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Trivia / Cobra Kai

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  • Acting in the Dark: Jacob Bertrand had no idea about Eli's transformation into Hawk when he auditioned for the show. He was under the impression he was to be playing a simple bullying victim.
  • Actor-Inspired Element: In season 3, it was Mary Mouser's idea to forgo any attempt to style Sam's hair, reasoning that Sam in her traumatized state would be neglecting her appearance.
  • Actor-Shared Background: Xolo Mariduena is of Ecuadorian and Mexican-American descent, just like Miguel.
  • Approval of God:
    • Prior actors in the franchise Tamlyn Tomita (Kumiko from Part 2), Yuji Okumoto (Chozen from Part 2), Robyn Lively (Jessica from Part 3), Sean Kanan (Mike Barnes from Part 3), Thomas Ian Griffith (Terry Silver from Part 3), and Hilary Swank (Julie from Next) all praised the first season and said they'd like to be on the show at some point, with Swank in particular noting she'd love for Miyagi's two students to actually meet and maybe even have a showdown. Tomita and Okumoto ultimately reprised their roles in the third season, and Griffith in season 4, with Kanan and Lively joining in season 5.
    • The creators always hoped to bring Ali into the series at some point, and were pleasantly surprised when Elisabeth Shue approached them first.
    • Jean-Claude Van Damme, who is referenced numerous times in the show due to Johnny being a fan (Bloodsport also is shown in Season 4 as the movie the Cobra Kais watch in the Drive-In, with Jean Claude Van-Damme's character making an appearance) is a big fan of the show and has praised it on his social media accounts.
  • Ascended Fanon: Over the years, many Karate Kid fans joked that Daniel was the real villain of the first movie, while Johnny was mostly just defending himself and/or retaliating to Daniel's antics (for example, there's this take on Daniel's actions from J. Matthew Turner). In this series, it's shown that that's exactly how Johnny sees the events. The series doesn't cast either man as a simple villain, but shows that both are flawed and often blinded by their own assumptions, and who's the hero is often a matter of perspective.
  • Award Category Fraud: In 2021, the show was nominated for Best Comedy Series at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. While the series is a Dramedy and does contain a good amount of comedic moments, most fans, critics, and the creators themselves consider the show to skew more towards the drama end. Additionally, most viewers agree that Season 3 (the season that got the nomination) is easily the darkest of the show's seasons, particularly with the flashbacks to Kreese's combat experiences in Vietnam being a major storyline.
  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Ralph Macchio had been presented with many different pitches for a Karate Kid continuation over the years. None appealed to him until he learned of the concept for Cobra Kai.
  • Breakthrough Hit: The series proved to be this for YouTube Red, becoming its first show to outperform Netflix and Hulu. However, it wound up proving to be the service's only hit and the company decided to shift their business away from scripted content as a result. Starting in late August 2020, Cobra Kai is now streaming on Netflix and became even more popular.
  • California Doubling: Though the series is set in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, most of the filming was done in Atlanta, Georgia. This is pretty evident during scenes like Daniel's visit to Mr. Miyagi's grave, or during Sam and Tory's drinking contest at Moon's party, or everyone wearing long sleeves during the school fight (the latter two of which are scenes that are meant to take place in August). Autumn leaves are all over the ground, whereas Southern California effectively has only two seasons — "warm" and "very warm"; also, attentive Southern US viewers may notice that the pasta salad that Amanda offers Lucille in season 1 is from Publix, a Florida-based supermarket chain that has no locations further west than Alabama. Only a handful of scenes were filmed in Los Angeles, mostly distinctive landmarks and locations previously established in The Karate Kid.
  • The Cast Showoff: Thomas Ian Griffith is actually playing the piano in Season 4, and also holds black belts in Taekwondo and Kenpo karate.
  • Cast the Expert:
    • The actor who plays Xander Stone in Season 1 is a stunt actor and choreographer.
    • Owen Morgan, who plays Bert, is the only member of the original cast who holds a black belt in karate, earned in 2019.
    • One of Silver's senseis in Season 5 is played by former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley.
    • In one season-five scene, UFC fighter and karate stylist Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson appears in a line-up of Silver's various senseis, though he's absent from the rest of the series. Thompson fought his co-star Tyron Woodley twice for the UFC welterweight belt. He's fittingly given a scar and spikey hair to make him look more evil, since Thompson is famously one of the most wholesome UFC fighters in history.
  • Channel Hop: After the third season was ordered, YouTube decided to shift their business away from producing scripted series and announced they would not pick up any new seasons thereafter. This led to the creators taking the show to Netflix and the service added the series to its library in August 2020.
