August 9, 2016 • 38 mins
Evel Knievel was perhaps the world's most legendary daredevil. He came along at a time when the world ate up this kind of entertainment, partially in hopes that he crashed. And crash he did. A lot. Learn all about this icon in this special two part episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode of Stuff He Should Know is sponsored by Squarespace.
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Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:27):
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's
over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know, the
one where Chuck and Jerry, who are old, reminisced about
Evil Knevil. We're all the same age, nobuddy man. That's true,
we're all in our forties. But I wasn't suddenly catapulted
or imbued with memories of Evil Knevil, So you don't
(00:50):
have any I had a I guess not. I mean
his star was fading by seventy nine. Let me ask
you what the stunt cycle was like. Was it a
ramp where a man on a motorcycle was like wedged
in and then you like pull the rip cord and
it shot off. Well, that's what Jerry was just talking about.
The version I had of the Evil Knevil. Stunt cycle
(01:13):
was a little unit that had a ramp that this
little motorcycle and doll on the motorcycle action figure would
you could click it into place, and then there was
a crank on the side and you cranked it, cranked it,
cranked it, cranked it, and then I think it was
a button or something you hit to release it and
it would go flying off. Okay, but Jerry, you had
(01:35):
the rip chord one. She's misremembering. I think she realizes
I had something with the rip cord. It was like
a knockoff of it or something. You had the awful
canoffle Nice, which we'll get to, which actually a real
thing that was smart, not a real toy. There's a
(01:56):
real human who lived and die mute, butaute Montana. But
Evil Kinevil was a big deal for me as a kid,
for sure. Yeah. I mean I was right in there
at like six and seven years old when he was
doing his biggest stunts on ABC Wide World of Sports
seemingly every weekend. Yeah. No, by the time I was
(02:20):
like becoming aware of the world, he had already spent
all his money in its bankrupt right Like you were
like seventeen, You're like whoa, where am I? What's going on?
Is everybody looking at me? Why am I still wearing
a diaper? So part of this inspiration for picking this
was I saw the documentary being Evil a few weeks ago,
(02:44):
the Johnny Knoxville one. Yeah. Good, Um, it's not bad.
Oh Johnny Knoxville is at homegoing. Yes, I mean it
wasn't great, but um, I think the bar for documentaries
is higher than it's ever been entertaining you. You know,
they're making another five or six episodes of Making a Murderer.
That's what I heard. Um, it was okay. That wasn't bad.
(03:07):
Too many, too many interviews with modern day people. Yeah,
that can easily ruin a documentary talking about you know,
what he meant to them and stuff? Yeah, who cares? Yeah,
go take your memories and go to hell. Oh no,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. But it was good. It
(03:29):
was you know, I watched it on a plane. It
was worthwhile. Oh yeah, wait a minute, Wait a minute,
you watch it on a plane and you weren't watching
us instead, I don't watch us. We're kind of funny,
That's what I'm told. You're missing out. Pal Internet round
ups the finest thing anywhere. Alright, So Evil kin Evil
(03:51):
was born in October se and Butte, Montana. Yeah, a
rough and tumble mining town still to this day, I imagine.
But back then I thought if it's genteel but um,
watching this documentary, Uh, he made a very strong point
(04:12):
several times about how tough it was and like the
men got into like there were fights every day. It
was just rampant fighting in misogyny in this town. I
think that's what it says, like, I'm the welcomed abuse.
And of course it was the nineteen thirties and forties,
so that kind of stuff was a little more acceptable,
(04:32):
I guess. Yeah, but he throughout his career he was
he was a bit of a misogynistic jerk. Oh yeah.
He took that whole mentality and really ran with it. Yeah.
But I read elsewhere, um that the the movie that
was made about him, starring George Hamilton's, which he supposedly
didn't like, it called Evil Kinevil. Yeah. There there's been several,
(04:55):
but this is I think the first one. It was
in I think when he was really just starting to
like gain his fame. Um. It was written by the
guy who wrote Apocalypse Now John Millius and he there's
a great documentary about him, by the way. Yeah, okay, Well,
apparently the way that he wrote the movie really um
(05:17):
created in Evil Kinevil's mind, the Evil Kine Evil persona,
and so he really adopted that like macho bravado tough thing.
So I mean like he was a tough kid before
then and a tough dude. But apparently that really kind
of like laid the groundwork for him to be like, oh,
this is how I speak in public, and yeah, I
will go ahead and punch that cameraman's lights out. He
(05:40):
literally adopted it, like in the in the documentary, he
you know that there in the movie the John Millius script.
In the movie, there's a lot of long, uh voiceover
dialogue from George Hamilton as Evil Kine Evil and like,
you know, I would look the beast in the eye
and I would knew I would have to make the jump,
and then it would cut to Evil Evil saying these
(06:00):
things like he would literally lifted dialogue from his own
movie to use in the press stuff. It was very funny, man,
And rumor had it that he didn't when it came
time to read the script, he was like you read
it to me and he had, like George Hamilton read
him the entire script. Wow, yeah he yeah, well he
(06:22):
did drop out of school. Yeah. So he was a
kid born in beaute tough town, had uh first of
two kids his family. His birth parents pretty much abandoned
him to his paternal grandparents and kind of just checked out,
said so long evil. Yeah. I'm not sure what happened
(06:44):
to them, but they they did not stick around his parents,
which had to have a bad effect on him. Yeah.
I have the impression though, that his grandparents raised him
as best they could. He wasn't neglected or anything like that,
but I think it was one of those situations where
you tend to have a lot more um free time
(07:06):
when you're being raised by your grandparents and by your
parents who have a little more energy. Yeah. Absolutely. Um.
Early on in life he kind of found he had
a knack for this uh P T. Barnum esque way
of drumming up attention, which would serve him later in life.
When he was a little paper boy, he would out
sell his counterparts by um making up headlines or at
(07:30):
the very least sensationalizing the headlines so he could sell
more papers. Elk goes on killing rampage. And by the way,
I got most of my stuff from the Evil Knevil website.
His own website, yeah, which I believe is operated by
his son, Kelly. Yeah, at least he's he's signed on
(07:52):
to it. It's like an official biography. Yeah, it was.
It was a very much more complete biography than what
we had on our own website. Oh yeah, and I'll
see is the New York Times obituary. Those are always good.
Those are good. There's a great New Yorker article I
found about the guy. We'll talk about him later. There
(08:12):
was a great New York article I read. A good
review of the Johnny Knoxville documentary. Yeah, just some other
stuff around there was written by Johnny Knoxville. What is it? Brilliant?
Four stars? So, uh, he goes away to um the
army because he got in a lot of trouble growing
(08:32):
up with steel hub caps and motorcycles and things. So
he was faced with prison time or army. He chose
army and then eventually came back to beaute and married
a woman named Linda Boork who he stayed married to
for many, many many years until I think, yeah, you
just watch this documentary, man, you feel so bad for
(08:53):
this lady. Oh, I'm sure, because she's very sweet and
you get just see the heartbreak on her face of
being married to this man who just flagrantly, flagrantly cheated
on her hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times through
the years. So one of the things I saw was
that he did that, but he also revered her. So
(09:14):
how did they get into the documentary of how he
managed to balance that or rationalize that or is that
just not the case. I don't know. Man, the documentary
doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the man himself.
Well apparently that that would be a very glossy thing
to do, Yeah, because there was a lot of stuff
about this guy that's not so hot. Um, but he
(09:35):
I mean, you would have thought the guy was single
because he's literally like on TV, like leaving the casino
drunk with like four women, and you know, he'll yell
at the cameraman like you want to follow a store
room and you know what, we're in the honeymoon suite,
and you know his wife's at home watching this on TV. Yeah,
it's terrible. So he worked. He went back home to
(09:57):
be worked at a mining company for a while. He
apparently then worked on the surface of the mine and
got fired when he drove a a bulldozer wheelie style
into the power lines, causing the city to lose power.
