(Credit: Amazon.com)
Created by
Glen A. Larson
Cast:
David Hasselhoff …. Michael Knight
Edward Mulhare …. Devon Miles
Patricia McPherson …. Bonnie Barstow
Peter Parros …. ‘RC3’ Reginald Cornelius III
The Show
Was there a cooler show when you were a kid than Knight Rider? An undercover police officer named Michael Long is shot in the face and left for dead, but is revived by millionaire Wilton Knight. Knight runs the Foundation for Law and Government, an organization looking to wage war on crime with a pseudo-vigilante figurehead and the Knight Industries Two Thousand, an artificially intelligent, nearly indestructible car. K.I.T.T., as it was affectionately known as on the show, was the vehicle for the revived Long, who received a new face and identity as Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff). Together with Foundation for Law and Government Representative Devon Miles (Edward Mulhare) and Technician Bonnie Barstow (Patricia McPherson), the team roams the country looking for crime to stop.
If this sounds awesome, it was…in 1982. K.I.T.T. became an American Television icon with William Daniels cleverly voicing the car, and imbuing it with quite a bit of personality. This was also before David Hasselhoff became a supposed German icon and the kind of joke that he is today. Hasselhoff does show some degree of charisma here, and it’s not really hard to see why he was chosen for the role.
Unfortunately, Knight Rider has not really aged well at all. While there is still a degree of goofy fun in the show’s 80’s vibe and irresistible theme song, there are a lot of elements, from Hasselhoff’s ridiculous attire and hair, to the show’s barely Atari 2600 quality graphics that make the series feel horribly dated. With Season 3 of Knight Rider, all of the series’ weaknesses seem to rear their ugly heads from the get go.
Knight Rider‘s two part season premiere actually shows some promise and ingenuity in the very beginning. Jim Brown guest stars as CJ Jackson, a man who was actually put behind bars for murder in the early days of the Foundation. In a charmingly campy opening sequence, Jackson is set free when a radio transforms into a small robot, gasses the guard in charge of the prison block he’s on, unlocks his cell, and then melts into a mass of metal and plastic. CJ then fights his way out of the prison to find a car driven by ITSELF! (Oh the irony!)
It turns out the car is being remotely driven by Dr. David Halston (Jared Martin), who hires CJ to be his muscle on a heist involving millions of dollars. He also hires Peter Wong (Evan C. Kim), an electronics expert, to handle the bank’s security system. This is where Knight and K.I.T.T. are called in to stop the bad guys.
If these were all the plot points covered in the episode it would fine, campy fun, but disturbingly, writers added a subplot in which Wong leaves his job at a Chinese Restaurant as well as another about Chinese tunnels underneath San Francisco and the scenes are pretty racist. Now this was in 1984, and perhaps making fun of Asians was perhaps a bit more acceptable at the time, but the instances are pretty insulting watching them now.
First of all, Halston has a benefactor named Margo Sheridan (Barbara Stock). She sends two muscle-bound goons named Turk and Clifton (brothers Peter and David Paul) to procure a series of maps to find underground tunnels built by Chinese immigrants to access the bank’s vaults. After killing the man owning the maps, the bowing goons inform their employer that “Only his ancestors will mourn him”.
In another sequence Knight goes to Peter Wong’s former job to look for clues about him. The owner of the restaurant, the cleverly named Mr. Fong (Wood Moy), who is stereotypically involved in different elements of racketeering, immediately sends two men after Knight. The resulting kung fu showdown features Knight calling them “The egg roll brothers” and K.I.T.T. telling them to “Go back to the zoo they came from.” This took away from my 80’s nostalgia high significantly.
In addition, the DVD set’s bonus episode, entitled Knight of the Rising Sun features Knight defending an American businessman from a clan of ninjas. Of course, these ninjas wear their ninja garb 24/7, and are particularly ineffective when trying to infiltrate an urban setting in the middle of the day, but they try anyway. Hasselhoff’s line “I guess these are the bad guys” caps off the ludicrous sequence quite nicely. Another instance, where Knight compares the clan unfavorably to Nazi War criminals is another example of a very un-P.C. early 80’s America.
Other episodes, such as The Ice Bandits and K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R., feature the Knight Rider we all knew and loved. Knight and K.I.T.T. have Bond-esque adventures fighting jewel thieves and K.I.T.T.’s evil twin with Hasselhoff’s vocal stylings blaring on the soundtrack, but the other episodes leave a bad taste in your mouth. It’s one thing to have campy fun; it’s another to put down Asians.
Score: 2.5/10
The DVD:
The Video
For 80’s TV, the show look’s pretty good. Universal’s done a decent job here of restoring the show and it probably looks better than it did on TV. The show is presented in Fullscreen with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.
The Audio
The show’s soundtrack is nearly as good, but you may regret it when having to listen to Hasselhoff’s version of The Politics of Dancing. The track is in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound.
SPECIAL FEATURES: Bonus Episode
Bonus Episode: Knight of the Rising Sun – The aforementioned bonus episode is the only feature on this DVD set.
Score: 1.0 /10
