The natural inclination for anyone seeing “The Karate Kid” for the first time is to root for Daniel LaRusso, the scrawny Jersey transplant whose biggest crime was moving in on the school tough’s ex-girlfriend.
But after watching the classic 1984 flick a few times, your loyalty should shift to Johnny Lawrence.
Yes, that aggressive heel who, with his mop of blond surfer hair, Ike Turner temper and douchey entitlement, is everything we shouldn’t love.
But we do, anyway — because he’s irresistible in those sweet karate headbands and even when he’s being emotionally battered by Sensei. And without him, Daniel would still be a weakling: driving his mom’s beat-up station wagon and eating Spam out of a can in that ramshackle apartment complex.
Instead, the Jersey guy gets the girl, awesome vintage wheels and major karate skills to boot. He can thank Johnny for his good fortune.
After all, as Chris Rock says in his new Netflix special, “Tamborine”: “We need bullies. Pressure makes diamonds. Not hugs. Hug a piece of coal and see what you get. You get a dirty shirt.”
, teasing the resurrection of one of the campiest rivalries in movie history. In it, we learn Johnny has decided to bring back the Cobra Kai dojo, thus, reopening painful old wounds. Will he be a kinder, gentler Johnny — or will he run a training ground for the next generation of tormenters?
We’ll have to wait until the YouTube Red show is released later this year to find out. But I’m hoping this will be a glorious return for vintage William Zabka, the actor who plays Johnny, and his special brand of browbeating.
If there was a lifetime achievement award for best school bully, Zabka would have no competition. Even the guy who played Biff in “Back to the Future” wouldn’t come close enough to read the name off the back of Zabka’s jersey.
The 52-year-old is a maestro of mean. And his horrible on-screen behavior didn’t die with Johnny Lawrence. He was just getting warmed up in that downtown dojo.
In 1985, Zabka starred in the hugely underrated “Just One of the Guys,” as Greg Tolan, the prom king who has his high school on its knees. Even the teachers fear him.
The cocky big-man-on-campus terrorizes the grounds by flipping over cafeteria tables full of food, tossing unsuspecting dorks into bushes and throwing his rival into the ocean on prom night.
Like Johnny with his signature headband, Greg does his worst while wearing slick silver gloves, like a butler taking out the garbage. What a gentleman!
A year later, he graduates to college in the Rodney Dangerfield gem, “Back to School,” but hasn’t outgrown his I’m-better-than-you ethos. In fact, with his mini-mullet and top spot on the college diving team, he becomes even more unbearable as he sets out to demean towel boy and Tall and Fat scion, Jason Melon. Need more proof? His name is Chas.
When his girlfriend asks, “Haven’t you ever messed up?” he gives her that intimidating Zabka grin and confidently replies “No.”
Then again, he wasn’t always playing the guy who likes to push around other bros: Zabka plays Audrey’s boyfriend, Jack, in “National Lampoon’s European Vacation.”
His sole purpose in that role was to fat shame her and feed her insecurities.
“Yeah. I like her thin. She eats too much,” he says as his gal pal feeds him french fries in the Griswolds’ backyard.
He was so committed to being the greatest jerk in the world that one has to respect his heartless hustle.
It’s been many years since we’ve seen Zabka’s magic. It’s my sincere wish for “Cobra Kai” to be another showcase for his abhorrent behavior. Without it, there’s just no reason to watch.