Tommy Nitro’s Karate Adventure Set

What do you endeavor?
Black Belts Forever!
Where does it start?
Mind, Body, and Heart!
What is your quest?
Personal Best!”

If you have your kids in a Taekwondo or Karate type program, you’re not going to like me very much after reading this article. If you’re the type of parent who lies to their children about the existence of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny in order to sadistically exploit their innocence/ignorance for your own gratification, you’re going to like me even less. Because in our never-ending quest to bring you high-quality Martial Arts information and entertainment at the expense of low-quality Martial Artists, we’re gonna break a few eggs… or Santas… or lawn gnomes… whatever.

Here at Bullshido, we don’t have any issues with teaching kids Martial Arts, or even the realities of toning down the emphasis on violence that’s necessary because they aren’t capable of fully comprehending the consequences of their actions. But what we do have an issue with is BS (it’s even in our name, for the more obtuse readers) and feeding it, whether by spoon or shovel, to anyone…

…especially children.

So what’s the BS in this situation? Well let’s give a little backstory before we jump head-first into that steaming pile.

The other day I took my 6 year old to the store to pick out a toy. It’s summer, and she’s bored, and we do our best not to park her keister in front of a television to occupy her time (as tempting as that is sometimes). The plan was to get her Legos, or maybe even something more complicated like an Erector set (which apparently they don’t sell anymore). So when we got to the store, she made a bee-line for this cleverly packaged box with a 9-year-oldish kid in a Gi (with a black belt, no less) kicking a “heavy” bag. “Become a Karate Master at Home!”, the package read. Oh joy, this is going to be great.

So we brought it home, mainly because I felt guilty about not taking her to a real martial arts class as often as I’d like to. (The only good one around here is 30 minutes away.) Anyway, what could it hurt? It’s just a bag with a vinyl mat and… oh wait, a DVD too! Wow, who is this “Tommy Nitro”? He must be a really good instructor to be both a teenager himself and to have two pre-teen black belts flanking him on the packaging. Is he an ex-Power Ranger?

10 minutes of blowing up the inflatable “heavy bag” later (shutup, cardio) I plugged in the DVD and sat back to watch the train wreck. The first thing I observed was that someone had definitely put a bit of money into this as the production value of the DVD wasn’t too shabby. It opened with the screech of a child yelling “BLACK BELTS FOREVER”, because we all know the black belt is the most important aspect of any martial art, AM I RITE GUYZ?!?#

We get to witness the backstory of “Tommy Nitro”, set to music played over shots of a CGI neighborhood which fades into a comic-book panel look that was admittedly used better than they did in that snorefest movie version of The Incredible Hulk with Eric Banana. However, EVERY GROGRKCING segue between scenes that featured this paneling gimmick was garnished with a “Get ready it’s Tommy Nitro!!!!” jingle that was enough to make you regret your testicles and the consequences of owning them.

The story of Tommy Nitro is essentially this: An average teenage metrosexual complete with courier bag and gelled hair, gets accosted by three goons dressed up like red punching bags. Not making this crap up folks. The leader of this group is called “The Crimson Sausage” which may be a subtle suggestion for the benefit of the desperate housewives who’d normally buy something like this for their kids. The goons don’t actually beat Tommy up, they just call him names like “Tommy Salami”. Oooh… ice burn!

After his violent beati… talking-to by the bad guys, Tommy’s comic book comes alive and “Sensei Nobu”, the hero of said comic shows up to teach him Karate. Sensei Nobu is an unintentional metaphor for the ignorance of Eastern culture in the English speaking world. He’s ambiguously asian, dressed in a feudal Japanese outfit but sporting a Pai Mei/White Eybrow hairstyle complete with fu-manchu (as in Manchuria, CHINA) moustache and a long wispy beard.

The culturally confused Sensei Nobu informs Tommy that “Karate is not for attacking, it is used only for self-defense!”. This is brought up again later in the video when it’s said “There is no first attack in Karate.” This statement is 100% true because Andy Hug, K-1 Champion and Kyokushin Karate stylist had to fly all the way over to Thailand just to learn how to throw the first punch in a fight. It’s reported that this difficult transition took over six months of rigorous training. Normally, Karate sparring sessions go to the time limit with both participants just circling each other, except in those rare instances when one of the competitors trips and falls towards the other one. Since this can be considered an attack, his opponent responds promptly by kicking the falling man in the head before he hits the canvas for the win.

Aside from the soccer-mom, “think about the children” revisionism of the violence inherent in learning how to punch and kick people, the DVD teaches a few basic techniques for doing precisely this. Kids are shown “lunge punches”; round, side, and front kicks, and even an elbow strike, all of which, of course, could never be used to actually attack someone, as we all know.

Fear my “Squirrel nearly steals the acorn, but not quite” technique!

The video ends with a confrontation between the Crimson Sausage and his cronies, and Tommy Nitro and his cronies, the two 9 year old black belt kids. At this point I’m expecting some actual punching and kicking, especially considering the “bad” guys are dressed up as punching bags with targets on them exactly like the punching bag that comes with the playset. But noooo… we can’t have that. They challenge the Tommy NO2 and his 2 No No’s to a Kata, which of course the bad guys lose. But here is when the most priceless moment of the video takes place. Upon losing, they don’t want to leave according to the terms of the challenge, and challenge Sensei Nobu to make them leave. He responds, like any trained martial arts expert would, by jumping around punching and kicking the air in front of the punching bag-attired goons.

So there’s not even a Karate Kid moment in this DVD where Tommy vanquishes his foes; his sensei has to do it for him. There’s no lesson for dealing with the obvious bullies, other than to challenge them to a dance-off. This, as we all know, works wonders these days where metal detectors are necessary in schools because third grade bullies use Tech-9’s to extort milk money.

After watching this video, I strongly considered committing eyeball seppuku. I give it -50 ninja stars out of a possible 359. At least we got a f-ing punching bag out of the deal.