Code of Vengeance 1985 TV movie

So Knight Rider is quite the franchise the orignal series ran from 1982-1986 for four seasons. In 1991, we got the TV movie and failed pilot Knight Rider 2000, this was followed by the in name only Knight Rider 2010 in 1994. 1997 saw the one season Team Knight Rider and the 2008 season of Knight Rider with Justin Bruening as Michael's son driving a new KITT. But what tends to be forgotten is the short lived spinoff Code of Vengeance - In season 2 episode 21 "Mouth of the Snake" (a two part episode) had Michael and KITT meet and team up with David Dalton (Charles Taylor), martial artist and government agent. I do wonder if Glen Larson or anyone in the Knight Rider team read the Destroyer series? The intent was to spin Dalton off onto a series called "All that Glitters" where he would be paired with Joanna St John (Joanna Pettet) All that Glitters was the title given to the fourth Knight Rider novelisation, and David and Joanna are mentioned to be married in the 5th book. Reportly the netwrk felt the concept felt too close to another Larsen series "Cover Up' so the decision was made to retool the series with a pilot called "Code of Vengeance" I'll talk about the new premise when I talk about the movie. It was followed by a second TV movie Dalton: Code of Vengeance II. The show then went to series called Code of Vengeance (although I have seen it referenced as Dalton's Code of Vengeance) and it ran for a whole 2 episodes. "Rustler's Moon" and "The Last Hold Out" Recently the Youtube channel Knight Rider Historians posted first Code of Vengeance TV Movie.

So Dalton is no longer a martial artist who works for the Department of Justice, here he is a Vietnam veteran who is wandering the country in his campervan. In this movie he's in a border town in Arizona where he is gets work building a room for a single mother - the only person in town who will talk to Dalton. Dalton discovers that the woman's brother is missing and he finds the body and that there is smuggling of guns across the border. In many ways Dalton reminded me of Billy Jack, a peaceful man who can kick much ass and has intervene when there is injustice. I'm also sure that Shane was an influnce as the woman's young son becomes attached to Dalton and follows him during the final fight (I was yelling at the kid to run AWAY from the gunfire) It almost feels like a prequel to the Knight Rider episode where we see how Dalton came to the attention of DoJ but the show never got that far. Interestingly in a meta moment, one of the characters is watching Knight Rider in the movie. It's an enjoyable enough 90 min TV movie (and I don't why but the original video that Knight Historians have loaded is a studio original and has several points where it says "Insert ads here" which made me smile - even though youtube just ignored them and put ads whereever.

Battle of the 80s Supercars

My love for Knight Rider is well known (and if not, it is now)  KITT (the Knight Industries Two Thousand) was a car ahead of it's time nearly forty years later we still haven't got everything that car could do.

The Battle of the 80s Supercars was in effect two specials in one.

The first part was David Hasselhoff driving around in KITT looking at the new wave of cars that were influenced by KITT and Knight Rider -  bulletproof cars, self driving cars, a self sufficent survival car, smart cars that you open through your watch as well as very fast cars.

In most cases, The Hoff drives the cars - there's part of me that imagines the creators of these vehicles were doing the "Knight Rider is driving my car" happy dance.  And it was fascinating to see what was currently being done.

There's a cool bit where the Hoff visits the desginer of KITT for the TV series and we see his design sketches for KITT.

The second part which was woven through the special was an 80s super car race -  now this was a great idea as a young boy in the 80s we had a number of supervehicles aside from KITT on TV:

• Blue Thunder (the one season spinoff from the movie), 
• Airwolf (helicopter), 
• Streethawk (motorcycle), 
• Automan's car, 
• the Coyote X from Hardcastle and McCormick, 
• The Highwayman's truck, 
• The A-Team van, 

and that is just off the top of my head.  (I was going to include Viper but that was in the 90s and we're not going into the Knight Rider spinoff TV Movies and series which would double the list alone.)

Okay we aren't doing the helicopters but that's an impressive list of vehicles and the producers got Dirk Bendict to drive the A Team Van - yes!  and Erik Estrada on his CHiPs bike - ah what now?

Now don't get me wrong CHiPs was a fine series and I have a feeling that my cousin Michael and I had CHiPs action figures but a) they were regular police motorcycles not super vehicles and b) CHiPs started in 1977.

A good chunk of the special had Erik Estrada hunting for his bike (which he did after accepting the challenge of the race) and Benedict getting the van serviced (at least he was spared running around looking for the van).

Really all they needed to do was what they did with Hasselhoff - make out that these guys were just driving around all the time in these vehicles.  I'm sure that most of us assume that to be the case anyway.

Partway through Hasselhoff runs into Morgan Fairchild who basically tells the Hoff  that she wishes he come last.  Morgan Freeman wasn't in any show even vaguely super car related, yeah she was in flashy soaps like Falcon Crest and Paper Dolls but why was she here?

We get to raceday and they get Catherine Bach (Daisy Duke from the Duke of Hazzard) as the race offical and starter which was a great idea, I suspect that instead of the four wheel drive she turned up in she was supposed to drive up in the General Lee, but given the sensitivity to the Confederate Flag these days that was sqashed,.  

The idea was first to win two races was the overall winner and I'm sure since this was Hasselhoff's special we can all guess who won.

The show ends with the Hoff talking a possible sequel with races with other super vehicles - that brought a huge grin to my face.

(I should mention that KITT brought the 

This is the End: The Destroyer

Strictly speaking this is not the end for the world of The Destroyer.  The books are still being published as is the Legacy spinoff series.  But this is the end of playing catchup with the series which started in the early 1970s.  I started collecting in the late eighties and now have finally caught up (if I had more time I'd reread the whole series in order) thanks in large part to fact the entire series is now available as ebooks.  151 books, a spinoff series of six books so far, a movie (and a new one in the works), a TV pilot as well as Marvel comics. (There are new comics that I need to get)

It feels weird being caught up, the hunt for Destroyers has been part of my life for 30 years now.  The Destroyer I can't remember how I discovered him it might have been a copy of Inside Sinanju at the cheap books in the corner store visiting my grandmother.  It might have been a library book.  It may have been the back cover blurb for the Doc Savage video (which was definitely my introduction to Buckaroo Banzai).

When I found The Destroyer, I was in love. The characters are great.  Chuin should be the most offensive character in the world but he's not. Some would say that he's racist but it makes sense because he IS far superior to everyone else. He’s a frail looking little old man but heaven help you if you upset him or interrupt his soap operas.

Then there is Harold Smith the incorruptible WWII veteran cheapskate with a computer system that can infiltrate any electronic information.  Smith was asked to head the agency CURE by Kennedy and has been in the job since the 1960s. 

Remo is the meat in the sandwich of these two extremes. The Newark beat cop conscripted into an eternal battle with outré threats to America. He's the guy who cleans up Chuin's bodies when the old man kills someone who has annoyed him.

A lot of the Destroyer has made its way into other things Person of Interest, Knight Rider, The Karate Kid.

The Destroyer lead me to explore other series and was why I wrote Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction.  Being able to write a Destroyer short story for the More Blood anthology was one of the greatest moments of my life.