RIP Pat Morita
Even though I write plenty of obituaries, I never enjoy doing it. It’s always kinda sad and just something I do out of some sense of duty, and maybe a hope that the people who read about the people we’ve lost will get an inkling of what made the people we’ve lost so special. I’m not quite sure how well I do at that, but enough about me, let’s talk about Pat Morita, since I’m sure that at least a few of you are wondering what I’ll have to say about him.
The thing I always think of first when I think of Pat Morita is the year 1993. We had cable in my house, like most people, and for some reason, maybe because it was relatively new, maybe because the cable companies got a deal on the broadcast rights to it, but “Karate Kid Part III” was on constantly. It was just one of those movies that they showed on cable all the time, I’m sure you know the type. As a result of this, I started happening upon it here and there, and being that Pat Morita was in it as Mr. Miyagi, who I liked so much in the first “Karate Kid” (though I felt that the second one was a real drag for some reason, not by any fault of Pat’s, though; there could’ve been too much Peter Cetera on the soundtrack or something), I’d leave it on from wherever it was in the movie. The plot wasn’t great or anything, but basically, if Pat Morita was on my TV screen as Mr. Miyagi, I was happy, and this episode of the Karate Kid saga, if you will, had a lot of great Mr. Miyagi moments in it.
After a while, I finally saw it from the beginning. And then, I saw it again. And again. And again. Soon, I found myself looking at the TV Guide to case out when it would be on next, and began scheduling my personal and professional lives not to conflict with “Part III”, as it was known to me at this time. I grew to know the movie by heart (I’m a little rusty on it these days, though; I need to upgrade my VHS copy to a DVD soon), to the point where, in what was probably simultaneously one of the funnier and more cruel moments of my entire life (I really wasn’t a very nice person then), I had a post-breakup “Why do you hate me?” conversation with someone, and never responded to them directly for the entire duration of the conversation (at least not that I can recall). I only answered them with quotes from the movie as it was happening. I had it on in the background as the conversation was in progress, was quoting it as it was happening, and strangely, all of it seemed to fit the context of the conversation. It’s somewhat embarrassing in retrospect, mostly because I have a hard time separating “the joke” from the people at the other end of it now, but it’s also one of the enduring memories of my past, and it also serves as a testament to just how into this movie I was.
Even above and beyond that exercise in inane behavior, I always found Pat Morita to be an immensely entertaining, talented guy, especially in the “Karate Kid” series (no slight to his work on “Happy Days” and elsewhere, but we all bond with our characters and stories and albums and such), and Mr. Miyagi character will always be one of the pop culture icons who I hold nearest to my heart. I honestly have trouble getting through a day without quoting him in some context or another. He gave me a lot of joy, and he’ll be greatly missed. I’m going to go sing “Japanese Blues” now.