Pat Morita, RIP

[blawless]

Although he succumbed--it's weird, but every time I say that, I want to say succame-- on Friday, I came across this only today, and it looks like it hasn't been mentioned in these parts. Yes, he was the second Arnold on Happy Days. And he was the inscrutable but goodhearted Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies. But most importantly, he was the star of the classic Mr. T and Tina. And while he did some other things too, perhaps an infomercial, in the darkest days of the Ford and/or Carter administations, his Mr. T made him a lone voice of hope and sanity.



Fun facts:
> The former location of the Mr. T and Tina set is now occupied by a busy full-service financial center, where patrons can cash checks and wire money anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day.

> After two must-see guest appearances on The Love Boat, Susan Blanchard, who played Tina on the show, decided to settle down. She now lives in Passaic, NJ, where she is a homemaker and on the weekends teaches scrapbooking and other dark arts to troubled teens.

[clinthopson]

Sayonara, Pat.

[patricia]

My two girls loved all the Karate Kid films and knew the dialogue and plots of all of them. "Mr. Miagi" was a guru of sorts for them.

RIP Pat Morita.

[Gentle Giant]

I liked him best on Happy Days. He seemed like a good guy. RIP

Here's his IMDB bio:

Abundantly busy, and much loved Asian-American actor who became an on-screen hero to millions of adults and kids alike as the wise and wonderful "Mr. Miyagi" in The Karate Kid (1984). Sparkling Morita was back again dishing out Eastern philosophy & martial arts lessons for The Karate Kid, Part II (1986) and The Karate Kid, Part III (1989) and even for The Next Karate Kid (1994).

However, putting all that karate aside, the diminutive Morita actually first started out as a stand up comedian known as "The Hip Nip" in nightclubs and bars, and made his first onscreen appearance in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). He quickly adapted to the screen and showed up in small parts comedies including alongside Don Knotts in The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), and supporting John Astin in Evil Roy Slade (1972) (TV), plus he was popular on TV Shows including "Sanford and Son" (1972) and "M*A*S*H" (1972).

Morita got his next break playing the often perplexed restaurant owner "Arnold" in two stints on the hugely popular "Happy Days" (1974) between 1975-76 and again between 1982-83. Morita was quite in demand on the small screen and also scored the lead in his own cop show "Ohara" (1987), plus he has guest-starred on other high profile TV shows including "Magnum, P.I." (1980), "Murder, She Wrote" (1984), "Baywatch" (1989) & "The Hughleys" (1998).

Although, most often used as a minor character actor, he remained consistently busy and additionally lent his vocal talents to animated features such as Mulan (1998), however his real strengths lie in portraying slighty oddball or unusual characters in offbeat films. He died of natural causes at his home in Las Vegas in November 2005, at the age of 73.

[Valerie]

i'll bet that most folks don't know that Pat Morita was a big jazz fan. i used to see him at Donte's, a long-ago jazz club in north hollywood in the 70's. he always seemed like a very sweet, nice man. always sat at the bar and always seemed like he was really enjoying himself. if i remember correctly, he was friends with some of the musicians as well. i had heard fairly recently that his health was not good and i am sorry that he is gone from our midst.

my condolences to his family and friends.

Valerie Bishop

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Valerie

i'll bet that most folks don't know that Pat Morita was a big jazz fan. i used to see him at Donte's, a long-ago jazz club in north hollywood in the 70's. he always seemed like a very sweet, nice man. always sat at the bar and always seemed like he was really enjoying himself. if i remember correctly, he was friends with some of the musicians as well. i had heard fairly recently that his health was not good and i am sorry that he is gone from our midst.

my condolences to his family and friends.

Valerie Bishop

Somehow, Valerie, it doesn't surprise me that Morita was a jazz fan. He seemed to have the heart and the humour that characterizes that higher life form.

[Valerie]

Originally Posted by patricia

Somehow, Valerie, it doesn't surprise me that Morita was a jazz fan. He seemed to have the heart and the humour that characterizes that higher life form.

i wholeheartedly agree with you, patricia (and not for the first time)!

best,

valerie

[bruce massey]

I'm sure he was a nice guy but I hated the Miyagi shit.

Typical Hollywood! They go out and find the one Oriental actor who has NO martial arts experience or the skill to make it look decent.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by bruce massey

I'm sure he was a nice guy but I hated the Miyagi shit.

Typical Hollywood! They go out and find the one Oriental actor who has NO martial arts experience or the skill to make it look decent.

Bruce, that may be true, but nevertheless, the "Karate Kid" stories were very effective for my kids.
Morita was quite open about his lack of martial arts skills, whenever he was interviewed, which was often.
There are more than plenty of martial arts films for those who enjoy them, using real martial arts experts, but the "Karate Kid" ones weren't really about karate. They were more coming of age stories.
I actually agree that if these were about marial arts, primarily, the actor demonstrating the skills involved should have been one of the gang of Asian actors who specialize in the skills.
But, they weren't.
My girls were not so much interested in the martial arts part as they were with the relationship between Morita's character and "Daniel".
He was, IMO, superb in his role as a mentor.
The proof of how much Erin and Robin liked the films is that they still watch them from time to time, even though they were small children when they first viewed them and both are grown now.

[jesus marion joseph]

Originally Posted by bruce massey

I'm sure he was a nice guy but I hated the Miyagi shit.