  • The Character Died with Him:
    • As Pat Morita passed away in 2005, Mr. Miyagi has also passed away in the series. Miyagi's gravestone says he died in 2011, six years after Morita, likely so that Daniel's daughter Sam could have at least some memories of him, and was born in 1925, seven years before Morita, so he could conceivably fight in the 442nd Regiment.
    • Rob Garrison passed away in 2019 due to cancer not long after Season 2 when his own character passed away in the show before him. The first episode of Season 3 is dedicated to his memory.
    • This also counts for Sato Toguchi and Yukie from the second film, their actors Danny Kamekona and Nobu McCarthy having died in 1996 and 2002 respectively. Both characters are mentioned to have died when Daniel visits Okinawa in season 3.
  • Character Outlives Actor: Mr. Miyagi lived until 2011, six years after Morita's death in 2005.
    • Also, Yukie, who was still alive to receive a letter from Miyagi the week he died, 9 years after his actress Nobu McCarthy's death.
  • The Danza: Nathaniel Oh plays a character named Nathaniel.
  • Dawson Casting:
    • At first, it was largely avoided with the main teenage characters - Xolo Maridueña was 16 when season 1 was filmed, and Miguel was maybe a year younger at most. However, as the events of the series moved slower than real time during production, the gaps between the characters and their actors began to grow. By Season 3, most of the actors were in their late teens and early twenties while their characters only aged one year In-Universe and it particularly shows with Maridueña, Gianni DeCenzo (Demetri), and Owen Morgan (Bert) having visibly aged several years.
    • The same occurred with Griffin Santopietro as Anthony. Both the actor and character were born one year apart, making him 10-11 years old in Season 1. However, by the time of Season 4, Anthony is only 11-12, while Santopietro is 14 and has clearly aged several years, creating a stark difference between how he appeared at the beginning of the show and how he appears now. It’s even more noticeable in the behind the scenes of Season 6, where Griffin who recently turned 18 is even taller than William Zabka, Ralph Macchio and Yuji Okumoto.
    • The age differences of legacy characters and their actors are carried forward, so Ralph Macchio and William Zabka are older than Daniel and Johnny by 5 years and 2 years, respectively.
    • Mary Mouser and Annalisa Cochrane were 21 when they played 16 year old Sam and Yasmine respectively in Season 1.
    • Peyton List was 20 when she played 17 year old Tory in Season 2.
    • Subverted very heavily with Terry Silver. Keep in mind, this man is a Vietnam war veteran around the same age (or possibly a few years younger) as Kreese, but Thomas Ian Griffith is actually four months younger than Ralph Macchio. For added measure, Nick Marini, who played young Silver in the 1968 flashbacks, was older than Thomas Ian Griffith was at the time of filming The Karate Kid III. And then Silver crosses paths with Chozen. Yuji Okumoto is three years older than both Ralph Macchio and Thomas Ian Griffith.
  • Deleted Scene: A few, all listed in the specific page.
  • Died During Production: Ed Asner passed away between the filming of the fourth and fifth seasons, ending any more plans the crew may have had for Sid.
  • Foiler Footage: To keep the extras on set from spoiling the ending of Season 4, an alternate finish to the girls' All Valley final was filmed in which Sam defeats Tory.
  • Follow the Leader: The success of this series led to more studios creating distant Sequel Series to beloved films that depict the original protagonists as the antagonists, such as Disney+ and their The Mighty Ducks series.
  • Half-Remembered Homage: Only those who’ve seen all of the films (including the 2010 remake) will see how Hawk is a homage to two minor characters in the franchise.
    • Angel, Julie’s pet hawk in The Next Karate Kid. His arc in season 4 also serves as a parallel to Angel’s role in the film.
    • Wu-Ping, the kid with the Mohawk from the 2010 remake who lost to Cheng in the semi-finals.
  • Hide Your Pregnancy: Courtney Henggeler gave birth to her second child in March 2019, which means that she was pregnant during Season 2's shooting. One scene shows a flashback of her pregnancy with Sam, but other scenes have the actress holding her coat in front of her and sitting or standing behind scenery.
  • In Memoriam:
  • Irony as She Is Cast: Owen Morgan, who plays the weakest Cobra Kai, Bert, is an actual black belt in karate (2019).
  • Killer App:
    • The show's first season gathered high acclaim within a few days of being released (to the point that a second season was confirmed before the first week was over) and made many people more accepting of the YouTube Red service overall.
    • When Netflix picked it up for further seasons starting with the third, it became one of the streaming service's heavy viewership hitters with such good company as House of Cards (US) and Stranger Things.
  • Meme Acknowledgement: The third season opener has the LaRussos attend a PTA meeting dealing with the fallout from the brawl from the Second Season. Daniel tries to defend the practice of karate by stating it helped him deal with getting bullied when he was in school. One of the parents dismiss this by saying "I heard you were the real bully!"