Which this is a perfect example to me of this
(10:18):
legend of evil Knievel right right here. Some of the
sounds made up when you hear about it, even if
it's real, especially if it's real. When you hear about it,
you're like, what a what a legend, you know, But
imagine like being on that site watching this happen, having
your life just risked by some jackass um, and then
the entire town of Butte being like out of electricity
(10:41):
for hours because some guy did a wheelie and an
earth mover, if you like really put yourself in the
position of like being there in reality and seeing this unfold. Yeah,
a lot of ways. And he recounts the story with
like a whiskey about how great it was exactly um.
In ninety six, he finally got in some real trouble
(11:02):
and was sent to a jail. And this is where
his uh nickname came up, because they're in the jail
with him was one William Knafel and he was actually
nicknamed Awful Knafel. That's where I made up that dumb joke.
I thought it was a great joke. Well thanks, and
so apparently the guy that the jailer said, we have
(11:22):
Awful Knafel and Evil Kine, Evil and um. Later in life,
when he would get a sponsorship, he would officially take
on the name Evil, but he changed it from an
eye to an e because he didn't want to be
associated with being evil. Yeah, he had this really weird
duality or the economy going on where I guess he
(11:44):
wanted to be good, but he really just wasn't. But
he was always like that's why he wore the white, red, white,
and blue, because he didn't want to be associated with
like Hell's Angels or black leather. Because one of the
things that Evil Knevil did was to two introduce motorcycles
to the rest of America in a non Hell's Angels way,
(12:09):
because after World War Two, you know, everybody on a
motorcycle was a member of a motorcycle gang, and that
was what America thought of people on motorcycles. Evel Knievel
comes along and he's like, no, no, look, you can
jump over Greyhound busses with these things. As long as
you're wearing red, white and blue, you're fine, right. And
he was also inspired too with the capes and things
(12:29):
by Elvis of course and Um Liberaci, which might seem
like an odd inspiration, but he thought Liberaci was like
the greatest showman on earth, like he and Elvis. Why not?
And when he saw his private life, he lived like Elvis,
very lavish spender. Um not smart with money. Yeah, he
(12:50):
said that there's there's nothing, no matter how expensive it is,
that he's not going to have two of He was
one of those like, you know, I had two yacht,
had two planes. He said, I've owned every diamond of
slept with every kind of woman I wanted to. Yeah.
Apparently he had a yacht that you could lay in
the helicopter and it had a helipad. Could it land
(13:10):
to one on top of the other. The bottom one
had to be turned off at the time, though, or
else it would be bad. Yeah, that would be bad.
But he was a heck of an athlete. Um. As
a youngster, he was a really good hockey player. He
was a champion ski jumper. Uh, he actually played and
this is an amazing story. He played amateur hockey, I
(13:33):
guess semi pro hockey, and with that P. T. Barnum quality,
he actually cooked up a real exhibition match with the
Czechoslovakian national hockey team in ye. He somehow cooked this
event up to have them come to Montana to play them, right,
and it worked. Yeah, it did work. The the Czech
(13:55):
Olympic hockey team came and played the Beute Bombers. It's amazing.
Didn't see who one? I'm sure that it would say
the Bombers one. Yeah, they didn't, So I'm just assuming
the Checks just mopped the floor with the Baute bomber. Um.
Here's another example of like god, what a what a scamp,
what a legend? Whereas if you put yourself in the
(14:17):
real situation, you're like, what, yeah, take it away Chuck
Well after the match while he gets kicked out of
the match conveniently in the third period and disappears from
the venue. And then afterwards, the Check team went to
the box office and they're like, all right, where are
where's our money from the sales of the receipts, uh
(14:37):
the tickets because we were promised a certain amount and
they're like, there is no money it's it's vanished, it's stolen,
someone stolen. Who could it have been? I know? Now
here's the thing. If he like, that's that's not good, right.
But if he went back and was like, hey, fellow
hard working beute bombers, here's here's your cut exactly. You know,
(15:00):
your your equal percentage of the proceeds. Um we the
check team is going to be taken care of by
the Air National Olympic Committee, which is what happened. We
can really use this catch. If he did that, maybe
there's like a Robin Hood thing going on. If he
kept it all of himself. Come on, that's just like
(15:21):
that's theft, the burglary. And it doesn't explicitly say that
he's the one who took it either. It's like this,
hint uh, all right, let's take a break, okay, and
we'll we'll get more into evil can evil after this?
(15:58):
All right, Chuck? And I don't mean to be knocking
in your childhood hero. Well no, he's not Knoxville after
And you know, I never looked up to him like
I want to be just like him one day. I
think a lot of kids did, though, Like I jumped
my bike and stuff and played with a toy. But um,
did you ever hurt yourself? Uh? Never an injury from
(16:19):
a bike jump. I mean I got hurt. I got
stitches a lot growing up. I never broke bones. I
was always getting cut. So he inspired you, he didn't
You didn't idolize him? No, exactly? Okay, Um, there apparently
there was a paper published in nineteen seventy six in
the journal Pediatrics. This is from I think that New
Yorker article where these doctors created a term called the
(16:41):
evil Kinevil syndrome, where there was this outbreak of e
er visits by young boys who were injuring themselves across America,
and it was like happening with enough frequency that these
doctors were like warning parents about this, Like your kids
are watching this guy and then jumping their bikes and
breaking their arms. Yeah, And it wasn't just like I
(17:04):
remember the incentive to jump higher and longer because of him.
I will say that, like, oh, here's a bike jump,
but like let's make it two ft higher, and let's
stretch it out, and then let's put something in between,
like your friends are gonna lay down on the ground
and you're gonna jump over them, Like that it definitely
brought a different element to to play, so I can
(17:28):
verify that. But I never got injured, and maybe I
should have my friends hold the ring of fire. Well,
I told you in that other show that I used
to light the ring of fire and jumped the stunt
cycle through it. Um, So all right, now we're in
the nineteen sixties. He is uh he The first motorcycle
(17:48):
action he gets into officially was a motorcycle racing circuit,
So he would race bikes, get in wrecks, and you'll
see this over and over and over. He would crash
a lot. Yeah. One of the things about Evil Kinevil
and what he was doing is he wasn't very good
at it. Well, whether he made it or not, it
didn't matter. Yeah, he still got paid and he still
(18:10):
got the publicity and more so if he if he crash, right,
he was well aware that if he did crash, he
would draw more people out to the next one because
he I think he said, people didn't come to see
him die, They came to see him defy death. So
he was never all like, you just want to see
me die, you pack of jackals. It was you know,
he kind of got that people were like, yeah, maybe
(18:30):
this guy's not gonna make it, and I don't want
to miss that, but I do want him to make it.
But if he doesn't, I still want to see, well
you see his head come clean off. And here was
the thing too, by watching this doc he went he
didn't study the physics. There was not even advised on
the physics of these jumps. Wow, like you need so
much ramp area, this much speed in order to reach
(18:52):
this kind of height and this much length. He would
just say, like he would just eyeball it and be like,
I'm just gonna go fast as I can with whatever
space I have. Fascinating, and he knew going into a
lot of these jumps that he wasn't likely to make it,
Like he wasn't like, oh yeah, I've got this one.
