A couple of questions for Bob White.

[Tames D]

Were you a technical advisor for the Karate Kid movies? I know that you worked in front of the camera but I was wondering if you had any involvement behind the camera regarding the fight scenes?

How did you become part of this production, were you approached by the producers?

I also noticed other familar Kenpo faces in the background like Steve Sanders Muhammad.

The reason I ask here and not through private e-mail is I thought others might be interested in hearing your response.

 

[Bob White]

We actually had about 50 kids involved in the movie from our school. Jerry Fisher invited us to come up and participate in a tournament that was being held for the movie at Cal State Northridge. The kids were fighting for television sets instead of trophies. I believe it went on for 2 or 3 days in a row. I know that some of our more talented competitors had 3 or 4 TV`s. During the filming, Pat Johnson, a black belt from Chuck Norris`s school came up to me and asked me to be a referee in the movie. Pat Johnson was the center referee during the finals. There are actually many well know So. Ca. kenpo black belts as well as black belts from our area from other styles. Columbia Pictures had a promotional idea to jump start the movie`s success. They wanted to promote the movie from within the karate community before the general public. With Jerry Fisher co-ordinating this, the country was divided into various regions. Ron Chap'el, Frank Trejo, David Torres, Steve Fisher, and myself were hired to go to karate tournaments across the country and promote the movie. We all made more money doing this than we were paid to act in the movie.
Thanks for bringing back some fond memories.
Respectfully,
Bob White

 

[Tames D]

Thanks for the reply. My oldest son was flipping the channels the other night and the original Karate Kid was just starting and I hadn't seen it in years. So he got to see it for the first time and loved it.

 

[Doc]

We actually had about 50 kids involved in the movie from our school. Jerry Fisher invited us to come up and participate in a tournament that was being held for the movie at Cal State Northridge. The kids were fighting for television sets instead of trophies. I believe it went on for 2 or 3 days in a row. I know that some of our more talented competitors had 3 or 4 TV`s. During the filming, Pat Johnson, a black belt from Chuck Norris`s school came up to me and asked me to be a referee in the movie. Pat Johnson was the center referee during the finals. There are actually many well know So. Ca. kenpo black belts as well as black belts from our area from other styles. Columbia Pictures had a promotional idea to jump start the movie`s success. They wanted to promote the movie from within the karate community before the general public. With Jerry Fisher co-ordinating this, the country was divided into various regions. Ron Chap'el, Frank Trejo, David Torres, Steve Fisher, and myself were hired to go to karate tournaments across the country and promote the movie. We all made more money doing this than we were paid to act in the movie.
Thanks for bringing back some fond memories.
Respectfully,
Bob White

Additionally, with Jerry Fisher as coordinator, I along with my armed law enforcement black belts were hired to act as set security, and are quite visible wearing "security" T-shirts during the film. People like Carl Totton were also on the security team with us. I have a great picture of the group somewhere. Mr. White is correct, in that they essentially threw three tournaments in a row on three separate days so they would have enough tournement footage for editing, and his people cleaned up winning every tournament even though they were back-to-back-to-back. If you look closely, you might even see a much smaller, (and hairier), Ron Chapél in the tournament scenes. Those were the days.