KITT happens
Consider, for a moment, the phenomenon of the entertainment personality that, over the years, traverses the cardinal stages of recognition -- star, has-been, punch line, and improbable comeback kid -- in the public's fickle imagination.
Burt Reynolds fits the bill. Mickey Rourke, of course. Travolta was there for a while, but has somehow slipped back into the "punch line" category with his recent efforts. But the newest member of the club is perhaps the most unexpected of them all, and certainly the one that has aged the best: KITT, from the hit 1980s TV show, Knight Rider. The modified, black, and highly verbal '82 Pontiac Trans Am is back in the news, and back in our hearts, now that it (he?) is up for sale at a Dublin, Calif., auto dealership for a mere $149,995.
Officially named the "Knight Industries Two Thousand" but forever KITT to its fans, the car evokes memories of a simpler world where wonderfully cheesy dialog, awful acting, and even worse special effects actually constituted entertainment.
We're still waiting, of course, for KITT's cheeky, crime-fighting partner in the show, David "I tore down the Berlin wall with my music, damn you!" Hasselhoff, to make the leap from weirdly uncharismatic, huge-in-Europe, slightly laughable celeb to rehabilitated icon, with maybe a role in an earnestly hipper-than-thou Robert Rodriguez flick to cement the deal -- but, really, we're not holding our breath.
--BEN COSGROVE
you would think that the kitt car would have sold for more than $149,995. when i was a little girl my mother took me universal studios and i actually got to "meet" the kitt car. when i was a kid it freaked me to see characters from cartoons or television shows in person because i knew that they weren't real and i used to cry when my mom would make me take pictures with these things but the kitt car was the only tv character that did not scare me for whatever reason. so in short, reading this posting made me think back to the one enjoyable visit that i had to universal studios and put a smile on my face.