what does Knight Rider mean to you?

[knightstand]

I thought that it would be nice to do a thread like this since we are getting ready to watch a new series (hopefully) launch by end of week.

Knight Rider to me, was an awesome car, more: I wanted KITT for a friend as well. He was just sooooo darn cool. He was protective of Michael, even to his own detriment on occasion. Basically, I loved KR for showing me that one person can make a difference.

My girlfriend says I'm such a nerd..lol..

[McTrooper]

It means a lot of things.

The show it self means one thing, but the memories associated with it have meaning too . . .

I remember eating ice cream as a kid and sitting down and watching a new episode of Knight Rider.
There are lots of other memories . . . I just got to dig them out hehe.

And the show it's self . . . That's going to take an essay.

[knightendo_phil]

As a child, Knight Rider was an obsession! It was all about KITT being awesomely powerful and Michael being funny and cool. As an adult, the "one man can make a difference" spine of the show really shines through, maybe not so in season four, but that's what it means to me now. I also have a better appreciation for the character of Michael and his nuances and hidden depths that we see now and then, and for how KITT grew as a character beyond just a talking car. As an adult there's so much more to appreciate that I agree, it would take an essay! But at its most basic it's a fun show, a really fun show, that knew exactly what it was and how to have the greatest amount of fun... which you just don't get these days... well, at least until new Knight Rider, from what we've heard it's going to bring the fun back into TV

But you touched on memories, and for me Knight Rider will always be the last trace memory I have of my late (and very great) grandfather. He died when I was very young and I have only three or four dinstinct memories of him. My most distinct memory doesn't even include a vision of him, just his voice. I am playing with my toy cars and trains on the carpet in our living room one Sunday lunchtime, and in the background I hear my granda asking my mum if we had seen the film that was on the night before as I would've loved it. I remember him telling her: "The car talked, it drove itself, it jumped over other cars and crashed through trucks, and it's going to be on every week now, he will absolutely love it." Granda Ted sort of handed Knight Rider down to me, the afternoon after the pilot aired over here, and I've never forgotten that, and have him to thank

[McTrooper]

That's really cool knightendo_phil your Granda got you into Knight Rider.
That reminds me of how my dad got me into Dark Shadows when the 91 series happened, only he watched the original it as a kid.

Another memory I have of Knight Rider is doing a re-hash of it in Legos one day. I made three really simple cars.
One was Michal Long's car. One was KITT. And one was KARR. I had some kind of adventure that was based on the pilot episode and the KARR episode (maybe both episodes).

Not to mention I had a computer AI vehicle character that was different, but clearly inspired by KITT. When I played
with Lego's it was usually part of an on-going story (I was a bit like a director in a way). My KITT inspired character was part of my Lego's for many years.

[BlackMagic84]

I thought that it would be nice to do a thread like this since we are getting ready to watch a new series (hopefully) launch by end of week.

Knight Rider to me, was an awesome car, more: I wanted KITT for a friend as well. He was just sooooo darn cool. He was protective of Michael, even to his own detriment on occasion. Basically, I loved KR for showing me that one person can make a difference.

My girlfriend says I'm such a nerd..lol..

Yeah, I agree.


I think that the overwhelming majority of us on this site are somewhere's between the ages of 29 to 39.

At least that's how old you would have to be to have "really experienced" the show when it aired live from 82-86.

It was my generation and age group that made Knight Rider so popular and also what has helped to endure it through the years so that there is still so much interest in it now.

If you were any younger, then that meant you were most likely 3 years old or less when the show began and in no way would you have known what was going on the TV show unless they cast Grover and Cookie Monster from Seasame Street as special guest stars. Haaaaa!

And if you were any older, then you were probably parked somewhere on a dirt road boozing it up with your buddies on Friday nights or parked with your significant other "sweet-heart" practicing other adult related activities.

I'll be 30 years old in May, therefore I was about age 5 when it began and I was 9 when it ended. That was the perfect age to sit mesmorized infont of the TV on Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00pm throughout the years it aired and realize how cool it was to see a talking and thinking Black T-Top Pontiac TransAm (one of the coolest cars of that day) do all the neat things it could do.

My folks even bought me the K.I.T.T. replica "Hot Wheel" version that I could actually sit in and ride around in the garage as I worked the pedals. It had a driver's door that opened, a real working scanner, and two buttons that when pushed one would ring out from the tiny battery powered speaker, "I am the Knight Industries Two Thousand!", and the other button would make KITT's scanner noise/sound.

....Man, I'm telling you.....You couldn't tell me nothing! LOL! I was the shiz-nit and knew it in that thing.

Of course by the time I got around 7 or 8, I was too big to still ride in it, so I passed it onto my sister.

I even asked for a Black Leather Jacket, so I could be as cool as Michael Knight. I think I ended up getting a Black Members Only style jacket, because my folks new it would be stupid to spend money on a leather jacket for me because I would most likely grow out of it soon and also play in it and get it dirty.......and they were right.


