Bruce Lee once refused to lose a fight with Robin while filming an episode of Batman. Prior to his breakthrough performance in Golden Harvest’s The Big Boss in 1971, the martial arts legend had a career in the television industry. In the 1960s, Lee landed a co-starring role in ABC’s Green Hornet, a series that launched as a result of Batman’s success. The actor played Kato, a Chinese martial artist who operated as Green Hornet’s sidekick and chauffer. The Green Hornet ran for one season before being cancelled in 1967.
Since both Batman and Green Hornet were on ABC, a crossover between the two superhero shows was arranged. In a two-part story that unfolded on Batman, Green Hornet (Van Williams) and Kato arrived in Gotham City on a mission to stop a stamp counterfeiting plot. Since the two heroes were believed by the public to be villains, they quickly attracted the attention of Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward). After battling it out, the two superhero duos came to the realization that they were both on the same side. Together, the Green Hornet, Kato, Batman, and Robin saved the day. Crossovers like this one happen quite frequently in today’s shows, but at the time it was an unprecedented event.
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One problem that was encountered during the making of the Batman-Green Hornet crossover was Bruce Lee’s initial response to the plans for the fight between the heroes. In the fight, Batman was predictably paired off with Green Hornet, with Robin going up against Bruce Lee’s Kato. The original script called for Kato to be defeated by Robin, a scenario which upset Lee [via Newsweek]. According to Van Williams, Lee “walked off” and refused to shoot the scene, claiming “there’s no way that anyone would believe I go in there and fight Robin and lose.”
Williams, who had worked with Lee for a while at this point, was fully aware of Lee’s skills as a kung fu expert. When Adam West asked about Lee’s capabilities in comparison to Robin’s, Williams made an analogy to Superman by saying that he was “faster than a speeding bullet.” Robin actor Burt Ward, who was the person who had to film the fight scene with Lee, was “absolutely petrified” of going up against him. Realizing this, Lee pranked Ward by pretending that he wanted to fight him seriously. Since the Green Hornet and Kato actors weren’t the only people on set who believed that Robin winning simply wasn’t going to work, the scene was rewritten. But instead of giving the victory to Kato, the fight resulted in a tie.
Lee being held back in his fight with Robin in Batman underscores the challenges he went through on the set of Green Hornet. Lee had to fight to make sure that Kato was properly portrayed as a kung fu warrior. Even though he was allowed to use some of his kung fu moves, he was still limited by the fact that he was just the main character’s sidekick. For that reason, the show tried to avoid making him look more impressive than its lead, but that was hard to do. It was obvious that Bruce Lee was talented, and that caused his character to develop a great deal of popularity. Viewers wanted to see more of the actor as Kato, and the producers and writers ended up relenting and giving more screen-time to Lee. In Hong Kong, the show even earned the name, The Kato Show.
