A Super Máquina

The basic premise of Knight Rider has already been covered here numerous times, so I'm not going to delve into that. Everyone knows that Knight Rider is about an ex-cop with a new identity, working for a private foundation that provides him with an indestructible super car. But if you read some of the reviews here, you might think that Knight Rider is the worst TV show that was ever made. Knight Rider could get corny at times but it was nowhere near as terrible as some people say it is. There's nothing at all wrong with a show being campy.

Knight Rider wasn't "all about a cool car" either. If that was true then why didn't the two attempts to revive the show in the 90s work? Knight Rider 2000 in the early 90s and Team Knight Rider in the late 90s both failed to recapture the 80s glory of the original. Team Knight Rider even had 5 talking super vehicles. That proves that there was something to David Hasselhoff (Michael Knight), William Daniels (voice of KITT) and Edward Mulhare (Devon). They had a special chemistry that made the series work. David Hasselhoff for all his William Shatner overacting antics, made the show work too. Another man might have tried to play the material seriously, but the Hoff knew better. Knight Rider wasn't a show that was trying to change the world, it was merely a one hour action/adventure block of entertainment. The people slamming Knight Rider were probably too old to appreciate the show as children in the 80s, or they are too young to have been around in the 80s. I bet a lot of these mean spirited comments are from some dopey Generation Y kids born in 1989 or something like that. I think the shows success speaks for itself.

A lot of people laugh at David Hasselhoff and write Knight Rider off as a corny piece of 80s television. I still think this is one of the coolest shows ever, and I freely admit that Knight Rider can be pretty idiotic at the same time. The series was basically a cartoon and that can make it hard for some people to revisit when they grow up. I think that Knight Rider is one of the best unintentionally hilarious shows ever created. The silly aspects of the series make it just that much more entertaining in adult life. Knight Rider is an endearing and nostalgic series that finds a way to entertain you despite how ridiculous it can all be. "Michael & KITT", how can you not feel the tug of the old days back in the 80s when you hear that? We all grew up with this show back in the 1980's as kids, the appeal of a cool looking black sports car that could TALK was irresistible back then. Today I guess we look back at Knight Rider and wonder "wtf". It might make us recoil, and get pretty damn embarrassed with some of the out there stuff we used to think was so cool.

The immense flaws of logic and continuity that plagued Knight Rider were easily hidden to a casual child viewing the show back in 1982 (I was 5 years old), but they really stick out like a sore thumb when viewed through adult eyes. The same damn stock footage was used ad nauseum, the frames were sped up to make a car going 20 mph look like it was zipping along at 400 mph, blue filters were always used to make it look like it was night time; and as others have mentioned, the fight scenes were never, ever believable. I don't think they even had any kind of trained fight specialist on Knight Rider, it always seemed like the director just told Hasselhoff or the stunt doubles to simply go out there and just make up some crap that could pass for jujitsu or tae-kwon-do. But again, this is what makes Knight Rider so fun.

This series is loaded with all kinds of unintentional hilarity. Some of my favorites are when David Hasselhoff's stunt double wears a mustache in a take, or the episode when the stunt double's Michael Knight afro wig accidentally flew off while he was doing one of those patented "Hasselhoff-Fu" roundhouse karate kicks. It seemed like Michael Knight could take down any bad guy with one well placed karate kick to the head. Let's all be honest with ourselves, a big reason this show was popular was because it featured a really cool looking black car with that cool looking red scanner mounted in the front. Everyone loved that car, and there is no doubt that is the reason Knight Rider is a part of American pop cultural lore. I'm 26 1/2 years old today and I still like this show because it's my childhood, and because it's from the 80's that we all love and grew up in. Things would get so stupid, you often wondered if there would be a button on KITT's dashboard that would say "Drive Very Fast" instead of "Super Pursuit Mode". The show didn't magically become any more nerdier in the 2000's then it was in the 1980s. Even back in the early-mid 80s most people over the age of 15 had a tendency to laugh at Knight Rider. It was always cool to children that didn't pick apart the series, but not so to anyone above the 9th grade. The prime target audience was boys that were roughly 9 years of age. So if you were already over the age of 13 back in 1982 when Knight Rider first aired, then you were likely going to always be too cool for a show like this that leaned on being a live action cartoon. Yes it is amazing that this series lasted on NBC's prime time for 4 years. But aren't we glad it did?

And I still enjoy it. I was a senior in high school when this show premiered. Yes, it is absolutely campy, and of course it is not believable, but maybe that's why I like it so much, even today. This show reminds me of Star Trek,the original series in some ways. It's so over the top that you can forget about any idea of anyone getting hurt. You know before the episode even begins that Michael is going to come through, and good will triumph over evil and the bad guy is going to get it in the end. Just like Trek. But that's what I love about it. If I wanted to see reality, I can find another show, or simply walk out the front door. But this kind of show let's you just take your mind off the hook for a while and pretend that everything always comes out right in the end. If that's what you want, you're in the right place.

Oh man when I was a little kid I used to watch this show religiously. I loved this show and when the reruns are on T.V. I watch them too. I used to watch them on U.S.A. when I was in High school and loved the episodes again. It reminded me when I was a little kid. K.I.T.T. inspired my love Pontiac cars and one day I will own a 1982 Pontiac Trans-Am with T-tops. If you have never seen this show and happen upon it one day I recommed watching it, this is a classic like the A-team.

I just saw what another guy had written about this series and I must say he is so far wrong on this subject and is probably not even from the era of the Knight Rider, A-Team, Airwolf, Magnum PI, Simon and Simon, MacGyver, and Harcastle and McCormick. All of the shows listed above are some of the best shows ever in the history of TV and how anyone has the audacity to sit here and type in a bunch of drivvle and say that Knight Rider had bad actors, bad stunts, and bad filming shows to me they know nothing about the show. The only problem Knight Rider had was, it was way ahead of its time. Knight Rider was a lot like KITT it was the show of the future. Now I will go on and defend Kinght Rider like any true fan would. David Hasselhoff may not have been one of the best actors, but none-the-less he is a fairly decent actor. In turn, the KITT car was a real Pontiac and at times it was a dumb car, most people know this stuff, however this is a TV show not real life, so if it may have seemed fake in manner, then maybe you should sell your TV and sit in your house like a bored bump on a log. My rating for Knight Rider is 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.