It's been decades since the original Knight Rider was on the air and without KITT, David
Hasselhoff and most of the actors who played friends and foes have moved on with their
lives. Let's see where their careers have taken them.
The end of the original Knight Rider series didn't end David Hasselhoff's time on television.
After fighting injustice with KITT, Hasselhoff got the leading role of lifeguard Mitch Buchannon
on Baywatch, which ran for an impressive 11 years.
Along with numerous film and TV projects, he reprised the role of Michael Knight in
the 1991 TV movie Knight Rider 2000, returned to his brief role as Snapper Foster in The
Young and the Restless, and played Marvel superspy Nick Fury in the 1998 TV movie Nick
Fury: Agent of Shield.
In the 21st century Hasselhoff's acting work became increasingly self-referential, with
Hasselhoff often appearing as himself in otherwise fictitious TV shows and films.
"That's easy for you to say."
He appeared as himself in episodes of The West Wing, and Just Shoot Me!.
He does it on the big screen, too. Hasselhoff played himself in Piranha 3DD, the 2011 comedy
Hop, the 2004 Spongebob Squarepants movie, and, briefly, as the villain Ego in Guardians
of the Galaxy Vol 2. Furthermore, in 2017 Hasselhoff starred in the action comedy Killing
Hasselhoff.
When he's not busy acting, Hasselhoff also moonlights as a recording artist. In 2019
he released his 14th album, Open Your Eyes.
You won't remember William Daniels in fistfights with bad guys on Knight Rider, but that's
because he filled a much more important role. Daniels was the voice of the smart car KITT
for all of the original Knight Rider series, as well as the 1991 TV movie Knight Rider
2000.
Before, during, and after the original run of Knight Rider, Daniels was playing the role
for which he's most fondly remembered, as Dr. Mark Craig on the medical drama St. Elsewhere.
Along with plenty of recurring and one-off TV and film roles in the intervening years,
Daniels would find a new generation of fans as Cory Matthews' teacher in the long-running
sitcom Boy Meets World. He would later reprise the role for the spin-off series Girl Meets
World.
However, Daniels never completely left Knight Rider's snarky Trans Am behind. He voiced
KITT for two episodes of The Simpsons, the Lego Dimensions video game, and the 2006 comedy
The Benchwarmers.
He wasn't often on the action side of things, but Knight Rider wouldn't have been the same
without Edward Mulhare as FLAG head Devon Miles. It's Devon who arranges for Michael
Long to be brought into FLAG and remade as Michael Knight.
Miles and Knight don't like each other very much in the beginning of Knight Rider, but
as the series continues it's clear the older Englishman develops paternal feelings toward
the hero.
Mulhare's acting career predates Knight Rider by about 40 years. Among his more memorable
classic roles was Captain Costanzo in the 1965 World War II adventure flick Von Ryan's
Express.
Unfortunately, Mulhare passed away in 1997 from lung cancer. Between the end of Knight
Rider and his death, Mulhare played Devon Miles once more in the 1991 TV movie Knight
Rider 2000. His final film, a comedy called Out to Sea, came out the year of his passing.
Rebecca Holden played April Curtis, KITT's mechanic and FLAG's lead designer during Knight
Rider's second season. She took on kind of a motherly role to the smart car, praising
KITT when the car performed as it should, and scolding it when it malfunctioned.
Holden's last appearance was in season 2's penultimate episode, "Let It Be Me." Although
April Curtis wasn't heard from again, Rebecca Holden kept her acting career going.
In the late '80s she had one-off spots on shows like Remington Steele, Night Court,
and a three-episode recurring role on General Hospital in 1987. Her acting since then has
been sporadic, but she's still working today in TV and films.
Like former co-star David Hasselhoff, Holden has entertainment aspirations beyond acting.
She started touring with a country band in 1986, and continued performing and recording
music into the 2010s, with her videos appearing on TNN and CMT.
It isn't until Knight Rider's fourth and final season that Reginald Cornelius III, a.k.a.
RC3, becomes part of FLAG's team, played by Peter Parros. RC3 starts off as a Chicago
vigilante, scaring off crooks with a fake assault rifle.
After Michael Knight and KITT team up with RC3 to take down some bank robbers, he's recruited
into FLAG as both a mechanic and, occasionally, Knight's sidekick.
Unlike some other Knight Rider alumni, Parros has enjoyed a lot of regular TV work since
the end of the series. From 1989-1991 he was one of the two leads for the police procedural
drama The New Adam-12. He's also played Dr. Ben Harris for 12 years on the soap opera,
As the World Turns.
More recently, Parros stars as wealthy judge David Harrington in Tyler Perry's hit soap
opera The Haves and the Have Nots.
As you probably already know, Kilmer had nothing to do with the '80s version of Knight Rider.
But in the 2008 Knight Rider TV movie and the subsequent short-lived series, it was
Val Kilmer playing the voice of the artificially intelligent car KITT.
After the Knight Rider remake shuttered, Kilmer enjoyed regular work in film and TV. He plays
a vengeful ghost in the 2010 horror The Traveler, a fictionalized version of himself in 2012's
The Fourth Dimension, and an officer in the 2017 psychological crime drama The Snowman.
Kilmer had fans worried in 2015 and 2016 when he abruptly dropped off the radar. For two
years, Kilmer largely denied rumors that he was battling cancer. In 2017, he opened up
about his health issues with The Hollywood Reporter.
Kilmer told THR that he was struggling with throat cancer. He also had a procedure done
on his trachea that made his voice sound raspy while rendering him out of breath.
Thankfully, Kilmer still seems eager to work. Among other upcoming projects, he'll be reprising
the role of hotshot pilot Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick.
If Knight Rider's KITT had a nemesis, it was KARR, which stood for Knight's Automated Roving
Robot. KARR was the prototype for what would later become KITT, but KARR's programming
cared less about protecting human life and more about doing whatever it could to protect
itself.
"Do you wish to drive? Or should I?”
"Go ahead."
The rival vehicle first appears in season 1's "Trust Doesn't Rust" and is brought back
in season 3 for the episode titled, "KITT vs. KARR." While Paul Frees voiced KARR for
the later appearance, it's Peter Cullen providing the ruthless car's electronic voice in season
1. He reprised the role for an episode in the short-lived 2008-09 Knight Rider series.
Cullen has kept very busy since his short stints on Knight Rider. Any Transformers fan
should know his name. Cullen has been the voice of Autobot head honcho Optimus Prime
for decades, from the '80s Saturday morning cartoons to Michael Bay's live-action films.
But Cullen's work hardly begins or ends with Transformers. He's done voices for The Smurfs,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and he was even the voice of the merciless alien hunter in
1987's Predator.
And of course, who could forget KITT? Not just the actors who provided his voice, but
the car itself? What ever happened to Knight Industries Two Thousand?
Well, as you probably guessed, Knight Rider needed more than one car to bring the action
and drama to life. In 2017, Newsweek looked into what happened to the different KITTs
from the series, and discovered there had been between 14 and 16 different Pontiac Trans
Ams owned by the studio. Most of the vehicles were acquired through a stroke of luck.
In 1983, a train transporting Pontiac Trans Ams derailed. While none of the cars were
damaged, California state law deemed none of the cars could be sold to drivers. General
Motors sold the cars instead to Knight Rider for $1 a piece, with the stipulation that
they would all need to be destroyed once the show was done with them. After the series
ended, the studio rented a crane and smashed all but five of the cars with a wrecking ball.
A couple of Knight Rider super fans tracked down the surviving five KITTs. One is somewhere
in the UK, while two are located in museums in Indiana and Miami. The Knight Rider super
fans bought the remaining two.
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