The Best TV Show of the 80's

Oh man. This is such a hard thing to write about. Seriously it is. My first thought was: "Do I really have to choose just one, rather than just 2, or maybe 20 that I like and in which order???" Television was so different than it is today. The 1980's were all about having fun, symbolized best with movies like The Goonies, Weird Science, Uncle Buck, Who's Harry Crumb, Howard the Duck, War Games, D.a.r.y.l.l., The Princess Bride, and one of my all-time favorite movies: The NeverEnding Story. But this article is supposed to focus on just the TV part, right?

Well gosh, I could write pages and pages on just the movies alone - and it would literally take me weeks just to get to the television section. That is not including my fanatical joys and nostalgia for the video games, computers, boomboxes, remote-controlled cars, how Conan the Barbarian was just as cool as Superman, whether or not kids at school believed me when I told them that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles really lived in the sewer, and what actually happened to my old trapper keeper. I won't even get started telling you about my Sega Master System and how I played Golvellius, Zillion, Altered Beast, and Phantasy Star for hours. On to the tv nominations for best 80's show!

After MUCH consideration, I ALMOST selected Macgyver for its cunning, skill, and the brilliance of making science so exciting with a hero most people could appreciate...especially since it taught others what could be done, what can be made, and practically how to go about doing it. But after beating out T.J. Hooker, Columbo, Kojack, The Fall Guy, The Bionic Man, Different Strokes, Growing Pains, and several other candidates, the winner is...

Knight Rider! Yes, it's official. I selected Knight Rider as the best tv show of the 80's (even over the Dukes of Hazard) for a few reasons. While all of the shows above had a fascination and appeal of their own, Knight Rider seemed to have a way of incorporating a little of each one onto its daily series from technology and sinister plots to romance, comedy, heroics, special effects, cross-over storylines, and dramatic sequences. The most amazing thing to me is the irony too. The car(s) (or shall I say k.a.r.r.s?) that were on the show literally stole the fanfare away from the main character, and usually the cars were better actors, too. The special effects for their time were fantastic, the voice-overs superb, and the edge-of-your-seat situations you wondered if Michael Knight was going to get out of kept you coming back for more (and sometimes, even waiting through the commercials willingly just to see what happens).

To see a car that talks and is sentient, intelligent, willing to serve his master...hiding its feelings and abilities behind its programming...and even has a dark past with a twin-brother that wants to kill him? Being driven by a man who was shot in the face, but rescued by an elderly dying rich man with a fortune who gives him the same exact face of his vengeful REAL son Garth (who eventually breaks free from prison and tries to kill Michael Knight)? And all of this established by the Foundation for Law and Government (an organization designed to protect the rights of the individual against both government and domestic tyranny, employing cool British folks and hot female mechanics) and taking us on new adventures across the United States for their missions every single week? Now that's classic! That's what a well-thought out win for television should be!

For me it really defined the 80's, because I always wanted to know if k.i.t.t or k.a.r.r. were real when I was a kid, and also wanted to know if kitt and karr ever met before and not told Michael Knight, Bonnie, Devin, or anyone else about it. I wondered if k.i.t.t. would have chosen the same path as k.a.r.r. had he been programmed or designed to have entire free-will. This alone kindled and inspired my early-on desire to research and work on artificial intelligence models as a child, to observe the outside world, and to learn programming at the early age of 5-6 years old.

The knowledge and purpose of doing the right thing even if no one is looking, or if no one else understands or agrees, was also a fundamental part of the Knight Rider series (i.e: One man can make a difference). Michael Knight decided not to use guns, and tried to avoid people getting killed even when they were the bad guys. He took care of his friends and took risks to help or save them, and treated those who were close to him like family. His co-workers at F.L.A.G (foundation for law and government) practically were his family. This show had a way of entertaining you, yet at the same time could teach a young child the importance of being a good person whether they were religious or not. A child or young adult didn't have to know all about the world to be inspired to be a good citizen while living in it. A young adult or child didn't need to be forced to want to learn things or get with technology...because after watching a show like that, how could you not?

This show also had a lot of great music...like the introduction for K.a.r.r. featured the late Laura Brannigan's song "Self Control". It featured real singing talent by Catherine Hickland (who played Stevie Mason, Michael Knight's girlfriend who appeared on the episode: Let It Be Me, and Scent of Roses)...who was also David Hasselhoff's real life girlfriend (and strangely enough, after they were married in real life, she later divorced David after having children and married a man named Michael Knight!!!) There were a lot of interesting inserts of things like references to Ghostbusters and other movies throughout, too. Politically, it had benefits as well whether you claim democratic, republican, independent, or no party at all.

Although the late 1990's and 2000's remake of Knight Rider were entirely horrid, the 80's Knight Rider television episodes were awesome. Some, like ""Trust doesn't Rust" with Kitt vs Karr were exciting and awesome, while others like "Let it Be Me" and "The Scent of Roses", were even beautiful. Knight Rider went from the late 70's to early 80's as a series before Glenn A. Larson had to end it due to changes with Universal Studios...but Universal went on to make millions, perhaps billions of dollars even, off of sales from clothing, toys, video games, action figures, and the life-like talking replica of Kitt that they had which thousands of people visited and paid good money to see.

No matter how you look at it, Knight Rider shaped the 80's for me, and millions of people all around the world who related to and fell in love with it.