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  “David Hasselhoff plays a hood ornament.” Not disturbed by the bad reviews, David became more excited. “You know, I read all this stuff and I am the Knight Rider •

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  said, ‘Hey, we got bad reviews. That means we’re gonna be a hit.’ I don’t know why, but it seems to be a formula every time.”

  Larson says, “The car brings in the kids; the adventure stories bring in the men—who mostly don’t want to watch Dallas; David is so handsome that he has carried along with him a lot of the women in the Dallas audience who were his fans when he was in The Young and the Restless.”

  Not one to jump into his new role lightly, Hasselhoff went on a 14-city promotional tour to promote the concept of Knight Rider. He got people to pay attention to the show, got paid for it, and even received two brand new Trans Ams. While making his rounds at the local car shows, David noticed that Knight Rider captured the imaginations of both children and adults alike. When asked about meeting the show’s youngest fans at the car shows, Hasselhoff responds, “I meet every single one of those kids, and I get more out of it than they do. K.I.T.T. is E.T. to the children. He’s a source of non-stop love and affection, and a protector.”

  In the summer of 1982, NBC opened a special post office box for viewers and offered viewers details on the most exciting car on television. Those who responded were sent a flyer that said, “The Competition is NO Competition,” displaying K.I.T.T. alongside a car which resembled the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard, and offering a comparison of each vehicle. At the start of the series, Hasselhoff knew that the car was what brought in the viewers.

  Gino Grimaldi, one of the producers of Knight Rider explains: “You can’t just throw a series like Knight Rider together. The audience is much more ‘in’ with things than people give them credit for. They know when they are being taken for a ride. With the series we try to get everything as near perfect as possible and the stunts alone do not make a show. You have to have believable characters who work well together. I am pleased to say that everyone gets on tremendously on Knight Rider because we all want it to continue being a success. It has given us, and a few million other people, a lot of enjoyment.”

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  • Knight Rider Legacy

  With Hasselhoff being cast as Michael Knight, the producers set out to find someone to play the part of Michael’s boss, Devon Shire (later to be changed to Devon Miles). Larson sought out Edward Mulhare, a performer and actor best known for his Broadway performances and his role in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. They had crossed paths before Knight Rider in Battlestar Galactica. “Edward sort of popped into my head,” recalls Larson. “I first saw him in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, he had this nice quiet dignity and a cerebral quality about him. When you bring someone in like Mulhare, you are lifting the level of competition and content a huge amount.” Edward Mulhare was not optimistic about Knight Rider. Hasselhoff said Mulhare expected the show to run three weeks and flop. Mulhare did not buy a home until six months into Knight Rider’s first season. He never cared for competing with the car or his fellow actors. “I do not compete with machinery; I do not compete with actors,” he once said. The late producer Robert A. Cinader was faced with a unique problem that he expressed in a 1982 interview. “This kid comes in and complains it’s ridiculous that the car gets more lines than the fine actor, Edward Mulhare. What can we do? The kid’s right. So he actually got us to slant a lot of the stories away from the car—which Larson wanted to do eventually anyway.”

  Even though Patricia McPherson did not appear in the pilot, NBC had already given the go ahead on the series and the character of Dr. Bonnie Barstow was introduced to be the new car’s mechanic in the second episode of the series, “Deadly Maneuvers.” Larson recalls, “McPherson was not something we needed in the pilot because, remember, Michael sort of breaks with the organization and takes off. Good entertainment comes out of conflict. At that point, he really did not have a support team. It was just him and the car. We then realized that if you are going to have a machine like that, you are probably going to have to have some support for it. Things are going to need fixing and such, and also it was a way to bring Devon into play a bit more often. It was something we needed for the series, not the pilot.” Over one hundred people auditioned for the

  I am the Knight Rider •

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  role, including Knight Rider alums Mary Margaret Humes and Anne Lockhart.