But his one one way he was a very stand
(19:15):
up guy, was he always did it well. That was
one of his things was that he said that keeping
your word was extremely important. Yeah he was, he was
in that way. That's what he said to kids. Yeah,
he didn't back out of a jump. Although, again dichotomously,
he was famous for not paying his bills. Yeah, exactly,
(19:37):
Dichotomus is right. So he's racing motorcycles at this point,
he's crashing all over the place. He eventually gets the job.
He kind of had a bunch of little odd jobs
over the years selling insurance. Well, that one seemed to
come really close to being a career for him. Yeah,
he was good at it. Yeah, he was very good
at it, and they wouldn't promote him, so he quit.
But before then he really got good at selling insurance. Yeah,
(19:59):
and supposed he wanted to become vice president after three
months on the job. Is that what it was? Wow?
So he done a lot of himself, to say the least.
He he supposedly sold two hundred and seventy one policies
in one day to mental patients and in an institution.
And then there's that. Uh. Eventually he would open a
(20:23):
he would move to Washington State Moose's Lake, I'm sorry,
Moses Lake like Mooses like better, um, and open a
Honda dealership, Honda motorcycle dealership, which was a bit of
a tough sell at the time. Honda motorcycles were not
and just regular motorcycles, like you said, weren't all the rage, No,
but especially not Japanese ones. A couple of decades after
(20:45):
World War Two. Absolutely, so he started thinking of ways
to draw people in. Well, he offered a hundred dollar
discount to anybody who could beat him in arm wrestling,
but that was implied that you had to buy the
motor cycle, but you get a hundred bucks off. Yeah,
there's something about these dudes, like the P. T. Barnum's,
(21:05):
the Harry Houdini's, the the um uh, Sarah the Barracuda's husband,
the lead, Sarah Palin's husband, Sarah Palin's husband. Yeah. Remember
he was like they called him the first dude of Alaska,
like race snowmobiles through, do donuts in like the town
square and stuff. Yeah that guy then. Yeah, oh he
(21:29):
was very much in this vein. Although he wasn't a
felt promoter. He was just a dude. Oh gotcha, you
know what I mean. Um, So, he wasn't selling a
lot of Honda bikes, so he would offer to arm
wrestle for money. And he started to to do tricks,
like to do wheelies in the parking lot and right,
you know the old trick where you ride through the firewall.
(21:51):
You know they's set like a wooden wall on fire,
bust through it on your Motorcyah, so the fire wall.
Yeah what do you think, I said, firewall? Oh yeah,
uh so sort of minor motorcycle stunts are going on
at this point in his career. Well, and this came
out of meeting a guy named, um Jim Pomeroy who
(22:13):
raced motorcycles and he worked at Jim Palmroy's brothers I
think dealership or shop, and he learned a lot of
stuff from that guy that was huge. Um. And then
prior to that, he had worked for a dude named W.
Clement Stone at the insurance company that I worked for.
In W. Clement Stone co authored a book called Success
(22:35):
through a Positive Mental Attitude. It was a self help
book and um, I guess uh. Evel Knevel picked it
up and read it, and that really helped form another
vital part of his personality, which was you know, like,
you get out there and you do it, and like, um,
whether you want to or not, hard work will help
(22:56):
you persevere and just that whole kind of like ra
ra all America can do spirit um that he just
basically personified. Apparently it came from that. I'm surprised he
was a good candidate for scientology. You know. Yeah, I
want you to read this book called Dianetics. So. Uh.
The other thing he was inspired by as a kid
(23:17):
that he harkened back to later in his life was
going to a stunt show from a guy named Joey Chitwood.
And uh he was a motorcycle daredevil and a little
evil little Robert Kenevil. He was a car car driver. Oh,
he was a motorcycle No, that was Evil Knevil's big innovation.
He was like, I'm gonna do this on motorcycles because
it's even more dangerous. But he was inspired as a
(23:40):
little kid to do something like this, and eventually he said,
you know what, I'm gonna cook up my own show.
Maybe the promoter, maybe the marketer, right, the press release,
I'm gonna be the MC. Yeah. He did. Everything he
did was just pretty impressive. Yeah he was. He was
a tenacious guy. He did not fall into his money
(24:00):
by accident. I'm gonna single handedly rob the box office. Uh,
I bet you. How he robbed the box office is
basically going up and saying, hey, Jeanie, just yeah, just
go ahead and give me all the money, and they're like, oh, yeah,
of course, this is your show. Cher I'll call you later. Yeah, exactly. Um,
(24:21):
all right, where are we here? Oh so he's at
his first show that he did everything for and I
can't remember where it was. This is where he jumped
to the rattlesnakes in the mountain lions. Yeah, so he
got himself a bunch of rattlesnakes, put him in a box,
tied up two mountain lions around the box, and then
put a ramp on either side of this whole setup
(24:43):
and jumped it and apparently almost made it, but the
back wheel of his bike knocked the box over, and
I guess the rattlesnakes all escaped toward the crowd. Is
that that sounds like a bit of a stretch to
probably how it really happened. Um, that's just a guess though, Yeah,
but I guess the allud there was. Kids showed up
literally thinking he might crash and be descended upon by
(25:06):
lions and snakes right right in front of our eyes.
Can I please go, Mom and dad? Because you know
what snakes would do if a motorcycle crashed by him,
They would say go get him right that way. They
wouldn't slither off in fear for their life. They go
after they'd be like, now is there a chance, that's
a chance to take this guy out. So he was
(25:29):
putting on more and more of these solo shows, and
he realized he needed a sponsor if he wanted to
really kind of kick it up a notch. Yeah, because
he needed help. Yeah, he needed to not have to
write all the press releases himself, so he could hire folks. Here.
He got a sponsor named Bob Blair who owned zd
S Motors, and he kept them flush with motorcycles in
(25:50):
cash and um. He started his own stunt show, and
this is where he finally changed his name. Originally it
was called uh, I think Bobby kne Evil and his
motorcycle Daredevils. And then the guy the sponsor said, now
everyone knows he was Evil Knevil. Call yourself Evil Knevil.
(26:11):
He said, all right, but let's spill it with an
E because I don't you know, everyone knows I'm a
good guy. I'm a role model. Uh So then in
nineteen he debuts that show in Indio, California. Yeah, and
it was a big success, crashed through firewalls. Um, it
was a success, but he also was injured, right, sure,
(26:34):
he was well, this one was when he tried to
stand there on the ground. This was a big trick
he did, and he would leap up into the air
spread eagle in a motorcycle would drive between his legs. Okay,
so the one in India California went without a hitch.
It was the one a couple of weeks later in
Barstow where that didn't go so well. That trick, no,
And you can see this footage like, oh it's out there.
(26:56):
Oh yeah, I didn't see that one. Yeah. Yeah, the
motorcycle helmet of the dry iber hit some square in
the crotch and he flips up like fifteen ft in
the air and lands on the ground. And he's not
you know, he's not wearing a helmet and pads on
this because he's on the ground. Oh why would he
He's not the one on the motorcycle. Yeah. So it
did not go well, to say the least. He Yeah,
(27:18):
he went into the hospital for a couple of weeks,
but when he came out, he went right back and
finished the show like a month later, and that became
a hallmark. If he couldn't finish the show, then he
would come back to the same town and complete the
jump that he crashed, and the crowd wouldn't be allowed
to leave the colosseum until they came back a month later.
(27:39):
We've been living here for four weeks and get pretty
gamy in those places. So then he decided to do
his own solo performances. Uh, the Daredevil show broke apart,
and he said, I don't need those guys anyway, and
started doing his solo shows. And then nineteen sixty six
in Montana, Missoula, he kind of had his first big
(28:01):
car jump where he drumped twelve jump twelve cars in
a cargo van, and he crashed that one as well.
