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"Knight Rider" was produced by Universal Television for the American NBC network and broadcast between September 1982 and April 1986. It was the most successful of all the 'super machine' or 'gadget' shows which dominated Fantasy television during the early Eighties, proving more popular than "Airwolf", "Streethawk", "Automan", and "Blue Thunder", and even surviving an early ratings war with super-soap "Dallas".

"Knight Rider" was created by prolific writer/producer Glen A. Larson. Perhaps best known as the creator of the controversial space opera "Battlestar Galactica" and its Earth-bound follow-up, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", Larson's other credits include "B.J. and the Bear", "Masquerade", "Cover-Up", "The Highwayman", and the hugely successful "Magnum", which he co-created with his "Galactica" prodigy Donald P. Bellisario.

The show's premise saw ex-cop and Vietnam veteran Michael Long saved by multi-millionaire Wilton Knight, whose dying wish is that Long assumes a new identity -- Michael Knight -- to fight the forces of evil. Help is provided by K.I.T.T. (the Knight Industries Two Thousand), a futuristic, computerised, virtually-indestructible car with a mind of its own. Over the course of the show's 88 episodes [sic], Knight encountered every cliched storyline and two-dimensional characterization imaginable, rarely straying from the 'boys-own-adventure' formula of hi-tech weaponry, espionage, subterfuge, evil doppelgangers (notably Garthe Knight and K.I.T.T.'s prototype K.A.R.R.), doomed reunions and damsels in distress. In this respect, the first season's 'INSIDE OUT' contains most of the ingredients of a typical episode of "Knight Rider".

Heroic crime-fighter Michael Knight was played by 6'4" American hunk David Hasselhoff. A star of daytime soap "The Young and the Restless", Hasselhoff was discovered for the role by Brandon Tartikoff, President of NBC Entertainment, while promoting a syndicated chat show, and won it with both Tartikoff and Larson's support. "I saw the script and I said 'This is the one that will make me a star'," the show's leading man prophetically predicted at the time. Since "Knight Rider", Hasselhoff has become a successful pop-star in Europe and is currently known as the star and executive producer of 'beach and babes bonanza' "Baywatch".

As lead operative in the Knight Foundation for Law and Government, Knight's missions were overseen by Edward Mulhare as crouchy Englishman Devon Miles (Devon Shire in the PILOT episode [sic]). Best known from the '60s sitcom "The Ghost and Mrs Muir", Mulhare had previously worked with Larson on the "Battlestar Galactica" episode 'Experiment in Terra' and as Devon Miles soon became famous for parting such sage advice as "Stay out of trouble, Michael".

K.I.T.T. was maintained by the show's resident technician Bonnie Barstow, played by former model Patricia McPherson. While McPherson described Bonnie as "efficient, self-contained and down to earth", to the viewers of the show, her character seemed little more than window-dressing for older viewers. During the second season, after persistent lobbying from McPherson for a romance between Knight and her character, Bonnie was replaced by another former model, Rebecca Holden as April Curtis. Fortunately for McPherson, the actress had both the show's star and its viewers on her side, and she returned to the show for the third and fourth seasons. During the show's final year, Peter Parros assisted Bonnie as RC3, a reformed vigilante-turned-technician.

Thus, with Bonnie, April and RC3, the producers were allowed to introduce a new gadget each week for K.I.T.T. to use and promptly forget in much the same way Q acted in the Bond movies, and radically rebuild and update K.I.T.T. at the beginning of both the third and fourth seasons when such facilities as 'gas low' and 'doors unlocked' warnings had moved from the realm of Science Fiction to Science Fact.

Of course, the real star of the show was K.I.T.T., the virtually indestructible, computerized, talking car. Voiced by William Daniels, best known as Dr Craig in "St Elsewhere", each week K.I.T.T. competed with Devon for the most inane dialogue, with "They're getting away, Michael!" as a firm favourite.

K.I.T.T. itself was a modified 1982 Pontiac Trans-Am, its most distinctive feature being the flickering red scanner at the front of the car which was reminiscent of the Cylons in Larson's "Battlestar Galactica". There were actually 4 cars used for filming the show: one was a 'picture car' kept polished and perfect at all times which was used for most shots; another was especially modified for K.I.T.T.'s famous jumps; a third featured line-lock brakes and such safety devices as 'roll bars' for dangerous stunts; and a fourth featured a semi-functional ejector seat!

During the series, K.I.T.T. regularly performed jumps of over 55 metres courtesy of carefully hidden 3ft high, 30ft ramps and air compressors, and even appeared to drive across water, courtesy of a motor-driven submerged platform. When K.I.T.T. appeared to drive itself, it was not the result of remote control but was in fact the work of stunt-driver Jack Gill lying on the floor of the car and watching through a small hole in K.I.T.T.'s bonnet to steer. Although this may sound like a special skill, Gill later admitted that the key to his success was 'guesswork'! For the high-speed driving, K.I.T.T. was taken up to 290km on open roads, while on other times the film was speeded up - hence the occasional pedestrian can be seen walking at speeds of over 50mph! Hasselhoff enjoyed performing many of his own stunts, including K.I.T.T.'s distinctive 180-degree turns, but was banned from doing so after one such turn went wrong, ruining one of the cars in the process!

Two "Knight Rider" videos are currently available, the feature-length PILOT and the fourth-season two-part premiere 'KNIGHT OF THE JUGGERNAUT.' A whole range of merchandise, including a series of "Knight Rider" novels, can still be found in specialist shops, while the show's theme tune appears on several compilation albums.

Two telemovies have recently brought "Knight Rider" back to the screen. In 1991, "KNIGHT RIDER 2000" reunited Hasselhoff, Mulhare and Daniels in an uneasy combination of the original show's style and tone with such current Science Fiction trends as Virtual Reality, and consequently failed to launch a spin-off series starring Susan Norman. Similarly, the disappointing reaction to "KNIGHT RIDER 2010" suggests that no "Knight Rider" series can succeed without David Hasselhoff behind the wheel. After all, as the shows' closing coda always suggested, "One man can make a difference".