 According to Brandon Tartikoff, the head of programming at NBC  during the 1980s, the inspiration for the series came about when NBC  executives started complaining about the problems of casting  handsome leading men in TV series, because many of them couldnt  act. Tartikoff and his assistant came up with a concept for a TV  show called, "The Man of Six Words". Each show would begin with the  leading man getting out of a womans bed and saying, "Thank you."  Occasionally, throughout the show, the leading man would say,  "Okay," when receiving orders from his boss. Then he would chase  down some villains and say "Freeze!" Finally, when the people he had  saved from death would thank him, he would say, "Youre welcome."  For the rest of the show, the car would do all the talking. Although  Tartikoff had meant the pitch to be a joke, the NBC executives liked  the idea of a TV show about a man with a talking car, and approved  it for development.