He crashed a lot. He did crash a lot. I
think I saw that he landed as often as crashed,
but from going over like his stunts, it seems like
he crashed more than he landed. And he would usually
(28:22):
crash upon a semi successful land like he would hit
the ground and for a second you think he made it.
But keep in mind he was jumping a three hundred
pound street cycle like They modified it some over the years,
and he would eventually end up with the Harley XR
seven fifty is his main bike, but these were not
(28:43):
the bikes that they used to jump in the X Games,
So yeah, not like not close, Like the things that
used today are built exactly for that. And did you
see the world record jump the current one? Dude, it's nuts.
How far is the jumped a football field? Oh wow,
I don't remember how many feet it ended up being exactly,
(29:04):
but it's it looks like it's it's the most unbelievable
thing I've ever seen. How far this guy jumps, and
how and how smooth it all went, like the take off,
the approach, the landing, it was all just like butter
was it? Tony Hawker did it? I think it was.
But you watched like this guy's jumped today, and how
(29:25):
does flawless and beautiful and graceful it is? And then
evil evils jumps and it's funny by comparison because he
was clearly a skilled motorcycle rider. I'm not saying that,
but yeah, oh man, no, he could like ride a
moorcycle standing on it. Yeah, doing all sorts of cool tricks.
But yeah, there's a three pounds is a definite handicap,
(29:47):
and jumping cars and things and busses, well yeah, and
when you and when you look at the footage compared
to today. What your immediate thought is is this guy
had no idea what he was doing, you know, and
he didn't. He wasn't studying the science of it, so
he started. His whole thing was when he would come
(30:09):
back to a town, the same town to get people
to come, he would just add another car too, just
make it bigger. People wanted to see longer, farther jumps,
or a different kind of car, like in Yakima, Washington.
He once jumped or tried to jump a number of
Pepsi trucks. I think like twelve or fifteen Pepsi trucks. Um,
(30:34):
it didn't make it, but that's unusual Pepsi trucks. Who's
ever tried that before probably got money from Pepsi. They
was sponsored by Pepsi or gray Hound busses. He jumped, though,
so he would or stacked cars. I think he might
still hold the record for the number of stacked crushed cars,
because someone does that anymore. He jumped on a hardly,
specifically a hardy, which I think probably ties and I
(30:57):
didn't understand it before until you said that that probably
ties into that that the record is on Harley because
these days. There is a well, there's a dude now
that's trying to recreate some of his jumps using that
same bike. Oh really, yeah, is his name Eddie Braun
M I don't know. I didn't get his name. There's
(31:18):
a dude who's a stunt man, pretty well known stunt
man named Eddie Braun or Brown. I'm not sure. He's
recreating the Snake River jump this September. Oh, I saw
that in the news, like it was in the news yesterday. Yeah. Crazy,
All right, let's take a break. Evil Kin Evil stars
rising and my eyes are getting heavy, So chuck evil
(32:04):
Kin Evil. In uh sixties seven, he started to make
a name for himself. He'd been on the Joey Bishop
Show and he was going to see a heavyweight fight
in Vegas, and while he was there, he noticed the
fountains in front of Caesar's Palace and he was like,
I think I should jump those. They spoke to him,
apparently there'd be a fine thing to jump, and so
(32:27):
he started to try. His start had risen, but he
wasn't nearly as famous as he would be in the
next few years, so he couldn't immediately get in touch
with the President of Caesar's which he needed to because
you got to get permission for that kind of thing
or sponsorship or money or something. So he needed Caesar's, Um,
(32:48):
Caesar's CEO, I think Jay Sarno is his name. Uh,
he needed his blessing or his help with it. And
so to do that get this, he decides he's going
to jump Caesar's in to in November. After just two months,
he's got the whole thing set up and is doing
the jump. Yeah, but he had two year's eve nineteen seven,
(33:11):
is what happened. He had to hound the guy though
to get him to do it, and he actually kind
of um duped him a little bit. Yeah, he made up.
He made a series of calls from as different people. Um.
Sometimes he was a lawyer calling Sarno. Sometimes he was
an executive from ABC TV. Sometimes he was from Sports Illustrated,
(33:31):
asking like is this jump gonna happen? I keen hearing
about this, and he would like he would take care
to mispronounce Evil Kinevil's name, his own name, very smart
to make it sound like he didn't It wasn't him,
because what man would mispronounce his own name? And so
I guess Sarno was like, I don't know who this
guy is, but everyone's calling me all of a sudden, Right,
couldn't they all sound similar? But they all pronounced his
(33:52):
name differently, so couldn't be him. And it worked. And
I think he'd already been on ABC's Wide World of
Sports before, right, And so he went to them and said, hey, dudes,
you guys want this, and they said no, but film
it and if it's awesome, maybe we'll buy it from you.
Then it was awesome. Yeah, it was very awesome. He
hired his own film crew to the filmmaker John Derek Bow,
(34:16):
Derek's later husband. Okay, at the time, he was married
to Lynda Evans from Dynasty. Dynasty who actually filmed. Yeah,
she the very famous shot of the crash was her camera.
Supposedly she was the operator, the lady from Dynasty. Uh,
So he privately hired people to film it. It was
(34:37):
the very he made it over the fountain. It was
a beautiful jump hit the ramp and he hit it
with such force that his hands were just ripped off
of the handlebars and he looked like super Dave Osborne
going over the handlebars, and he just looked like a
straw dummy flopping around on the ground, and um, it was.
(34:57):
It was a magnificent crash. It really is. It's tough
to watch, but I think magnificent is the right word.
Spectacular crash and he um. He went back to ABC
and they were like, oh, we definitely want this footage,
and he said, well, it's a lot more expensive now,
So it kind of worked out for him. We needed foresight,
(35:19):
so Chuck that when ABC buys this and puts it
on Wild Wide World of Sports, Evil Kine Evil Stars
made yes, right, yep, legit star and that's it. That's
the end of Evil k that's the end of Evil
Kin Evil Part one. Oh yeah, we're gonna do a
two part of huh yeah, this story is so robust
that we're gonna have to split it up into two parts.
(35:42):
And uh but we'll do a regular listener mail and
sign off right, yeah, let's um. If you want to
know more of Evil Kannevil, just you wait for part two. Agreed.
And in the meantime, while you're waiting, it's time for
listener mail. I'm gonna call this, Oh interestingly, it's about
(36:03):
ad breaks. Hey, guys, love the show, you guys are
the dope show. For sure. I am already a researcher
by trade, but your amazing podcast makes me the annoyance
of all my friends because I suddenly seemed to know
about something from everything from poop to nuclear bombs to Barbie.
But I'm writing in because I've noticed that when you
Chuck prompt a commercial break, he always poses as a
(36:24):
question to you, Josh. Uh, like, Josh, you want, you know,
you want to take a break? Uh? Josh always so
willingly complies. Do you ever think he'll say no? Have
you ever said no, Josh? Has there ever been a
time where you're on such a role and Chuck asked
and you just want to say no in defiance, I'm
(36:46):
gonna let you answer that. Uh. Sometimes I will actually
suggest an ad break and Chuck will say no, let's
finish this one part, and I'll say, Okay, that gets
edited out though, right, that's what she didn't get. Uh. Likewise, Chuck,
have you ever worried that Josh will deny your request
for a commercial break in a coup style? I don't know,
(37:06):
but every time Chuck says should we take a break,
I just sit on the edge of my seat, waiting
to see if Josh pulls the fasts one on us. Anyway,
you guys are great. Keep on being you eagerly awaiting
the uprising, alright, Ash Hill, and we'll keep an eye
out for it. Then maybe we just will do that.
