#mike traceur

[sun-ni-day]

I bet Michael and KI3T are sure happy modern sex toys come with wireless

[mangoshakin]

KR2008 Bumper Stickers

hai! here are scans of two sick bumper stickers I snatched from ebay. I love kr2008 and I never even talk about it. I find these so unique and just luvvv adding obscure promo stuff like this to my collection! 😸😸

also. I know kr2008 gets a lot of hate in the general kr fandom- I went into it thinking I would hate it- but it really wasn’t that bad. I watched it in march and thoroughly enjoyed it and even got like,,, choked up… there are references to kr1982 and parallels between the relationship between KITT/Michael and KITT3/mike. (THE PARALLELS!! ARE CRAZY!! THERE ARE SOME REALLY GOOD ONES TOO!!) the story arcs KITT3 has about developing his autonomy and forming a friendship with mike is so lovely. PLUS!! IT’S NOT LIKE KR2008 ISN’T AS EQUALLY CRAZY AS KR1982. mike freaking kisses KITT3 in one episode. (it’s meant to be like a joke but STILL.) all of the witty banter is very much still there. KITT3 is weirdly obsessed with analyzing mike’s love life. it’s freaking insane and this show made me laugh and cry pleaseee just give it a chance. this post is blatant KR2008 propaganda. mike x KITT3 forevah. just ignore the cheesy late 2000s tv parts and ur good to go.

[kitts-wife272]

Mike's first introduction to KITT

"Mike, don't antagonize the car."

[bellygunnr]

Cold Hands

A KR08 piece. I forget which episode this is meant to tag, but it's just also trying to get into KITT3's head.

The command center, for once, is empty. Or as empty as it can be, with security protocol dictating that at least one member be occupying it at all times, especially in the dead of night. Tonight, it is Mike Knight as the lone sentry. A curious development-- a deviation, even, in his behavior. Perhaps Mr. Graiman's absence is an influence?

You ache to know. Silently, you switch on your scanner lights, upping the output until the stretch of the stone bunker you're facing is crimson. Mike's heart rate increases immediately. His breath, once even, hitches, and he turns to face you.

"I thought you were asleep," Mike says. "What's up?"

He abandons his post by pushing out of the chair and coming to stand by your fender. His left hand ghosts across your roof line, but the rest of him is held at arm's length. He looks strange, stretched out like that, like he's nervous to get close.

You consider drawing him in with humor. But the hour is late and he may be exhausted enough to grant you some mercy with your prying.

"You do not usually take the night shift," you say. "Particularly after arduous missions like today."

Mike tilts his head back. This is what he does, you know, when he is posed with a fact he wasn't expecting to confront.

"I just knew I wouldn't be able to sleep, KITT. I got a lot of guns pointed at me today."

Indeed.

You do not know how to compute that. He always has guns pointed at him. Up until this moment, you hadn’t considered it disturbed him.

"So you would have trouble sleeping," you surmise.

He smiles, head still tipped back, gaze fixed on the ceiling. His boots shuffle across the ground, bringing him closer to your chassis, which you start warming to the touch. The nanites are one of the few things that listen to you and you alone.

“Yeah. Yeah, but who doesn’t in this line of work?”

You briefly run the numbers. Not because his rhetorical question forces you to, but because you are curious. You only have organic data on the Graimans, Mike, and the few operatives blessed to have joined You previously. Sarah rarely sleeps soundly. Statistically, disturbed sleep is apparently common in “this line of work.”

Fascinating.

It is so utterly out of your control.

Yet you ache to be of assistance. You crunch ever more numbers and find yourself wanting. Mike leans more heavily against your body, until his torso is flat against your door, arms folded over your roof. He is warm. Perhaps he finds you warm, as well.

“You should rest here. I have been told my seats are quite comfortable.”

They should be, anyway. You can manipulate their form at will.

Mike laughs a little. It echoes. You capture the sound.

“Won’t I get in trouble for sleepin’ on the job, KITT? I thought you didn’t like it when I slacked off.”

You do not like it. His inability to focus on the job left you taskless and bored at the best of times. But just a month ago, he’d flatlined in your care, and just eight hours ago, he’d almost left you again. Conclusion: concessions must be made. Humans operate poorly when their needs are not met.

You open the driver’s door. Mike laughs again, hearing it, and strides around your hood. His hand drags lightly across your scanner cowling, sending reams of data through your processor. All of him leaves flashpoints of color across your matrix as he caves in to your plea and settles into the driver’s seat. 

Several unformed ideas and thoughts skim your brain. You dismiss them harshly.

“Good night, Mike,” you murmur into the sound system.

He mumbles something in acknowledgement, but he’s asleep the moment his head drops back against the seat.

[jetravenex]

Finally finished watching KR 08

After watching it all together and seeing the final episode, it was all together a good series. I’m glad it existed, and I honestly enjoyed it.

A more detailed look into my thoughts and some spoilers are under the cut. I know the shows now over 10 years old, but if people don’t want to get spoiled I do go into some details about aspects that happen later on in the show.

But if you finish Classic KR, and you’re willing to go in with an open mind and an understanding that it’s not going to exactly pick up where Classic KR left off. I recommend it. You will have to sit through some parts that are kind of lame, and there is a good bit of cheese. But if you’ve got some time to kill and you’re willing to recognize it’s not going to be the beauty that was Classic KR, but a 2000′s take on it, you might be surprised. I’m a little sad that there isn’t anymore of it, it took some time to hit it’s stride, but the last five episodes it got was good and made the whole viewing experience completely worth it.

Watching KR 08 has been a tale of years of picking it up, throwing it aside and then picking it up again. I first picked it up to watch it when I was in High School, when I was into Knight Rider the first time. 

