RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Not only did Knight Rider represent a dark chapter in the annals television history but it also encapsulated a particularly tumultuous period over at GM and the entire domestic auto industry, in general: still reeling from a prolonged recession, a fuel crunch, cut-backs and painful (but necessary) EPA and DOT regulations, the domestic auto industry refocused their time, energy and what little resources they had from Improving The Product, to Image-Marketing. The end-result were cars like that which "K.I.T.T" was based on: the third-generation f-body Firebird Trans-Am, which had grown into a saggy, bloated, boulevard cruiser with none of the soul or power that fueled its popularity and legend in the late- 60's and early- 70's. With a low-compression V-8 now making well under 200 horse power and such "thoughtful" touches like the metric-ton of totally unnecessary side-cladding and molding, the car had morphed into an overblown, overweight and underpowered parody of its former-self. And the workmanship was shoddy, at best: some of the gaps in the body panels were big enough to swallow the arm of a small child and in typical GM fashion, the body-creases almost never lined up. Combine these short-comings with the fact that more fleet-footed, sophisticated and reliable iron from Japan were invading our shores and it became obvious as to why the third-generation F-body would be relegated to "also-ran" status for the majority of it's 11 year production-run. And the "K.I.T.T" character , along with the show itself, were really obnoxious, annoying and creepy, so that doesn't help my rating much, which in light of empirical evidence, is actually quite generous. It's too bad I wasn't in charge of production for the show: I would have chained Hasslehoff to the front seat and programmed "K.I.T.T" to drive full-throttle off of the nearest cliff, thereby sparing the television viewing audience from five seasons of this claptrap and the festering by-product that was Hasslehoff's frivolous show-biz career.

Let's see, a lush driving a smart alecky car, perfect match.

A great follow-on to the Bandit's Trans Am.

A car with a real personality. There was even a revamp called Team Knight Rider with several vehicles much like him.

No show without the talking car, and KITT usually looked good doing his job, unless somehow he got trashed by the bad guys (only to come back with more "features").