I will do that, all right. Yeah, I'm sick of
getting kicked around with the ad break thing right. Thank
(37:29):
you very much for that email. We appreciate you. If
you want to get in touch with us, you can
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(37:49):
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Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:27):
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's
over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know, the
one where Chuck and Jerry, who are old, reminisced about
Evil Knevil. We're all the same age, nobuddy man. That's true,
we're all in our forties. But I wasn't suddenly catapulted
or imbued with memories of Evil Knevil, So you don't
(00:50):
have any I had a I guess not. I mean
his star was fading by seventy nine. Let me ask
you what the stunt cycle was like. Was it a
ramp where a man on a motorcycle was like wedged
in and then you like pull the rip cord and
it shot off. Well, that's what Jerry was just talking about.
The version I had of the Evil Knevil. Stunt cycle
(01:13):
was a little unit that had a ramp that this
little motorcycle and doll on the motorcycle action figure would
you could click it into place, and then there was
a crank on the side and you cranked it, cranked it,
cranked it, cranked it, and then I think it was
a button or something you hit to release it and
it would go flying off. Okay, but Jerry, you had
(01:35):
the rip chord one. She's misremembering. I think she realizes
I had something with the rip cord. It was like
a knockoff of it or something. You had the awful
canoffle Nice, which we'll get to, which actually a real
thing that was smart, not a real toy. There's a
(01:56):
real human who lived and die mute, butaute Montana. But
Evil Kinevil was a big deal for me as a kid,
for sure. Yeah. I mean I was right in there
at like six and seven years old when he was
doing his biggest stunts on ABC Wide World of Sports
seemingly every weekend. Yeah. No, by the time I was
(02:20):
like becoming aware of the world, he had already spent
all his money in its bankrupt right Like you were
like seventeen, You're like whoa, where am I? What's going on?
Is everybody looking at me? Why am I still wearing
a diaper? So part of this inspiration for picking this
was I saw the documentary being Evil a few weeks ago,
(02:44):
the Johnny Knoxville one. Yeah. Good, Um, it's not bad.
Oh Johnny Knoxville is at homegoing. Yes, I mean it
wasn't great, but um, I think the bar for documentaries
is higher than it's ever been entertaining you. You know,
they're making another five or six episodes of Making a Murderer.
That's what I heard. Um, it was okay. That wasn't bad.
(03:07):
Too many, too many interviews with modern day people. Yeah,
that can easily ruin a documentary talking about you know,
what he meant to them and stuff? Yeah, who cares? Yeah,
go take your memories and go to hell. Oh no,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. But it was good. It
(03:29):
was you know, I watched it on a plane. It
was worthwhile. Oh yeah, wait a minute, Wait a minute,
you watch it on a plane and you weren't watching
us instead, I don't watch us. We're kind of funny,
That's what I'm told. You're missing out. Pal Internet round
ups the finest thing anywhere. Alright, So Evil kin Evil
(03:51):
was born in October se and Butte, Montana. Yeah, a
rough and tumble mining town still to this day, I imagine.
But back then I thought if it's genteel but um,
watching this documentary, Uh, he made a very strong point
(04:12):
several times about how tough it was and like the
men got into like there were fights every day. It
was just rampant fighting in misogyny in this town. I
think that's what it says, like, I'm the welcomed abuse.
And of course it was the nineteen thirties and forties,
so that kind of stuff was a little more acceptable,
(04:32):
I guess. Yeah, but he throughout his career he was
he was a bit of a misogynistic jerk. Oh yeah.
He took that whole mentality and really ran with it. Yeah.
But I read elsewhere, um that the the movie that
was made about him, starring George Hamilton's, which he supposedly
didn't like, it called Evil Kinevil. Yeah. There there's been several,
(04:55):
but this is I think the first one. It was
in I think when he was really just starting to
like gain his fame. Um. It was written by the
guy who wrote Apocalypse Now John Millius and he there's
a great documentary about him, by the way. Yeah, okay, Well,
apparently the way that he wrote the movie really um
(05:17):
created in Evil Kinevil's mind, the Evil Kine Evil persona,
and so he really adopted that like macho bravado tough thing.
So I mean like he was a tough kid before
then and a tough dude. But apparently that really kind
of like laid the groundwork for him to be like, oh,
this is how I speak in public, and yeah, I
will go ahead and punch that cameraman's lights out. He
(05:40):
literally adopted it, like in the in the documentary, he
you know that there in the movie the John Millius script.
In the movie, there's a lot of long, uh voiceover
dialogue from George Hamilton as Evil Kine Evil and like,
you know, I would look the beast in the eye
and I would knew I would have to make the jump,
and then it would cut to Evil Evil saying these
(06:00):
things like he would literally lifted dialogue from his own
movie to use in the press stuff. It was very funny, man,
And rumor had it that he didn't when it came
time to read the script, he was like you read
it to me and he had, like George Hamilton read
him the entire script. Wow, yeah he yeah, well he
(06:22):
did drop out of school. Yeah. So he was a
kid born in beaute tough town, had uh first of
two kids his family. His birth parents pretty much abandoned
him to his paternal grandparents and kind of just checked out,
said so long evil. Yeah. I'm not sure what happened
(06:44):
to them, but they they did not stick around his parents,
which had to have a bad effect on him. Yeah.
I have the impression though, that his grandparents raised him
as best they could. He wasn't neglected or anything like that,
but I think it was one of those situations where
you tend to have a lot more um free time
(07:06):
when you're being raised by your grandparents and by your
parents who have a little more energy. Yeah. Absolutely. Um.
Early on in life he kind of found he had
a knack for this uh P T. Barnum esque way
of drumming up attention, which would serve him later in life.
When he was a little paper boy, he would out
sell his counterparts by um making up headlines or at
(07:30):
the very least sensationalizing the headlines so he could sell
more papers. Elk goes on killing rampage. And by the way,
I got most of my stuff from the Evil Knevil website.
His own website, yeah, which I believe is operated by
his son, Kelly. Yeah, at least he's he's signed on
(07:52):
to it. It's like an official biography. Yeah, it was.
It was a very much more complete biography than what
we had on our own website. Oh yeah, and I'll
see is the New York Times obituary. Those are always good.
Those are good. There's a great New Yorker article I
found about the guy. We'll talk about him later. There
(08:12):
was a great New York article I read. A good
review of the Johnny Knoxville documentary. Yeah, just some other
stuff around there was written by Johnny Knoxville. What is it? Brilliant?
Four stars? So, uh, he goes away to um the
army because he got in a lot of trouble growing
(08:32):
up with steel hub caps and motorcycles and things. So
he was faced with prison time or army. He chose
army and then eventually came back to beaute and married
a woman named Linda Boork who he stayed married to
for many, many many years until I think, yeah, you
just watch this documentary, man, you feel so bad for
(08:53):
this lady. Oh, I'm sure, because she's very sweet and
you get just see the heartbreak on her face of
being married to this man who just flagrantly, flagrantly cheated
on her hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times through
the years. So one of the things I saw was
that he did that, but he also revered her. So
(09:14):
how did they get into the documentary of how he
managed to balance that or rationalize that or is that
just not the case. I don't know. Man, the documentary
doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the man himself.
Well apparently that that would be a very glossy thing
to do, Yeah, because there was a lot of stuff
about this guy that's not so hot. Um, but he
(09:35):
I mean, you would have thought the guy was single
because he's literally like on TV, like leaving the casino
drunk with like four women, and you know, he'll yell
at the cameraman like you want to follow a store
room and you know what, we're in the honeymoon suite,
and you know his wife's at home watching this on TV. Yeah,
it's terrible. So he worked. He went back home to
(09:57):
be worked at a mining company for a while. He
apparently then worked on the surface of the mine and
got fired when he drove a a bulldozer wheelie style
into the power lines, causing the city to lose power.
