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Who Was Evel Knievel? · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Dirt Knap City.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is the show about interesting people who happen to be dead.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Alex.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kelly.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, how's it going?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh season one, remember the big season finale will be episode about Kelly RP.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um now season one could be 40, 50, 60 years long, you know.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but remember, season two begins with just me by myself.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're we're we're talking seasons in the biblical sense.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've gotten great response to our first two uh episodes, um and even some emails.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I have an email here.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: That exciting international email?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I got one here.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, I got about 60 here, but I'll read one.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this is from um Dave in Dublin.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Dave.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Dave, thanks for listening.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the nice part about podcasts you don't have to worry about time differences.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: But Dave asks, um, um, how do you guys know each other?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Are you brothers?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And why do you have such great chemistry?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, Dave, uh actually Alex and I are sort of brothers.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not not in the clinical or biological sense, but more brothers in the sense that we have known each other since we were adolescents.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: We hung out together in high school, uh, in college, and uh had a little bit of a break from each other for a few years, but now uh are hanging out together again.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think actually, I was thinking about this the other day.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think of all the people that I still talk to, you are my oldest, not oldest, you're my longest.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: You've been my friend for the longest.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've known you for the longest of anybody that's not in my family and longer than my wife.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I think like if my mom and dad are number one and two, you're probably number three of the people that I talked to that have known me since I was the youngest.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we were like I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: 15, 16 years old.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and uh now we're uh way, way past that.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh that was in the 80s, folks.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: We started hanging out together in the 80s.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um you're a person of a certain age that grew up in a certain um time period, this the 70s uh and uh and eighties.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: They said I was the Peter Piper of the 1980s, actually.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Who said that?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh some some rap group.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So today's subject is very much a person of um that was popular for people of that time.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, when we grew up.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let me should should I guess or should I wait for a couple more clues?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if that was the first clue, you can guess.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um that would be amazing if you guessed.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um Ronald Reagan.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, born in 1938, died in 2007.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: This person was an icon in the 1970s.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Icon.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a guy, a person uh uh uh a male, and probably one of the more acceptable guys that a boy would have a poster of in his room in the 1970s.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who do you got?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who do you who'd you have posters of?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh Farrah Fawcett, um Charlie's Angels, you know, the other Charlie's Angels, Kiss, maybe?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um none of the above.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: You never have who'd you have a poster of?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was not your normal poster kid.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: I had a Hoosker Doo poster.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I had a uh in the 70s?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't have that in the 70s.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh um, I think I had a Star Wars poster in the 70s.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: So died in the 2007, born in 1930.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: Would be acceptable to have a poster of him in your room.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh meaning it's not like Sean Cassidy.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like that would not be acceptable for a guy to have a poster of Sean Cassidy in his room in the in the 70s.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe kiss.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh just of a uh one dude, um, this would be acceptable.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he took himself very seriously, but most people mocked him.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Was he a musician, a comedian?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: What what it was not either one of those, but I'll give you one final clue that that'll make you get it.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: When you were a kid, you probably heard that he broke every bone in his body.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yes.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Evil Knieval.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Evil Knievel, folks.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you're of the uh millennial or Gen Z, you might not know Evil Knievel.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Evil Knievel was the guy.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we were kids, and we were like I'm talking to six, seven, eight years old, he was the dude.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: He was a freaking daredevil.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you used to go out on recess and talk about oh, evil cnieval broke every bone in his body except his pinky.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that would give you permission to go down the slide head first.
• 5:26
  unknown: Right, right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: My latest experience with Evil Knievel, I just watched not too long ago a documentary about his son, I think Robbie Knievel.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Robbie Knievel.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he tried to jump Snake River, um, the the canyon that Evil Knievel crashed into all those years ago.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: And uh there's a documentary on Netflix about that that was pretty good.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: But it's about Robbie.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's about it's about Robbie and like getting permission from the state and actually contacting somebody to build the rocket for him and like the whole the whole process.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and sadly, I can't remember if he succeeds or not in the movie.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: I remember I remember the process leading up to it, but I I don't remember if he actually makes it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think he did.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think he did actually succeed.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think he actually overshot it by by a lot.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna get into all that.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the life of uh uh Evil Kindle.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, really, um, well, remember the qualification you need.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's two things you need to be on Dirtnap City, remember?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have to be famous and dead.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, you have to be interesting.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, interesting.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Famous.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you don't necessarily have to be famous.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, we're gonna get to everybody eventually.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: There are some interesting, non-famous people.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in fact, I think that uh we we joke about you being on this show.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think you have some work to do, my friend.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: I know I I definitely need to work on my interesting factor.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's part of why I'm doing this podcast.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you're gonna talk about, is the fact that I founded this podcast.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: How to be interesting, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one way to do it is to break every bone in your body, except your pinky.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't think that was true, actually.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he broke every bone in his body, but as you'll see, he came pretty close.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he's one of those people, he is exactly the type of person you pick it's an excellent pick because he's somebody I I know the name, I know a little bit about, I know some legends about, but there's so much more that I don't know.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And even that movie that I watched didn't really talk about evil.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: It it talked he talked more about Robbie in today's quest.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: So so this is gonna be great.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, his uh let's start with the name.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with the name.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um, first of all, his real name was uh Robert or uh Bobby Knievel, but um he was kind of a troublemaker, as you might imagine a daredevil would be.