Okay, let’s deal with the elephant/panther in the room. No, I’ve no idea what the deal is with this cover. The copyright notice inside shows they used a promotional image for David Hasselhoff’s music rather than Knight Rider (with K.I.T.T. in his new season four Super Pursuit Mode copied and pasted over the top). But let’s not get hung up on that, it’s time for our fourth Knight Rider Annual from 1986. I’ve really looked forward to these every year, given how the show is My Favourite Thing in the Universe and the books have been fun so far. It’s the usual 64-page hardback from Grandreams with two comic strips and what first appears to be three text stories.
On further inspection these are actually three parts of the same tale. So, a meatier prose story this time around? Let’s find out. World Stealers begins with Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. surveilling a hi-tech computer lab. As a huge Knight Rider geek I spotted a mention of K.I.T.T. having two monitors on his dashboard. As fellow fans will know the two small screens were replaced with one large display in the third season. The characters’ usual witty back-and-forth that had developed over the course of the series is certainly there, especially when Michael asks K.I.T.T. to scan the building and tell him what’s happening inside.
However, there are things like the monitors, the limited abilities the car has and Devon Miles’ name still being spelt incorrectly that lead me to believe the writer was still working from an earlier series bible. It reads much like a season one book. Yet again. After all the research David Lloyd told me was put into those first books it’s rather disappointing.
The main guest character is Mary-Evangeline Pedroza who runs a computer security company. Her work force is mainly female, because she needed the smartest people and they just happened to end up all being women. (Can you imagine the online snowflakes today?) The codes they’re supplying to clients are instantly hacked, so Michael plans to cut off the next target from the phone lines and force the thieves to physically enter the building. Little clues laid out along the way for the younger readers are blatantly obvious to the adult one. Is this going to be yet another industrial espionage inside job?
The first strip is called KITTnapped and given how an early season four episode was called KITTnap this kind of confirms the writer wasn’t watching the show they were writing about. It’s a silly story involving a disgruntled former F.L.A.G. (Foundation for Law and Government) employee who overrides K.I.T.T.’s systems far too easily to pull off a bank heist. He ends up captured because he’s too lazy to leave his house to park the car in his garage, instead using K.I.T.T.’s unique and easily traceable radio frequency to control it remotely.
The annual contains the usual mix of puzzles and games that aren’t related to the series at all other than a small picture of a character or a title that tangentially links it to the premise. For example, ‘Bonnie’s American States of USA’ and ‘Bonnie’s US Presidents’ word games. At least in the middle of the book the clichéd board game actually relates to the subject, complete with more art by Jim Eldridge who illustrates the whole book.
In part two of World Stealers, Michael and K.I.T.T. find where the thieves’ jet landed and are told by workers at the airport it was flown by women who then took off in a helicopter. It’s not subtle, is it? The best part happens while the pair are tracking the helicopter. They find themselves on a narrow road in a small village, trapped between two lorries. The one in front is a large articulated lorry with a ramp leading up inside it. (Gee, I wonder if that’s important?) It’s when the lorry behind them starts pushing K.I.T.T. towards the ramp that the really fun moment occurs.
Michael quickly asks K.I.T.T. about the composition of the metal in the truck they’re being pushed towards, as well as the dimensions of the trailer and cab. He then takes a big risk, speeding forward and hitting turbo boost just as they go up the ramp, crashing through the front part of the trailer and over the cab. I’m not sure how the show could’ve done this other than with models so it’s a perfect little action scene for a book to fire the imaginations of the young readers.
After being arrested and then freed by K.I.T.T. in a copycat scene from the original pilot movie they hide out under thick trees all night to spot the helicopter, which leads them to a jungle. The text tells of the struggles of trying to get the Trans-Am through the undergrowth but there’s no dialogue! We all know K.I.T.T. would’ve been hilarious throughout this. In the end they do something else the show just couldn’t have afforded. They find a river that’s just a little deeper than the car is tall and they drive down under the surface (unforgivably not illustrated) to a James Bond villain-esque hideout and find Mary beckoning Michael to a table outside the complex where she’s poured him a drink. Again, very Bond-like.
