'Cobra Kai' creators explain how they turned their obsession with 'The Karate Kid' into YouTube Red's first hit show, and tease season 2

With a green light to make the show, Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald then went to Zabka with the good news.

“It was just mind blowing to him,” Heald said of telling Zabka. “It took two or three times for him to understand that we were going to further the story of Johnny. He was in shock. There's not a day that's gone by that Billy hasn't thought about Johnny Lawrence because it's such an iconic role for him. The character never really left him.”

With Zabka on board, the trio turned their attention to Macchio, which they knew right away was going to be a harder sell.

“None of us knew him but we had heard he was very hesitant to engage with anything ‘Karate Kid’ related over the years,” Heald said.

As the decades passed, “The Karate Kid” continued to grow a loyal fan base, but like many things from the 1980s, the movie became a punchline. The memorable scenes became fodder as YouTube grew in popularity and the song from the movie, “You’re the Best,” also became a staple in the comedy community. And it didn’t help that the movies made after 1986’s “The Karate Kid Part II” — “The Karate Kid Part III" (1989), “The Next Karate Kid” (1994) and Jaden Smith’s “The Karate Kid” (2010) — were nowhere as popular as the first two movies.

But Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald didn’t take "no" for an answer and finally got a lunch meeting with Macchio in New York.

“And that lunch turned into a four-hour lunch where we pitched him the whole show and that we were not trying to make a ‘Harold & Kumar’ or ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ experience with this show,” Heald said. “We told him it has this new way in because the guys are adults now. Ralph was not expecting any of that and a couple of days later we had a two-hour phone call with him, and a few days later another two-hour phone call, and by the end of that week Ralph was in.”

Looking back on the process Macchio went through with them to finally agree to do the role, they respect the time he took to finally say "yes."

“Because he knew if he came back as Daniel it would be a big deal to people, not just in this country but all over the world, and he wanted to make sure it was the right decision to do,” Hurwitz said.

“He wanted to make sure we had answers to the big questions that he had,” Schlossberg added. “He didn't want to hear, ‘That's a great question we'll figure that out.’ He wanted to make sure we thought about this beyond memorizing a pitch.”

After “Cobra Kai” launched on YouTube Red in the beginning of May, the show was immediately praised by critics (it got a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and the hardcore fans, as the show reportedly performed better than many shows on Netflix and Hulu.

The show didn’t just have strong character development for its leads Macchio and Zabka, but also introduced younger characters who are going through their own issues and will be influenced by both older characters — for better and worse.

Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald say season two, which YouTube Red has already renewed, will delve deeper into all the characters. And as the last episode teased, Johnny’s old sensei, Kreese (Martin Kove), is now in the mix.

“We knew from the beginning we wanted him to be on the show but we wanted to wait for the right moment,” Hurwitz said. “There was enough story to be told in season one and we thought it would be really fun for Martin to pop up at the end and be that curve ball for season two.”

When they approached Kove, the actor was immediately into the idea and assumed he would be in the storyline right away, seeing the title of the series is named after his character's dojo. But the guys had to make him understand that it wasn’t his time yet.

“We promised him when he does show up on screen it’s a huge moment and we’ll have more to do with him in the future,” Hurwitz said.

“We have said all along that there’s really no character that’s off limits from the movies,” Schlossberg said. “But we also want to make sure we are introducing the characters the right way. We want it to feel impactful and be connected to the stories we’re telling.”

Hurwitz, Schlossberg, and Heald say season two will pick up right where season one left off and there will be new characters on the horizon, maybe even some from the old movies.

“We had a lot of thoughts about the second season before making the first,” Schlossberg said. “This is something that has a plan.”