Name: Ralph Macchio Doesn't Actually Know Karate | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-05-29T15:00:29.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ralph Macchio Doesn't Actually Know Karate | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Ralph Macchio Doesn't Actually Know Karate | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-29. Transcript available.

nice to meet you thank you for being here oh yeah you know we were talking
about this this afternoon
and uh for some reason i guess the obvious reason is because you played a young
kid in in those
movies i think of you as a young kid and maybe other people think of you as you
and you certainly
look young yes it just it's just there but now you mind me asking how old you
actually are no i
don't mind you asking how old shall i tell you oh no let me guess don't do that
you'll be off by
decades let's look at some rainbow photos right i've just turned 30 so that's
the amazing thing
that you really are uh youngish looking is everybody in your family yeah
everyone is but i am like the
you know the youngest looking of the young clan but i i certainly i certainly
am by far the youngest
looking but it's you know someone asked me is it traumatic turning 30 but for
me i think it's
traumatic when i look 30 so yeah so i figured another 20 years i'll be there
and then i'll deal
with that at what age as a kid did you realize you weren't getting older
um it's always been that way it's just always been that way i mean it's it's
odd because uh you're
30 you're married you have a family almost uh babies on the way into may first
baby yeah now now there
now you wait and see i bet you that baby looks really young yeah right well
actually they have
these sonogram things you know you're able to look at the the uh fetus you know
child already looks
older than i do more muscle tone than i've ever had already it's like seven
months but now uh but for
an actor of course when you're a kid playing kid parts that's it doesn't make
much difference
and you were how old was the uh the kid in karate kid how old was the character
16 16 for eight years
i said please make him graduate like no no and what's the oldest you were when
you were playing 16
um i get the last film the karate kid 3 was uh did in 88 so it's um well you
want to continue to harp
on this yes it's still i'm i'm fascinated by this it's just like a phenomenon i'm
due back in the museum
in a half an hour
no but yeah that's that's you know no guess guess my age how old do you think i
am i'm not going to you
what do you think 27 27 28 no no i'm see i'm i'm 44 and and i'm beginning to
look like buddy ebbson's
older brother
that's close to the tan
uh you're you're from this area oh one other thing those karate kid movies i
know that that was a
really important part of your life and now you're going on to other things but
those things did
unbelievable business didn't they really well how much money did the three of
them combine generate
you suppose i well i know the first one did about uh domestic i know close to
100 million and the
second one did like 125 million this is all the studio studio cash and then as
we renegotiated along
we all did fine but it it made a lot of money but the three of them together
like 300 million
dollars i would that could be i wouldn't quote quote me on that but it's
probably close yeah well
that's that's all the merchandising and stuff they did yeah it's pretty big uh
and this thing paul
was talking about what paul talking he was talking about his percentage
remember in karate kid 2
when you went into it right the dancing thing they rock around yeah rock around
the clock and it was
paul rogers from free who sang it right and i recorded that's great so you and
i really work
together yes yes and i can't wait to do it again yeah me too thanks man that's
great yeah um now
you're you you're from this area from long island right born and reared out
there born born and raised
long island still there it's like reality you know la is too much like you know
summer camp really you
didn't you didn't care for your time in los angeles i mean i i don't mind my
time in los angeles when
i'm working when you're not working i the town is kind of dark i think and and
sort of to to raise
a family out there isn't you know it's just too too much the business all the
time you know i need
like uh the mets and the islanders and you know yeah what are we doing we have
to do a commercial you
don't mind do you know all right we'll do a commercial here
let me um tell you who's on the program ralph macchio obviously is here the
williams brothers
will be out a little bit later and uh olympic gold medalist bonnie blair she
won uh two gold medals
in alberville in the speed skating and how many did she win in 88 in calgary so
she's won a total of
three gold medals four oh here we go through this again am i getting medals now
or time cues oh she's
she's won more medals than anybody in the history of the olympics
uh and everybody here tonight gets their own rainbow picture
do you uh did you do you know anything about karate i guess you must after
doing all those films
well i knew i learned what i needed to know for the pictures but um you know i
it's time to stop
getting hit when they end the show you know because i you know you get nailed
once in a while but there's
nothing that you continue to do as a recreation no no no it's enough yeah now
when you're out and about
do people want to try your karate skills is that ever actually it's it's um not
real i was expecting
this whole thing where you know you know it was going to challenge me but i you
know more often
people want to know where pat marita is that's the thing you know that's what i
wanted to know
yeah that's what i wanted pat marita for god hey ralph how are you good to see
where's pat maria
call the friars club marty find out where he is right yeah we'll put a tracer
on pat marita they
think we should be living together yeah well you know that's what i thought
well this is wrong um
now let's talk about this uh the new movie what i've seen of it looks very
funny and it's doing great
business this is uh tell us about the film it's called my cousin vinnie and joe
pesci star isn't
it and um he plays my cousin vinnie and uh me and my friend are driving from nyu
across across to ucla
we take the southern route and we get busted for murder i do we're wrongly
accused of and we don't
know what the hell is going on and we got to call our the only lawyer we know i
know and he's my cousin
vinnie the most you know feeble incompetent you know it just it's just as brookie
studied at brooklyn
academy of law you know like a night course and uh and so it it creates some
very funny comedy it's
it's really now was this the film that you you shot partly in an actual working
day-to-day prison prison
right now is that is that a good idea do you well i think as long as everyone
would stayed in their
cages it was fine we we were uh you know they said don't talk to the inmates
and stay away and everything
and you know you know because these are murderers and and whatever and and uh
you know then they
say oh ralph you i loved your films the karate kid the outsider is terrific you're
my favorite actor
i'm like let him out of the cage how bad could he be but is that is that a good
thing to be doing for
for you as an actor and and for the inmates i mean it um it uh for the inmates
yeah sure it gave them
a lot of uh you know they they listen it broke up the day for them
yeah but you know the sad part about it when the film is released they won't be
able to go see it
that's that's true that's true uh let's let's take a look now at uh some of
this film this is a very
funny scene if i if i think this is right this is probably i think this is the
scene where we're
meeting um you're gonna hire your uncle yeah my cousin your cousin i'm sorry
and uh we're questioning
him uh as we're up on this murder charge in the deep south all right so we're
gonna see you
joe pesci and and mitchell whitfield here we go my cousin vinnie kids watch
closely
my cousin vinnie my cousin vinnie yeah looks very funny uh congratulations on
the new movie and
uh good luck with the new baby and uh nice meeting you ralph thanks for being
here
Thank you.