  Patricia McPherson [Agency Photo Courtesy Patricia McPherson] McPherson has fond memories of being cast in the role. “The first episode that I was in was the episode that I tested for the show. I ended up getting it and the person that did not get it was Mary Margaret Humes. We have become best friends ever since that episode. She now plays the mom on Dawson’s Creek.” McPherson adds that, “There were hundreds of people that were reading for the role. They ended going with me because I came across as down to earth and was naturally able to mechanically operate things. I just used my experiences with handling other equipment.”

  Supervising producer Burton Armus believed that her part was not necessarily an exciting part. “Her dialogue is mostly expository,” he adds. McPherson and Hasselhoff appeared to have great chemistry, but NBC would not pursue an on-screen romance. “No way,” Armus responds. “It 14

  • Knight Rider Legacy

  would not work. It’s an 8 o’clock show, an action-adventure format. If we were on at nine or ten the audience could probably understand.”

  Universal Studios agreed to produce the series and Larson began putting his vision of Knight Rider together. Not everything was perfect though, as Knight Rider went through so many producers that Larson had to have directors from other Universal fantasy shows or Glen Larson productions to fill in. Episodes began to take on a different tone and were constantly being rewritten by the producers who came to assist and then left. The essence and content as well as direction of the show was firmly established and the stories quickly became very standard involving such plotlines as helping a close friend of a main character, a pretty girl in distress, spies and industrial corruption, and hi-tech weaponry. Buying and then destroying expensive items, such as cars, placed a strain even on studio budgets. The Knight Industries Two Thousand is a variation on the production line model Pontiac Trans Am of 1982, specially adapted by the motor company at a cost of $18,000. Considering there were four K.I.T.T. cars, that was $72,000 that Universal and the show spent making K.I.T.T. appear real. Pontiac, however, did not like all the attention the new Knight Rider car had and requested to Larson that it not be referred to as a Trans Am on screen anymore.

  K.I.T.T. was pitted against just about every piece of machinery Universal could get their hands on and in just about every possible situation in order to appeal to the series’ young audience unlike CBS’ Airwolf, which looked for an older, more mature audience. Larson sought out William Daniels, who was currently on the series St. Elsewhere. “Daniels played in a movie called Two for the Road. His sense of comedy is just wonderful. He played an accountant that kept track of everything, and that’s a quality that I thought would work well in an action piece. If Tonto is a pain in the ass to the Lone Ranger, chastising him for making mistakes, you’ve got more going on.”

  William Daniels tells of how he recorded K.I.T.T.’s voice. “I went into a little booth with a recording engineer and a microphone to record my

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  lines. I knocked off an episode in about 45 minutes. I never watched the episode while I would do the voice over. I would have the pages that involved K.I.T.T.—not even the entire show. Those pages would have David’s dialogue and then K.I.T.T.’s answers. So, I would speak David’s dialogue and then I would answer it. I had something to relate to that way.” Although Daniels and Hasselhoff rarely saw each other, the chemistry was there. “I would only meet him at Christmas parties and he would say, ‘I do not know how this always seems to work out but it always works out’.” Daniels tol
d Larson that he would agree to do the voice under one condition—he did not want to receive on-screen credit for it. Daniels felt that by doing it that way, it gave the car a mind of its own. He came into the studio and taped his lines, which were then placed into the episode soundtrack. Daniels’ lines during filming were often read by assistants. Hasselhoff and Daniels would only see each other at the Christmas parties.

  William Daniels [Agency Photo Courtesy of William Daniels] 16

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  Daniels recalls, “The casting director wanted to make K.I.T.T. more like a robot and I said no, that is ridiculous. I saw a chance for it to be amusing and bright. K.I.T.T. had to have human expression.” K.I.T.T.’s voice was synthesized similar to a robot in the pilot episode, but began to sound more human thereafter. The human voice appealed to the fans and they soon figured out it was William Daniels’ voice. Daniels comments, “I was walking through my neighborhood and a guy yelled, ‘Congratulations on the show’. I said, ‘What show?’ He said, Knight Rider. It turned out that everyone recognized my voice as it was very distinct.”

