Knight Rider
Ep. 239 is live!
Hey ho, and welcome to another week of Yesterdaze! I hope your weekend was great, and that you’re ready to take on a new week. That said, let’s get into some new business here at the top. Unfortunately, Grace was unable to join us this week. We do hope to have her back on soon. In other news, my mythical 1996 Chevy Blazer finally hit a point of disrepair that sees us saying goodbye to the four wheeled wonder. It’s a bummer, as we had another car lined up already…but I really wanted to keep the Blazer and start rebuilding parts of it. Sadly, I’d have to invest a full weekend and a minimum of $500, likely, just to make it safe to be parked! Two years of use with nary a problem is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s at least going to a good home instead of being junked. It will be replaced by a cherry of an old man car, a sweet sweet 2004 Lincoln Continental! Would it have been cooler to replace it with a Trans Am? yea, definitely. Still, the smooth ride and suspension of the Lincoln line up is nothing to dismiss. That said, a Trans Am that is part of the conversation this week would be good ol’ KITT of Knight Rider! I loved Knight Rider as a kid, and still enjoy it as an adult. While it was a vehicle that made us all familiar with David Hasselhoff, the show also introduced us to KITT the heavily modified Trans Am. Undoubtedly, Pontiac had to have seen a significant bump in sales. As noted in our episode, Knight Rider got the wheels in motion for NBC to pull out of 3rd Place in the ratings, as NBC had been suffering for a while. Additionally, the success of Knight Rider led to the creation of several other Action/Adventure series, usually involving “off the grid” specialists with an iconic vehicle, throughout the 80’s.
Believe it or not, there were toys for this show…and there continues to be, as well. There was an unbelievable amount of product released for the show, so much so that there is no way to showcase all of it here. Enjoy this modest sampling of vintage offerings from the 80’s, as well as some more contemporary offerings. Currently, many of us await the release of Hasbro’s Transformers/Knight Rider mash-up (special thanks, again, to patron Mike Affonso for securing one for me!).
That will wrap things up for us here at Yesterdaze this week. I do want to mention our Fourth Man, Ben, will be stepping back from some of the aspects regarding the website. He will of course still be part of the team for anything major regarding the site, but most of the posts will be handled by me. If I mess something up, please be patient as I can be a bit of a luddite. Rest assured, however, that Ben will be on hand to course correct me! Join us next week as we close out September with a pick by new patron Mike Affonso. Mike made his way to Yesterdaze by way of our previous show, The Ernest P. Worrell Preservation Society. On that show, one Markie Post was part of the lore as 1.) I usually dream casted her in roles for unproduced Ernest scripts and 2.) I had a two-ton mega crush on her starting at the age of six! Mike used these facts as his inspiration for picking next Monday’s episode of Night Court! The story behind this show’s creation and success is an interesting one, I do hope you join us for it! In the meantime, have a great week, we’ll see you next time!
-Derek
