Oh, it happened to be karate competitions. Okay, that’s fine, but yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Yeah, I mean. |
| Mo | Oh, um good I’m sorry. yeah George. |
| George | Sorry. You want to talk about what made that story in those movies so beloved. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s the casting of the two main characters, Ralph Macchio and Marita Apatte. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. |
| Mo | Oh, absolutely. Yeah. |
| Jon | Zabka. |
| George | You know, he just, they embodied those characters so well. ah Ralph Macchio, the snot-nosed New Jersey punk kid. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. Even though he was like 40 when he did it, but no, |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | but |
| George | But he never looks that way until I saw Cobra Kai. |
| Mo | he doesn’t. He looked like a kid. |
| George | That man was forever 12 in my eyes. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | ah But it it transcended the culture so much so that when Jackie Chan, the one that we love the most, tried to remake Karate Kid, he got lamb blasted. |
| Mo | Oh. |
| George | Now, personally, I enjoy that film. It’s not karate. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | I know it’s kung fu, but who the fuck cares? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Really, it’s Jackie Chan. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| George | I thought Will Smith’s kid did a serviceable job of the character that, you know, Ralph Macchio, and arguably he was younger, thank God, than Ralph Macchio was. |
| Mo | He actually was a kid. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, he probably was age appropriate. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | But here’s something that you guys probably know, but just in case you don’t, that I just found out a few weeks ago, you know that Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan are getting together to do a new karate kid. |
| Jon | I just learned that. |
| Mo | I did. I did not know that at all. |
| Jon | Yeah. In the Cobra Kai universe, in fact. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Yep. |
| Jon | Isn’t that cool? |
| Mo | Interesting. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | So Jackie Chan’s going to play Mr. Han, his character from the Will Smith film. |
| Jon | from the reap the yeah remake, reboot, whatever. |
| George | And Ralph Macchio is going to be, you know, Daniel, and we’re going to get to see those two worlds blend. |
| Mo | ah ma you |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| Mo | That should be interesting. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | I, yeah, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. |
| Mo | Yeah. So, um, Oh, just real quick. you i just I found something about Chuck Norris. I don’t know if you know this or not, that if you spell Chuck Norris and Scrabble, you win forever. |
| Jon | And here I thought no proper nouns, but there’s the exception. |
| Mo | No, no, no. |
| George | There you go. |
| Mo | That’s the exception. |
| Jon | Okay. |
| Mo | Chuck Norris is the exception. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Chuck North. So we talk a lot about those actors, but it’s also important to mention that there were some franchises in the seventies and eighties that. |
| George | Would not have happened were it not for people going nuts for Kung Fu fighting films of the day. |
| Mo | e |
| Jon | Sure. |
| George | I’m just going to run through a couple of them real brief. We talked about Karate Kid. I already mentioned police story from Jackie Chan. Do you guys remember the enter the ninjas series with show Kasugi? |
| Mo | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | Yes. Yeah. Yeah. |
| George | ah Mo’s wincing, I enjoyed them. |
| Jon | I saw a couple of those. |
| George | you know They were fun popcorn fare for me. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | ah What was slightly worse than the inter ninja ones maybe was the American ninjas with Michael Dudekoff. There was like three or four of those films. |
| Jon | Hmm. |
| Mo | yeah |
| Jon | Look at those. |
| George | It was basically, what if inter the ninja had a white guy? |
| Mo | yeah basically |
| Jon | ah Okay. |
| George | But it’s so interesting that there are so many of those series out there that they made three or four or five films in those franchises. |
| Mo | Oh, yeah, absolutely. |
| Jon | Mm-hmm. |
| George | And we don’t even remember most of them. |
| Mo | No, no. |
