Why is the "King of Pop" Michael Jackson Sitting on the Hood of an Original KITT from Knight Rider?

Teaser [Music] during Night Rider's run in the80s kit popped up in a number of strange places from an episode of Different Strokes Saturday Different Strokes goes Hollywood here and when he upstage his night r is David Hasselhoff the fireworks begin stand by to blow it up Different Strokes to half [Music] Nelson G Rocky look at all these switches and buttons and everything don't touch anything to laugh [Music] Busters watch the paint Daniel I've just been [Music] waxed just waiting till Arnold and Willis hear about me driving Night Rider car in all cander Danny I prefer you refer to your current role of this vehicle as passenger that's okay with me kid any sign of Spider-Man yet my scanners indicate the target is within 1 mile any suggestions Danny Let's help but one of the strangest and most Intro high-profile side gigs that kit got to help supplement his Night Rider salary was as Michael Jackson's sidekick on a Beachside photo shoot so what's the story of the King of Pop chilling on Kit's Hood let's see what we can uncover with the other Michael and kit Duo [Music] Swivel Chairs in 1984 Michael Jackson ruled the radio dubbed the King of Pop he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century over a four decade career his contributions to music dance and fashion along with with his publicized personal life made him a global figure in popular culture he was the eighth child of the Jackson family and made his public debut in 1964 with his older brothers Jackie Tito Germaine and Marlin as a member of The Jackson 5 later known as The Jacksons from July through December of 1984 the Jackson sold out concerts around the United States and Canada with with their Victory Tour it was the only tour with all six Jackson brothers even though Jackie was injured for some of it the group performed 55 concerts to an audience of approximately 2.5 million fans the tour reportedly grossed approximately $75 million in 1984 money today that's about $220 million and it set a new record for the highest grossing tour most came to see Michael whose album Thriller was dominating the music world at the time many regard it as his Thriller tour with most of the songs on the set list coming from his Thriller and off-the-wall albums despite its focus on Michael the tour was named after the Jackson's album Victory the album was released 4 days before the tour's first show in Kansas City and turned out to be a commercial success however besides some ad living during the show's Encore none of the album songs were actually performed on the tour according to Michael's Brother Marlin Michael refused to rehearse or perform any of the songs from Victory and was also reluctant on embarking on the tour himself it took his mother Catherine and fans to persuade him before he finally agreed Marlin also stated that Michael had only reluctantly joined his brothers who needed the income while he himself did not on the tour tensions between Michael and his brothers increased so much that at the December 9th concert he announced that it would be the last time they would perform together ending plans for a European and Australian leg of the tour in the spring and summer of 1985 fans of Night Rider no doubt recognize the first track from the victory album a song called torture featured prominently in the season 3 premiere night of the drones plans for the victory tour started many months before the Jacksons hit the stage at that first show at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City Missouri a victory concert tour book sponsored by Pepsi was printed and this is where things get interesting flip through the pages of this tour book and you'll see photos of Tito of Michael of all of the Jackson and you'll also see a photo of Kit but not just any replica this is actually one of the screen used Studio cars how in the world did a Universal Studios screen used kit car end up on the beach with Michael Jackson sitting on its Hood now if you followed our Channel you'll know this car as the hardtop stun Operation Knight Light Results car what we call the hardest working car in Night Riders Fleet used in 75% of the episodes produced its first appearance comes in the second half of season one in the episode Chariot of gold this car was used and abused dented and crashed and still lasted until the end of the series when the show ended and a number of the original kit cars were crushed this car along with five others were spared however it disappeared from The Studio Lot in 1989 never to be seen again if there's an original kit still out there waiting to be found it's this one now we released a dedicated video on this specific car this hard toop stunt car a while back on our Channel there's a link in the corner of this video right now be sure to check it out after you're done with this video so let's get back to Michael Jackson sitting on kits Hood I wanted to see if I could get to the bottom of this mystery in looking at the acknowledgement section of the victory tour concert book I saw the names of a couple of photographers Harrison Funk and Don camp after a little internet stalking I I mean research I was able to find email addresses for both of these men so I sent them both messages and I heard back from both of them within a day so here's what Harrison Funk said hi Joe yes I did that session with the Jacksons on a beautiful Monday excuse me on a beautiful morning in May of 1984 at Leo cillo beach in Malibu it's been so many years that I forget how we got kit to join in the shoot but I thought the