1982 TV Series – Knight Rider

Knight Rider is an American television series created and produced by Glen A. Larson. The series was originally broadcast on NBC from 1982 to 1986. The show stars David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a high-tech modern crime fighter assisted by KITT, an advanced artificially intelligent, self-aware and nearly indestructible car. This was the last series Larson devised at Universal Television before he moved to 20th Century Fox.

The “Knight Rider Theme” was composed by Stu Phillips and Glen A. Larson. The series DVD bonus material contains an interview about this lead music, where Glen A. Larson says he remembers a theme out of a classical piece (“Marche Et Cortège De Bacchus” Act III – No. 14 from Sylvia written by French composer Léo Delibes) from which he took pieces for the “Knight Rider Theme”.

The rest of the series music was composed by Stu Phillips for 13 episodes, Don Peake for 75 episodes, Glen A. Larson co-wrote music only for the “K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R.” episode and Morton Stevens who wrote music for the “Deadly Maneuvers” episode in the first season. Peake took over scoring duties at S1E14 in 1983, when Larson moved to Twentieth Century-Fox and Phillips was working there on his projects. Peake insisted as the only and main composer until the end of the series in 1986, exceptionally for the “K.I.T.T. vs. K.A.R.R.” episode in third season, which he composed together with Stu Phillips and Glen A. Larson.

In 2005 FSM released a disc of music from the series, featuring the series theme, ad bumpers and Phillips’ scores for “Knight of the Phoenix” (the pilot), “Not A Drop To Drink”, “Trust Doesn’t Rust”, “Forget Me Not” and the composer’s final episode “Inside Out”, as well as the logo music for Glen Larson Productions. Albums of Don Peake’s scores have also been issued.