  In regards to Daniels as the voice of the car, Executive Story Consultant Richard Okie states, “Daniels treated K.I.T.T. as a serious acting role. He always wanted to make sure he was pronouncing everything clearly. He did get the joke, though. Daniels has that Connecticut upper crust side to him and he realized the contrast of Michael being the California hot-rodder. He would occasionally correct any dialogue in the script that seemed out of character for K.I.T.T. He was not very gifted when it came to foreign languages and had coaching to ensure that K.I.T.T. sounded like the super computer he was supposed to be.”

  Glen Larson and R.A. Cinader oversaw early episodes, but Robert Foster had replaced Cinader midway through the first season due to his untimely death and is responsible for some of Knight Rider’s best episodes. Harker Wade produced the pilot. Producing for the first season were Hannah Shearer and Steven de Souza; Shearer left mid-season and was replaced with Joel Rogosin. Karen Harris came on staff briefly, but left to produce on Streethawk, another show inspired by Knight Rider. Just like George Lucas of Star Wars fame, Larson benefited from the merchandising rights. “It was an extremely profitable series for me because of the merchandising. I think I had the best deal in the history of television. As the writer/creator I got 50-50 with the studio on all toys, models, T-shirts and whatnot. And it is still one of the exhibits on the Universal Tour. It was just before the studios realized just how profitable merchandising could be.”

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  NBC finally got Knight Rider to the air on

  September 26, 1982 and, facing Dallas in

  the 9 PM slot on Friday night, left few

  expecting a top 20 performance in the ratings

  opposite CBS and

  its powerful drama Dallas. Most industry insiders fully expected to see the show fail and disappear off the network.

  “I think I was the

  only one who believed in it,” says David

  Hasselhoff. “When I first read the script, I

  thought it was a star maker because it is a

  show about heroes—along the lines of Roy

  On the set with K.I.T.T.

  Rogers and Trigger or the Lone Ranger and

  [Courtesy Linda Borchers]

  Silver.

  When the car dies, I’m going to have it stuffed.” The funny thing is when Knight Rider was cancelled, Hasselhoff took it on tour and did have it stuffed and shipped.

  Hasselhoff was not surprised with Knight Rider’s two-hour premiere on a Sunday night at 8 p.m., opposite Matt Houston. Knight Rider caught the attention of the other networks with a showing of fifth in the Nielsen ratings for the week. It dropped as far down as 54th in the Nielsens against Dallas at one point, but the show began to catch on and become NBC’s first real hit to bring them out of third place in the network race. Hasselhoff thought the Sunday night time slot was perfect for the show. David adds that, “I think some of those people wrote their reviews before they even saw the show and that isn’t really fair ball. This isn’t a case of a guy joy-riding around town in this car looking for smash-ups. We have had some decent plots and I can say that for the first time I’m really proud of my work. I took a lot of bad reviews and punches, but I said from day one that we were gonna make it and make it big. We never had any aspirations of beating Dallas going in, but our first show was higher in 18

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  the ratings than NBC scored against them in four years. That’s not too shabby.” Friday night went from a graveyard to a powerful night. More and more, it seemed that one series could indeed make a difference. Simply amazed at its success, Hasselhoff once said, “Who could believe that NBC could make it with a show about a guy who goes around solving crimes in a car that talks? No other NBC show ever survived in that spot.” The legacy of the Knight Rider was born and there was no looking back. His opinion of Knight Rider is simple. “I think it is a good show—

  because it’s about heroes, and the concept that one man can make a difference. The American dream is to once in your life, play 007. I’m doing it and getting paid for it and it’s great. Knight Rider is not Gone with the Wind, but it’s fun. And I hope people do realize there is a message hidden among the fun parts—you can make a difference.”

