Aside from perhaps, STAR WARS, the most-mentioned pop culture property here on THE ROCK FATHER Magazine is undoubtedly The Greatest Television Series of All-Time™, KNIGHT RIDER. That’s what the youngster in me still believes, the very boy who eagerly awaited new episodes on a weekly basis from 1982-1986, who made watching reruns after school a part of his daily routine from 1988-1990, and who still stops and watches for a bit while running across an episode on television, despite having owned the complete series on DVD for years. Of course, my affection lies firmly with the original KNIGHT RIDER – the Glen A. Larson creation that starred David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, who alongside a talking 1982 Pontiac Trans Am known as the Knight Industries 2000 (K.I.T.T., if you prefer) fought bad guys for an hour each week. While there have been several sub-par “reboot” efforts over the years, none have matched the original, and the long-rumored cinematic version (rights have changed hands repeatedly) never materialized. Now there’s hope for a proper KNIGHT RIDER to ride again, as Justin Lin (FAST AND THE FURIOUS series, STAR TREK BEYOND) is heading up a Machinima “Digital Series” for a 2017 launch.
While not much is known as to what the overall format will be, who else will be involved, or what exactly a “digital series” will entail, one thing that’s certain is that Lin knows cars, and with that he’s also heading up the long-awaited HOT WHEELS Movie based on the iconic toy cars from Mattel.
Speaking of which, I have a few different versions of K.I.T.T. in Hot Wheels form here in my office (Super Pursuit Mode!), along with the 1:18 scale Diamond Select version, and a California KNIGHT license plate. Meanwhile, my wife is making fun of me for listening to the KNIGHT RIDER theme song as I type this.
Stay tuned for more on KNIGHT RIDER as I have it…
