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Cobra Kai co-creator Josh Hurwitz reveals the sizzle real the team pitched to Netflix

Now that the show has wrapped, Hurwitz took to social media to unveil a key part of the pitching process, made with the help of Disney+'s Muppets Mayhem co-creator

News by Grant DeArmitt, Staff Writer

Published on Tue Mar 04 2025

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What a wild journey Cobra Kai has been. And we're not just talking about the plot - the show was a YouTube original, then was brought over to Netflix, then was broken up into multiple parts for its final season. With the adventures that fans have been through both off and on screen, it's almost easy to forget that there was a time when Cobra Kai was just a dream. Fortunately, one of its dreamers is here to remind us.

Long before the series was regularly appearing in Netflix's weekly Top 10 list, it was just a concept that creators were pitching to different platforms. And in February of 2025, one of those creators, Josh Hurwitz, took to social media to unveil an important piece of that pitching process: the sizzle reel, created in 2017. Watch it for yourself here.

Story-wise, it's certainly not what Cobra Kai fans are used to, but you can certainly see the germ of the show's tone in this video as well as the familiar faces that will carry it. Also, if you're confused as to why there's a mention of Netflix in here four years before the show picked up the series from YouTube, don't be. As Hurwitz says in his post, this particular sizzle reel was tailored to Netflix when he and other creators Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg were pitching to them. "When we were meeting at YouTube, it said YouTube," Hurwitz writes, "Hulu it said Hulu."

But what's perhaps most interesting about this sizzle reel is that Hurwitz enlisted another TV talent in making it; that is, Jeff Yorkes, co-creator of Disney+'s The Muppet Mayhem. And apparently, it was Yorkes's smart editing that made the sizzle reel, well, sizzle.

"Without actually filming the show," Hurwitz says, "our task was near impossible and it was never going to be perfect, but with the help of our incredibly talented editor friend @JeffYorkes, we cobbled together footage from Ralph [Macchio] and Billy [Zabka's]’s prior work, mixed it was other images that helped tell our story, and threw Thunderstruck under it."

There you go, TV hopefuls. If pitching your idea seems daunting to you, remember you can always rely on friends. And also, AC/DC.

Cobra Kai is streaming now on Netflix.

Fade to credits, then a pop-up of what to ~~watch~~ read next - just like Netflix:

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Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. As Popverse's Staff Writer, he criss-crosses the pop culture landscape bringing you the news and opinions about the big things (and the next big things). In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.