NBC have announced their Fall and Winter 2008-09 schedules, and have revealed that the new Knight Rider will be shown on Wednesdays at 8 pm, with an encore on Saturday night at 9 pm! Let’s hope it does better than Bionic Woman, which occupied that time slot this year…

As per the press release:

NBC PRIMETIME SCHEDULE FOR FALL 2008-09

WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m. “KNIGHT RIDER”
9-10 p.m. “Deal or No Deal”
10-11 p.m. “Lipstick Jungle”

SATURDAY
8-9 p.m. “Dateline NBC”
9-10 p.m. “KNIGHT RIDER” (Encores)
10-11 p.m. “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (Encores)

Knight Rider – On the heels of NBC’s hit movie, the iconic 1980s television classic comes roaring back to life as an updated drama series showcasing the new customized K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Three Thousand) Ford Mustang. As the sequel resumes, K.I.T.T. is absolutely the coolest car ever created: its supercomputer capable of hacking almost any system; its weapons systems efficient; and its body — thanks to its creator’s work and nanotechnology — is capable of actually shifting shape and color. It is the ultimate car — and someone will be willing to do anything to obtain it. Knight Rider stars Justin Bruening (Cold Case), Deanna Russo (NCIS), Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Veronica Mars) and Bruce Davison (Breach). David Bartis (Heist, The O.C.), Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity) and Gary Scott Thompson (Las Vegas, The Fast and The Furious) are executive producers and David Andron serves as supervising producer and writer. Based on characters created by Glen Larson, Knight Rider is from Universal Media Studios and Dutch Oven Productions.

More:

Variety.com – Full NBC schedule takes shape

New York Times – Live from NBC’s ‘Infront’ (Take 3): New Shows on the Fall Schedule

Entertainment Weekly – NBC’s New Line-Up

Two K.I.T.T. Shelby GT500KR Mustangs, in Standard and Attack Mode (Lot 665/665.1) as seen in Ferbruary’s TV movie, sold yesterday at the 2008 Barrett-Jackson Auction in Palm Beach, for a winning bid of $300,000. The two cars sold as a pair and, as an added bonus, the winner was given the opportunity to purchase the last produced KR Mustang (#1576) at list price, and not a dollar more.

Read more about the auction action at the following links:

Autoblog.com – Barrett-Jackson K.I.T.T.’s Sell for $300,000

About.com – Mustangs – Barrett-Jackson Mustangs Go For Top Dollar

It’s been a quiet month, but there are a few Knight Rider stories to report. Expect more news next month, when NBC announces its Fall line-up.

The Ford Motor Company are auctioning off two of the actual K.I.T.T. Ford Shelby Mustangs used in NBC’s Knight Rider TV movie pilot at the 6th Annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event on March 29, 2008, in West Palm Beach, FL. The cars, which will be sold to benefit Salute to Education, appeared as Ford Shelby GT500KRs that had been transformed into the Knight Industries Three Thousand for the show.

The Mustang News – K.I.T.T. Auction

The Speed Channel will be covering the story:

Speed Channel – K.I.T.T. Auction

UK Mag Sci-Fi Now has a 4-page feature about the changes that recent sci-fi seems to be undergoing, and the emphasis is on the different Knight Rider franchises. Plenty of pictures from the TV-movie, and there are some quotes from Executive Producer David Bartis as well. Check it out in Issue 13, out now!

PR-Inside.com reports that Kate Beckinsale, who starred with David Hasselhoff in the Adam Sandler movie Click, told AOL Movies that she perfected her American accent as a child by watching Knight Rider and The A-Team. “I know that I came to America and I could perfectly understand everything everybody was saying, because we grew up on Knight Rider and The A-Team,” she said.

Kate Beckinsale “A-Team” and “Knight Rider” Accent Lessons

Another English actor hopes that the success of Knight Rider could revive his own classic Glen Larson show: Simon MacCorkindale believes Manimal could be ripe for reappraisal and revival. He tells the Derbyshire Evening Telegraph, “It’s something that has been on my mind for a while now, but there would be rights to negotiate and plenty of other issues to address. Once the [stage tour] of Sleuth is over it is something I want to take a serious look at.”

A Return for Manimal?

An interesting article has turned up about the revolutionary HD camera that was used to photograph the new Knight Rider TV movie, with comments from Jamie Barber, the Director of Photography.

“According to Knight Rider DP Jamie Barber (The O.C. and Roswell), the HD-RH1 was an integral part of creating the film’s overall look.

“The driving shots could only be accomplished with the Iconix [camera], and the film would not have turned out the way it did without it,” Barber said. “The camera is so small that I was able to put it in places where I wouldn’t have been able to put an ordinary camera without a lot more time and effort. There was one shot where the car runs literally right over the camera, right down the middle of the street. Using black paper tape, I taped the camera to the road, ran the cable, and then had the car run over it at high speed. There was maybe a half-inch clearance over the camera. There’s no other high def camera I could have done that with.”

Using a suction cup mount and c-stand arm, Barber was able to mount HD-RH1 virtually anywhere on the car itself. “The majority of the interior shots were accomplished with the Iconix,” Barber continued. “Shots of the car driving itself, the steering wheel turning, all of that kind of thing. The Iconix is such a small, light camera that we could put it anywhere, we would do mounts on the outside of the door as the car was driving, looking over the empty driver’s seat and into the passenger seat.”

The complete article can be found at the following location:

Broadcast Newsroom – Iconix HD-RH1 Camera System Used on Knight Rider

The story has also been picked up by Digital Arts Online:

Digital Arts Online – K.I.T.T.’s Perspective

In the meantime, I’ve been working on some of the other sections of the site; look out for some new Knight Rider 2000 trivia and original filming dates soon!

Top 10 lists seem to be popular today, and wouldn’t you know it? — K.I.T.T. appears in three of them:

Entertainment Weekly have a feature on their website about the coolest TV cars of all time. There’s no way the Knight Rider car could be left out of this one:

Entertainment Weekly – Coolest Cars

Wired.com have included K.I.T.T. in a list of top film and TV sidekicks:

Wired.com – Top Sidekicks

Meanwhile, the UK’s MSN has included K.I.T.T. in their list of the greatest-ever talking computers:

MSN (UK) – Greatest Talking Computers

Update — KOAM-TV have got in on the act, with an article about both K.I.T.T.s and other TV cars.

KOAM TV – Top 10 Most Famous TV Cars

The actual Top 10 is hosted by Forbesautos.com, and you can find out where K.I.T.T. came by clicking here.

SFX Magazine is running a full-page article on the new show in their March issue, entitled The Car’s The Star. They interview Executive Producer David Bartis about the pilot, and he mentions that they have some ideas about how to include David Hasselhoff should they be picked up for a series.

London’s Metro newspaper gave a small mention to that very subject in yesterday’s edition. Neil Sean, in his Green Room gossip column, wrote that “David Hasselhoff is having a change of heart about starring in a remake of Knight Rider. ‘He is ready to talk to the producer,’ a source revealed.” How Hasselhoff has had “a change of heart” is anybody’s guess, since he has been the driving force trying to bring Knight Rider back continuously for the last ten years. Metro is the only publication — in print or on the web — that has suggested this.