Well into its eighth season, and on its way to its ninth and final season, How I Met Your Mother continues to to deliver some legen-wait-for-it-dary installments. Such was the case last night, when the CBS comedy celebrated Barney's disastrous - nay - brilliant bachelor party, or "Bro Mitzvah." If you haven't watched the episode yet, and you're either a fan of the series or a fan of The Karate Kid, I urge you to read no further because there are major spoilers ahead, and go watch it at CBS.com.
One of the more amusing essays to grace the internet years ago was "The Johnny Lawrence Story," a tale that paints Billy Zabka's Karate Kid character Johnny Lawrence as a victim, rather than the villain of the film and of numerous 80s films that involved mean blonde villains being bested by unlikely heroes. You can read this tale of defeat here (or listen to Patton Oswalt read it below), to see how The Karate Kid, Back to School and Just One of the Guys are all connected. Based on last night's episode of How I Met Your Mother, something tells me Barney Stinson would appreciate such an essay, as we learned that he believes Zabka is the real Karate Kid. So he was less than thrilled when the "wrong" Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio, made an appearance at his bachelor party.
That was just one of many things to go wrong for Barney, and as we learned at the end, it was all part of the plan. Watch the video below to relive the big reveal.
Putting Zabka in the clown suit was the perfect twist to top off the episode. I doubt I was alone in hoping we'd see an appearance by Zabka by that point, and an excellent little reunion of hero and villain (you can decide which is which for yourselves) from the beloved - original - Karate Kid. Legendary.
Here's Patton Oswalt's reading of "The Johnny Lawrence Story."