Typical Hollywood! They go out and find the one Oriental actor who has NO martial arts experience or the skill to make it look decent.

No skills? "Wax on, wax off" motherfucker!

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by bruce massey

Typical Hollywood! They go out and find the one Oriental actor who has NO martial arts experience or the skill to make it look decent.

I'm sure he wasn't much of a short order cook either, but I don't hear you blasting Gary Marshall for casting him as Arnold. Hypocrite! Hi-yaa!

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by bruce massey

I'm sure he was a nice guy but I hated the Miyagi shit.

Typical Hollywood! They go out and find the one Oriental actor who has NO martial arts experience or the skill to make it look decent.

Who were you hoping for, David Carradine?

[Mike Schwartz]

I first remember him doing standup on the Johnny Carson show...The "Hip_Nip" Pat Morita.

I don't think that name would fly today;-)

I'm not surprised a bit by the jazz fan mention...in that act he was always referring to 'cats' and 'chicks' as he told his jokes and stories, and got some big time laughs from the musicians in the band.

He also had a ongoing small part in the M.A.S.H. series; played a Korean/American officer/MD

I was teaching and running my martial arts studio when the Karate Kid movies hit. They were always good for extra enrolement for a short time, but more importantly, they conveyed a very good ethic which filtered to the youngsters that made them very worthwhile and enjoyable from my perspective, despite the many hollywood shortcomings. The master who filled in for Miyagi was a fantastic Katate practioner...the name escapes me at the moment.

RIP

[bruce massey]

Good God, the OUTRAGE!

Miss Patricia, you couldn't be more wrong. It WAS about the martial arts. We had a huge influx of new students because of this movie. The lessons were outstanding but the technique was fuckin horrid! And since we only got a portion of the kids who were influenced by the movie, you can bet yer ass that a bunch of young knuckleheads were gettin their asses kicked trying to fight like Miyagi!

Monte- I never saw him flip a burger or I would give him shit for that too!

Dolan-Carradine....no...I'm old school..how about Burt Lancaster or Anthony Quinn with their eyes taped back!

[patricia]

Originally Posted by bruce massey

Good God, the OUTRAGE!

Miss Patricia, you couldn't be more wrong. It WAS about the martial arts. We had a huge influx of new students because of this movie. The lessons were outstanding but the technique was fuckin horrid! And since we only got a portion of the kids who were influenced by the movie, you can bet yer ass that a bunch of young knuckleheads were gettin their asses kicked trying to fight like Miyagi!

Yes, it was based on karate bringing Mr Miyagi and Daniel together, but the bigger picture, at least from my girls' perspective was the mentoring of Daniel by Mr Miyagi.
Perhaps boys saw something different in the films than my girls and I did.
To us, it was about respect and on that count it succeeded admirably, IMO.
It had a very positive message and that was why it was a good film for young kids to see.
Sorry about all the dofusses that ended up getting their collective buttocks kicked.

[GoodSpeak]

So long, Pat.



I'll always remember him as Captain Sam Pak in M*A*S*H.






Rest in Peace.

[John P. Cooper]

Originally Posted by bruce massey

I'm sure he was a nice guy but I hated the Miyagi shit.

Typical Hollywood! They go out and find the one Oriental actor who has NO martial arts experience or the skill to make it look decent.

Pat Morita had a very personable screen presence, so it was always nice to see him.

OTOH - they could have picked James Hong for the Miyagi role.

[Ron Thorne]

Though I never knew Pat Morita, he always felt cool to me, somehow. In addition to his acting, I saw him on talk shows such as The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, among others. Learning that he was a jazz fan comes as absolutely no surprise.

R.I.P., Pat Morita~

[bruce massey]

Originally Posted by patricia

Yes, it was based on karate bringing Mr Miyagi and Daniel together, but the bigger picture, at least from my girls' perspective was the mentoring of Daniel by Mr Miyagi.
Perhaps boys saw something different in the films than my girls and I did.
To us, it was about respect and on that count it succeeded admirably, IMO.
It had a very positive message and that was why it was a good film for young kids to see.
Sorry about all the dofusses that ended up getting their collective buttocks kicked.

Perhaps boys saw something different?

Boys see everything different. This movie had no tits, so it was about fighting! That's what boys see!

Leave it to a bunch of dopey girls to totally misinterpret a karate movie!

[patricia]

Originally Posted by bruce massey

Perhaps boys saw something different?

Boys see everything different. This movie had no tits, so it was about fighting! That's what boys see!

Leave it to a bunch of dopey girls to totally misinterpret a karate movie!

I can't disagree with you Bruce. I have three brothers and I wish I had a dollar for every catastrophe that resulted from one of them musing, "I wonder what would happen if.............?" They were always doing damn fool stunts. One of my brothers almost de-railed a freight train when he and his buddies saw a railroad tie on the ground and carried it over to the tracks and laid it across them. Luckily, it was spotted, the train stopped and my brothers and his friends were taken onto the train and read the riot act.
And, of course, the flaming sack of dogshit prank was thought up by boys. The "let's play paratrouper by jumping off the garage roof, using a bedsheet for a parachute" was obviously a boy thing. And who can forget the "lets go to the top of this hill and put Dougie into this discarded grocery cart and see if he'll roll out onto the freeway" prank? And the list goes on. I'm amazed that boys live to grow up.