Brandon Tartikoffs choice seemed to be a direct hit. David was the perfect actor for the role of the Agent Michael Knight, who was the hero with the leather jacket, the cowboy boots and full of cool sayings. He hunted criminals and flirted with beautiful women. Michael Knight was ever on the side of right and law. He took care that the good side was at the end the winning side. While he was taking care of that he was ever human, cordial and had a big sense for humor. Not a cool hero with hard fists, but a man with mistakes and feelings, with whom every one could identify himself/herself. He was a modern hero, who keeped on believing that violence and criminals could be conquered. "I knew right from the start, that KNIGHT RIDER was the TV-Show, I was ever waiting for", David says.

The role of Michael Knight was actually cutted for David. With his young charm, his good-looking appearance and the strong muscles, he had exactly the right mixture, which could inspire the Action-Fans from all over the world. At his side was a car with the name Knight Rider Two Thousand (KITT). A car, which could actually speak. A cutted, black colloq, a Pontiac Trans-Am-Sport-Coupé, which not only had practical special effects, which even James Bond had turn pale; besides he gave intelligent sayings of himself, was everytime at the right time at the right place, if Action-Hero David needed help and had every kind of information in his computermemory stored. The phenomenal car KITT was in one episode a photographic laboratory, phonespy or a computer with access to secret files and so he got a very close friend to Michael Knight. The brisk car could drive about 500 Km/h and saved Michael Knight from every tricky situation.

At the beginning David had problems, to become a friends with his TV-Show-Partners. "Naturally I was astonished, as I heard, that my partner would be a car", David remembers. "I met the actor, who gaved KITT his voice, eight months after the TV-Show was successfully started. It was kinda funny, as William Daniels and I finally could shake hands." The combination of KITT's High-Tech-Charm and David's gentle macho-charisma was an unbeatable mixture, which brought the TV-Show from one minute to the other on top of the TV-Show-Charts. Like earlier Lassie, Flipper, Fury or Boomer, so was now the trend of the new generation of kids from the 90ties, to have a High-Tech-Car as best friend of the hero.

At the beginning David disagreed, that Knight Rider should seemed to be a tv-show just for kids: "I had a big argument with the producer of the TV-Show because of that", he remembers. " I said to them, that I wouldn't be here to play Mickey Mouse and so I made suggestions to get a adult dialog and better action." At the beginning KITT became even more fan-letters than his human partner. David didn't like that very much, but with the time he got used to it, that the kids liked KITT´s cool and dry sayings as much as David´s charme of an hero. "I still remember a situation where a woman asked me for a autograph at the airport and her man said that KNIGHT RIDER wouldn't be a real TV-Show without KITT. Then I replied to him, that in this case he should try to get an autograph of KITT", David tells.

With the time David developped himself a preference for that black Pontiac Trans Am. "Privately I am possessing 2 of them by now", David tells. "One time I made the mistake to order a car in the same color as KITT and so from time to time there have been others who wanted to race with me.

The rapid driving style, that David used to have at KNIGHT RIDER, wasn't also his private driving style. "I can rage enough at KNIGHT RIDER, so I don't need to do that also in my private live", David says. "Private I am driving more slow and carefully. But for it I am used to talk to my car now!" David is a enthusiastic racing driver. In his freetime he is travelling to a lot of racings. Because of that David thought that he would be capable to do a lot of the action-scenes by himself. Only in really risky situations, when KITT drove on 2 tires or when KITT is flying through the air, David fall back on a stuntman.

The car instead, needed more often a double. Totaly there have been 4 different KITT's. One of them was always high polished and ready for photos. Another KITT-Car was kind of a demonstration car, but had nevertheless all kind of technical cleverness and was used for close-ups. Besides there were 2 stunt-cars. "The gear change was only an imitation", David explains. "When we were filming I looked on that board, but the real cockpit was in reality constructed in a studio." The sensitive construction wouldn't have survived the fast huntings.

During the shootings there have been several KITT-Cars because a lot of them didn't survive the stunts. "I can't tell how many axes got broken", David smiles. "Thank God that I got never seriously hurt. Maybe I jumped from time to time to hard against the sidewalk. I even drove into a film camera one time! But fotunately, no one got hurt."

While KITT's black car body got men to enthusiasm, David alias Michael Knight as modern Knight conquered the hearts of the female TV-Watchers. There has been everything perfect for that TV-Show: The concept, the leading actor and the point of time. KNIGHT RIDER got already after a short time more popular than Dallas. NBC sold the TV-Show to over 70 countries world wide. KNIGHT RIDER got on air in all countries from Algeria until Zaire. The ratings were astronomicaly high and KNIGHT RIDER got in only 6 years the cult status.

World wide have been Knight-Rider-Fan-Clubs, in every children's room have been posters and mini-KITT's, T-Shirts, Knight-Rider-Stickers, Baseball caps and collections of magazines about that TV-Show. For the younger fans David Hasselhoff alias Michael Knight became their idol, for teenies he got their heartthrob and for female fans he got the status of a sex-symbol. "This is all rubish, an invention of the press", David disputes his status as a sex-symbol. "The people like me in Knight Rider, because I am funny, but not because I am sexy. But sure, to look good is very important in front of a camera, but mainly, because it contributes that you can feel yourself good." David had for this good reasons: After all those years of hard work in the schooltheatre, at the college, as waiter, as voice for adverticing and as star of a eve TV-Show, David got the status of a real superstar. "I needed a long time to get the number 1. 14, 15 years! But I have never been giving up and keeped myself always on my motto: You can reach everything in your live, if you only believe in yourself. I mean, who should believe in me if I am not even able to do it?", he thinks. "Now I am on the right way and I am at the beginning of the big fame. Because if you can tie someone equally, than it just has to be the right way."