This show was made during the mid 1980s, a time when there was a bit of a ninja craze in the country. Granted, not all that super big as there were a few movies here and there and nothing that would really be considered a blockbuster by today's or even back then standards. This was also a time when a plethora of action shows came on the airwaves too. You had shows that were fairly successful like A-team, Knight Rider and Greatest American Hero and then you had a lot of action shows that kind of had like one season like Automan, Manimal and Tales of the Golden Monkey. This show falls in the latter category featuring an old actor in Lee Van Cleef portraying a ninja master and his sidekick pal played by Timothy Van Patton who had a van and a pet gerbil. Not exactly a great formula as Van Cleef had a bit of a gut and was moving around poorly trying to make us think that he was a ninja. They basically had Sho Kosugi in a ninja costume with a Van Cleef voice over whenever a difficult stunt had to be done. The show would feature quite a few older stars in it playing bit parts. They had Dave McCallum, Clu Gulager and even one time James Bond George Lazenby to name a few. Then they had a young Crystal Benard of the show Wings fame and a young Demi Moore as well. So the show had a lot of decent actors, it was just a rather poor concept.
I saw this show as two repackaged movies that were lampooned on the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. They were done by that video company that did this often with television shows and older movies where they basically have a completely unrelated opening title sequence before the show, uh, movie begins. The first film titled Master Ninja I, featured I am guessing the first episode of the show for sure. We get introduced to Max (Van Patton) and the master ninja (Van Cleef) as they try and help out a daughter and her father's airport from a corrupt businessman and the local sheriff. Sounds a bit like A-team especially when you factor in the next portion of the show features them trying to help out a man and his two daughters that own a club that is being harassed by a gang. Neither show is really related and the reason the main characters go around from town to town is to search for the master's daughter that he did not know he had.
The second movie, Master Ninja II, features about the same premise as Master Ninja I, only without all the introductions. The first portion of the film sees them get involved with a union labor dispute in a cannery and is rather stupid as a union dispute does not really scream ninja in any way, shape or form. Yet, Max and the master probably had more trouble with these standard goons than they did with the ninjas that terrorized the club or the businessman who had local law enforcement under his command! The second portion of this film, was comprised of a terrorist type organization kidnapping some people at a party and the master must go in to rescue them! He had less trouble with these gun wielding assassins than he did just some guys who worked at a cannery also, go figure.
So both of these 'movies' made for funny episodes of MST3K, but then I always enjoy the television movies that they did during their run. The first one sort of blended together okay, though it was obvious it was two unrelated plots, but the second 'film' just did not go together in any shape or form. You go from helping a girl set up a union to terrorist raiding a party and taking hostages. You can tell they tried with the show, but the ninja craze was not really big enough to warrant a whole show, just a spot movie here or there would have sufficed. It basically uses the same formula as the A-team, with the main characters going from town to town and doing good deeds, but did not quite have the scale of the more known and popular show. Though I wonder if the master ever found his daughter or if it was another case of a show being cancelled with the central premise never being resolved?
I saw this show as two repackaged movies that were lampooned on the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. They were done by that video company that did this often with television shows and older movies where they basically have a completely unrelated opening title sequence before the show, uh, movie begins. The first film titled Master Ninja I, featured I am guessing the first episode of the show for sure. We get introduced to Max (Van Patton) and the master ninja (Van Cleef) as they try and help out a daughter and her father's airport from a corrupt businessman and the local sheriff. Sounds a bit like A-team especially when you factor in the next portion of the show features them trying to help out a man and his two daughters that own a club that is being harassed by a gang. Neither show is really related and the reason the main characters go around from town to town is to search for the master's daughter that he did not know he had.
The second movie, Master Ninja II, features about the same premise as Master Ninja I, only without all the introductions. The first portion of the film sees them get involved with a union labor dispute in a cannery and is rather stupid as a union dispute does not really scream ninja in any way, shape or form. Yet, Max and the master probably had more trouble with these standard goons than they did with the ninjas that terrorized the club or the businessman who had local law enforcement under his command! The second portion of this film, was comprised of a terrorist type organization kidnapping some people at a party and the master must go in to rescue them! He had less trouble with these gun wielding assassins than he did just some guys who worked at a cannery also, go figure.
So both of these 'movies' made for funny episodes of MST3K, but then I always enjoy the television movies that they did during their run. The first one sort of blended together okay, though it was obvious it was two unrelated plots, but the second 'film' just did not go together in any shape or form. You go from helping a girl set up a union to terrorist raiding a party and taking hostages. You can tell they tried with the show, but the ninja craze was not really big enough to warrant a whole show, just a spot movie here or there would have sufficed. It basically uses the same formula as the A-team, with the main characters going from town to town and doing good deeds, but did not quite have the scale of the more known and popular show. Though I wonder if the master ever found his daughter or if it was another case of a show being cancelled with the central premise never being resolved?