Which this is a perfect example to me of this
(10:18):
legend of evil Knievel right right here. Some of the
sounds made up when you hear about it, even if
it's real, especially if it's real. When you hear about it,
you're like, what a what a legend, you know, But
imagine like being on that site watching this happen, having
your life just risked by some jackass um, and then
the entire town of Butte being like out of electricity
(10:41):
for hours because some guy did a wheelie and an
earth mover, if you like really put yourself in the
position of like being there in reality and seeing this unfold. Yeah,
a lot of ways. And he recounts the story with
like a whiskey about how great it was exactly um.
In ninety six, he finally got in some real trouble
(11:02):
and was sent to a jail. And this is where
his uh nickname came up, because they're in the jail
with him was one William Knafel and he was actually
nicknamed Awful Knafel. That's where I made up that dumb joke.
I thought it was a great joke. Well thanks, and
so apparently the guy that the jailer said, we have
(11:22):
Awful Knafel and Evil Kine, Evil and um. Later in life,
when he would get a sponsorship, he would officially take
on the name Evil, but he changed it from an
eye to an e because he didn't want to be
associated with being evil. Yeah, he had this really weird
duality or the economy going on where I guess he
(11:44):
wanted to be good, but he really just wasn't. But
he was always like that's why he wore the white, red, white,
and blue, because he didn't want to be associated with
like Hell's Angels or black leather. Because one of the
things that Evil Knevil did was to two introduce motorcycles
to the rest of America in a non Hell's Angels way,
(12:09):
because after World War Two, you know, everybody on a
motorcycle was a member of a motorcycle gang, and that
was what America thought of people on motorcycles. Evel Knievel
comes along and he's like, no, no, look, you can
jump over Greyhound busses with these things. As long as
you're wearing red, white and blue, you're fine, right. And
he was also inspired too with the capes and things
(12:29):
by Elvis of course and Um Liberaci, which might seem
like an odd inspiration, but he thought Liberaci was like
the greatest showman on earth, like he and Elvis. Why not?
And when he saw his private life, he lived like Elvis,
very lavish spender. Um not smart with money. Yeah, he
(12:50):
said that there's there's nothing, no matter how expensive it is,
that he's not going to have two of He was
one of those like, you know, I had two yacht,
had two planes. He said, I've owned every diamond of
slept with every kind of woman I wanted to. Yeah.
Apparently he had a yacht that you could lay in
the helicopter and it had a helipad. Could it land
(13:10):
to one on top of the other. The bottom one
had to be turned off at the time, though, or
else it would be bad. Yeah, that would be bad.
But he was a heck of an athlete. Um. As
a youngster, he was a really good hockey player. He
was a champion ski jumper. Uh, he actually played and
this is an amazing story. He played amateur hockey, I
(13:33):
guess semi pro hockey, and with that P. T. Barnum quality,
he actually cooked up a real exhibition match with the
Czechoslovakian national hockey team in ye. He somehow cooked this
event up to have them come to Montana to play them, right,
and it worked. Yeah, it did work. The the Czech
(13:55):
Olympic hockey team came and played the Beute Bombers. It's amazing.
Didn't see who one? I'm sure that it would say
the Bombers one. Yeah, they didn't, So I'm just assuming
the Checks just mopped the floor with the Baute bomber. Um.
Here's another example of like god, what a what a scamp,
what a legend? Whereas if you put yourself in the
(14:17):
real situation, you're like, what, yeah, take it away Chuck
Well after the match while he gets kicked out of
the match conveniently in the third period and disappears from
the venue. And then afterwards, the Check team went to
the box office and they're like, all right, where are
where's our money from the sales of the receipts, uh
(14:37):
the tickets because we were promised a certain amount and
they're like, there is no money it's it's vanished, it's stolen,
someone stolen. Who could it have been? I know? Now
here's the thing. If he like, that's that's not good, right.
But if he went back and was like, hey, fellow
hard working beute bombers, here's here's your cut exactly. You know,
(15:00):
your your equal percentage of the proceeds. Um we the
check team is going to be taken care of by
the Air National Olympic Committee, which is what happened. We
can really use this catch. If he did that, maybe
there's like a Robin Hood thing going on. If he
kept it all of himself. Come on, that's just like
(15:21):
that's theft, the burglary. And it doesn't explicitly say that
he's the one who took it either. It's like this,
hint uh, all right, let's take a break, okay, and
we'll we'll get more into evil can evil after this?
(15:58):
All right, Chuck? And I don't mean to be knocking
in your childhood hero. Well no, he's not Knoxville after
And you know, I never looked up to him like
I want to be just like him one day. I
think a lot of kids did, though, Like I jumped
my bike and stuff and played with a toy. But um,
did you ever hurt yourself? Uh? Never an injury from
(16:19):
a bike jump. I mean I got hurt. I got
stitches a lot growing up. I never broke bones. I
was always getting cut. So he inspired you, he didn't
You didn't idolize him? No, exactly? Okay, Um, there apparently
there was a paper published in nineteen seventy six in
the journal Pediatrics. This is from I think that New
Yorker article where these doctors created a term called the
(16:41):
evil Kinevil syndrome, where there was this outbreak of e
er visits by young boys who were injuring themselves across America,
and it was like happening with enough frequency that these
doctors were like warning parents about this, Like your kids
are watching this guy and then jumping their bikes and
breaking their arms. Yeah, And it wasn't just like I
(17:04):
remember the incentive to jump higher and longer because of him.
I will say that, like, oh, here's a bike jump,
but like let's make it two ft higher, and let's
stretch it out, and then let's put something in between,
like your friends are gonna lay down on the ground
and you're gonna jump over them, Like that it definitely
brought a different element to to play, so I can
(17:28):
verify that. But I never got injured, and maybe I
should have my friends hold the ring of fire. Well,
I told you in that other show that I used
to light the ring of fire and jumped the stunt
cycle through it. Um, So all right, now we're in
the nineteen sixties. He is uh he The first motorcycle
(17:48):
action he gets into officially was a motorcycle racing circuit,
So he would race bikes, get in wrecks, and you'll
see this over and over and over. He would crash
a lot. Yeah. One of the things about Evil Kinevil
and what he was doing is he wasn't very good
at it. Well, whether he made it or not, it
didn't matter. Yeah, he still got paid and he still
(18:10):
got the publicity and more so if he if he crash, right,
he was well aware that if he did crash, he
would draw more people out to the next one because
he I think he said, people didn't come to see
him die, They came to see him defy death. So
he was never all like, you just want to see
me die, you pack of jackals. It was you know,
he kind of got that people were like, yeah, maybe
(18:30):
this guy's not gonna make it, and I don't want
to miss that, but I do want him to make it.
But if he doesn't, I still want to see, well
you see his head come clean off. And here was
the thing too, by watching this doc he went he
didn't study the physics. There was not even advised on
the physics of these jumps. Wow, like you need so
much ramp area, this much speed in order to reach
(18:52):
this kind of height and this much length. He would
just say, like he would just eyeball it and be like,
I'm just gonna go fast as I can with whatever
space I have. Fascinating, and he knew going into a
lot of these jumps that he wasn't likely to make it,
Like he wasn't like, oh yeah, I've got this one.
But his one one way he was a very stand
(19:15):
up guy, was he always did it well. That was
one of his things was that he said that keeping
your word was extremely important. Yeah he was, he was
in that way. That's what he said to kids. Yeah,
he didn't back out of a jump. Although, again dichotomously,
he was famous for not paying his bills. Yeah, exactly,
(19:37):
Dichotomus is right. So he's racing motorcycles at this point,
he's crashing all over the place. He eventually gets the job.
