23 “Cobra Kai” Behind-The-Scenes Facts Straight From Creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, And Hayden Schlossberg
??There are MAJOR spoilers for Season 4.??
1.Before Cobra Kai became a Netflix original in 2020, it started out as a very, very successful YouTube Premium series.
Jon Hurwitz recalled, "When we conceived it, we conceived it as a Netflix show. Stranger Things had just come out. We knew that there was a desire for nostalgia. And we thought this would be a huge show, just because so many people already love The Karate Kid. And we could basically do elements of what they do on Stranger Things, but do it with characters that people are already emotionally invested in. So, we thought it was going to be a Netflix show. We pitched the show to YouTube first as almost like a practice pitch and they went all-in on the pitch. We hadn't written anything and they said 'Go make a season.' Everybody else wanted it, including Netflix, but no one was willing to go to those lengths. Our experience at YouTube was awesome. We had an amazing team of executives there who really believed in our vision and everyone there really supported the show. When we were on YouTube, we had events, we had premieres, and we had all these fun things going on. We got to see the numbers rising on the YouTube page. Many, many millions of people were watching the show back then and it was awesome. It felt big. But in our everyday lives, it wasn't the kind of thing where most people really knew much about the show or had seen the show."
2.Once the show made the jump from YouTube to Netflix, the series exploded overnight and suddenly became an even bigger hit than before.
3.The show's creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg were longtime friends whose shared love for The Karate Kid (especially the Cobra Kais) "stayed with [them]" throughout their friendship.
Jon told BuzzFeed, "Separately in our childhoods, we all fell in love with The Karate Kid, like many people all over the world did. That underdog story, all the individual characters, all the themes — it was something that stayed with us throughout the time when we became friends. Hayden and I were friends starting in high school, and we met Josh, our freshman year in college. And we didn't just talk about The Karate Kid, we talked about the Cobra Kais specifically. We're all comedy guys, you know, if you look at our careers, and there was just something hilarious to us about this teenage karate gang that's terrorizing a high school. So, while we appreciated the drama of The Karate Kid, we also appreciated the comedy behind the concept."
4.In fact, they originally wanted Cobra Kai to be a movie that focused on Johnny Lawrence as an adult and the person he became after his high school bullying days, but it never panned out.
Jon shared, "This was the early 2000s. We were talking about doing a movie, which would be called Cobra Kai and Johnny Lawrence would be the center character, and you get to see kind of what happens to a bully in their adult life. But it just never felt realistic to make. So fast forward a bunch of years later, you know, The Karate Kid remake came and went. And then here we were."
5.They were eventually inspired to continue with their Cobra Kai concept after seeing a billboard for Full House's reboot Fuller House.
"It was at the time when we saw a billboard for Fuller House on the Sunset Strip, and we're like, 'Okay, they're able to have Kimmy Gibbler on a billboard right now. What's old is new again.' You're able to take old properties and reimagine them," continued Jon. "And we thought to ourselves, 'What if we took The Karate Kid, and that Cobra Kai story that we had in our heads, and we blow it up to be a TV series...a streaming, serialized series where we could not only focus on Johnny but also Daniel and an array of new karate kids. It's sort of the excitement of taking those themes from the past, especially bullying is as relevant today, and to be able to tell sort of modern authentic stories."
6.Ralph Macchio and Billy Zabka, who play Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence, collaborate on their characters' storylines and are "more involved with their characters than a typical lead on a show."
Hayden Schlossberg shared, "These characters have become such a huge part of their lives. And we listen to them a lot when it comes to what their thoughts are if they're bumping on something. At the same time, they trust us. We kind of had this take on where they would be in their adult lives. And it's not necessarily what Ralph and Billy thought, but we explained to them why we think an audience is really going to love this and relate to it, and they went with it." Jon added, "When we first conceived the series, we sat down with each of them and talked through what our visions for their characters were, and it was them sort of shedding their own vision that's been in their heads for all these years about where these characters went and understanding why we made the choices that we did. But they were all in from the beginning."
7.When creating the series, they purposely blurred the lines between hero and villain because they wanted the audience to understand and root for both Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso and decide for themselves.
Josh Heald shared, "You naturally become team Johnny in that first episode. So when you encounter Daniel, he's coming from a good place. He's joking around, he has a healthier relationship with the past, because it's easier to do that when you won. He's really not taking into account that Johnny might feel more awkwardly about their high school situation. But the audience really gets into Johnny's head. They're a little bit feeling like, 'Oh my god, this guy with everything is kind of rubbing it in my face.' Even though we know that's not Daniel's intent. In Episode 2, we get into Daniel's life a little bit more, and you're getting to experience both sides of the coin. You're understanding that both of these guys have their own history and their own relationship with it. By the time you get to Episode 5 of the series, they're both becoming the villain for the other. So you can really start to appreciate both sides of that. And it continues all the way to the finale of that season with the kids. You understand, Miguel, you're on team Miguel. And now you understand Robby, so you're on team Robby. And hopefully, you're not quite sure who you're rooting for, because it's not black and white."
