Saturday Night Live Samurai
In the early years of Saturday Night Live, John Belushi portrayed a samurai—he had a dedicated concept of honor, spoke only (mock) Japanese, and wielded a katana. Each sketch had him located in a different place and time that was typically inappropriate for a samurai, yet he performed his tasks perfectly, despite scaring his clients quite a few times. The character was modeled after Toshiro Mifune's character in Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo.
Samurai Futaba would probably not have become a recurring character if not for Buck Henry's insistence that there be a second sketch featuring him when he first hosted on January 17, 1976. It is perhaps due to these origins that it became standard practice on SNL to feature a Samurai sketch every time Henry hosted, up until the time Belushi left the cast. (And except for "Samurai BMOC", each time Henry would play the same character, Mr. Dantley.)
In issue #74 of Marvel Team-Up (cover dated October, 1978), Belushi (in character as Samurai Futaba) dueled Marvel Comics supervillain Silver Samurai, who believed that Belushi was disgracing the history of the samurai. He also appears briefly in issue #54 of The Sandman.
Read more about Saturday Night Live Samurai: List of Saturday Night Live Episodes Featuring Samurai Futaba
Famous quotes containing the words saturday night, saturday, night, live and/or samurai:
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