He kind of had a bunch of little odd jobs
over the years selling insurance. Well, that one seemed to
come really close to being a career for him. Yeah,
he was good at it. Yeah, he was very good
at it, and they wouldn't promote him, so he quit.
But before then he really got good at selling insurance. Yeah,
(19:59):
and supposed he wanted to become vice president after three
months on the job. Is that what it was? Wow?
So he done a lot of himself, to say the least.
He he supposedly sold two hundred and seventy one policies
in one day to mental patients and in an institution.
And then there's that. Uh. Eventually he would open a
(20:23):
he would move to Washington State Moose's Lake, I'm sorry,
Moses Lake like Mooses like better, um, and open a
Honda dealership, Honda motorcycle dealership, which was a bit of
a tough sell at the time. Honda motorcycles were not
and just regular motorcycles, like you said, weren't all the rage, No,
but especially not Japanese ones. A couple of decades after
(20:45):
World War Two. Absolutely, so he started thinking of ways
to draw people in. Well, he offered a hundred dollar
discount to anybody who could beat him in arm wrestling,
but that was implied that you had to buy the
motor cycle, but you get a hundred bucks off. Yeah,
there's something about these dudes, like the P. T. Barnum's,
(21:05):
the Harry Houdini's, the the um uh, Sarah the Barracuda's husband,
the lead, Sarah Palin's husband, Sarah Palin's husband. Yeah. Remember
he was like they called him the first dude of Alaska,
like race snowmobiles through, do donuts in like the town
square and stuff. Yeah that guy then. Yeah, oh he
(21:29):
was very much in this vein. Although he wasn't a
felt promoter. He was just a dude. Oh gotcha, you
know what I mean. Um, So, he wasn't selling a
lot of Honda bikes, so he would offer to arm
wrestle for money. And he started to to do tricks,
like to do wheelies in the parking lot and right,
you know the old trick where you ride through the firewall.
(21:51):
You know they's set like a wooden wall on fire,
bust through it on your Motorcyah, so the fire wall.
Yeah what do you think, I said, firewall? Oh yeah,
uh so sort of minor motorcycle stunts are going on
at this point in his career. Well, and this came
out of meeting a guy named, um Jim Pomeroy who
(22:13):
raced motorcycles and he worked at Jim Palmroy's brothers I
think dealership or shop, and he learned a lot of
stuff from that guy that was huge. Um. And then
prior to that, he had worked for a dude named W.
Clement Stone at the insurance company that I worked for.
In W. Clement Stone co authored a book called Success
(22:35):
through a Positive Mental Attitude. It was a self help
book and um, I guess uh. Evel Knevel picked it
up and read it, and that really helped form another
vital part of his personality, which was you know, like,
you get out there and you do it, and like, um,
whether you want to or not, hard work will help
(22:56):
you persevere and just that whole kind of like ra
ra all America can do spirit um that he just
basically personified. Apparently it came from that. I'm surprised he
was a good candidate for scientology. You know. Yeah, I
want you to read this book called Dianetics. So. Uh.
The other thing he was inspired by as a kid
(23:17):
that he harkened back to later in his life was
going to a stunt show from a guy named Joey Chitwood.
And uh he was a motorcycle daredevil and a little
evil little Robert Kenevil. He was a car car driver. Oh,
he was a motorcycle No, that was Evil Knevil's big innovation.
He was like, I'm gonna do this on motorcycles because
it's even more dangerous. But he was inspired as a
(23:40):
little kid to do something like this, and eventually he said,
you know what, I'm gonna cook up my own show.
Maybe the promoter, maybe the marketer, right, the press release,
I'm gonna be the MC. Yeah. He did. Everything he
did was just pretty impressive. Yeah he was. He was
a tenacious guy. He did not fall into his money
(24:00):
by accident. I'm gonna single handedly rob the box office. Uh,
I bet you. How he robbed the box office is
basically going up and saying, hey, Jeanie, just yeah, just
go ahead and give me all the money, and they're like, oh, yeah,
of course, this is your show. Cher I'll call you later. Yeah, exactly. Um,
(24:21):
all right, where are we here? Oh so he's at
his first show that he did everything for and I
can't remember where it was. This is where he jumped
to the rattlesnakes in the mountain lions. Yeah, so he
got himself a bunch of rattlesnakes, put him in a box,
tied up two mountain lions around the box, and then
put a ramp on either side of this whole setup
(24:43):
and jumped it and apparently almost made it, but the
back wheel of his bike knocked the box over, and
I guess the rattlesnakes all escaped toward the crowd. Is
that that sounds like a bit of a stretch to
probably how it really happened. Um, that's just a guess though, Yeah,
but I guess the allud there was. Kids showed up
literally thinking he might crash and be descended upon by
(25:06):
lions and snakes right right in front of our eyes.
Can I please go, Mom and dad? Because you know
what snakes would do if a motorcycle crashed by him,
They would say go get him right that way. They
wouldn't slither off in fear for their life. They go
after they'd be like, now is there a chance, that's
a chance to take this guy out. So he was
(25:29):
putting on more and more of these solo shows, and
he realized he needed a sponsor if he wanted to
really kind of kick it up a notch. Yeah, because
he needed help. Yeah, he needed to not have to
write all the press releases himself, so he could hire folks. Here.
He got a sponsor named Bob Blair who owned zd
S Motors, and he kept them flush with motorcycles in
(25:50):
cash and um. He started his own stunt show, and
this is where he finally changed his name. Originally it
was called uh, I think Bobby kne Evil and his
motorcycle Daredevils. And then the guy the sponsor said, now
everyone knows he was Evil Knevil. Call yourself Evil Knevil.
(26:11):
He said, all right, but let's spill it with an
E because I don't you know, everyone knows I'm a
good guy. I'm a role model. Uh So then in
nineteen he debuts that show in Indio, California. Yeah, and
it was a big success, crashed through firewalls. Um, it
was a success, but he also was injured, right, sure,
(26:34):
he was well, this one was when he tried to
stand there on the ground. This was a big trick
he did, and he would leap up into the air
spread eagle in a motorcycle would drive between his legs. Okay,
so the one in India California went without a hitch.
It was the one a couple of weeks later in
Barstow where that didn't go so well. That trick, no,
And you can see this footage like, oh it's out there.
(26:56):
Oh yeah, I didn't see that one. Yeah. Yeah, the
motorcycle helmet of the dry iber hit some square in
the crotch and he flips up like fifteen ft in
the air and lands on the ground. And he's not
you know, he's not wearing a helmet and pads on
this because he's on the ground. Oh why would he
He's not the one on the motorcycle. Yeah. So it
did not go well, to say the least. He Yeah,
(27:18):
he went into the hospital for a couple of weeks,
but when he came out, he went right back and
finished the show like a month later, and that became
a hallmark. If he couldn't finish the show, then he
would come back to the same town and complete the
jump that he crashed, and the crowd wouldn't be allowed
to leave the colosseum until they came back a month later.
(27:39):
We've been living here for four weeks and get pretty
gamy in those places. So then he decided to do
his own solo performances. Uh, the Daredevil show broke apart,
and he said, I don't need those guys anyway, and
started doing his solo shows. And then nineteen sixty six
in Montana, Missoula, he kind of had his first big
(28:01):
car jump where he drumped twelve jump twelve cars in
a cargo van, and he crashed that one as well.
He crashed a lot. He did crash a lot. I
think I saw that he landed as often as crashed,
but from going over like his stunts, it seems like
he crashed more than he landed. And he would usually
(28:22):
crash upon a semi successful land like he would hit
the ground and for a second you think he made it.
