October 2, 2014 - 6:35pm by Adam Dravian
I had intended to write a review for the third movie in the "Ninja Trilogy" this week, but I ended up getting called to work a job out of town. So that'll have to wait 'til next week.
This week you're getting a video that my friend just showed me, which seems as if it were custom made for me to feature on this site. I give to you, "The Karate Rap."
This masterpiece was made by "Sensei" David Seeger and his wife, Holly Whitestock Seeger in '86, in an apparent attempt to cash in with a novelty song combining two things that were trending at the time: karate and rap. Interest in karate had exploded in the mid-'80s thanks to the success of The Karate Kid, and rap was just beginning to creep into the mainstream with a few rap artists like Run-D.M.C. getting a bit of MTV airplay.
The couple claim on their website that MTV rejected their video at the time because the network wasn't interested in playing rap. While it's true that MTV wouldn't fully embrace rap until the late '80s, I think the real reason they never played this video is because they felt it was too rad for viewers to handle. They knew that if they were to broadcast this gem, every single viewer would flip out the nearest window, skateboard over to a karate dojo, and begin their ascent to the higher life-form that is the karate master. A life-form that never, EVER, has to say sorry.
So this video was kept hidden from the world until 2012, when one of the couple's sons decided to upload it to YouTube. Some have criticized the video as being just too chock-full of '80s cheese to be true, and that it must be a more modern creation trying to pass itself off as a genuine product of the '80s, but all you have to do is look at more current photos of David and Holly to see that they've obviously aged since this video was made.
This is the real deal, and it's spectacular.