8.Because Josh, Jon, and Hayden were such huge fans of the franchise, the show's nostalgia factor "comes naturally" and there are plenty of Easter eggs throughout the episodes.
"We are such super fans of the original franchise that the nostalgia comes naturally. We kind of represent the nostalgia when we talk about these characters and what they've been through, and what their backstories and histories are with each other. We let that influence their headspace now and it trickles down to the next generation," said Josh.
9.A huge Easter egg from Season 3 was when Daniel visits Chozen at his dojo in Okinawa, there's a live-action version of the shrine that was originally seen in The Karate Kid animated series.
Jon recalled, "That was like a relevant relic in that animated series that we just placed there. We had a live-action version made and placed in Chozen's dojo."
10.Another great Easter egg is in Season 4, when the kids are doing research on Terry Silver and Dimitri mentions, "some toxic waste scandal in Borneo back in the '80s." And in The Karate Kid Part III Terry does, in fact, talk about dumping nuclear sludge.
Hayden shared, "And so you're getting the sense that some transaction he made back then in the '80s kind of backfired a little bit. So, whenever we're writing — we know the original movies so well — that is the backstory, and that is the past for these characters."
11.Captain Turner from Season 3 was deliberately written to have mannerisms and dialogue similar to Kreese so the audience could understand why Kreese became the person he is.
"The show is one giant Easter egg. So, you just naturally find mannerisms, costuming, dialogue, and set design that are just an avalanche of Karate Kid franchise deep cuts," Josh explained.
12.And while Cobra Kai is truly an ensemble series with a bunch of different cast members and storylines they make sure that, ultimately, everything relates back to karate.
Josh explained, "We've met and become invested in our teenage characters as they relate to this generation from the original franchise. We see them start to pick sides, we see allegiances and conflicts, as it relates to that decades-old karate rivalry. That spreads out like a web and it connects to every piece of the story, whether it's a love triangle, or something at school, or something going on with the family. There's always karate hanging in the background. And because of that, nothing ever feels disjointed. The dots do connect in a very interesting way."
13.Because the father-son-like relationship was a main theme in The Karate Kid, Josh, Jon, and Hayden have tried to recreate every iteration of that relationship in Cobra Kai.
Hayden explained, "One of the main themes of The Karate Kid is that father-son, surrogate father-surrogate son, mentor-student relationship — however you want to define it. In some ways, every kid needs that parent, and whether that's mother-daughter, whether that's father-son, you need that guidance to deal with the obstacles and the issues that happen as you grow up. Some people, unfortunately, don't have that. When you have a biological parent, there's just that natural connection from the very start and a kind of trust that begins, whereas when it comes to surrogate parents and surrogate child, or mentor to students there's a learning process there. There's a development that has to happen to actually earn that trust. And we just love The Karate Kid so much that that seeps into the show."
14.One of the biggest themes throughout Season 4 was "finding your own karate," which was why it was so important for Johnny and Daniel to learn each other's respective techniques.
Jon said, "Johnny and Daniel have these opposing viewpoints and while they do try to learn from each other, they are stubborn in their ways. Whereas a lot of the kids have more of an open mind to learn different things."
15.In real life, Billy is totally different from Johnny Lawrence and he really enjoys when the audience gets to see Johnny's softer, heartfelt moments.
16.Johnny and Robby's reconciliation at the end of Season 4 was a huge moment for the characters but also for everyone on set too.
Jon recalled, "Robby has had such a wild path along the way. The one thing that has been missing has been that relationship with his father. We got a little taste of it towards the end of Season 2, but it was fleeting. And for us to finally get to this place where they were able to have a heartfelt conversation... where Robby's had enough of all this drama, all the anger, all the blame, and see through his own experience how tough it can be trying to mentor somebody. It was a really special moment I could say for Tanner [Buchanan] but also for Billy. I remember on set that day, everyone was blown away by the emotion that everyone was feeling on set."
17.Hawk beating Robby in the All-Valley Tournament was a plot point they'd always planned for — Miguel had already become a "valley celebrity" after the last tournament and his priorities were extremely different this time around.
Josh explained, "We had already taken Miguel to the heights of 'valley celebrity' by seeing him win the All-Valley tournament one year before. So, the story we were telling with Miguel, was really one of internal conflict as he has a lot of emotions brewing, 'Am I doing this for the right reasons? Does my sensei have my best interest at heart?' There's this nagging question, at the back of his mind about his real dad, because he finds Johnny, not acting like a father at times, and is too much of a sensei. Once we kind of leaned into that, it blew everything wide open in terms of the person who we wanted to see and were most invested in reaching the finals."
