The Karate Kid star William Zabka is one of the most famous actors in the cinematic industry. He became a fan favorite with his acting as Johnny Lawrence in the franchise. The star also made quite an impression in the television series Cobra Kai. His notable works include Just One of the Guys, Where Hope Grows, Shootfighter: Fight to the Death, Python, The Power Within, and others. The actor also did some episodes of How I Met Your Mother.
William Zabka worked in a few episodes of the famous sitcom How I Met Your Mother. However, the actor is offended by the show, which became the inspiration for his other hit show.
William Zabka was offended by How I Met Your Mother series
The filmmaker and martial arts expert did a few episodes of Josh Radnor’s famous sitcom, How I Met Your Mother. He acted as himself and Barney Stinson’s childhood inspiration on the show. However, in the episodes, he was referred to as Billy Zabka instead of William Zabka, which created confusion for fans. The actor shared that people preferred to call him Billy Zabka after the series.
The Equalizer actor shared with The Wrap,
“When ‘How I Met Your Mother’ came along, which was a super-popular show, Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) called me ‘Billy Zabka.’ On that show, I was referred to as ‘Billy Zabka, Billy Zabka, Billy Zabka,’ and then people got more comfortable calling me ‘Billy’ and now ‘Billy’ is out there and you see ‘William’ and people think I’m trying to throw ‘William’ in front of ‘Billy.’”
He added,
“It’s a big car wreck, dude.”
William Zabka added that the confusion could have been avoided if he had kept his earlier name. He said,
“I probably should have just stayed with ‘Billy’ the whole time, it would have been very easy. But one thing I do like about the difference is that if I’m somewhere in public and somebody calls out to ‘William’ and I’m like with my family, I know that they most likely don’t know me personally.”
“This is a great thing to put in print, but ‘Billy’ will get my head turned.”
The name Billy Zabka had initially become famous when he was doing The Karate Kid film.
Also read- William Zabka: Badass Facts About Cobra Kai’s Johnny Lawrence You Didn’t Know
HIMYM connection with Cobra Kai
Cobra Kai was released on YouTube Red in 2018, and to date, there are five successful seasons of the show. The series has a special connection with the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Actors William Zabra and Ralph Macchio, play prominent roles in Cobra Kai. They did guest roles in several episodes of the eighth season of How I Met Your Mother. In the show, they often made fun of each other as their The Karate Kid roles. They also revealed that William Zabka‘s character, Johnny Lawrence, was a misunderstood hero and Macchio’s character, Daniel LaRusso, was the real villain in the 1984 movie,
Their guest appearances on the show inspired the creators and showrunners to make Cobra Kai, as the duo kept The Karate Kid franchise fresh in public consciousness.
Josh Heald observed in an interview with CBR,
“We certainly appreciate the parallel fandoms that this show has, whether it’s the How I Met Your Mother storyline — which was amazing — we get asked all the time about that YouTube video if Daniel was the real bully. All that stuff just kind of buoyed us a little bit when we were conceiving the show and comparing the storylines to pitch the show because it made us feel confident that we weren’t the only ones, and we didn’t think we were, but it was nice to see other creators have Karate Kid on the mind.”
Zabka has been part of five seasons of Cobra Kai, streaming on Netflix. The show is renewed for the sixth season.
