It’s no surprise that Knight Rider, and action-fantasy-adventure show, became the hit of the 1982 and 1983-84 television seasons. It features not only a terrific, futuristic car called KITT, but also a very handsome young hero named Michael Knight. Michael Knight, however, played by actor David Hasselhoff, wasn’t always Michael Knight. He was originally a police officer named Michael Long. An encounter with some dangerous and highly sophisticated criminals left Michael’s partner dead, and Michael himself seriously wounded. Had it not been for a metal plate in his head from a previous operation, Michael Long wouldn’t have survived, either. Long was rescued by Wilton Knight, a wealthy industrialist who was dying. Knight used his enormous wealth and the vast resources of his organization to save Michael Long. He gave the former cop a new name, Michael Knight, and a new face. As for Michael’s new partner: That was the amazing, powerful, computerized car called KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand). From then on, Michael Knight dedicated himself to fighting crime, as a member of the Foundation for Law and Government. He was joined by a sophisticated genius named Devon Miles (actor Edward Mulhare) and computer whiz April Curtis ( Rebecca Holden ). Curtis programmed KITT to perform all kinds of mindboggling feats of intelligence and strength. And besides this, KITT carries on conversations and watches out for--and protects--Michael Knight better than any human partner could. ( More about KITT further on.)

David Hasselhoff was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and spent his youth in several different cities, including Atlanta, Georgia, and Jacksonville, Florida. On screen David appears quite confident and self-assured, but would you believe that he was actually quite shy when he was growing up? "I was basically a shy kid," David remembered in an interview done especially for the Knight Rider Album. It was acting that helped him overcome his feelings of shyness and awkwardness. "When I was seven, I saw the play Rumpelstiltskin in Jacksonville. I realized right then that acting and being on stage were what I wanted to do." David got involved in local theater groups and discovered that "the stage was where I could cut loose and let go of all my inhibitions, my shyness, and my anxieties. It was like I could play Halloween anytime, and I had a ball. Onstage was where I felt most comfortable then, and I still feel that way now." In Atlanta, later, David got involved in community theater. "I did a lot of children’s theater and improvisation. Once we had a little theater in the basement of my buddy’s house. It had 24 seats and we did shows like Oliver!, Annie Get Your Gun, and The Fantasticks! It was well publicized in Atlanta. It was the only children’s theater run by kids." By the time David was in the eighth grade, he was six feet one inch tall. That didn’t bother him on stage. But offstage, he felt awkward and gawky. He was still quite young, and he was still growing. Even then, however, David was convinced that someday he would be a successful actor. "I knew it because it was an American dream and I thought if you dream your dreams and work really hard, they will come true. I never stopped believing. I’m a heavy believer in positive thinking. I think if you start as a kid and follow your dreams, you can do what ever you put your mind to." In high school, David graduated from children’s theater to performing plays by Shakespeare, and musical comedies. At that time, David recalled seeing himself as a "hotshot," or star material. Confident of his future, David headed west to Chicago. There he studied at the Academy of Dramatic Arts of Illinois and performed in dinner theaters in the region. Later he went to California, in hopes of doing more musical comedies. "Then I got into the real world," David recalled. Suddenly he was just one of thousands of aspiring actors trying to break into the big time. In between working as a waiter and auditioning, David worked at getting that big break. It wasn’t so easy. "For two years, I didn’t get one acting job. I must have sent out 800 resumes and didn’t get one answer. But still, I knew if I kept plugging and stayed involved, one thing would lead to another." One thing did lead to an appointment with a casting director named Joyce Selznick, and she helped give David his start. He landed roles in such shows as Police Story and Semi-Tough, a show that David now describes as being "only semi-funny." It barely lasted four episodes. David eventually got a starring role in the soap opera The Young and the Restless. He played a character named Snapper Foster. "It was very difficult at first," David said. " I had replaced a character on the show who was very popular. I got a lot of hate mail from all his fans for two years. I mad the mistake of reading it and I nearly lost my positive outlook. I was really down and I think they were going to fire me. Then I got hold of a book called The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, which is all about positive thinking and believing in yourself. Before that I would go to the set and end up being intimidated by the producers. They were trying hard to get something from me, but they were just scaring me. After I read the book, I would psych myself up and say to myself that I was a good actor. In two weeks my whole life turned around and I started getting