In the early years of the 1970s comedy TV show Saturday Night Live, John Belushi portrayed an archetypal samurai — he has a strong sense of honor, speaks only (mock) Japanese, and wields a katana.
[1] Samurai Futaba would probably not have become a recurring character if not for Buck Henry's insistence that there be a second sketch featuring him when he first hosted on January 17, 1976.
It is perhaps due to these origins that it became standard practice on SNL to feature a Samurai sketch every time Henry hosted, until Belushi left the cast.
[2] In the story, the Silver Samurai seeks to recover a ring containing a teleportation device that had inadvertently come into Belushi's possession.
An alternate version of the "Samurai Deli" sketch also appears briefly in issue #54 of The Sandman, part of a timeline where Prez Rickard becomes President of the United States and hosts the "highest-rated" episode of Saturday Night Live in history.