I know I must’ve liked it enough because when we picked an actor for a french project (I was a sophomore in High School) I went with Justin Bruening rather than the Hoff, so, yes, even then I had a soft spot for his portrayal as Mike Knight, and I think KI3T made me love Mustangs back in High School because to this day I’d love one from ‘08/’09.

But over the years I told myself, ‘no I don’t like it, everyone says it’s bad, it’s gotta be bad’. And I wrote out the series from my fondness for KR. It was bad like KR2000 to me. (Which after watching the KR2000 movie again with @shes-an-oddity, I’ve decided the plotline’s dumb, dumb decisions were made, but sassy KITT makes the thing watchable and we both very much enjoyed him while picking apart the plot to hell)

Rewatching KR 2008 to it’s entirety has been a year long event to be honest. I decided I was going to watch KR 08 all the way through end of last summer I think, because I knew for a fact I hadn’t completed it, and when @merciresolution talked about the lovely famous car discord and they had KI3T rp blogs and headcanons. So, I realized I wanted to know how the story actually went.

It was a bit grueling at first, I already knew I didn’t like the first two episodes. The movie I did have fun with which truly renewed my desire to watch the series proper. 

But that first episode. It’s just, a lot. Maybe I’ll list my personal favorite and least favorite episodes of KR 08 at some point. But I just know the first episode didn’t do much for me. SOOO much is just dumped on you at once and I know they have to do the whole ‘he’s a man that does not exist’. But maybe that should’ve been in the movie, or they didn’t lump so much in at once. Plus since Mike just gets shot and declared dead, but looks the same I’m surprised no one came after him after that. It was a pointless plot and easily they could’ve given him the name of Knight for other reasons. So yeah, first episode don’t like it.

But after that first and second episode, the characters start to flesh out, with little great bits. Mike and Billy having a water gun fight with KI3T and the robots that assist with maintaining KI3T, was when I realized how buried underneath it, there was potential. 

I’ll admit when KARRE got name dropped and even though I knew he was in the show, I knew he showed up. I got excited. I was like ‘Oh cool, they’re actually teasing the fact that KI3T has a prototype that’s kind of a looming threat, I like it!’

Oh, if only they’d done more with KARRE. I don’t dislike the two parter that served as a send off for a lot of the cast since the network realized that the series was being bogged down by its too large cast. But I feel like KARRE needed a two parter of his own. For all the talk and hype he got, he really was only in like a few minutes of the episode and the fight KI3T and Mike had against him was so so rushed. He was criminally under utilized.

But after you get past the episodes leading up to KARRE, after that it’s wonderful. The last 5 episodes of the series are really good. They had KI3T be more sassy and starting to do the shift from computer to fully developed personality. They had more scenes with Mike and KI3T driving around and doing good for the sake of doing good rather than it needing to be a big mission to stop terrorists or stop the theft of military stuff or what not. 

They were starting to get the heart of KR, and it was GLORIOUS. And they BUILT on the previous stuff from the 12 episodes. 

But, sadly it was too little too late I think for a lot of people. The reason it took me a YEAR to finish the series was because after KARRE I stopped watching. I was just, soo disappointed that they under utilized him. I remember finishing the episode with KARRE and being like ‘That’s it?’ It was over WAY too fast, and I was extremely bummed out that all that hype I’d garnered was for naught. 

I was rewarded though when I watched exit light, enter knight. It opens with such a wonderful interaction with KI3T and Mike. It’s not a mission that prompts Mike to act, he’s not acting under orders, he’s acting because he wants to help. He’s Michael Knight Jr. and he’s going to make a difference, and that’s the theme that carries for the remaining five episodes. 

And it’s glorious. 

The series concludes with Mike, Billy, Sarah and Zoe, the gang looking to the future as being the true new FLAG and they break on ‘to making a difference’. 

Man if they’d been given another season I’d have loved it. I’d have loved to see more stories with these characters. The show really wanted to hype up Mike Knight at the beginning as this badass fighter, this real man’s man, tough, cool, suave, great with the ladies, but it eventually dropped trying to push Mike as perfect and the best and he became a lot more fun.

As KI3T became more sassy and outspoken, I was living for it. 

@shes-an-oddity can atest to the amount of times I went and quoted stuff to her. Starting off with ADFADSFAD FAM THIS LINE IT’S GOLD!

I’ll end this with saying. I do feel like KR 08 could’ve been better. They should’ve incorporated Michael Knight Sr. and possibly even KI2T at some point. I would’ve killed for that meet up. 

But I like what I got from KR 08. Thank you Knight Rider 2008 for the enjoyable, if a bit bumpy and brief, ride.

[mangoshakin]

I'm going to watch KR2008 soon and HELLO??? ONE OF YOUR POSTS SAYS MIKE KISSES KITT3??!?!?! Is there a clip online somewhere? I need to see ASAP 😭 idc if it's a joke lemme see car kisses.

IT IS SO ABSOLUTELY TRUE. IT DRIVES ME BONKERSSSS OMG😿😿😿😿 have so much fun when you watch the show EEEK!!

this clip is from episode 4 here: https://archive.org/details/disc-4_202411 on the internet archive! (it’s on disc 2 on the post XD)

[sun-ni-day]

the thing is - producers decided to make another sequel Knight Rider series, and went looking for their lead - new Michel Knight (Jr.), and they end up casting...

they end up casting A SOAP OPERA ACTOR.

Justin Bruening is not an action actor.

He still did awesome in all the action bits, but HE'S VERY MUCH A ROMANTIC LEAD ACTOR.

Tell me again how this show is not a romantic drama about a boy and his sentient car robot

[sun-ni-day]

Mike kissing KITT on his roof...

KITT reacting with "while your display of affection is appreciated, it's not necessary"

He said...

KITT really said AFFECTION IS APPRECIATED