terrific fan mail. I fell right into the role." After six years on The Young and the Restless, however, David found himself feeling older and really restless. He decided to quit the show, although it meant giving up a salary of nearly $200,000 a year. At first, David thought he’d made a mistake to quit. He recalled "striking out on several roles in new shows that I’d had every reason to believe I would get." Fortunately, Davis hadn’t severed all his ties with the soap opera scene, and that proved to be the key to his big break - landing the role of Michael Knight in Knight Rider. "I had gone to Las Vegas for a convention for syndicated shows - shows that aren’t on major networks. I was there to appear on behalf of a show called Soap World. It was an interview show that ran for about a year and a half and I had been their first guest. They put me in a booth to show films of the show, in hopes of selling it." Unknown to David, Brandon Tartikoff, President of NBC Entertainment, was there. He saw fans flock to the booth and mob David for autographs. "The weekend ended," David continued, "and I was the last to board the plane back to Los Angeles, because people had been bugging me for autographs. I got the last seat on the plane, in the very last row. Then I noticed this guy looking at me. I didn’t know him, but he stood up and looked at me as if he were thinking about coming over to talk with me. The passenger next to me was an entertainment lawyer and I asked him who the guy was. He told me it was Brandon Tartikoff. I decided to get up right then and meet him. However, we were flying into a big storm and the seat belt sign suddenly went on. The stewardess wouldn’t let me get out of my seat. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll meet him when I get off the plane.’ But when I got off, I couldn’t find him. The next day, my manager called me and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this. Brandon Tartikoff called and he wants you to test for a new show called Knight Rider.’ It turned out that he was sitting on the plane next to a soap-opera producer who knew me and who told Tartikoff that I was a star on the soaps. Tartikoff then said, ‘I think that’s the Knight Rider.’" David was the last person to test for the role. During his first audition, he froze. After psyching himself up, he went back in and gave a top-notch performance. With the support of Tartikoff and the show’s producer, Glen Larson, David won the role. From the start, David knew that Knight Rider would be a great vehicle for him. "I saw the script and I said, "This is the one that will make me a star.’" And, as Knight Rider fans now know, David was right.

When he appeared on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, David Hasselhoff recalls that "The biggest stunt I ever had to do was pour coffee." But Knight Rider was something else. The show is filled with exciting, action-packed stunts. Besides a lot of dangerous driving, there are jumps where KITT travels 100 feet through the air! This means that David has had to get involved with stunt work. Until the middle of the show’s second season, David said, "I was doing some of my own stunt work." This included some wild driving scenes, and other feats that were even more dangerous. David remembers one exciting episode. "I had to hang from a helicopter," he said. "The stunt went like this: The helicopter flew over a moving car in which I was riding. ( Another guy was driving the car.) I had to grab onto the skid of the helicopter and the ‘copter dragged me up 100 feet in the air. Then I stood on the side of the helicopter skid and appeared to fly the helicopter. Actually, another guy was flying it from the other side of the cockpit. "That day was really scary. It was so exciting and I was so amazed that the show’s producers were letting me do it, that I had a ball. Once you get up there, 100 feet above the ground, of course, you won’t let go." In another episode, entitled "Goliath," David appeared to be climbing along the top of a fast-moving truck. "That scene required a double," David admitted. "It appeared that I had to jump from the truck into the back of a moving car. That really wasn’t me. However, I did have to jump from a moving tow-truck used in that scene to the back of a car, then knock out the guy driving the car. That turned out to be the scariest stunt I had to do. The driver held down the gas pedal until I could get hold of the steering wheel. Then I had to push him over and drive away. It wasn’t easy." Another stunt in which David is allowed to do the driving is the 180-degree turns. On the show it appears that KITT ( the car ) does a sudden turn and reverses direction in seconds. "I do the turns by going about 50 miles an hour as I drive on the far right-hand side of the road. I take the wheel and turn it as far as it will go. At the same time, I pull the emergency brake. That locks up the rear wheels and turns the car around and gets me facing in completely the opposite direction. Then I let go of the emergency brake and hit the gas. However, I would never recommend that anybody else try it, because we rig our cars in a special way. It’s dangerous and you can really get hurt. I’ve also been involved in other stunts, such as being flipped into the air by another car and then landing on a different car. But those stunts aren’t dangerous. Those are very carefully planned and it’s just a matter of timing."