| Jon | I remember just, I probably never saw them, but the VHS box covers inside of the movie gallery, you saw those, right? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | And it was all ninjas in different poses. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Number three, number four, number five. |
| Mo | Yeah, yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, I saw them. |
| George | Right. |
| Mo | Yeah. And this is one movie from the eighties. Oh, I just have to talk about, like, this shows how sometimes things go too far in the world. It was the movie Jim Cotta. |
| Jon | ah Yeah. |
| George | Okay. |
| Mo | I just had to bring it up because, you know, they took a gymnast, a Olympic gymnast and. |
| Jon | You know what we’re gonna have to do? Yeah, <unk> we’re we’re gonna have to break out the movies of martial arts into its own backtrack in the future, I think. |
| Mo | ah Oh, yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | There’s so much that you can inundate ourselves with. |
| Mo | Absolutely. |
| Jon | That was at the beginning of this segment, but we said the movies were probably the thing that pushed it the furthest. And I don’t think you’re wrong. Holy crap, yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, too much to talk about. |
| George | Yeah, i i mean I know we’re going to end this segment here shortly, but I’m going to admit something that’s going to lose a lot of points with ah any of our fans. |
| Jon | Oh, no. Oh. |
| George | Jim Connell was one of my favorite films back then. |
| Mo | Oh, my God. |
| Jon | Well, I bet we get. |
| George | It was so horrible. It was enjoyable. |
| Mo | I have such weird feelings about what you just said. and |
| George | it was it was one of the It was one of those rare cases where something is so bad, it’s good for me. |
| Jon | I can see that I understand. |
| George | It was like just camera angles and edits and silly prep. |
| Mo | I was |
| George | Just like, why is there a pommel horse in the middle of this Eastern European village? |
| Mo | in the middle of a town. |
| Jon | it But isn’t that the kind of silly thing that when we Americanize something, we bastardize it in all the different ways we can? |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | Let’s but mash it up with this. |
| George | yeah |
| Jon | Let’s mash it up kung fu, mash it up with a Western, right? |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Gymkata, mash it up with gymnastics. Why not? That’s how we blend it together and make it our own. And sometimes we wreck it, but you never you never get the gyms until you get all the duds, I guess. |
| Mo | That’s what we’re looking at, I suppose. |
| Jon | Oh, damn, okay. Huge, huge impact. When we get back from this break, we’re gonna talk about some of the legacy of that 70s and 80s martial arts craze, what it left on our culture. |
| Jon | Stick around. |
| George | I would argue that the biggest impact and legacy of the martial arts craze is in the segment we just left, which is the movie industry. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. Yeah. |
| George | I think we have seen the most martial arts in our pop culture come into that genre. ah You want to talk about modern film franchises, and I’m talking about stuff post 90s, like late 90s, early 2000s. |
| George | Ip Man, Donnie Yen, right? |
| Mo | Mm hmm. Oh yeah. Great movie. |
| Jon | OK, yeah, certainly, of course. |
| George | John Wick absolutely has a heavily martial arts influence. ah Ong Bak, that was a great series. |
| Mo | I’m back. Yeah. |
| George | ah Best of the Best was another great 80s film series that, believe it or not, everybody knows there was one, there were four of those films. |
| Mo | I remember the first one. |
| Jon | when do those come out |
| George | ah Once Upon a Time in China is some great martial arts movie stuff. |
| Jon | i don’t know him |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | It’s really a tremendous amount of culturally impactful films that we have seen come out of this martial arts craze. |
| Jon | yeah And it’s still going on. I mean, it hasn’t slowed down and we were just, and we just talked about, and we’ll continue to talk about the Karate Kid stuff, but another movie, you just mentioned the Karate Kid movie, they’re doing a new, ah ah but a movie based on the Shinobi video game that came about because of the martial arts craze itself. |
| Jon | So a movie based on the game that came out of that, which that game was just a side-scroller with ninjas, not to become a huge video game franchise. |
