[IMG:L]Kids today may only know David Hasselhoff from America’s Got Talent or that video of him eating a hamburger. If Baywatch is before their time, Knight Rider was before their conception. Yet, Knight Rider was such a classic show that Hasselhoff himself brought it back as a 1991 TV movie.
Now, it’s time for the Heroes generation to get a show about a talking car. NBC has produced a new Knight Rider TV movie that airs February 17 at 9:00 p.m. Hasselhoff reprises his role of Michael Knight, passing the torch to a new character played by Justin Bruening. Bruening helped us sort out the similarities and differences between the old Knight Rider and his new version.
Old: David Hasselhoff set the standard for Knight Rider.
New: Hasselhoff appears in the new telefilm to give his blessing.
Justin Bruening: “I met him a few days before we filmed together. I picked his brain then but we really got to talking on the day of filming. When we first filmed together, it was actually the first day of filming, so I had a lot of questions. I mean, I was pretty nervous about continuing this franchise. It’s pretty big shoes to fill. Obviously I asked him a lot about what kind of fun he had on the original show and things like that, some of the outtakes and stuff. He started giving me advice. He was one of the first people to mention that the key of the show is the relationship between a man and his car and how they do become best friends. That’s the foundation.”
Old: KITT was a Pontiac Trans Am.
New: KITT is now a Shelby Cobra 500GTKR.
JB: “Working with the new KITT, that was an amazing experience. It’s an absolutely amazing piece of machinery, and all our little bells and whistles that we added to it also heighten the experience. It’s absolutely a joy but, you know, he gets a little standoffish and stuff and doesn’t talk all the time.”
Old: David Hasselhoff came from The Young and the Restless to play Michael Knight.
New: Justin Bruening comes from All My Children to play Mike Traceur.
JB: “It was hard not to see the parallels. I think we were about the same age and we were both coming off of a show. We wanted to try something new. We were kind of done playing our characters for a while. I think we both met our wives. His first wife actually got remarried to a man named Michael Knight, who played my father on All My Children. That’s the creepy coincidence there.”
Old: Michael Knight romanced mechanic Bonnie Barstow.
New: Micke Traceur romances Sarah.
JB: “Sarah is Mike’s potential love interest. She was someone in his life a while ago. They grew up together and that friendship blossomed into a romance, but ended sort of poorly. The movie picks up at that specific point, when she comes back into his life, so that’s where you get all the nice drama and conflicts and all of that fun stuff that they love on daytime [soap operas].”
Old: David Hasselhoff was the main man on Knight Rider.
New: Justin Bruening had Hasselhoff looking over his shoulder.
JB: “You know, being a fan of the original series, I want to keep it as close to the original as well as having a new take on it as I can, which that’s a fine line. I do feel a lot of pressure. More so, my friends would bring it up more than anyone else. I’m taking over the franchise and stuff and that is humbling and it’s an honor at the same time. I just hope I do it justice.”
Old: KITT was voiced by William Daniels.
New: KITT is voiced by Val Kilmer, though Bruening never heard him on set.
JB: “Obviously we had someone once in awhile reading the lines for us and stuff like that, but the moments that we didn’t, you just kind of have to learn to deal with it. It’s a little weird at first. You get used to it and you kind of just imagine that it’s KITT’s voice. It’s not that hard because I did it when I was a kid. So it took about a day to get used to it. So it was very easy.”
Old: KITT drove himself.
New: Bruening snuck a joy ride in after shooting.
JB: “I never got to really open it up or anything, obviously. Insurance would have loved that. But just from Point A to Point B, just little things. Just turning it on you can hear how much power that thing has. I’m a very good driver. I got all my points, everything. I’m good. Not to that degree that KITT does, but definitely I can hold my own.”
Old: David Hasselhoff began Knight Rider.
New: Justin Bruening has four years of old Knight Rider episodes to reference.
JB: “I always like the origin stories, so actually the very first one was my favorite. This is something from my childhood and I was a huge fan. Knight Rider was an iconic figure in my childhood. I’d run around my house in a leather jacket and fight indiscriminate crime in my house. I never saw it when it initially aired because I believe it started airing in 1983, so I was about for, but I watched it when it was syndicated and I didn’t know the difference. That was something that really was a huge part of my childhood. It’s the cool guy, a cool car… As a little boy, that’s the best show on television.”
