"The Wizard of Promo at NBC"

[Michael Pajaro]

So every now and then we mention the original Knight Rider teaser commercial comparing KITT with the General Lee. I found an article that mentions the commercial and explains how it was part of a much larger media strategy for the network. Here's the article, in part:

The Wizard of Promo at NBC
Variety, August 25, 1982

NBC-TV may be stuck in last place in the primetime Nielsens, with only slight chance of immediate improvement. But the image NBC is presenting in its primetime spots displays the confidence of a network that's so sure it's going to turn things around that it can afford to poke fun at itself (a cabdriver telling his passenger, Judd Hirsch of “Taxi,” that NBC has “got nuthin’. I never watch them”).

It can also afford to stop hitting the viewer over the head with a barrage of fast-action footage - the time-honored huckster’s way to lure your audiences into the tent.

"The message I want to get across to the public," says Steve Sohmer, the new VP of advertising and creative services who was hired from CBS with great fanfare earlier this year, "is that NBC has great confidence in its future. We're not running around hysterically,” grabbing people by the lapels with "the-pie-in-the-face clip that’s followed by clips emphasizing all the exciting, dramatic stuff in the show.”

Sohmer takes a satirical approach with the “Knight Rider” series, introducing the race-car driver Johnny Rutherford, who, while standing alongside what looks like an exact duplicate of General Lee, the celebrated car on “Dukes of Hazard,” says “once upon a time this was the hottest car on television.” Then he walks over to the Knight Rider car, which, he says, “can do a lot more than jump over puddles.”
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I'd say his strategy worked.

[Joe Huth]

Awesome stuff you are posting this week, Mike.

The elusive "Competition is NO Competition" commercial has eluded all of us for decades. I sure hope it's uncovered one day. I did recently obtain a Betamax copy of the Pilot and some other episodes, but I have no player to test it out...who knows? Maybe it's on there.

Joe

[Knight Racer]

I got inspired by this thread to find that clip.I checked the only place it could possibly be found which is youtube.I found this as the first result:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU-uvT6GeuI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Song says it all with the words "Don't know why I have to drive so fast,My car has nothing to proove.It's not you but it'll do 60 in 5.2."