KITT and Der Hoff

For all of KITT's advanced technology, it still lacked an automatic shutoff for the turn signals

In September of 1982, NBC premiered the action/fantasy series Knight Rider, which propelled a customized 1982 Pontiac Trans Am and a cast member of the soap opera Young and the Restless into stardom. The 3rd generation TA was  perfect to play KITT, a high tech, 300 mph and very urbane and erudite computer in the body of a car. It was sleek and stylish for the 80's, a standout from the boxy and dull K-Cars and even it's GM cousin the Camaro which instead of tv stardom became the standard ride of Southern rednecks and Jersey Shore guidos.

The Trans Am that got the role may have been pretty, but as far as performance went, it didn't quite measure up to its looks, just like its human co-star. The top of the line engine for the 1982 TA was a 5 liter V8 which put all of 145 hp to the wheels, about the same output as one got with the baseline 2.8 V6 at the end of the 3rd gen GM F body Camaros and Firebirds. She may not have been fast, but she sure looked good getting there.

Tensions between KITT and Der Hoff on the set.
Here we see KITT shutting down after an argument,
 forcing Der Hoff to hitchhike home from the studio

Any tv action hero requires a villain to match. How can one match the awesome thespian talents of David Hasselhoff other than Der Hoff himself? As the writers of Star Trek found out, all it takes is a beatnik/hipster type of mustache and van dyke beard and voila! The Evil Hoff arises! As any good television action/fantasy writer knows, a bearded villain needs the perfect ride to usher DOOM, preferably a semi truck with a dull paint job and very loud horns

After I take over the world, I shall exile Michael Knight and KITT to forever cruise the Jersey Shore.  Then I will smoke another cigar! BWAH HAAH HAHHHH!

Take one cab-over semi, paint with 20 gallons of gray primer, then pilfer one sorting cabinet from the mail room at Universal Studios and bolt to the front, and you have the formula for PURE EVIL

After the last show in 1986, KITT was left to languish as a collectors item at car shows, and now appears occasionally with Der Hoff on stage, a sad oldies nostalgia act lost in the shadow of his now internationally popular co-star. KITT is also the second banana to Der Hoff in his 2006 music video "Jump in My Car"

David Hasselhoff on the other hand has rocketed to worldwide fame and adoration, more popular in Germany than fecal and urinary porn. He leveraged Knight Rider into the 90s hit show Baywatch along with Pamela Anderson, then on to the lofty stardom of Dancing With the Stars and as a judge on America's Got Talent. It was not only the television world where the Hoff phenomena continues, but on TMZ and Youtube with this video performance which put him on the elite planes with Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen.

But to capture the brilliance that is Der Hoff, one must hear the subliminal baritone of his singing voice, which can only bring to mind the aural bliss of the steel of the Titanic bending as it sank, or the uplifting tones that one would hear from a bear drowning in mud.

Don't just take my word for it, read these customer reviews of Hasselhoff's Greatest Hits CD

Christmas is almost upon us once again, and here is Der Hoff with the original German language version of Silent Night, or Stille Nacht , bringing to mind how it must have sounded to the 101st Airborne in Bastone in 1944 along with shell bursts and men screaming for the medics