  • No Export for You: While the show was a YouTube Red exclusive, it remained inaccessible (outside of a few free episodes) to a significant chunk of the world who couldn't get YouTube Red, which included a considerable swathe of Asia, East Europe, Africa and South America. Its transition to Netflix made the show available worldwide.
  • Orphaned Reference: During the final episode of Season 3 when Sam and Miguel are trying to get Miyagi-do and Eagle Fang to join forces, Chris and Mitch get into an argument about WWE alliances. This was supposed to set up a scene that was deleted where the two of them use a wrestling tag team move to take down Rickenberger during the house brawl.
  • The Other Darrin: The Latin American Spanish dub is a rather egregious case, as unlike the previous films and the 2010 remake, which where dubbed either in Mexico or Argentina, the series was dubbed in Colombia. The egregious part come with the fact that many of the flashbacks scenes involving Daniel, Mr. Miyagi, Johnny or any character from the films used archive recordings from both Mexican and Argentinian dubs, which obviously clash with the accents of the Colombian voice actors. To be partially fair with this dub, this would have been necessary anyway, as Daniel's original dub voice actor in the Mexican dubs, Luis Alfonso Mendoza, was murdered at 2020.
    • The series averts this as they were able to bring almost the entire original cast back to reprise their roles. However, Mrs. Mills (Ali's mother) is played by Deborah May instead of Shannon Wilcox in her cameo in Season 3.
  • Playing Against Type: Prior to this series, Peyton List had mostly played nice girls from fairly well-off socio-economic backgrounds, absolutely none of which applies to Tory.
  • Produced by Cast Member: Ralph Macchio and William Zabka are executive producers.
  • Promoted Fangirl: Carrie Underwood got a cameo in season 4 because she's a fan of the show.
  • Real-Life Relative:
  • The Red Stapler: Sales for Coors Banquet have increased thanks to the beer being featured as Johnny's signature drink on the show.
  • Refitted for Sequel: The Deleted Scene from The Karate Kid where Johnny pranks Daniel by putting a pie in his seat in the cafeteria and Daniel wipes the mess on Johnny's shirt in retaliation is used in this series as a flashback.
  • Renewed Before Premiere: The show was renewed for a fifth season ahead of the fourth season premiere.
  • Role Reprise:
    • After 34 years, William Zabka and Ralph Macchio take on the roles that made them stars (Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso, respectively), becoming the show's main protagonists. Also returning is Randee Heller as Daniel LaRusso's mother and Martin Kove as John Kreese, the latter of which becomes a series' main starting in Season 2.
    • Johnny's original Cobra Kai gang (Bobby Brown, Tommy, Jimmy; minus Dutch, due to Chad McQueen's racing commitments) get a single episode to reunite in the second season. Bobby later reappears in Season 3 as a moral support for a dejected Johnny.
    • Season 3 sees the return of Kumiko and Chozen Toguchi, once again portrayed by Tamlyn Tomita and Yuji Okumoto, the latter of which is set to play an even bigger role in Season 5. Even Traci Toguchi, who plays the girl Daniel saved during the second film's hurricane, returns for a brief scene. Elisabeth Shue also appears as Ali Mills for two episodes at the end.
    • Season 4 sees the return of Thomas Ian Griffith as Terry Silver (after 14 years retired from acting), who automatically gets the main star billing.
    • Season 5 sees the return of Sean Kanan as Mike Barnes and Robyn Lively as Jessica Andrews.
    • In the Japanese dub, Takeshi Kusao reprises his role as Daniel LaRusso from the home video dubs from the first and third films. Also, Eiji Hanawa, Tōru Ōkawa and Rintaro Nishi reprise their roles as Johnny Lawrence, Terry Silver and John Kreese respectively from the same format as well.
    • The Brazilian Portuguese dub brings back Mário Jorge Andrade as Johnny, Marisa Leal as Ali (and Ilka Pinheiro as her mother), Miriam Ficher as Kumiko and Marco Antônio Costa as Bobby Brown. Also, all the scenes from previous films use recordings from the classic dubs.
  • Romance on the Set:
    • Xolo Maridueña (Miguel) briefly dated Hannah Kepple (Moon) during production of season 2.
    • As of 2022, Jacob Bertrand (Eli/Hawk) and Peyton List (Tory) are officially confirmed to be dating, with Jacob stating that it’s been going on for a while.
  • Schedule Slip: Season 3 was initially slated for a 2020 release, but was pushed back to January 1, 2021 for unspecified reasons (more than likely due to the sudden switch to Netflix).
  • Separated-at-Birth Casting:
    • Mary Mouser bears a striking resemblance to her on-screen mom, Courtney Henggeler.
