Wolf Gnards

Besides massively awesome theme songs backed by massively awesome synthesizes, a few 80’s cartoons shared another thing in common: completely interchangeable Asian characters. Headband, karate, broken English, and you had yourself an Asian cartoon hero. Bruce Lee may be dead, but his approximate facsimile lives on in 80’s cartoons.

Remember this was a time when multicultural team work was all the rage. Pretty much meaning superhero teams were obligated to wheel out a black character and an Asian character, i.e. Super Friends’ own Black Vulcan and Samurai. Though the main reason of the Asian stereotype cartoon character is for the make believe. As we all know the easiest playground mimic is the the two finger laser gun complete with “da-dow” sound effect. The second easiest is the karate chop. Palm flat, elbow bent, and you’re ready to go. Throw in a high kick for good measure.

Asian Cartoon Characters Who Were Completely Interchangeable

Quick Kick (G.I. Joe)

G.I. Joe’s Quick Kick was a California stuntman fueled by movie references and John Wayne imitations, yet he still found time to meet his share of Asian stereotype quota. Head band… check. Tight black karate pants… check. Shirt? Never: every good Bruce Lee wannabe needs to let his oily muscles shine. Quick Kick also came complete with a fancy sash of throwing stars, which he never really had any need to throw. I’m not sure how often he even really kicked…

Karate One (Bionic Six)

Bionic Six was a multicultural family of bionic powered superheroes, complete with African American adopted son and Japanese foster son. Each member of the Bionic Six also had powers in line with their personalities, so if the son who liked sports could hit baseballs at bad guys and the daughter who loved music could shoot sound waves. Of course, their resident bionic Asian did bionic karate, and was creatively named Karate One. Why go through the hassle of learning actual karate when mechanical limbs will do all the work for you? While not a memorable character or cartoon, Karate One was voice by veteran nerd actor, Brian Tochi, and that’s a good thing.

Bruce Sato (M.A.S.K.)

While, Bruce Sato was not a martial arts expert, he was named Bruce. This fake Bruce was actually named Bruce, the creators of M.A.S.K. weren’t even trying to hide the Bruce Lee reference. Bruce was a good ol’ fashion Asian nerd and mechanical engineer. Not a bad role model, except M.A.S.K.’s token Asian had the unfortunate habit of speaking in Confucius, fortune cookie speak. You don’t know how many times I have to explain over the phone that I’m not Yoda. And like all Asians, Bruce played with toys and created anti-gravity fields. It’s true America: WE FLOAT! Beware and watch the skies.