“The voice is mine.”

Oooh, K.I.T.T. voice draaama! Friend of the world’s beaches and former Batman and Real Genius, Val Kilmer, has signed on to voice the smooth-computin’ automobile in the latest TV-reboot of Knight Rider for NBC and Universal. Will Kilmer’s K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Three Thousand) do a passable Elvis impersonation and fire a laser that pops a billion golden kernals? I don’t know wise guy, but I do know that actor Will Arnett (Arrested Development) is right bummed right now. Arnett had already finished recording all of his voice work for the rebooted show, which premieres in just two weeks, see? And before you swipe Kilmer’s jolly hand away as it attempts to steal Arnett’s gooey, delicious voice of K.I.T.T., know this: it isn’t Kilmer’s fault, see?

In one of the silliest signs of a world run amok in corporate Brawndo tie-ins, Arnett has done commercial voice work in the past for General Motors, and K.I.T.T., see, is a Ford Mustang. Kablowski! That invisible line in the industrial sandbox? Well, Arnett just crossed it. But he still had time to jump back over said line, cover his tracks and allow Kilmer to swing in using a vine made from his absolutely batshit resume to save the day and grab a nice payday (PayDay?).

“I was very excited at the prospect of playing the part of KITT in the new ‘Knight Rider’ movie,” Arnett said to Variety. “However, because of a long relationship with General Motors as the voice of GMC Trucks, I had to respectfully withdraw from the project.”

So, all is well. The two-hour Knight Rider TV-movie-slash-pilot will still air as scheduled on February 17th, 2008. In fact, now you’re probably going to watch it. Right?

Ha ha ha. Showbiz casting finesse, people. So natural is it to Kilmer that he should scribe a mantra-filled business tomb like Norman Podhoretz’s classic Making It. And the man also needs to introduce his own suntan lotion and popcorn with his mug on them a la Paul Newman. And maybe the tanning butter can be edible-slash-a-condiment. Did I mention that Kilmer also cut a country album with a cover that ripped off Nirvana’s font/’90s imagery? You can stream it here. It’s pretty good, pritty, pritty Kilmer. I sent the link to Peter a while ago, but he didn’t respond. He was biz.

Will you respond? How about writing a haiku to/about Val Kilmer in the comments? If you do it, I’ll do it, and then maybe Val will do it and we can make a movie about the global sensation and dance underwater with a talking car.