-You pulled out -- you pulled out the Crane Kick.
-I had to play. Listen, man. You know, you set me up
against an Avenger. [ Laughter ]
I got one quasi-super power. I had to pull it out of the hat.
-Speaking of pulling it out, the headband.
Wait, no. -There we go.
♪♪♪♪
-Wait, no, stop. Stop.
No, I meant by pulling it out of your back pocket.
-Yeah, yeah, no, I got it. -Your back pocket, okay, yeah.
-That's what everyone was thinking.
[ Laughter ] Yeah.
-That's what I meant, I swear.
[ Scattered cheering ]
[ Laughter ]
Oh, man. Yeah.
Can't plan those takes. What are you gonna do?
Is that the original headband?
-It is the real deal, yeah, from 1980 --
Yes, I brought it out with me.
From 1983, I untied this,
and moths came out of it.
[ Laughter ]
-I figured -- -Where was it?
Where did you have it? -It's in my house.
It's on the trophy from the movie.
The All-Valley karate trophy. -Oh!
-It's in my -- you know, in my house.
And I also have the '47 Ford, the wax-on, wax-off car.
-You do?
-Yeah, I just steal stuff from everything I do.
[ Laughter ] Just give me.
-How great is -- Dude, thank you so much...
-But it's great, so this is -- -...for bringing that
and for doing that. -Hey, listen,
it's "The Tonight Show," man.
When am I not gonna do this?
[ Cheers and applause ] It's the only time to do it.
-You're the best, man. You are the coolest,
will always remain the coolest.
When did you -- when did you realize "The Karate Kid"
was going to be a hit? -Well --
-When you were making it, did you go,
"Oh, this is working." -No, not necessarily
when we were making it. I mean, I knew --
I felt it -- my chemistry with Pat Morita
was -- was very special from the get-go.
That was -- there was just an ease
and a sort of soulful magic there that I felt.
But as far as the movie, it was -- I saw the movie,
and it -- like a month before it came out.
at the I think Coronet, Baronet Theatre, Upper West side --
Upper East side, and it was an out-of-body experience.
And then when I came out of the theater watching,
you know, a crowd seeing it for the first time,
on the street, everyone was doing the Crane Kick.
I mean, kids were doing it, grandparents were doing it.
[ Laughter ] And the producer,
the late, great Jerry Weintraub who passed away recently said,
[ As Weintraub ] "We're going to be making a couple of these."
[ Laughter ]
'Cause, you know, it was -- It was like singing
the -- you know, you leave a Broadway musical
singing the song, you know you have a hit.
-I mean, everyone did it.
-Who knew in 2018, we'd be having these conversations.
-I know. -It's unbelievable.
-But, I mean -- when you caught the fly with the --
[ Laughter ]
I mean, I got -- This is, what, 1983?
-1983, we shot it. Yeah, yeah. -Was it CGI?
-No, I wish. Now you'd just go like this,
and they'd add the fly in.
No, this story -- It's a great story.
We went through, like, five incarnations
of how to figure out how to catch this fly.
First they had like a big metal pipe frame,
maybe a four-foot frame with a piece of fishing line
and a plastic fly and there was two crew guys
off-camera going like this --
[ Laughter ] And I was going like that.
It just looked hideous. It looked hideous.
And the next thing is they were catching flies.
Crew guys were catching flies,
and they were taking thin monofilament
and fishing line and literally
lassoing these flies, like, putting them on a leash.
[ Audience groans ] -Yeah.
-And so they said, "Just find the thing
and go down to the fly."
Well, I was decapitating, like, heads going here --
[ Audience groans ]
Like, you know, it was just -- sorry for those
who care for the flies.
-Yeah. -But I will say this,
there was one fly that we had on this leash
for about a minute and a half.
And we would show -- and they're getting ready
for the lights and let's go and rolling sounds,
speaking to how long it takes before you actually shoot.
-Of course. -And this fly was like --
[ Laughter ]
That was the end of that. -And then he was like,
"Just go for it, man." -Just go for it.
Just hang with it. We wound up --
the funniest one, my favorite, was when they said,
"Okay, what we're going to is going to put the fly on a --
on a piece of a fishing line. -Okay.
-And you'll have it there and then let it go
and just act in reverse and we'll play it forwards.
[ Laughter ] So -- which went like this.
It was like --
[ Laughter ] -That's good.
-That never made it in the movie.
-That's good acting.
I mean, it's an iconic scene, I mean, come on, dude.
-Oh, that's it. Yeah, I got it, I got it.
-There he is, right there. You catch him --
[ Cheers and applause ]
-With the headband. -Yeah, yeah.
-Everyone had to have asked you to redo
"The Karate Kid" or reboot it or do it.
Why now? Why did you decide to do this?
I'm so excited about this. -That's great.
It's -- we're very excited about the show.
I mean, I -- for 30 years, we all said, "No."
I certainly -- I did.
I was one of the last guys to come to the party.
I always felt that maintaining --
keeping the legacy as it was is probably the best thing,
as opposed to going back to the well and falling short.
These three great creators -- guys came to me,
along with William Zabka and everyone else --
-William Zabka's back! -Yeah, Zabka's back.
Johnny Lawrence. -Johnny Lawrence is back!
-Claiming -- claiming it was an illegal Crane Kick,
but we know better.
[ Laughter ]
-Are you kidding me?! -No, but anyway...
-What do you -- I mean, do you end up --
because you end up managing --
running dojos, right, or competing?
-Well, he reopens the Cobra Kai dojo.
-Oh, no. -Which is -- for Daniel Larusso,
it's Kryptonite to Superman.
That's not going to happen. -No, that can't happen.
-And, so, therein lies the rivalry.
And what's so -- part of the humor of the show
is the fact that these guys in their 50s will not let it go.
[ Laughter ]
And then there's also -- you know,
it also is a continuation in the sense
that it has, you know, great heart,
give you some goose pumps, kick-ass action scenes,
great young actors, and just a great buzz to this,
such great anticipation.
-Come on you're the best. "Cobra Kai."
[ Cheers and applause ] It's May 2nd. YouTube Red.
I want to show a clip.
Here's Ralph Macchio in the new series "Cobra Kai."
Take a look. -Come here.
Louie, get over here. I want you to meet somebody.
-No, no. I got to go. -No, no, no.
This is Johnny Lawrence.
He and I go way back, right, buddy?
This guy was the toughest dude in my high school.
When I first moved here from Jersey,
he and I, we got into it a little bit.
This guy really had it in for me.
-Yeah, well, you did move in on my girl.
-Well, she actually wasn't
really your girl anymore, was she?
I mean -- Ah, all right.
It's all water under the bridge.
-Wait, is this the karate guy? The guy from the tournament?
-Oh, this is the guy whose ass you kicked?
-Uh, Listen, it was a really close match,
but if you want to get technical,
I kicked his face.
[ Laughter ]
I'm just bustin' your chops.
-It was an illegal kick.
-Ooh!
[ Audience oohs ]
Come on. Ralph Macchio, everybody!
"Cobra Kai" is available on YouTube Red.