“RAVEN” FLIES AGAIN ON DVD
An Interview with Star Jeffrey Meek

Mention a television series called “Raven” today and most people mistakenly recall the Disney Channel family program “That’s So Raven” starring Raven-Symone. “Raven,” the television series that first aired on the CBS network from 1992 to 1993, had nothing to do with the comic misadventures of a teenaged girl. Jonathon Raven, ex-Special Forces soldier and ninja, searched Hawaii for his missing son while fighting off attacks from evil Black Dragon assassins, a Japanese cult who killed his parents when Raven was a boy. The show reached cult status around the world, especially with action fans and martial artists who traded bootleg copies of the series. This past April all 20 episodes were officially released on DVD by Sony Home Entertainment.
While the show had Raven raised in Japan, the show’s stunt coordinators decided on tae kwon do movements as the basis for Raven’s fighting style. CBS decided on 33-year-old actor Jeffrey Meek to play Raven. Before the cameras rolled in Honolulu, Meek began months of training with Billy Blanks, a taekwondo champion and the creator of Tae-bo, to prepare himself for the demanding role. Today Meek is still proud of the work he did on “Raven” and recalls the training required for the shows many fight scenes.
“They kicked my butt,” Meek remembers. “And I told them to. I told them I wanted to be really authentic, and that I needed to step it up. And I’m a good athlete but I need to be a great martial artist. I hooked up with Billy (Blanks) and I worked almost for ten months every day. I was in the dojo every day. And it was like I was training for an MMA belt. I mean we did everything: taekwondo, weight training, and I was doing cardio work, and I transformed my mind, and my body, and my approach to the martial arts.”
Meek, who had previously trained in Aikido under Kensho Furuya Sensei in Los Angeles, was no stranger to the martial arts, which helped him excel at Blank’s rigorous training for “Raven.”
Blanks recalls Meek being a “super athlete” who could pick up on the fight training quickly. What Blanks wanted was for the actor to match what show creator Frank Lupo had in mind when he created Jonathon Raven.
“I learn what the character is all about and also want to know how he was going to portray him,” Blanks says. “My goal is to make him (Meek) look like superhero. Get him to square up his shoulders. I wanted to make him feel like the character he wanted to play. I wanted to get him to feel like he was Jonathon Raven — make his martial arts skills sharper. Give him the skills to best character that he wanted to play.”
Both Meeks and Blanks liked the idea of using taekwondo on the television series.
“I thought of using taekwondo because of the kicks and how many different types of kicks there are that look good on screen. His character was named Raven and the taekwondo flying kick looks like a raven attacking. I also put in some kung fu since I had studied some hung gar but the main thing is that I wanted his kicks to look sharp.”
Those kicks were difficult to perfect Meek says. He remembers Blanks wearing a baseball cap during workouts and not being able to hit the bill of the cap for the first six weeks of training. All of the training, however, paid off on-screen.
“I think what it was that taekwondo translates quite well and energetically to the screen,” Meek says. “It’s great for the screen. What I don’t like about the (Steven) Seagal stuff is that he stands there and has people run at him. The taekwondo is more aggressive. It’s not so passive. I’m not saying that Steven’s passive; his martial arts are good. But, I don’t buy that when four or five stunt guys get their butts kicked (by someone), you would consider running at them.”
Meek, a veteran of theater, had previous experience working with fight scenes in the 1991 CBS late night spy series “The Exile.” He also played Remo Williams in an unsold 1988 television pilot based on “The Destroyer,” a martial arts book series created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir.
It was another popular martial arts-themed novel that influenced the creation of “Raven.” Meek says that CBS network president Jeff Sagansky wanted an adaptation of “Shibumi” by Trevanian. Published in 1979, it told the story of a mystical martial arts assassin named Nicholai Hel. The book became a cult classic among readers of action/adventure fiction. Frank Lupo, writer-producer of popular shows like “The A-Team” and “Wiseguy,” signed on to create the series.
Meek says originally Frank Lupo’s vision of “Raven” was much darker and grittier than what he eventually created. Also, after Meek had been cast, he was told they wanted to cast an older movie star-type such as Ned Beatty or Peter Boyle to play Herman “Ski” Jablonski, Raven’s boozy private eye ally in Hawaii. They instead hired former “Six Million Dollar Man” star Lee Majors. Meek says “it made for a very different show” and one he wasn’t sure was going to work. Concerns were put to rest when Meek met Majors, who had put on 25 pounds for role, and they began filming “Return of the Black Dragon,” the show’s first episode.
In Hawaii, Meek also had the chance to work with some of the best martial arts actors and stuntmen in show business. The first episode featured James Lew, stunt coordinator Jeff Imada, and legendary kung fu master Al Leong, who brought in the stunt team as requested by Craig Baxley, the episode’s director.
Leong says he didn’t think that having Raven, a character trained in Japan as a ninja but uses a Korean martial arts style, was all that strange for Hollywood.
“I think (marital arts) styles cross over in many areas so you can a lot of similarities. And Jeff Meek was great to work with. We had a lot of fun doing the show,” Leong says.
Meek says working every day with some of the most talented stuntmen in show business gave him the deepest respect for their skills and work. Meek wanted his work as an actor to match the commitment he saw demonstrated by the stuntmen in the show’s fight scenes.
“I think that what all great fight scenes have in common that they are scenes. They are acting. And I think what sort of translates well for me is that I was trained really well as an actor first. I was trained as a martial artist later, as an actor first. And I think it helps my acting, not being the other way around. And so what I brought to Raven more than anything was the stuff in between the action. It was me playing the scene and the precariousness of being in the violence. The other thing that I brought to it was that I didn’t want every fight scene to be the same,” Meek says.
The storyline of Raven searching for his lost son, and avenging the murder of his parents by the Black Dragons, also added an emotional depth to the series that many action/adventure shows lack.
“The show is about a man, who is trying to find himself. The metaphor is that he is trying to find this child who was taken away from him. Not only his child literally, but this child within him. And so he became this vengeful person and he’s trying to find salvation. He’s trying to get to heaven and the violence keeps following him around. And I loved that element. I thought it was really good story telling.” Meek says.

Unfortunately, despite good ratings for the first season of “Raven,” CBS canceled the series during its second season when rating sagged. The network had moved the show around its schedule making it difficult for viewers to find. CBS also put more support into another martial-arts theme series, “Walker, Texas Ranger” that starred movie star and hapkido champion Chuck Norris. Meek thinks that “Raven” was a better show because of its writing and action scenes but it could not compete with Norris’ fan following and name recognition. After cancellation in America, “Raven” became popular when it aired in Bangladesh, North Africa, South America, Russia, and Germany. Meek says he still gets mail from international fans of the series.
Meek went on to do more martial arts in the short-lived TNT series “Mortal Kombat: Conquest,” based on the popular video game. He continues to act, write, and director in film, television, and stage. Meek also opened the successful “Jeffrey Meek Studio” where he teaches young acting hopefuls at three locations in Southern California and online.
Meek says he’d love to play Raven again. He hopes the release of the complete series on DVD will bring about new fans for the show. It changed his life he says, for the better.

“What a great character to play,” he says. “It’s not often that someone asks you to do a TV series in Hawaii and with you as the star. It was an incredibly beautiful privilege. It was exquisite. It was one of the great times of my life. One of the great roles of my life.”
Originally published in “TaeKwonDo Times” magazine — Jan 2017
