The Karate Kid (TV series) Season 1

The Karate Kid (TV series)

SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.

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101: My Brother's Keeper 1989 September 9
(First watched 2025-04-18) A lot less exposition than I was expecting. We're just dumped right into Daniel, Mr. Miyagi, and new character Taki traveling a South American river. Through their speech and the intro animation we get the gist that they're chasing some sort of little magic shrine stolen from Taki's village.

Not particularly bad looking for 1989 Saturday morning cartoon, but nothing special either. Too bad it's still stuck in SD.

Familiar voice actors for guest characters, like Cam Clarke and Jim Cummings pretty notably.

At the end of the episode the shrine is lost by having it float down the river. Fair to assume the rest of the series is just them dredging South American rivers, right?

Best line of the episode: "This not jury of my peers!" as Miyagi is dangling over alligators from a vine being chewed on by ants in a survival test of innocence from the bad guys.

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102: The Greatest Victory 1989 September 16
(First watched 2025-04-26) So... from the jungles of South America to Hong Kong. I'll excuse the magic artifact getting there somehow, as it IS a magic artifact. But how do our protagonists know the _general_ idea of where it's got to without knowing the _specific_ location? Does someone just contact them with a message like "Sure feels like there's a magic shrine around recently."

Also, who is funding these worldwide adventures? They seem to be traveling light, but still flying around the world can't be cheap. And these are the kind of bozos who can't afford to keep a run-down bonsai shop going. Do the people of Taki's village have a shrine rescue fund they're feeding off of?

As to this specific episode... Daniel is trying to be helpful and put Miyagi's lessons to use by finding nonviolent ways to fight the local gang, but he sure does come across like a know-it-all American who thinks he has all the easy answers for these people's entrenched issues.

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103: The Homecoming 1989 September 23
(First watched 2025-04-28) Last seen in Hong Kong, now arriving in New York... by way of fishing boat? That might seem a strange route, but I think the lesson to be taken is that these episodes are not meant to be taken strictly consecutively, just as chapters along their journey. Also, they mentioned working on the fishing boat as paying their way, so maybe there's no village fund after all. Once they get to Jersey they just end up bumming off Papa Tony. No love for Uncle Louie?

Having Daniel deal with an old bully of his named Brick was already giving me BTTF vibes. Then Miyagi goes all Tony Hawk using a simple wheeled cart to keep up with a kid on a skateboard.

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104: The Tomorrow Man 1989 September 30
(First watched 2025-04-29) Daniel clearly hasn't seen any shows with this premise before. He tries to avoid a fate... and causes it to happen. So the lesson he learns is... just try again to prevent the next fate! Bzzzzt.

So the big one everyone was worrying about was Miyagi getting hit by a truck. But like... once the situation happens, Miyagi sits there on the ground giving advice for like 10 seconds, then Daniel takes action to take control of the truck and steer it away. Just spend a fraction of that time getting the hell off the ground, Miyagi!

Miyagi is also flashing wads of cash all over the place in this episode, paying for the damage they've done or meals they've ruined, etc. They must've skipped over the episodes of them robbing banks to fund their adventures.

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105: All the World His Stage 1989 October 14
(First watched 2025-05-06) This one was ordered 6th on Fandango, so that's the order I watched it. Oh well.

Daniel shows some superhuman jumping abilities in this one. Using your skills to swing around objects once you've got ahold of them is one thing, but doing a ten foot standing jump to grab onto a ledge is a whole other level.

The director of the movie is sure quick to hire random people who have wandered onto the set as stunt coaches and replacement actors.

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106: The Paper Hero 1989 October 21
(First watched 2025-05-05) I seem to have watched this one out of order, before the previous episode. Oh well.

I liked how crazy this one got with so many different people trying to get the shrine. Team Miyagi, Uncle Jack, the smuggler, and the local robber.

Uncle Jack is a weird one. A guy who works at the CIA and has claimed to the family (or at least Daniel) to be a James Bond-like secret agent... which seems like the last thing a James Bond-like secret agent would be able to do. Anyway, turns out he's really a file clerk? But even as a file clerk he heard enough of the CIA's X-Files like shit and decided to take action on getting this shrine as his ticket to a promotion. Dude, I'm not sure there's an advancement path that goes from file clerk to secret agent super spy.

