I can’t believe it took me 83 columns on sticker collecting to get around to posting some Knight Rider stickers. I suppose the prowess of Hasselhoff does not compel me enough. That’s alright, I always used to watch the show for K.I.T.T. anyway. Actually, I had a hard time finding any affordable Knight Rider stickers seeing as the Hoff is so ever-presently kitsch that his smiling mug will always jack up the value of KR memorabilia. Recently while scanning eBay for the much coveted Color-Me Sticker sets, I ran across a nice little lot of KR stickers that was just too good to pass up.
Firs up is this sheet of foil K.I.T.T. stickers that didn’t have a company name attached from 1982…
These feel a whole heck of a lot like the kind of kid’s party favor stickers that come in packs of 20, and are usually found (if not in a place like Party City) in discount dollar stores. Honestly, though the scan didn’t come out all that well (an unfortunate side effect of the awesome luminescent foilosity of the sheet), I really like these. In particular I like that they’re drawings (though they do border on clip art), and that there’s a distinct lack of the Hoff, which I take as a bold (yet most likely a licensing side-stepping and money saving) decision. Anyway, I didn’t find a lot of foil stickers to share on the site in general (except for the Lazer Blazers which really don’t count) so this fills that gap nicely.
Next up we have yet another example of the Gordy International/Larami/Etc. puffy sticker collector sets that featured a big sheet of stickers as well as a nifty little collecting book to boot (this one released by Gordy in 1984.)
There’s not a whole lot you can get wrong in a set like this as the show mainly featured Hasselhoff and K.I.T.T., which is reflected in the choice of screen shots from the series. There’s a nice one of the show’s intro title screen (which is an image I always loved of Michael and K.I.T.T. racing across the desert at sunset), and you even get a little bit of Edward Mulhare as Devon. My only gripe would have to be a distinct lack of Patricia McPherson’s Bonnie, but that’s just coming from my love of the strong female sidekicks in late 70s, early 80s TV (even the annoying ones like the reporter from the A-Team’s first season.) Also, I love the sweet action shot of Michael on the pay phone at the bottom of the sheet. Riveting imagery!
The set comes with the requisite laminated sticker collecting album, which now that I’m thinking about them, they’d make a nice collection in and of them selves. I kind of which I’d kept the others that I managed to find. Ah well…
Also, like the A-Team and Riptide sticker sets, the back of the packaging was reserved for a huge piece of line work that the kids were encouraged to color, and again, this line work forms the basis of the imagery in the next KR sticker set I’m about to talk a little bit about…
Unfortunately, the line work as it is, is sort of hard to color. Damn that slick Michael Knight and his black pants, black leather jacket and black car!
As I mentioned, the artwork was cannibalized for the 1982 (though I’ll bet it actually came out in ’84) Dianmond Toymakers Knight Rider Color-Me sticker set…
I managed to get a decently clear shot of the packaging out of my new camera, so we can now see the included semi-mechanical crayon pencil (in all its chocolate scented glory!) Again, the packaging on these is a little bootleg-esque, thought he KR set fares much better than the A-Team set from last week…
Again, much like the back of the packaging on the album & sticker set above, there’s not a whole heck of a lot to color here, and even if you did want to color K.I.T.T. with the included crayons, you’d have to settle for blue or purple. That’s alright as I think a black crayon would end up looking rather absurd anyway turning the drawings into very boring silhouettes.