| George | Right. Yeah. |
| Jon | continues. I think 2023 was the most recent entry. So even those are still coming out. And now a movie based on the Shinobi game. |
| Mo | Wow. I mean, if you look at, okay. |
| Jon | You’re good if you got it. Good. Yep. |
| Mo | Okay. Oh, absolutely. I mean, and also, I mean, you kind of see them in movies that aren’t really martial arts movies, but you see martial arts in them, you know, like, you know, pretty much like the Jason Bourne’s and all this stuff. |
| George | Sure. |
| Mo | I mean, you see a lot of the, you know, the matrix, you know, again, that not really a martial arts movie. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | Oh, yeah. |
| Mo | I wouldn’t classify them as. |
| George | Like from the 70s forward, every hand to hand combat scene is a martial arts scene. |
| Mo | Yeah. Like it’s not two guys just slugging each other anymore, you know? |
| Jon | Mm. You’re right. Right. |
| George | Right. |
| Jon | where if There’s not slinging fists. If they’re doing more, more ah but gymnastic, pardon of the term gym, if they’re doing more elegant fighting, you know, more like, you know, use your weight against you kind of fighting. |
| Mo | Right. |
| Jon | You’re right. That’s, that’s all martial arts inspired. |
| George | Yeah. I mean, I would even be so bold as to list John Wick in that as well. Cause John Wick is not a traditional martial arts film, even though it’s heavily martial arts influenced in a lot of his fighting. |
| Mo | Yeah. I would agree with you. Yeah, absolutely. |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | It just feels as though you can’t separate martial arts now from fighting in American movies. |
| Mo | Yeah, you can’t just have like two guys like each other anymore. |
| Jon | just woven in. |
| George | I don’t, I don’t think you’re going to now. |
| Mo | you know |
| Jon | Yeah, there’s more to it. Yeah. And to get back to the Cobra Kai and the stuff the TV shows, just like you can’t separate from any kind of you know a hand to hand conflict anymore. |
| Jon | Obviously Cobra Kai itself, which you talked about a couple of times. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | and There are others Iron Fist, that was the Marvel series, right? |
| Mo | Yeah. Yep. Marvel series. |
| Jon | And that was, yeah, it was pretty good. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, absolutely. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Mm hmm. |
| George | Yep. |
| Jon | um but There was, I don’t know many of these. |
| Mo | so Into the Badlands, that was the whole series. |
| Jon | Sorry, I’m gonna ask somebody else to jump in there. |
| George | So. |
| Mo | AMC, yeah. |
| Jon | I don’t know anymore. |
| Mo | Yeah, I’ll do it. |
| Jon | I tried. |
| Mo | There was also Into the Badlands, the AMC series, like this stopia world where everyone was like a martial arts fire fighter for some reason. |
| George | Mm hmm. |
| Jon | Oh. oh |
| George | Yep. |
| George | the Those who were so those who had survived, right? |
| Mo | Yes, exactly. |
| Jon | Ah, okay. |
| Mo | you know um And also you look at kids stuff like Power Rangers. |
| Jon | Oh, of course. |
| George | Sure. |
| Mo | you know I mean, that was huge, right? |
| Jon | I hadn’t thought, yeah. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Jon | but They all like come out with like martial arts poses and stuff when they’re, you know, oh yeah. |
| Mo | Yeah, of course. |
| George | he |
| Mo | yeah You know, yeah, it definitely has permeated everything. And like George said, he made great point that, you know, you can’t have just a normal two people fight scene, you know, because people will be let down if you do that. |
| George | No, it’s going to be a martial arts scene because we have accepted as a society that if you’re going to fight somebody, you’re going to have to know martial arts. |
| Jon | Yeah, right. Yeah. |
| Jon | Right. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Right. Unless it’s literally a boxing movie. But if it’s if it’s a non-sanctioned fight, yeah, somebody is pulling a wall. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| George | True. |
| Jon | Right. Some of that stuff’s going to happen in your fight now. |
| George | You know what’s funny about that? Did you mention boxing movies? |
| Jon | Yeah. |
| George | Like in the late 80s, early 90s, I heard a commentator for in one of the boxing matches I was watching, is probably a Mike Tyson fight or maybe a Van Der Holyfield or something like that. But He was upset that people were talking about martial arts being better than boxing. |