This show in general is very goofy and exaggerated, but it does have moments that seem like they could've fit in a more straightforward Karate Kid story. In this episode for instance, Daniel tearing up from cutting so many onions is an excuse for Miyagi to blindfold him as a lesson in relying on his other senses.

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107: Over the Rainbow 1989 October 28
(First watched 2025-05-07) How much time is between these episodes? Definitely more than a week. Somehow the shrine has ended up in the Himalayas and these villagers have adapted their way of life around it by the time our heroes show up.

While in water, the shrine is causing a fountain of youth affect. The protagonists note that there are no adults around, but I couldn't tell. The characters are drawn crudely enough I just assumed the "teen" versions were people in their 20s or 30s.

We very briefly see Mr. Miyagi turned younger, but unfortunately nothing very interesting comes of it before he gets trapped under a boulder.

The rescue of some kids from a big tree in a snowstorm feels like a redo of the typhoon from Karate Kid II, though this time Taki takes the bigger role in the rescue as Daniel has learned to admit she's more agile.

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108: The Return of the Shrine 1989 November 4
(First watched 2025-05-16) Just as suddenly as we were thrust into the shrine being missing at the start of the show, we are thrust into the shrine being returned here. But uhhh, they still manage to blow it. I guess it's a miracle the shrine didn't go missing long before Miyagi and Daniel showed up, the way it was apparently protected by a small family of children and elderly who have enemies.

The "good" Ishida whose name I can't remember was very easily fooled into thinking Taki was dancing with someone else, which I mostly note because that is almost exactly taken from the first movie.

So uhhh now that these rival families are friends and all, couldn't they send some more assistance to recover the shrine?

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109: Walkabout 1989 November 11
(First watched 2025-05-19) The most notable thing about this episode is hearing the Saturday morning great voices like Cam Clarke put on thiiick Australian accents.

So the shrine ended up in a volcano, and fell into the lava. A Lord of the Rings style ending wouldn't have been bad--magic shrine melts in the lava, problems over.

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110: East Meets West 1989 November 18
(First watched 2025-05-20) Again pointing to pretty big time gap, by the time the shrine is seen again, Russian scientists are zapping it with lasers to try and unlock its secrets.

Most everything went a little too smoothly this episode. A total outsider suddenly able to join in an international sports competition, the shrine-affected opponent actually being able to be talked down... maybe the most notable thing is that Mr. Miyagi's plan was much stupider than I usually expect from him even in animated form. Have Daniel skate over a fence and immediately use a hockey stick to slap a dog treat into the dog house of a guard dog to distract it? And, plan didn't work anyway. Which makes it sound like things didn't go as smoothly as I was saying at the beginning of the paragraph, but they all were just able to rush into the science lab anyway.

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111: The Hunt 1989 December 2
(First watched 2025-05-23) A bit of Moby Dick with a magic shrine.

Animation notes: At least once I noticed Mr. Miyagi's beard disconnecting from his chin as it moved along with his lips. Daniel and Sigrid's "dancing" looked totally ridiculous, but the 80s can share blame with the animation for that one.

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112: The Gray Ghosts 1989 December 9
(First watched 2025-05-24) Ronald P. Frump? Aww jeez.

The old folks in this episode really were old. Their picture of their youth was from the 1920s, so in this episode they must've all been in their 80s.

Thought I turned over to MacGyver for a minute. Mr. Miyagi converting a hot dog stand into a hot air balloon?

I think this is the first episode without the shrine actually in it? It just turns out to be a cheap copy. No supernatural events whatsoever.

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113: A Little World of His Own 1989 December 16
(First watched 2025-05-25) Another episode with a definite Back to the Future feel, down to the bully telling a girl it's going to be her honor to go to the dance with him.

This time the shrine proper is back, and it's used to Honey I Shrunk the regular cast, who really adapts to their new size very quickly. Daniel tries to be helpful to the bullied kid, but I think it was kind of a doomed plan. "Prove the kid can succeed by being himself, by doing what Daniel tells him to do."

In the end the shrine is lost again. Presumably Miyagi, Taki, and Daniel are doomed to hunt for it for eternity.

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