COVID-TV
Hello out there in the new post-apocalyptic reality that is life on this planet Earth currently! We’re doing about as well as one can do these days. Sadly, we haven’t had much of a change in lifestyle. It was pretty sad as former social butterflies and party animals. But alas, for now I know, it was actually just preparation for these bleak times apparently. Any whoozle, all that time at home has blessed us with the ability to sniff out some real hidden jewels of shows and movies streaming around. I’m not talking about “Game of Thrones” or “Star Wars”, of course, you’ve thought of them already and binged them on day one of quarantine till you were blue in the face! I’m talking about stuff you wouldn’t have thought to watch in a million years (before all of this.)
Like the show I’ve picked for our premiere edition of COVID-TV, : “Knight Rider”.
Now, I wrote this story before the outbreak as a stand-alone post so it’s a little long (that’s what she said!) But we are currently watching more shows, and we’re gonna tell you about them! So without further ado, here’s COVID-TV, “Knight Rider.”
Art by me, Mike Olguin
Radical! Awesome! Far-out! These are totally tubular words I would use to describe a rad gem of a retro show, Knight Rider. It’s a full-throttle action-packed trip into the 1980s. So get your perm done, crack open a TAB, and take a ride into the dangerous world of the Knight Rider.
Before slow-motion running on the beach with buxom blondes, David Hasselhoff played Michael Knight. He’s sort of a private eye who works for the “Foundation for Law and Government” an organization that helps with a multitude of problematic bad guys from evil land developers, to crooked country sheriffs. When people have an issue they call this helpful foundation headed by Devon Miles (a stuffy British man for some reason) and he will send out Michael Knight to investigate. Michael helps the “little guy” have a fighting chance against forces larger than themselves.
To help with this noble endeavor, Michael has the ultimate investigation partner and ultimately a hot, high tech and flashy eighties ride, KITT the car. K.I.T.T. or Knight Industries Two Thousand is that totally rad, black Trans-Am with red LED lights swooshing back and forth in front, ya know - that one you must have seen somewhere in your childhood (or the Universal Studios Backlot tour). This car is awesome! It’s almost indestructible, super fast and incredibly intelligent/witty and it has a ton of spying equipment all run by a talking computer, not unlike JARVIS from the Iron Man movies.
KITT set the precedent for the sarcastic, condescending robot assistants we’ve all come to know and love. The back and forth sass between him and Michael is often hilarious and is as much a part of the show as the car chases and explosions. Unsurprisingly, KITT is voiced by William Daniels or the guy who played Mr. Feeny on “Boy Meets World” years later.
KITT can do anything today’s technology can do, and more like driving by itself, talking and connecting to maps and the internet, but he just does it in a rad eighties way. Like the GPS interface looks like a Thomas Guide map and the computer monitor is one of those old green TRON looking interfaces. In a touch screen world, it’s awesome to look back and see a dashboard that has more buttons, switches, and LEDs than an old pinball and PacMan arcade. It holds up today in my opinion as high tech and awesome but with a lot of 80’s pizazz.
That’s about all there is to its main plot and premise.
This allows a lot of genre-busting story flexibility. Sometimes an episode will play out like a mystery, drama or even a comedy but always with a ton of action and sweet car chases! Though each episode can stand on its own, there are long story arcs to make for good binge-ability, which of course is especially important these days.
The appeal is not just with the plot, but with the fact that the show is a fun time capsule of the 1980s. Great location shots around LA and even Vegas and San Francisco provide an awesome look back then. It’s not the crazy neon color eighties college kids dress up like at Halloween, but the real everyday kind of eighties that you too might remember as a child. I was a kid back then so it’s particularly rad see. Most episodes feature an awesome 1980s pop song. I can’t tell if the songs are covers or if the artist would record a special version of the song just for Knight Rider, but regardless it’s awesome and really sets the 80s mood.
Michael Knight, Devon Miles and Bonnie Barstow.
In these crazy times, why not take a trip back in time to the 1980s? Back to a world where all you had to worry about was mother Russia and running out of Aquanet hairspray. A world where David Hasselhoff and a fake self-driving car can be a huge hit show. If you want some high octane action, humor, drama, and a trip back to when Corona was just a beer, watch Knight Rider! It’s available streaming on STARZ and Amazon. Buckle up! Also, check back here soon for more rad shows and TV we scoped out for you; next time on COVID-TV!