I also had the 1:64 scale model of KITT with the Michael Knight action figure......boy I gave that thing pure hell!

It jumped over the couch so many times and finally ended up in the sandbox in the backyard.......completely destroyed.......I think the hood fell off years later. I guess KITT did have some limitations to his molecular bonded shell! LOL!!! Years later in my teens I found the Michael Knight action figure in an old toy box and believe it got sold at a yard sale for about $0.25!!!

I'd go to school in 1st through 4th grade and get in trouble by not paying attention in class and drawing figures of KITT and Michael on paper, and I used to love to draw Goliath also.......I actually still have one of those old drawings in an old childhood scrap book to this day! Priceless! One day my kid will see it too.


But moreover, I guess what made that show and those times and day so special to me is the fact that I "was a kid", living at home with Mom and Dad, and my sister, and I was very fortunate and didn't have a care in the world. I hated school, but what 5-9 year old doesn't??? But those times were easy and everything was good, I had it made. Those days are long gone now and I'll never have them again, but only the opportunity to watch my kids go through the same.

Now, I am engaged to be married within the year, have a fast paced insurance sales career, bills and a mortgage......things are definitley a lot more complex......but hey, that's life!

.....Those were the days though, and Knight Rider will always be part of that for me.

[Victor Kros]

To me Knight Rider means exactly what it's premise was built on, one man can make a difference and trying to be that man who makes a positive difference in someone else's life. Doing what I can to make other people reach their goals and ambitions and to try and steer them on a path that gives them identity and integrity.

I do not believe a "difference" means a global one. I think making a difference is doing a series of smaller deeds in order to build a goal towards a larger change in a situation. Michael was the good samaritan who would help others without expecting anything in return other then a thank you and if the problem was caused by irresponsibility or lapse of judgment, a promise for a person to better themselves and learn from their mistakes.

Knight Rider represents to me a time in life where you could sit back and just dream. You didn't care what effects looked cheesy or whatever, you just bought into the idea that Michael Knight was this lone crusader who managed to topple the forces of evil with the help of KITT, the super-advanced AI and his partner. KITT was a computer, but the soul to me was more then the sum of it's parts. I believed KITT could talk and drive on its own and do the fantastic over the top functions like Turbo Boost and Ski Mode. The "wow" factor was enough for me to believe the car could do everything it claimed it could even with something as far fetched as removing Michael's handcuffs with "Microjam" and inflating another car's tires. When Michael spoke into his wrist watch, I believed KITT could talk back to him.

The design standpoint was all about the believability and "wow" factor of the car and Michael Scheffe did an outstanding job designing it to really pay attention to what would draw a child's attention over just an adults point of view. Light attracts the eye, flashing lights demand attention...all these things a child reacts to with wonder and excitement from Battlestar Galactica to Star Wars, it's a formula that remains unchanged from generation to generation.

That sense of childlike wonder that our modern hollywood types have lost touch with. Now it's all based on reality or some sort of proposed reality involving politics, political correctness and other stuff I honestly could care less about. For better or worse, Knight Rider taught the children of my generation good wholesome values and not only to realize the consquences of mistakes but also how to learn from them.

That's what Knight Rider means to me. No amount of expanded development (continuation or spin-off) is going to change that.

=VK=


(I had the KITT "Big Wheel" with the adjustable seat as a kid.)

[Making_Waves_of_my_Own]

> To me Knight Rider means exactly what it's premise was built on, one man can make a difference
> and trying to be that man who makes a positive difference in someone else's life. Doing what I can
> to make other people reach their goals and ambitions and to try and steer them on a path that
> gives them identity and integrity.

Victor, I could not have said that better!

Knight Rider inspired me to take that slogan to heart, that "One man can make a difference." So for 26 years, first inspired by our television show, I have been presenting assemblies at K-12 schools to encourage students to think positively and to bring out the best in others (which helps bring out the best in ourselves). I was born with mild brain damage, but Michael Knight whisked me off my feet every week championing the positive causes of the "little guy (or gal)" in the neighborhood. Even if he was a fictional character who never asked me to believe in him, he taught me to believe in myself, get rid of my own "Why me?" questioning, and to ALWAYS try to come out a winner.

I felt truly humbled three weeks ago when I presented a one-hour assembly at a middle school in New York. One girl wrote an email to me a few days later, explaining that my assembly convinced her best friend not to commit suicide. I was so startled by that comment that I finally felt vindicated from all the criticisms I endure from my dad over the years who doesn't feel that I can advance in the field by continuing to do these school assemblies.

It's the students' reactions that are so personally satisfying, and that is what counts the most. I believe I am investing in the future of our country, and even if the investment is not financially gratifying, it's exactly the investment my heart wants to make ... because none of us are going to be here in 100 years.

Victor, I am patiently awaiting the time when Glen can respond to my letter. I know that, when the time comes, it will be just as inspirational to me as Michael Knight was to an 11-year-old kid then.

Each of us can be heroes. Ordinary people who triumph over extraordinary circumstances ... like our favorite television characters did every week!

Paul