But keep in mind he was jumping a three hundred
pound street cycle like They modified it some over the years,
and he would eventually end up with the Harley XR
seven fifty is his main bike, but these were not
(28:43):
the bikes that they used to jump in the X Games,
So yeah, not like not close, Like the things that
used today are built exactly for that. And did you
see the world record jump the current one? Dude, it's nuts.
How far is the jumped a football field? Oh wow,
I don't remember how many feet it ended up being exactly,
(29:04):
but it's it looks like it's it's the most unbelievable
thing I've ever seen. How far this guy jumps, and
how and how smooth it all went, like the take off,
the approach, the landing, it was all just like butter
was it? Tony Hawker did it? I think it was.
But you watched like this guy's jumped today, and how
(29:25):
does flawless and beautiful and graceful it is? And then
evil evils jumps and it's funny by comparison because he
was clearly a skilled motorcycle rider. I'm not saying that,
but yeah, oh man, no, he could like ride a
moorcycle standing on it. Yeah, doing all sorts of cool tricks.
But yeah, there's a three pounds is a definite handicap,
(29:47):
and jumping cars and things and busses, well yeah, and
when you and when you look at the footage compared
to today. What your immediate thought is is this guy
had no idea what he was doing, you know, and
he didn't. He wasn't studying the science of it, so
he started. His whole thing was when he would come
(30:09):
back to a town, the same town to get people
to come, he would just add another car too, just
make it bigger. People wanted to see longer, farther jumps,
or a different kind of car, like in Yakima, Washington.
He once jumped or tried to jump a number of
Pepsi trucks. I think like twelve or fifteen Pepsi trucks. Um,
(30:34):
it didn't make it, but that's unusual Pepsi trucks. Who's
ever tried that before probably got money from Pepsi. They
was sponsored by Pepsi or gray Hound busses. He jumped, though,
so he would or stacked cars. I think he might
still hold the record for the number of stacked crushed cars,
because someone does that anymore. He jumped on a hardly,
specifically a hardy, which I think probably ties and I
(30:57):
didn't understand it before until you said that that probably
ties into that that the record is on Harley because
these days. There is a well, there's a dude now
that's trying to recreate some of his jumps using that
same bike. Oh really, yeah, is his name Eddie Braun
M I don't know. I didn't get his name. There's
(31:18):
a dude who's a stunt man, pretty well known stunt
man named Eddie Braun or Brown. I'm not sure. He's
recreating the Snake River jump this September. Oh, I saw
that in the news, like it was in the news yesterday. Yeah. Crazy,
All right, let's take a break. Evil Kin Evil stars
rising and my eyes are getting heavy, So chuck evil
(32:04):
Kin Evil. In uh sixties seven, he started to make
a name for himself. He'd been on the Joey Bishop
Show and he was going to see a heavyweight fight
in Vegas, and while he was there, he noticed the
fountains in front of Caesar's Palace and he was like,
I think I should jump those. They spoke to him,
apparently there'd be a fine thing to jump, and so
(32:27):
he started to try. His start had risen, but he
wasn't nearly as famous as he would be in the
next few years, so he couldn't immediately get in touch
with the President of Caesar's which he needed to because
you got to get permission for that kind of thing
or sponsorship or money or something. So he needed Caesar's, Um,
(32:48):
Caesar's CEO, I think Jay Sarno is his name. Uh,
he needed his blessing or his help with it. And
so to do that get this, he decides he's going
to jump Caesar's in to in November. After just two months,
he's got the whole thing set up and is doing
the jump. Yeah, but he had two year's eve nineteen seven,
(33:11):
is what happened. He had to hound the guy though
to get him to do it, and he actually kind
of um duped him a little bit. Yeah, he made up.
He made a series of calls from as different people. Um.
Sometimes he was a lawyer calling Sarno. Sometimes he was
an executive from ABC TV. Sometimes he was from Sports Illustrated,
(33:31):
asking like is this jump gonna happen? I keen hearing
about this, and he would like he would take care
to mispronounce Evil Kinevil's name, his own name, very smart
to make it sound like he didn't It wasn't him,
because what man would mispronounce his own name? And so
I guess Sarno was like, I don't know who this
guy is, but everyone's calling me all of a sudden, Right,
couldn't they all sound similar? But they all pronounced his
(33:52):
name differently, so couldn't be him. And it worked. And
I think he'd already been on ABC's Wide World of
Sports before, right, And so he went to them and said, hey, dudes,
you guys want this, and they said no, but film
it and if it's awesome, maybe we'll buy it from you.
Then it was awesome. Yeah, it was very awesome. He
hired his own film crew to the filmmaker John Derek Bow,
(34:16):
Derek's later husband. Okay, at the time, he was married
to Lynda Evans from Dynasty. Dynasty who actually filmed. Yeah,
she the very famous shot of the crash was her camera.
Supposedly she was the operator, the lady from Dynasty. Uh,
So he privately hired people to film it. It was
(34:37):
the very he made it over the fountain. It was
a beautiful jump hit the ramp and he hit it
with such force that his hands were just ripped off
of the handlebars and he looked like super Dave Osborne
going over the handlebars, and he just looked like a
straw dummy flopping around on the ground, and um, it was.
(34:57):
It was a magnificent crash. It really is. It's tough
to watch, but I think magnificent is the right word.
Spectacular crash and he um. He went back to ABC
and they were like, oh, we definitely want this footage,
and he said, well, it's a lot more expensive now,
So it kind of worked out for him. We needed foresight,
(35:19):
so Chuck that when ABC buys this and puts it
on Wild Wide World of Sports, Evil Kine Evil Stars
made yes, right, yep, legit star and that's it. That's
the end of Evil k that's the end of Evil
Kin Evil Part one. Oh yeah, we're gonna do a
two part of huh yeah, this story is so robust
that we're gonna have to split it up into two parts.
(35:42):
And uh but we'll do a regular listener mail and
sign off right, yeah, let's um. If you want to
know more of Evil Kannevil, just you wait for part two. Agreed.
And in the meantime, while you're waiting, it's time for
listener mail. I'm gonna call this, Oh interestingly, it's about
(36:03):
ad breaks. Hey, guys, love the show, you guys are
the dope show. For sure. I am already a researcher
by trade, but your amazing podcast makes me the annoyance
of all my friends because I suddenly seemed to know
about something from everything from poop to nuclear bombs to Barbie.
But I'm writing in because I've noticed that when you
Chuck prompt a commercial break, he always poses as a
(36:24):
question to you, Josh. Uh, like, Josh, you want, you know,
you want to take a break? Uh? Josh always so
willingly complies. Do you ever think he'll say no? Have
you ever said no, Josh? Has there ever been a
time where you're on such a role and Chuck asked
and you just want to say no in defiance, I'm
(36:46):
gonna let you answer that. Uh. Sometimes I will actually
suggest an ad break and Chuck will say no, let's
finish this one part, and I'll say, Okay, that gets
edited out though, right, that's what she didn't get. Uh. Likewise, Chuck,
have you ever worried that Josh will deny your request
for a commercial break in a coup style? I don't know,
(37:06):
but every time Chuck says should we take a break,
I just sit on the edge of my seat, waiting
to see if Josh pulls the fasts one on us. Anyway,
you guys are great. Keep on being you eagerly awaiting
the uprising, alright, Ash Hill, and we'll keep an eye
out for it. Then maybe we just will do that.
I will do that, all right. Yeah, I'm sick of
getting kicked around with the ad break thing right. Thank
(37:29):
you very much for that email. We appreciate you. If
you want to get in touch with us, you can
tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
can join us on Instagram also at s y s
K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com
slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
email to Stuff Podcasts at how stuff Works dot com
and has always joined us at our home on the web,
(37:49):
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
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