| Mo | Oh. |
| George | And he went so far as to say, well, boxing is a martial art. And I thought that was telling because we had boxing in our culture for hundreds of years before martial arts were introduced. |
| Mo | It is. Yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| George | And now here was a boxing expert saying, well, boxing is a part of that culture. Boxing is a martial art. And I just thought, well, there you go. |
| Jon | Oh. |
| George | Martial arts has taken over because now boxing is having to say it’s a martial art in order to compete with martial arts. |
| Jon | It’s in that category. Wow. |
| Mo | Yeah, I mean, absolutely, because I um actually did like some paper on this for something. |
| Jon | Damn. |
| Mo | But anyway, it was like looking at like different martial art styles of just like a scale, like how martial are they and how arts are they? Right. |
| George | Hmm. |
| Mo | So boxing, you put way far in a martial scale, but not much art, but a lot of fighting. |
| George | Right. |
| George | Yeah. |
| Mo | And then you have things like Tai Chi on the other side. |
| George | Tai Chi. yeah |
| Mo | you know, which is not actually, but it’s very art, you know, and so, and everything else falls, I think in the spectrum in the middle. |
| Jon | almost all are right. Yeah. |
| Mo | But I’ve always thought that boxing is, is absolutely a martial art, you know, just even though they never called themselves that, like if I was in a fight, I would not want to fight a freaking boxer because they know how to take a hit. |
| Jon | Huh? Okay. |
| George | well on unless I was a mixed martial artist, because now that is the predominant sport for fighting combat. |
| Mo | Oh yeah. of itself Yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. Yeah, you’re right. |
| George | If you think about UFC and all the other, uh, organizations out there, we don’t get any of that without having had things like blood sport or karate kid or any of those things, because nobody would have been interested enough in it to pursue it as a sport. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Mm hmm. |
| Mo | Oh yeah. yeah |
| Jon | Kung fu, really, that stuff. Yeah. |
| George | Had those things not come first. |
| Mo | Yeah. |
| Jon | Yeah, that that’s what we did, Gen X. We absorbed all the other culture stuff. We made it our own, regurgitated into a whole new thing, a new category. And man, okay, fourth listener. |
| Jon | This is a deep, deep topic. I think there’s a lot more that we can go back to the well here. We’re gonna listen to your feedback. Tell us what about the martial arts craze. I think we already discussed, I think movies are a big enough block. |
| Jon | We said Kung Fu itself might be a big enough show on its own. |
| Mo | Yeah, that’s true. |
| Jon | We love to get your feedback and hear what you think. I think there’s way more we could talk about. So hit us up at podcast at genexgrownup.com. We can’t wait to get your feedback on this episode. That’s going to do it though, for this backtrack. Don’t worry. We have another one coming in two weeks and next week. is Oh wait, I did the shit. I didn’t do the patron. Sorry. |
| Jon | I’ll explain here. Before we go, I do have a couple more very generous and supportive patrons who have joined us over at patreon dot.com slash Gen X growing up. You guys know we talk about it every episode. Head over there, get out your wallet. You can set up a regular monthly pledge for as little as a dollar to support what we do and ensure that we can keep doing it. And I want to thank Joseph J and Bob R Two more people who did just what I said. |
| Jon | They went over to the site, logged in and said, we want to support George and Moe and John so they will continue to deliver this quality show every single week like we do. |
| Mo | Nice. |
| Jon | Thank you, Joseph and Bob. We so much appreciate you and everyone who is a member of our Patreon community over there. That then will wrap it up for this edition of the backtrack. |
| Jon | Don’t worry. We’ll have another one in two weeks. Regular edition of the show coming your way next week. Until then, I’m John George. Thank you so much, man, for being here. |
| George | Yes, sir. |
| Jon | Mo, you know, I appreciate you, buddy. |
| Mo | Always fun then. |
| Jon | Fourth listener, it’s you, though. We appreciate most of all and cannot wait to talk to you again next time. but Bye bye. |
| George | See you guys. |
| Mo | Take care, everybody. in And me too. |
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