Remembering “Knight Rider”

“One man can make a difference”

That was the mission of Michael Knight, who was tasked with taking down criminals who “were above the law”.

Using his computerized car, the Knight Industries Two Thousand, or KITT, Michael pursued bad guys for four seasons and 90 episodes on “Knight Rider”.

Recently, that magical car, the 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, appeared on my newsfeed, and it took me back to a time where I waited impatiently every week to watch the adventures of Michael Knight and KITT.

Long day into Knight
The pilot for “Knight Rider” aired in September of 1982 when I was just starting Grade 8. It was an amazing movie, because I really did not know what was going to happen.

Michael Long is a police detective who is double crossed, shot in the face, and left for dead. He is found by a mysterious organization that not only saves his life but, because he is disfigured, performs plastic surgery giving him a new face and new identity.

Enter David Hasselhoff.

The cast of the drama "Knight Rider. Clockwise from top left

are David Hasselhoff; Edward Mulhare; and Patricia McPherson.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/knightriderclassicpage

(May be subject to copyright)

Michael Long has become Michael Knight, and he is under the protection of Knight Industries, founded by Wilton Knight. He is played by Richard Basehart, and creates a crime-fighting organization to go after criminals who act above the law. He enlists Michael to be his lead agent in that endeavour. Michael’s liaison is Devon Miles, played by Edward Mulhare, who takes over after Wilton Knight’s death. Michael has also been given a new car, the Knight Industries Two Thousand, or KITT.

More than a car, it has a personality of its own, and KITT becomes a character in the show, whose voice is provided by William Daniels. Interestingly, he was the voice of KITT at the same time he played Dr. Mark Craig on “St. Elsewhere”.

A state-of-the-art computer, KITT provides information in a pre-Internet world, but also has functions such as x-rays. In one episode, KITT discovers the remains of someone in the ground through x-ray, information that proves useful to Michael. In addition to the onboard computer, KITT also has “turbo boost”. When Michael hits the button, the car can go really fast.

KITT has one other feature, that comes into play in the pilot. Ultimately, Michael Knight’s first mission involves the same woman, played Phyllis Davis, who betrayed Michael Long, seemingly leading to his death. When he first meets KITT, he touches the exterior and asks, “Why does it feel like a baby’s skin?”

It turns out to be the state-of-the-art, bullet-proof skin, that makes KITT virtually indestructible. Well, when Michael confronts the woman, and she discovers who he really is, she has him at gunpoint. He is sitting inside KITT. He warns her not to shoot. Of course, she does not believe him. She fires. The bullet ricochets off the window and kills her.

Karma is a bitch.

From that point on, Michael is assigned his regular missions by Devon Miles. There is a third member of the team, an engineer who understands the inner working of KITT and keeps him humming. Initially it is Dr. Bonnie Barstow, played by Patricia McPherson. In the second season it is April Curtis played by Rebecca Holden; then Barstow returns for the third and fourth seasons.

Nemesis
One of my outstanding memories of “Knight Rider” is the two nemesis of Michael and KITT. We eventually discover Wilton Knight had a son. He appears, and is not a very nice guy. What makes him look more evil is that Michael Knight is an exact double of Garthe Knight, who is also played by David Hasselhoff, but sports a demonic goatee. He also drives Goliath, a massive semi truck, that is computerized like KITT, providing a formidable adversary.

We also meet the Knight Automated Roving Robot, or KARR, which is the precursor to KITT. He too is computerized, talks and is out for revenge.

Times change
“Knight Rider” debuted in September of 1982, when I was just starting Grade 8. It aired that first season on Channel 7 on the peasant vision dial, and I watched every episode religiously.

For its second season and beyond, right until its conclusion in 1986, it moved to Channel 13 on the peasant vision dial, on Sunday nights at 7 p.m. I believe.

It had a big impact on me. Unlike my classmates who loved the car, I loved the story line of a man on a mission, solving crimes, stopping bad guys, and making the world a better place. “Knight Rider” even has some influence on my own writing.

In fact, in Grade 9, we had to do a project. I believe it was designing a car or some such. My teacher was Mr. Ron Chmielewski. I decided to design a car I called the “Vogt Industries Two Hundred”, or VITH. Yes, it was a cheap knock-off of KITT. However, I am pretty sure my teacher had no idea what I was talking about, because he wrote as much on my assignment when he handed it back.

However, a few days later, someone called out to me, and Mr. Chmieleswki called out, “You mean the president of Vogt Industries?” At least he got part of it – maybe.

By Grade 10, as “Knight Rider” entered its third season, I began to get into other things. There was my Commodore 64 and playing and even designing video games; then music, which I really got into the Fall of 1984.

I watched “Knight Rider” less and less.

That reached a crescendo in the final season of the show when, in Grade 11, my friends started getting their licences and I started going out more and more while, simultaneously, getting interested in girls.

I am not sure I even saw an episode in the fourth season of “Knight Rider”, and I definitely have no idea how it ended or what the last episode was.

“Knight Rider” ran from 1982 to 1986 for four seasons and 90 episodes. I own all four seasons on DVD as well.

The rest of the story
Re-boots and updates are not new. They have been going on for decades, but in the ‘80s and ‘90s they were called reunion movies more than anything.

My parents moved off the farm in the first part of 1991, and retired to Lethbridge. I visited in March for the first time and immediately fell in love with the new house. One of the biggest reasons was, after a lifetime of peasant vision, my parents had cable TV. That made coming home after university a much easier choice.

It was in May of 1991, just a month or so after moving to my new home in Lethbridge, I read in the “TV Times” in the “Lethbridge Herald” there was a reunion movie coming up.

It was called “Knight Rider 2000”, and starred Davis Hasselhoff.

The movie was can’t miss television, and my Mom and I tuned in. It was set in the year 2000 which, as hard as that is to believe now, was the near future. All I really remember is that KITT is going to be taken apart and studied to make a better version of the car. Michael was angry, ultimately took KITT’s inner workings and installed them in an antique car Michael had been working on, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

Parting thoughts
“Knight Rider” would be re-worked and re-imagined a few times, the last being the made-for –television movie “Knight Rider” in 2008. It served as the pilot for another “Knight Rider” series that ran from 2008 to 2009, which focused on Michael Knight’s estranged son. I watched it, and enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the same.

“Knight Rider” was David Hasselhoff and William Daniels, working as a team to take down people who acted like they were above the law. For me, it was never about the cool car, it was about the story and the characters.

So, whenever I think of “Knight Rider”, I really think of that pilot movie in 1982 and hearing Richard Basehart declaring “One man can make a difference”.