WHEN I WAS a kid at camp, there came that inevitable night when every group (I think we were divided up by tents) had to put on a short skit. My group suffered a creativity deficit and was unable to think of anything witty or creative or clever. Every other team did.

Instead, we had the bright idea that we would just play the (now classic) song, “Kung Fu Fighting”, as performed by Carl Douglas, and jump about with our pretend Kung Fu fighting moves.

We all felt awesome and confident with our stylistic combat poses. While we didn’t study for years in a Shaolin monastery, we did thrill to the weekly adventures of Caine in ABC’s Kung Fu series. So, … sixty minutes of TV, multiplied by twenty-four weeks was kind of the same as years of studying the martial arts in a monastery, wasn’t it? We were convinced it was.

As you might expect, our skit bombed. The song is only three minutes long, but I can still sense the prolonged onstage embarrassment.

Still… this just reinforces how important the show the show Kung Fu was to us. In those days of TV heroes with excessive testosterone Caine, this show’s hero, was a humble, understated breath of fresh air. We empathized with his weekly drubbing and humiliation, and then we were jubilant when, inevitably, he’d had enough and give the bad guys a thorough stomping. Continue reading “With Further Ado #367: Kung Fu Fighting” →