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How, precisely, does a talking car manage to have so many Moments of Heartwarming? Must be the Rule of Empathy.

  • Michael and KITT don't exactly hit it off in the pilot episode, which makes the Friendship Moment towards the end just plain cute.
    Michael: Yeah, I care, but don't tell anyone, okay?
    KITT: *happily* Okay.
  • Near the end of "Give Me Liberty... Or Give Me Death". Bonnie (rather contritely) tells Michael, not KITT, to be careful. Michael actually does a Double Take before he thanks her.
  • In "The Topaz Connection", KITT sees slot machines while in surveillance mode. He spots an old lady down to her last coin. So he tampers with the machine and the lady wins some more coins.
  • Michael talks a Brainwashed and Crazy (so to speak) KITT out of hurting him in "Chariot of Gold" by reminding him of the team, Bonnie and Devon and how much they all care for each other. You can argue that it's all a part of his programming, but still with KITT it's hard to believe...
  • While a lot of "Soul Survivor" was definitely Tear Jerker territory, Michael's continued reassurances to KITT that the car isn't important, and that KITT himself is what makes the Knight Industries Two Thousand special. This being a huge change in their relationship compared to the series' first episode. When Michael kept calling KITT an "it", and the two couldn't stop bickering.
    • Michael and KITT's pure joy at having the car back by the end of the episode. When Devon calls they decide to "play hooky" and Turbo Boost while joyriding, just for the hell of it.
  • In "Knightmares", when Michael has amnesia and thinks he's Michael Long again. He asks KITT to tell him about himself.
    KITT: One more thing you should know about Michael Knight.
    Michael: What's that?
    KITT: I was extremely fond of him.
  • The episode "A Knight in Shining Armor", where a teenage girl is asked to help find a treasure left to her by her father before his death (which the bad guys are after as well). She had hated her father all her life, while others idolized him, feeling pushed aside and unimportant to him, and she agrees only reluctantly. In the end it turns out that the treasure her father left her is a beautiful, but monetarily worthless hoard of crystal/stone compounds in a cavern – a beautiful sight reserved only for her, and which had no cash value to him whatsoever. He loved her more than money after all.
  • "Let It Be Me", when Michael sees Stevie again on stage, playing her piano beautifully. There's just so much...love in his eyes.
    • Doubles as a Tear Jerker when he starts to get flashbacks of the last time they were together.
      Michael: Hello Stevie.
      Stevie: Hello Michael.
  • Michael's reaction to Bonnie's abduction in "Knight of the Drones".
    Halston: You try and follow us, and she's dead. Remember that.
    Michael: Now you hurt her and there's not a place on this earth that I won't find you. You remember that!
    • Michael actually has many moments like this throughout the series. Bonnie's a Berserk Button for him.
    • Also from "Knight of the Drones", a completely smashed up via missile launcher KITT weakly asks Bonnie why it's so dark outside. She tells him that it's night. Bonnie is sometimes jokingly referred to as KITT's mother, but in this scene, you can't help but buy it.
  • Michael's reaction to the empty shell of KITT after he's hauled out of the acid pit in "Junkyard Dog" is a combination of this and Tear Jerker. Don't even get started on Michael's dogged refusal to give up on KITT afterwards, from sitting outside the workshop like an anxious relative waiting outside of the "emergency room" to his talking KITT into going back into the field when he's clearly scared to death by recounting the terror he himself experienced after his "death" at the beginning of the series.
    • When the lead engineer notes KITT's been traumatized by his experience, he mentions reassigning KITT to "light" duty (basically retiring him). Michael however wont hear of it.
      Michael: KITT is the world's greatest automobile! What do you want to do, turn him into a golf cart?!
  • Basically throw a kid into the mix and KITT will, more often than not, end up being adorable. Mostly because the kid never has the gut wrench reaction of "OMG TALKING CAR!" that many of the older people have and will quite happily chat away with him without freaking out.
    • On that note, there's Becky, the little girl who needs a Bone Marrow transplant, talking to the man who is supposed to be her donor but is thinking of chickening out. She convinces him to go through with it just by smiling and telling him she's scared. But that's okay, because "we can be scared together".
    • Then there's KITT and Becky's relationship. We all know that KITT is The Stoic, with a good side of snobbishness and vanity, but he will willingly sacrifice every scrap of dignity to make that little girl smile. She even calls him Black Beauty.
    • A puppy was substituted in the episode "KITTnap".
    • Earlier in "Ring of Fire" KITT admitted he's actually rather fond of dogs, when they behave. He's later seen making friends with several guard dogs while stuck in the bayou.
  • Michael and Devon's relationship gets a mention. It starts off with them butting heads more often than not, at the very least strictly business. Then in later seasons, they seem to warm up to each other and develop a really nice father-son relationship.
    • A good example, the season one episode "Hearts of Stone" has Devon try to get Michael off a case. Devon tells Michael it's cause he doesn't want Michael getting killed. It's the first episode in the series when Devon admits he actually cares.
  • While most of "The Scent of Roses" was sad enough to be Tear Jerker material, the fact that KITT stayed in the same parking-lot for two weeks. Enduring all kinds of indignities to be near Michael's side is very sweet. Not to mention it actually saved Michael's life when KITT used the hospital intercom to stop an assassin from killing him.
  • When Jennifer Knight tells Michael he's "one of the family" at the end of the two-parter "Knight of the Juggernaut". They even shared a hug.
  • During one episode, KITT gives a down and out homeless man ten dollars from the Foundation account. That was sweet enough, but then said man turns up again at the end of the episode with two beautiful women and a nice suit. Turns out one of the things he bought with the ten dollars was a winning lottery ticket. When he tries to give KITT back what he owes, KITT refuses, saying he should find someone else.
    KITT: You choose him this time, my friend.
  • From the episode "Knight Sing", KITT letting the blind Charley Conner's sit in the drivers seat while driving around the block. Continually confusing the poor policeman assigned to handle the local traffic.
    Charley: (ecstatic) This is unbelievable!
  • The entire concept of the Foundation for Law and Government (FLAG) is one huge example of heartwarming. Towards the end of his life, Wilton Knight founds FLAG with the intention of helping people who cannot get help any normal way. He gives Michael a second chance at life after he was shot in the head and left for dead. As a result, Michael and KITT's main mission is to, as the show's intro states, "to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law." Yes, it's awesome that Michael, KITT and the Foundation go after criminals, but they don't do it for monetary reasons or fame. They do it because people ask for help when they don't have any other option. In some cases, Michael and KITT just stumble into the situation through happenstance, but still put in their all just to make sure that they succeed at whatever mission as long as they can help the people who need them. And considering the four years we saw them, they helped ordinary, average people and for the right causes (be it a small independent stunt show owner keeping his business afloat, getting a bone marrow donor to the hospital for a little girl to live, helping a small town against a gang of bikers who want to use it as the setting of a gang war with another biker gang, as examples). It's heartwarming that the Foundation, Michael and KITT all exist to make a difference in the world.

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