At the end of Cobra Kai’s run, Daniel LaRusso looks at Robby Keene and says something quietly that stops the action. He tells the kid that no one has been further down and no one has come back up faster. When you watch it, you get the sense that the show has finally said out loud what it had been building up to for six seasons. Robby wasn’t the most exciting fighter. His character wasn’t the most talked about. But he might have been the most honest. When Robert Swayze Keene first comes into the series, he is a teenager…
Author: Sierra Foster
Sierra Foster
Born in Kansas City, Sierra Foster writes about politics and serves as Senior Editor at kbsd6.com. She was raised paying attention to this city, not just living in it. Sierra has a strong, deep connection to Kansas City, from the neighborhoods east of Troost to the discussions that take place in the city hall halls. Sierra, who is presently enrolled at the University of Kansas to pursue a degree in Political Science, applies the rigor of academic study to her journalism. She writes about politics in Missouri and Kansas as someone who genuinely cares about what happens to the people in these communities—the policies that impact them, the leaders who represent them, and the civic forces influencing their futures—rather than as an outsider watching from a distance. Her editorial coverage encompasses state-level policy, local government, and the national political currents that permeate bi-state regional life. Whether it's a city council vote or a Senate race, she has a special gift for turning complex policy language into writing that feels urgent, relatable, and worthwhile. Sierra seldom sits still off the page. She claims that playing soccer on a regular basis has sharpened her instincts for political reporting because of the sport's teamwork, strategy, and requirement to read a changing game in real time. She's probably somewhere in Kansas City with her friends when she's not writing or on the pitch, discovering new reasons to adore a city she already knows so well.
When you think about it, Ralph Macchio was one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood in the 1980s and early 1990s. He still has a can of tuna from the set of My Cousin Vinny somewhere in his house. He’s not sure where it is. He knows he’s not going to open it, though. “Bought it in 1991, or whenever that was,” he joked on Live With Kelly & Mark not long ago. The tuna is older than most of the people who are asking about it online right now. The movie My Cousin Vinny came out in 1992,…
When an actor disappears so fully into a role that you don’t think about them at all, something magical happens. That’s what Elisabeth Shue did in 1984. As Ali Mills, the cheerleader with the nice smile and the ex-boyfriend who got dumped, she felt so much like a real teenager caught between two worlds that most people didn’t even think to ask how old she was. It turns out that the answer is 20. Shue was born on October 6, 1963, in Wilmington, Delaware. When The Karate Kid first came out, she was just a few weeks past her twentieth…
A certain kind of fame latches on to a person early on, wraps itself around a single image, and then won’t let go for decades. For Ralph Macchio, that picture is a teen standing on one leg in the sun in California with his arm raised, ready to strike. That scene was filmed when he was 22 years old. He is now sixty years old. He’s still that kid in some strange way. Macchio was born in Huntington, New York, in 1961. He grew up in a quiet suburban area that doesn’t really scream stardom. His dad owned laundromats and…
There’s something almost quietly amazing about a character who first appeared in 1984 and is still causing people to talk, stream a lot, and care about them in 2025. It was never meant for Daniel LaRusso, or Daniel San as Mr. Miyagi called him with that lovely mix of warmth and formality, to be a franchise mainstay. He was a skinny New Jersey kid who got punched in the back of the car. Still, here we are. Going back to the character’s beginning is worth it because it reveals a real reason for why it worked. Robert Mark Kamen, a…
There is a small amount of interest in the fact that Ralph Macchio was not really the kid in The Karate Kid. When the first movie came out in 1984, it showed a tough teenager named Daniel LaRusso getting beat up in a California dojo and then winning a karate tournament. The person was 17 years old. His actor was 22 years old. It looked like no one cared or even noticed. That gap had grown by the time The Karate Kid Part II came out in 1986. The movie was shot in the fall of 1985, and Macchio was…
The story of how Harry Longabaugh got his name is very ironic. He didn’t earn it by killing someone or pulling off a famous heist. Because he stole a horse, a gun, and a saddle from a cowboy near Sundance, Wyoming, he got it in Miles City, Montana, jail in 1887. After 18 months in jail, the man got a name that would last longer than him by more than 100 years. This is the kind of detail that is left out of blockbuster movies. Before he became “the Sundance Kid,” Longabaugh was already a typical Western drifter. He was…
Cobra Kai introduces Demetri Alexopoulos as the kind of character that ensemble adolescent shows keep around for heartfelt moments and comedic relief. He is Eli’s closest friend, the group’s talker, the one with opinions about everything, and he has almost no fighting skills. He is the character who describes why he is being pushed inside lockers. He remains that way for the entire run of smaller shows. To its credit, Cobra Kai didn’t abandon him there, and when the script caught up, Gianni DeCenzo, the actor portraying him, made sure there was enough to work with. For a young actor…
Since Mary Mouser was born in 1996, she has witnessed the transition of performers her age from network television to streaming, from one-show careers to multi-platform presences, and from supporting roles to being the star of a series that existed before she entered school. She has accomplished the majority of those tasks on her own, discreetly and without the kind of tabloid cacophony that usually follows young performers who find success in their mid-twenties. Her most well-known role began quietly. Samantha LaRusso was the teenage daughter of Ralph Macchio’s Daniel when Cobra Kai debuted on YouTube Premium in 2018 as…
A show about punching people is called Cobra Kai. That is an accurate assessment of what the show does for the majority of its running duration, not a disparaging synopsis. A narrative engine centered almost completely on physical conflict and martial arts competition is fueled by dojo wars, tournament preparation, parking lot fights, school corridor confrontations, and the occasional dramatic rooftop moment. Therefore, it’s either an odd decision or a subtly astute one to put a character who openly opposes violence at the heart of one of the show’s most emotionally fulfilling arcs. Even though she doesn’t always receive credit…