    • After hitting puberty before Season 4, Griffin Santopietro (who plays Daniel’s son Anthony), has actually started looking a lot like how Ralph Macchio used to look like in the 80s.
    • Akihiro Kitamura (young Sato) is very believable as a younger version of Danny Kamekona, both by looks and by voice.
    • Barrett Carnahan definitely looks like he could be the younger version of Martin Kove depicted in flashbacks in Season 3.
  • Sequel Gap: Discounting the 2010 remake which has no ties to the original canon, the last film in the series was released in 1994, and the last film featuring Daniel LaRusso and the Cobra Kai dojo storyline was released in 1989. This series is set and premiered in 2018, twenty-four and twenty-nine years later respectively.
  • Sequel in Another Medium: A streaming series that is the sequel to a film franchise.
  • Serendipity Writes the Plot: The big fight in the final episode of Season 3 was supposed to take place in the rain at the Miyagi-Do dojo, but scheduling conflicts and weather forced its move to the LaRusso house. The creators of the show acknowledged that this made the fight Darker and Edgier.note 
    Hayden Schlossberg: Now it's a home invasion. It begs the question with the police and all of that. I would love to see how that shapes up next season.
  • Spoiled by the Cast List: It looks like Kreese is Put on a Prison Bus at the end of Season 4 and is absent for the first half of Season 5. But Martin Kove still has an And Starring credit, indicating that he's not out of the story yet.
  • Those Two Actors: Former Disney Channel stars Jacob Bertrand (Eli/Hawk) and Peyton List (Tory) co-starred in The Swap 2 years before they reunited on Cobra Kai.
  • Throw It In!:
    • Mary Mouser, in a YouTube video, revealed that she was talking about the "s'mores" scene and her boyfriend said making s'mores with a peanut butter cup was "Kinda genius. It's a Sa'more!" She told this to the directors and they loved it enough to use the line.
    • Jacob Bertrand revealed that when Hawk beat up Brucks, spitting on an off-screen Brucks was something Bertrand came up with rather than being part of the script. The creators were ecstatic to see this ad-libbed scene that they were more than happy to keep it in.
  • Troubled Production: Production on Season 6 was paused just before the cast and crew were to begin filming in May 2023 because of the 2023 WGA Strike.
  • Underage Casting: Thomas Ian Griffith as Terry Silver continues to be this. Silver is meant to be roughly the same age as Kreese, yet Griffith is four months younger than Ralph Macchio (and three years younger than Yuji Okumoto) and thus continues to portray a character that is older than Macchio and Okumoto's.
    • Kim Da-Un is a young child in flashbacks in 1980, making her at least in her mid to late forties in the present. She's played by Alicia Hannah-Kim who was born in 1987.
  • Vindicated by Reruns: Though the show had a sizable fanbase after it debuted on YouTube Red, it was bottlenecked by the platform's limited subscriber base (which Google never released figures for, but may have been as few as 1.5 million subscribers). When the show debuted to a much larger audience on Netflix in 2020 it became one of the most streamed shows of the year, many of whom were likely unaware it was a two-year-old show imported from another service.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Chad McQueen was supposed to reprise his role of Dutch in the same episode as the other original Cobra Kais, but his commitments to his racing company prevented this.
    • There were plans for Rob Garrison to return as Tommy in season three (presumably in flashback or dream sequences given Tommy's onscreen death), but sadly he passed away before production.
    • Had Elisabeth Shue not agreed to return in season three, it would have been revealed that the Facebook message Johnny received from Ali was actually sent by her husband.
  • Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The tease of Ali's return at the end of Season 2 was made before they actually talked to Elisabeth Shue and found she was willing to return to the role.
  • Written by Cast Member: Of a sort. The showrunners allowed the actors a lot of input into how their characters had changed since the events of the original films, along with fleshing out their backstories.
    • Most of Johnny's backstory (having an abusive home life and seeing Kreese as a father figure) was created by William Zabka himself during shooting of the first film as a way to get a better feel for the character. This backstory was integrated with the series and is now officially canon.
    • Martin Kove, similarly, long ago had developed the idea that Kreese was a Shell-Shocked Veteran whose wartime experiences traumatized him into cruelty. This was adopted in the show's third season, which focuses heavily on Kreese's Start of Darkness.
    • Tamlyn Tomita worked with the creators to offer a more accurate depiction of Okinawa than Part 2, helping to translate script passages into Okinawan dialect and choreographing Kumiko's dance scene.
    • Yuji Okumoto had a long phone conversation with Josh Heald soon after he was cast, where he offered suggestions about Chozen's Character Development since Part 2. He was surprised and flattered at how many of his ideas made it into the show.
  • You Look Familiar: Hyan-Woo's actor Jake Huang previously played Cobra Kai student Jake in Season 4.

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