  In the TVQ ratings, which measure how much audiences like all the series on the air, Knight Rider ranked No. 2 in December 1982, just behind M*A*S*H according to Hasselhoff. Even executive producer Glen A. Larson occasionally expressed personal satisfaction for bringing the show to the air. Larson said, “The middle of the country wouldn’t go for another My Mother the Car or another fender-bender like The Dukes of Hazzard. They’ve had enough of that. So we developed this modern Lone Ranger concept, with a guy rushing about righting wrongs, but riding in this crazy car instead of on his horse, Silver. But who would believe it unless we did it tongue-in-cheek, like Sean Connery did in the James Bond pictures or Christopher Reeve in Superman? If we played it straight, it would be ridiculous.” That tongue and cheek humor would be what made Knight Rider a success.

  Even though Knight Rider never got to face The Dukes of Hazzard headon in the ratings, David summed it up best. “No contest. K.I.T.T. is smarter. Besides, our scripts are better.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE F.L.A.G. FAMILY

  Born on January 8, 1949 in Reno, Nevada, Michael Arthur Long had a rough upbringing. His father died of Leukemia in 1956. To seven-year-old Michael, this was a very difficult event to deal with. He went outside and shot baskets for hours until he was too tired to think or feel anything concerning his father’s death. After that tragedy, life slowly became normal again for the budding teenager—playing basketball, listening to rock and roll, and cruising hamburger joints in his 1956 Chevy. Michael also tried his hand at singing, and even had a record company interested in a demo he made. In 1969, when Michael was just 20 years old, his mother passed away from “overworking.” Michael took her death hard and just two weeks after his mother’s funeral, he joined the Green Berets. He was also certified in the Special Forces for diving. Later that year, he went to Vietnam where he performed counter-intelligence work. In his third year there, Michael was captured and forced into a prisoner of war camp. For three months he planned his escape, making sure that his first attempt was a successful one. He fought his way out of the POW camp, killing his captors in the process and also receiving a serious head injury. The medics were forced to implant a metal plate in Michael’s head in order to save his life. He then left the military in 1972 to join the police force.

  Around this time, Michael became involved with a very special young lady named Stephanie Mason (although Michael always called her Stevie). Michael courted her and eventually proposed marriage. Stevie quickly accepted and it appeared that nothing could come between them. 19

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  • Knight Rider Legacy

&n
bsp; A ten year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department (Serial number 10509, Badge number 8043), Michael quickly proved himself to the force and eventually rose to the rank of Detective Lieutenant. During his time there, he worked in several departments including robbery, vice, bunco, homicide, and industrial espionage.

  Michael had been assigned to a case involving the Consolidated Chemical Corporation (CCC) and a plot to steal top secret designs from them. During his six month investigation, Michael became associated with a young woman named Tanya Walker. Although Michael believed that she was on his side, Tanya was actually attempting to steal CCC’s secrets by seducing the chairman, Charles Acton. Tanya’s associate, Lonnie, managed to escape with a camera full of CCC’s secrets and was ordered to rendezvous with her associates for a trade-off. After witnessing the death of his partner Muntzy, Michael and Tanya pursued Lonnie into the Nevada desert. Just as Lonnie was handing the camera to her associates, Michael and Tanya caught up with them. Michael pulled a gun and ordered Symes, the bodyguard, to drop his gun. He then told Tanya to pick up the gun to which she promptly responded, “That won’t be necessary. I have my own.” Michael, stunned that Tanya had double-crossed him, pleaded with her to reconsider. She declined his offer, pulled the gun up, and shot Michael point-blank in his forehead. He fell back on to his car, motionless.

  Wilton Knight, dying billionaire and owner of Knight Industries, Inc. had his eye on young Michael Long for quite a while. Wilton wanted him to be part of a pilot program that Knight Industries was creating. He was flying out to Reno to recruit Michael Long when Wilton discovered his motionless body on a deserted road in the Nevada desert. “My god, we’re too late,” Wilton stated as the helicopter made an emergency landing. Michael was quickly air lifted back to the Knight Estate in Las Vegas. Wilton chose his own physician, Dr. Wesley, to care for Michael’s injuries. An x-ray of his head revealed that the bullet entered his skull, bounced off the metal plate in his forehead, and exited through his face. With no way THE F.L.A.G. FAMILY •