car came with the rest from Classic Motors of Beverly Hills I don't recall Universal placing any requirements or restrictions on the shoot and here's what Don Camp had to say hi Joe yes I took the cars photos on the beach I got the cars through through the owner of a Beverly Hills exotic car dealership the toy store in Beverly Hills as I recall now aside from the discrepancy on Operation Brace Yourselves the name of the dealership these two stories kind of corroborate each other and thanks to some Clues seen in the photos and Harrison mentioning it was filmed at Leo cillo beach I was able to determine the exact location and here it is today so if you take a look at the photo and then take a look here you can see that kit and the other cars are parked along a uh curved road with the ocean in the background and this little piece of land jutting out um and also if you look in the background of this photo you can see that there's a 8ft height restriction sign which led me to believe that the road kind of went under another road so if we were that the 8ot Restriction sign is gone it was right about here but if we go around this Bend look at this there's an overpass and this is the 8ot height restriction in fact is there any here that says no I don't see any signs let's see if there's any signs on the other side for an 8ot height restriction no well hopefully no high trucks go through there but um yeah so this area right here this curved Road matches perfectly right here with where those photos were taken and in fact if you look at this photo you can see a little bit more of the uh the background and you can see this uh this main road that uh kind of that that overpass is part of you can see it in the background there and you can see a little Shack right here and it looks like the shack either it got a new roof or it got completely replaced in the aing years but that is definitely the same location and if you take a look at this this photo from a slightly different angle you can see the uh the rock that's jutting out of the uh water in the background is the same as this rock right here so that is completely unchanged so we know that this photo shoot was filmed in May of 1984 interestingly night Ridder was still on its filming Hiatus between um seasons 2 and three the last episode filmed for season 2 mouth of the snake finished shooting on March 8th of 1984 the first episode filmed of season 3 kit versus car started production on May 31st so this photo shoot took place with the hardtop stunt car mere weeks before it was needed for filming again and because we have a detailed breakdown on the filming locations for each episode and which cars were used in each episode let's take a look at this very same hardtop stunt car in kit versus car so this footage would have been filmed a week or two after this photo shoot coincidentally one of the first scenes of this car in kid vers car is this car pretending to be car k a r r when he escapes from the beach it's kind of ironic isn't it you can even see how the outermost fog light on the left side in kit in the photo shoot match matches the one in kit versus Carr because of this detail and a million other ones that our trained night rer historians eyes can spot this is 1,000% the same car so would kit truly have come from a car dealership well most likely not I did look up Classic Motors in Beverly Hills and if they are the same company that Harrison mentions in his reply they are still around today and still renting out picture Vehicles if this is indeed the same company that rented out the cars for the victory photo shoot my guess is the other cars in the photo came from Classic Motors but kit definitely came from Universal perhaps someone at Classic Motors since they're in the picture car rental business made a phone call to contact to a contact at Universal and arranged for kit to be included who knows so unfortunately I don't have a 100% definitive answer for you but this is most definitely an original kit and it most definitely came from Universal if I were to guess and this is purely a guess Michael Jackson was a Night Rider fan maybe a closet night rer fan I don't know and with his cloud and his influence of the time he probably said hey we're doing this photo ship with a bunch of cars I would love to have k K there someone on his team made a a call maybe they phoned a friend at Universal Studios and arranged to have Kit included in this photo shoot to me that's how this went all right so that's the story of the world of the Night Rider and the world of Michael Jackson colliding for one brief morning 40 years ago during the height of the show's popularity and who knows maybe this missing kit is is hidden in a garage C at the Neverland Ranch to this day oh we can only dream that this car is still out there maybe one day we'll find it all right guys hope you enjoyed this uh little bit of uh Night Rider history if you have any more details about this photo shoot um about how this car could have gotten to um this shoot with Michael Jackson let us know in the comments below or let us know your theories as to how you think this car got um on this photo shoot if you uh disagree with me all right guys as always thanks so much for watching hope you enjoyed this if you like this give our page a like hit subscribe if you're not already subscribed so you can get future notifications of more awesome videos coming thanks a lot we'll talk to you soon [Music] Hello friends it's me kit when I'm not out fighting crime I like to follow my friends at night riter historians. check it out [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]