The most risky stunts are left to the professional stunt drivers, under the direction of stunt coordinator Bob Bralver. Some of the most dangerous stunts are the amazing jumps that TV viewers see KITT perform. "We have several great stunt drivers," David said. "Jack Gill does a lot of the driving now and most of my jumps. We also have Buzz Bundy. Buzz is a jump artist who travels around the country doing jumps and other stunt driving." David offered a behind-the-scenes look at how the jumps are done. "We use ramps that are specially constructed out of heavy-duty material so that they can withstand the force of the jumps. You’ll never see the ramps, however. I can’t tell you how we camouflage them, but it’s something viewers can look for in the show. When you see the car take off, there is usually a ramp somewhere, but it’s impossible to see. The other day, we did a jumps that was unbelievable. I don’t know how high the car went but it traveled 180 feet from takeoff to landing. Jack did it and the car just flew. It ruined the car, and when Jack hit the ground, we all thought he was crazy. Those stunts are pretty incredible." Another amazing stunt is performed whenever TV viewers see KITT being driven on two wheels. "That’s Buzz Bundy," David admitted. "I don’t mind giving away these secrets because these guys deserve the credit. Buzz has been in the business for 40 years and he’s one of the few guys who can do it really well. He goes up on a ramp on one side and the car takes off, riding on two wheels. I’ve seen him go around a track for half an hour on two wheels. He’s taken me for a ride like that and it’s more exciting than Disneyland." In some scenes of the show, KITT is moving as fast as 180 miles an hour. "We only do that on open roads, away from other cars. To make sure the roads stay open and clear, we have police officers holding up traffic at both ends. However," David confessed, "I have to admit there are times when the car appears to be going fast, but it’s really just the way we film it. It makes it look as if we are going much faster than we really are."

In the episode called "Goliath," KITT raced at about 100 miles an hour and nearly collided with a huge truck. The scene was worked out to the last inch. "They wouldn’t let me do that scene," David said. "There were two stunt drivers and we set u the cameras in the middle of the desert. Each driver was told to get as close as possible to the other. The truck would hold to a straight line and Jack, in the car, would turn at the last second. Each driver had a radio in the car and that helped control the scene. It appeared that they collided, but that was just special effects. It’s very sophisticated. We first shot the cars going by each other. Then we put in a car without the driver, and made it look as if it hit the truck." One of the most mystifying aspects about KITT is the way the car seems to drive itself. David was sworn to secrecy regarding this stunt and he wouldn’t tell how it was done. However, another person involved with the show did tell us. "That’s done with a driver sitting in a specially designed seat," a member of the production team revealed. "It’s in the back seat area. The driver crouches down with his legs under the front seat and he drives the car without being seen. He sees where he is going through a very small see-through part of the front seat. It’s very difficult because you’re trying to control the car from the back seat and it’s hard to see where you are going. It’s not done for very long periods of time because it is so difficult. You’ll rarely see KITT moving without a driver for any length of time."