The four-page K.I.T.T. Fact-file pales in comparison to the features from the previous annuals. Gone are the in-depth looks at K.I.T.T.’s developing personality, the stunt work or the interviews with producers and cast. Instead we get a selection of photos and some random pieces of information, not all of which are reliable. For example, there was never any such stunt planned. The “need to ground K.I.T.T.” was actually something they did with season three a couple of years prior, because it was felt K.I.T.T.’s powers were getting too outlandish and the human characters had taken a back seat. Season three corrected this and produced probably my favourite year of the show’s four.
Part three of our prose story reveals the plot was always to capture K.I.T.T. and hack into him. He’s hoisted up by a crane and dangled in mid-air as it’s (unsurprisingly) revealed it was all another inside job, just like in the previous books. This time, Mary’s plan involves being able to control the world’s computers via K.I.T.T.’s systems and hold governments to ransom. She believes men have screwed up the world and it’s time for women to fix everything. Fair enough, to be honest.
Still no chastising lines from K.I.T.T. while in his predicament but the story soon makes up for that. Scanning the building he tells Michael the room he’s locked in is directly below Mary’s (and even that she’s currently taking a shower) and a plan is formed. Michael will burst in on her while K.I.T.T. uses his turbo boost to free himself. Michael can’t see K.I.T.T. from his window but he can see the crane swinging back and forth as his computerised partner times his boosts to swing further and further until it all collapses and he’s freed. This is fun!
As you can see, K.I.T.T. finally finds his voice! From here on the banter back and forth between them is spot on. (Where has it been?) My favourite moment comes when Michael is literally about to kick down Mary’s door to capture the villain when he suddenly stops to ask K.I.T.T. to scan and see if she’s decent first. I did laugh at that! It ends with a physical fight scene between them, something we’d never have seen between a man and woman on TV at the time. In fact, the show does have a scene where Michael jumps out of the driver’s seat window to land on top of a runaway woman, but in the 90s when Knight Rider was repeated ITV cut the stunt out. (It’s always there in repeats today.)
Anyway, while World Stealers may have been rather predictable in its plotting, the action scenes were imaginative and well written. Also, when the writer took the time with the dialogue between man and computer it really worked. So whoever wrote this was obviously capable. (Although, they did have Michael use the word “babe” at one stage, which is not him!) It’s also felt more like a full episode, rather than the fourth act of previous stories, so there’s definitely good and bad points. If I’d read it at the time I think I’d have been thrilled by it.
We finish off with another simple strip. In Rallying Cry the World Rally Champions are under investigation for cheating. Michael, (regular character and cyber technician) Bonnie Barstow and K.I.T.T. enter the race, with Devon telling them they’re not allowed to win (possibly a nice nod to them accidentally winning during such missions in the show). Once neck-and-neck with the lead car they’re run off the road and over a cliff. Of course the villains didn’t reckon on a Trans-Am capable of jumping back up again. Soon our heroes track them to where they’ve hidden their car and taken a helicopter to an identical car further along the race. Ridiculous, isn’t it?
Michael, Bonnie and K.I.T.T. easily catch up with the helicopter and with all the proof recorded they just need to stop the men from winning again. The strip is really just an excuse to have K.I.T.T. use his most popular physical abilities, such as ski mode to drive on two wheels to overtake someone on a tight stretch of road, and of course the turbo boost! This is used to jump over the cheaters’ before K.I.T.T. comes to a dead stop, the other car crushing up against him. As a nine-year-old I’m sure I would’ve loved this.
Finally for this year’s review, we can’t have a Knight Rider Annual without some 80s pin ups, can we?
Here we have Michael (David Hasselhoff), Bonnie (Patricia McPherson) and Devon (Edward Mulhare) posing with the new convertible version of K.I.T.T., David alongside one of the computerised design images of K.I.T.T.’s new Super Pursuit Mode and on the inside back cover the full season four cast, including new addition Peter Parros as RCIII. Because no stories were written with the newest season (or apparently anything beyond the first season) in mind, this is the only time we see RC in the whole book!
In conclusion then, if I’d collected these in the 80s when I was a child in awe of the show (let’s face it, I still am) I’d have read and read and read this until it was falling apart. Nowadays, after the first three superb annuals it’s lacking in certain areas, while in others it’s just as much fun, so I can forgive it. Get past that front cover and fans will have lots to enjoy here and, if you’re like me, reading it at this time of year will really bring out the kid in you.
I can’t believe we’ve only one more book to go. The time has Super Pursuit Mode’d in! (That really doesn’t work, does it?)
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