In Bob Clark’s Porky’s, perhaps the sleeper hit of 1982, Knight played handsome bad boy Tommy Turner, the type of man that today would be labeled either a sex addict or a sex offender (if caught). Back then, Tommy was just a regular guy, either thinking of sex or dreaming about it. Knight’s Tommy is particularly memorable because while showing his dick through a hole in the girl’s bathroom wall, he gets – literally – caught. As in, his dick is grabbed by butch female trainer Balbricker (Nancy Parsons).
As juvenile as it sounds, that scene is actually very funny. In fact, it’s the highlight of an otherwise humorless comedy that could have been great had the filmmakers opted for true sexual anarchy. Released in March 1982, Porky’s went on to gross $105.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, or about $285 million in 2011 dollars.
Like most of his fellow Porky’s players, Knight didn’t have much of an acting career in film or television. (Sex and the City costar Kim Cattrall is an exception.) Apart from a minor role in the 1981 drama Rivals, Knight’s big-screen career consists of Porky’s, Porky’s 2: The Next Day, and Porky’s 3: Revenge. On television, he made sporadic appearances in shows such as Family Ties, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Chicago Hope.
In 2002, Knight directed and acted in a comedy short, Stages, about two former TV stars (Knight and Cyril O’Reilly).