There’s a very good Scot Squad scene about the digging up of a time capsule where every item in it is now excruciating — such as a Gary Glitter LP, a Jim’ll Fix It badge, and so on. But if you thought we were done with uncovering popular stars who we are now uncomfortable about, I’ve got one more for you.
KITT.
From Knight Rider. KITT. The car. Seriously. The car.
I just stumbled on a stash of about 38 Knight Rider scripts. You can’t justify curiosity, but you can try. Any long set of scripts is interesting because you see the evolution of a show, although in this case the stash is in alphabetical order so I’m a bit clueless over any progression.
Plus Knight Rider is an action series, it’s very dependent on its visuals, and it also has an extraordinarily specific and limited format. If the car can’t get there, you’ve got no story. So I’m up for this, I’m interested to see how the action is shown on the page, I’m very interested in which writers can get the most out of a truly tight format.
And I’ve got to tell you that I read at least half a dozen that were fine. I’m not knocking the show, I’m definitely not saying there was a lot of subtext, but script after script did the job and the worst you could say is that when it had a good idea, it often wrapped it up too easily.
Only, reading away alphabetically though the stash, I hit one that made my eyes widen. I keep a list of scripts I read so that I can go back to the great ones, and against the title I do put one or two words. Often it’s just good, great, things like that. Sometimes it’s “utter shite”. But next to a Knight Rider episode, I wrote “offensive”.
And then the next one got the same thing.
It was suddenly as if every woman was a “leggy blonde” or a “lovely lady” and male characters were all over them enough to make your skin leave home. There would be risible pickup lines from characters who, at least on the page, sounded like men you’d be ashamed to share a planet with. And almost every time, the women would swoon, it all made you want to walk away from both halves of the species forever.
I did say it was almost every time. The odd exception was when a woman would object and truly, I want to go back to the 1980s and start slapping people. Because a woman objecting to what any sane human being would only pause objecting to puke, would be presented as tough little lady. Totally wrong, but she’s got spirit, we would be expected to think.
Okay.
I should really have stopped reading, I know. But that was two or three scripts out of, by then, perhaps ten I’d read, so I pressed on. And the next one on the alphabetical list was “Give Me Liberty… or Give Me Death” which aired in the first season in January 1983.
Engineer Bonnie Barstow (Patricia McPherson) is sitting in the driving seat of KITT, adjusting some technobabble nonsense. And then we get this stage direction:
“Suddenly she jumps a little like she’s been pinched on the bottom.”
If you don’t happen to remember KITT, it’s a talking car with a red-strobing light on the front that’s meant to be some kind of scanner. And now knowing that, read the next description”
“ANGLE – K.I.T.T.’S SCANNER He flashes it devilishly.”
Read it for yourself, if you like. Here’s the script and the moment is on page 5.
KITT. I feel personally let down. And because you’re wondering, yes. I checked the aired episode and the scene is there. I’ll keep reading on to see if the car pinches lead character Michael Knight (David Hasslehoff) on the arse, but I don’t expect it will, and I’m not convinced it would help anyway.