18.While Johnny and Daniel finally seem to be on the same page after almost 40 years of feuding, they miiiiiiight not stay like that for much longer.
Josh explained, "As always there ebbs and flows with any rivalry. You turn up the heat, you turn down the heat, you throw them in a bucket of cold water at times. This season presented the best possible opportunity for them being willing and motivated to bury the hatchet. But as we see, throughout the season, there are these personal relationships and these deep-seated ideas about what is the best karate and what is best for these kids, and that begins to unravel that relationship. And the last episode, they're on the same page if only for this moment, but as the season ends and Cobra Kai is victorious, that presents a new challenge. Johnny is dealt the good and the bad of reconciling with Robby but then finds out that Miguel has run away and might be in danger. So, all of a sudden, he's walloped with this flood of personal conflict. For Daniel, it's a loss that goes to his very soul and to where this whole journey began. It makes him kind of turn a little bit more aggressive in this final moment, so it presents a new opportunity."
19.Jon's favorite Season 4 storyline was Tory finally asking for Amanda's help, and how it affected her rivalry with Sam.
He continued, "Tory and Amanda's relationship was sort of a surprising one. It added some new colors to the show and got us to dig deeper into her story. And over the course of the season seeing Sam who has been this 'good girl' in this position where she feels like she's in the twilight zone right now. It's her mom who is being supportive to this girl who bullied her, attacked her at school, broke into their house. So, she's having to wrap her head around that and ends up having to lose her own balance in certain ways and have a greater edge. It all culminates in this fight at the end of the season in the tournament. You've seen many, many sports movies where, in the end, these two men are engaged in battle kicking each other's butts, but to see two strong young women fighting against each other with the intensity and the history that these two characters have, I thought was really special.
20.Josh was a huge fan of watching Terry Silver and Kreese finally come toe to toe and battle for ultimate power over Cobra Kai.
He continued, "You can't really talk about Season 4 without talking about Terry Silver. And that relates to Sensei Kreese too. I think it's some of the best performances we're seeing from both of those guys this season. Who's capable of out-Kreesing Kreese? Only Terry Silver. And he doesn't see it coming. We're also just continuing storylines with Kreese where we're getting at his humanity a little bit more. We're seeing him continue to relate to Tory, to feel something for her that's protective, and to actually look at his past for the very first time with a little twinge of regret. He wants to do something different, as he doesn't give her the 'Sweep the leg' moment at the tournament. But what does he get? Once you let down your guard the wolves come in and he gets a taste of his own medicine. To watch those two guys Thomas [Ian Griffith] and Marty [Kove], go toe to toe all season, with the power dynamics changing — sometimes within an episode — was really just a pleasure to see play out."
21.And Hayden really loved the new feud between Kenny and Anthony because it brings Cobra Kai right back to its Karate Kid roots.
He explained, "As much as we wanted to make Season 4 feel as big as it's ever been, we wanted to stay true to the roots. We wanted to remind the audience that this is all about bullying at the end of the day and that not everybody is a karate expert. We laced in this new story that's connected to the other stories, but brings those old school Karate Kid vibes back. Now all of a sudden Daniel Russo, the underdog in the original movie has a son who is actually the bully to a kid who ends up joining Cobra Kai, which used to be the school for bullies. It just brings all those feels back and I'm glad that we did that."
22.Chozen Toguchi's return at the end of Season 4 indicates that Daniel is finally letting go of his "rigid" karate beliefs and will do whatever it takes to stop Terry Silver from expanding Cobra Kai.
Jon explains, "Daniel, who has been a little rigid in his beliefs, realizes, 'To fight the battles that we have ahead, I may need to find my own way of karate, keeping the principles of Miyagi-Do, but expanding and bringing in somebody like Chozen, who is also Miyagi-Do, but has a little bit more of that Johnny streak in him.' Daniel does not know about what sort of what went on in terms of the payoff at the tournament, but he knows that this is a bad guy, and not an honorable guy. He has to do whatever it takes to stop the expansion that Terry is talking about at the end of the tournament."
23.And finally, Hayden explained that Season 5 will answer the question of what would have happened if Cobra Kai had won the tournament in The Karate Kid Part III.
He continued, "Terry Silver always wanted to expand Cobra Kai, have multiple dojos, and have as much influence as possible. And the difference is, he's had, over 30 years of waiting and thinking about this. He's just that much wiser willing to do whatever it takes. So, we don't know what his game plan is going into Season 5 other than he mentions some 'old friends.' But he definitely is intending to fulfill his dreams and what those dreams are...they also could be somebody else's nightmares."