In Knight Rider, KITT is presented to viewers as a supercar. Its body is said to be surrounded by a molecularly bonded shell that is impenetrable. "It’s the type of car you can hit, smash, and crash, and it remains totally indestructible," said a member of the production team. KITT has other fantastic features, too. Its turbo-boost feature allows KITT to go as fast as 200 miles an hour and to jump over obstacles blocking its path. KITT also talks. It’s got all kinds of built-in computerized features that give it the power to x-ray objects, perform chemical analyses, and even analyze people’s voices as a lie detector might. One of KITT’s most famous features is the configuration of blinking lights on the front end of the car. "The scanner is what KITT is famous for," a publicist for the show said. "It can see through things, see what’s going on around a corner, and tell the speed that another car is going. The scanner is KITT’s eyes, and it’s hooked up to a computer. When Michael puts KITT on surveillance mode, KITT is like a cat ready to pounce." "In real life," the publicist admitted, "KITT is actually a modified Pontiac Trans Am. It’s been modified by lowering it, changing its taillights, and adding a lot of other details." "It has a lot of gadgets," David Hasselhoff added. "There’s about $200,000 worth of computerized gadgets built into it. The car has been modified to do stunts, jumps, and fast driving. "We also go through a lot of tires. What we do to a Trans Am in one day," David pointed out, "most people wouldn’t do to a car in five years!" During the show, the TV audience nearly always gets a view of KITT’s incredible dashboard. It’s full of computer screens, glowing lights, complicated meters, and plenty of gauges. One version of KITT has a full dashboard like the one viewers see on the show. Usually, however, David doesn’t see all the computer screens and exciting graphics the audience sees. They’re often added later by a special effects department. "What I see," David explained, "is a mockup of the dashboard. I don’t even hear William Daniels’s voice." ( Daniels is the voice of KITT.) "He doesn’t hear my voice, either. He adds his voice later, after we’ve finished shooting our scenes. What we do is put on a radio. It works like this: "The car is usually being towed, in scenes where I appear to be driving. Usually an assistant director on the tow truck reads KITT’s lines, which will then come over the radio. In the beginning, it was difficult doing the lines that way, but now that’s the easiest part of the show for me." David also revealed that in some scenes, the hands you see on the steering wheel are not his. "Sometimes they are and sometimes they’re not. That’s normal in television. They have what’s called inserts. Sometimes when you see hands on the wheel, it’s a guy who just does hands. They also have a guy whose foot is shown on the gas pedal. If you really want to get technical, look at the color of my boots when you see me in a scene. Then look at the color of the boot hitting the gas pedal. Sometimes you’ll notice they are different colors."

You might imagine, in a show like Knight Rider where some much depends on the car, that more than one KITT would be used. If you did, you’d be right. "There are actually four or five KITTs," David said. "In every episode, there has to be more than one, for several reasons. The one I’m driving in the episode may break down. Then, when we do jumps, we use a separate, heavily-braced car; sometimes we have to scrap that car and get another. And besides the car I drive, we have a picture car that’s kept all shined up and perfect in every way. Every time I’m shown getting in and out of KITT, we use the picture car. We have other KITTs that have special brake devices called line locks, and safety features including roll bars. These cars are used for all the really dangerous stunts." One version of KITT has an ejector seat that can send a passenger flying out the top of the car roof. "In the beginning it didn’t work right," David recalled. "It went way to far. The first two or three stunt guys who tested it wouldn’t do it again because it was so scary. They went high in the air, about half as high as a tall palm tree that was nearby. It wasn’t the height that scared them, so much as the fact that the ejector was out of control and they didn’t know where they would land. Luckily, stunt people know how to land almost anywhere." Because of the riskiness of the ejector’s action, the show has sometimes filmed a dummy. In more than one episode, where a man appeared to be shot out of the ejector seat, it was a very lifelike dummy. KITT’s engine is also different from an assembly line Trans Am. "It’s really souped up," David said. "We have a mechanic named Willie Stabile who is personally responsible for the engine. And also, the performance level of our Trans Am is much higher than the regular Trans Am." When David drives KITT, it’s a car fit for a star. But even on its own, KITT is definitely a star car.