The Master is an American action-adventure television series, which aired on NBC from January to August 1984. Created by Michael Sloan, the series focuses on the adventures of John Peter McAllister (Lee Van Cleef), an aging ninja master, and his young pupil, Max Keller (Timothy Van Patten). Most episodes focus on the mismatched pair driving around in a custom van, helping people in need along the way, similar to the contemporary NBC television series, The A-Team. The Master lasted 13 episodes before it was cancelled.
The Master follows the character of John Peter McAllister, an American veteran who stayed in Japan following World War II and became a ninja master. At the beginning of the series, McAllister, now an old man, leaves Japan for the United States in search of a daughter he did not know he had. This flight from his ninja life is seen as dishonorable by his fellow ninjas, including his former student, Okasa (Sho Kosugi), who attempts to assassinate him. Escaping with a minor wound, McAllister finds himself in the small town of Ellerston, where he believes his daughter resides. Along the way, he meets a drifter named Max Keller, who aids the ninja master in a bar fight, but is subsequently thrown through a window, a recurring event for the hot-headed Keller. Max desires to learn to fight like a ninja, but McAllister is reluctant to train him, feeling him to be too emotional. When Keller gets involved in a dispute between Mr. Christensen (Clu Gulager), a ruthless developer, and the Trumbulls (Claude Akins, Demi Moore), a father and his daughter who run an airport targeted by Christensen, McAllister decides to train him to survive.
The pair go on to have many adventures traveling the country in search of McAllister's daughter, although the show was cancelled before she is ever found. Keller and McAllister often get sidetracked by oppressed people, and invariably McAllister uses his ninja skills to help.
The character of Teri McAllister triggers John Peter McAllister's return to America by writing a letter to him. She is constantly on the move, and has been spotted in New Orleans (about six months to a year before she contacted her father; she was already using his surname at the time) Ellerston, Atlanta, and New York - working briefly but very successfully as a fashion model in the last city. She is secretive about her personal information, never giving out an address or a phone number. In her modelling career, she rebuffed the villainous fashion designer and jewel thief Simon Garrett when he tried to romance her, and was on friendly terms with Gina, an FBI agent posing as an executive at the modelling agency. After Teri moved on, Gina impersonated her in order to trap Garrett, becoming entangled with Keller and McAllister in the process. Teri does not appear to have been aware of Gina's profession, and Gina's impersonation is aimed at people who don't know Teri well, so her behavior in the role should not be taken as necessarily typical of the other woman's. Teri herself is only seen in photographs: she appears as a strikingly attractive woman, somewhere in her mid or early twenties (despite dialogue in "Fat Tuesday" indicating her to be 28 or 29), with dark blue eyes and heavy black hair. She is the result of a two-month affair between McAllister and a woman called Laura Kennedy, at the end of the Korean War. McAllister asks Gina with sincere curiosity about Teri's mother, in a way that suggests he still has some interest in the mother of his daughter and believes her to be alive. In addition to her brief modelling career, she was also a pilot of racing planes for a time (circa her visit to New Orleans). Most information about her comes from "Fat Tuesday" and "The Good, the Bad, and the Priceless", both stories about women who know her vaguely and use her name to trap a villain.
A recurring enemy is Okasa, the rogue pupil of McAllister, who continually tracks his old master down and tries to kill him. In the first episode, the two duel and McAllister wins. However, the old master refuses to kill his opponent, preferring to renounce his ninja ways, allowing Okasa to make further attempts in future episodes.
John Peter McAllister, the only Occidental American to achieve the martial arts discipline of a ninja. Once part of a secret sect he wanted to leave, but was marked for death by his fellow ninjas. He's searching for a daughter he didn't know he had; pursued by Okasa, once the Master's student, now sworn to kill him. That Master found a new student. That's me, Max Keller. But we knew Okasa would be behind us, in the shadows, ready to strike again.
The Master did not attract a large enough audience to remain on the air and was cancelled after 13 episodes.
During the mid 1980s, the show was re-edited into a series of 90-minute movies, each containing two episodes. These were released on VHS under a number of different titles:
The first two episodes ("Max" and "Out Of Time Step") were also released on VHS by Platinum Disc Corporation with the original series title in 1999. These same two episodes also appeared in the Martial Arts DVD 50-movie pack produced by Mill Creek Entertainment in 2006.
The entire, unedited series was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Kino Lorber under license from CBS Home Entertainment on February 20, 2018.
The series was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, a sketch comedy television series about a man and two robots subjected to cheesy B movies as part of a mad scientist's experiment. The show featured the first two volumes of the re-edited Master Ninja tapes on episodes 322 (originally aired January 11, 1992) and 324 (originally aired January 25, 1992). Notable jokes include jabs at Van Cleef's obvious stunt double and Van Patten's muffled speech pattern and heavy New York accent. Both episodes were released on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Volume XX on March 8, 2011.
The third volume was intended for episode 624, but, for unspecified reasons, was replaced by Samson vs. the Vampire Women.
The pilot episode was featured on the similarly oriented show This Movie Sucks! which is hosted by Ed the Sock, Liana K and Ron Sparks. Shown as part of the season two opener and shown as a double feature alongside Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, the showing was notable for Sparks' "Roninja" gag, which quickly became a favorite among fans.