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: You'd probably be disappointed if you learned that he wasn't a troublemaker.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: If he was just a like uh school marm, it wouldn't be that exciting.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So he so he uh left high school after his sophomore year.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: He grew up in Montana and he went to work in the copper mines and he drove heavy equipment at the copper mines, but he actually got fired after he made uh one of the um, I guess it was like an earth mover, you know.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he made it do a wheelie and uh he drove it into a power line and he cut off the power to the whole city for flowers.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's that's really, really on character on you know, sort of on brand for him, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was like 16 when he did that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um so he was he was arrested for reckless driving uh when he was about 18, and he spent the night in jail in Montana.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing, here's the moment that everything changed is that also in jail that night, and let me say, I don't believe this story, but this is an apocryphal story that is legend, right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it is true, but I can't verify this.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Also in jail that night with Bobby Knievel was a guy named William Canoffle, K-N-O-F-E-L.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right, and his nickname was Awful Canoffle.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: That that sounds made up.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Totally sounds made up.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the story that he went with the rest of his life and said, this guy, Awful Canoffal, a couple of couple of uh jailbirds uh got together, and um, before the night was through, we had awful canofel and evil canievel.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, did did they pick those, or did he pick that nickname, or was it given to him by the guards, or did they say Awful Kinoffal already had that name?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but evil it well, his name was Knievel.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, his name was already Knievel, like that part's not made up, right?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: Kinoffal, Knievel, Potato, Potato, right, tomato, tomato, puff and fepper, incorporated.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing that even though it rhymed, Evil Knievel, he rode motorcycles.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And back in the 60s, the other people that the only thing that people knew about motorcycle riders were the Hells Angels, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they were um a bunch of uh also scofflaws, but they kind of had a dark side to them, right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he did not want to be associated with the Hells Angels guys at all, so he changed the spelling of evil to E V E L to make it sound less evil.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh really, I always wondered because I knew it wasn't E V-I-L.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: So so he did that on purpose as a branding thing.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it kind of works when you think about him because even though his name is evil, I don't think of the guy as evil.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, I just think of evil that it rhymes with can evil.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's like today when when uh people say sick, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Kids say that was sick.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they don't actually mean it was sick, they just mean it was awesome, you know.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it was evil in the same sense as kids use the word sick today.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like bad meeting bad.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Bad meaning good.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: We should have a whole separate podcast where we just break down uh teen lingo, I think.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and rap lyrics.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so back to our friend uh evil can evil.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, he was he was a uh pretty athletic type, but also kind of a daredevil type.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So he was a professional skier, he wrote in rodeos, he was a hot uh semi-pro hockey player, he went in the army where he pole vaulted.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, wait, wait.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Pole vaulted in the army?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they had like a track team in the this is the early 60s.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they had like a track team in the army and he So I guess that could be useful in battle, like if you were trying to get over a castle wall.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's good.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh yeah, like a motor.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: They're pouring pouring the hot oil over the wall, and you have to get over, so you just pole vault and you go right over the hot oil.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I could see that in combat.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he joined the motocross circuit in 1962 and broke his collarbone.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this and this is the first of you know many broken bones.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh while he was recovering from that injury, he started selling insurance and he actually got pretty good at it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he wrote he read a book on positive mental attitude at that time that he said later that changed his life.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he had this positive attitude about everything, and actually kind of stopped writing and was doing well as a suit.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when he didn't get promoted at the insurance company, it kind of his dreams kind of his insurance dreams fell apart, moved up to Washington and opened uh um a motorcycle dealership, a Honda dealership.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there was another uh so so so far we have two turning points the uh the uh awful can offle.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have the guy that uh the positive uh leadership or positive mental attitude.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: The third thing is when he was at the motorcycle dealership, he was screwing around one day and one and and a guy taught him how to pop a wheelie on a motorcycle and ride standing up.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But as you know, as a child of the 70s, uh popping a wheelie, yeah, uh riding standing up, that all uh flowed down to all of us on our bikes, right?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, banana seats.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Did you pop uh learn how to pop a wheelie?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was never any good at that, no.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: You tried?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Not really.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: It it it wasn't I uh yes, maybe a couple times, but I never put a real effort into it.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I was always impressed with the kids not just pop a wheelie, but ride a wheelie, you know, could oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Balance that thing and ride ride that way.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: No, that was that was never a never a superpower that I had.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, most of those kids uh then became like skateboarders, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Skate punks.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and BMX kids, I suppose.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, popping a wheelie is kind of the gateway to all that stuff.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Or there's that one where you where you put the front brake on and you lean forward and you ride on the front wheel.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think without Evil Kinevil, nobody is doing that stuff.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: No, that was probably a big influence on that culture.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So in his life, he had 75 jumps.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean is jump tricks.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Documented with a crowd, a paid crowd.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And usually they were come at the beginning, uh, he would do it so people would come out to the motocross shows, and it would be like entertainment, um, kind of halftime entertainment or something, and or maybe the main event at some points where uh you know he started the very first jump he ever did was um he jumped over a rattlesnake and two mountain lions.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: They were they all in the same in the same space, like two dead mountain lions and a hungry or a full very full rattlesnake.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you have to start somewhere, you know.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then he started jumping over things like pickup trucks, yeah, and buses.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then a sp well he he worked his way up, then a speeding motorcycle, and then 12 cars, and then 13, 14, 15, 16 cars, and then a VW bus.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: This was the 70s, you know.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did you guys have a VW bus growing up?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um my wife did, but I did not.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I pictured your family to have a VW bus.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that that actually would be pretty appropriate.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: We had a Pinto.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of like the mystery mobile.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: The mystery machine.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, mystery machine, yeah.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, then the big one that put them on the map was the fountains at Caesar Palace.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Caesars Palace.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, that one did not go well.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very famous um crash uh that happened at that that we'll get to, but he saw the Caesars Palace fountains one time and he said, I'm gonna jump over that in a motorcycle.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then he got to 17 cars, 18 cars, 19 cars, then 13 Pepsi trucks.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sponsored by Coca-Cola.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then a hundred rattlesnakes and two vans.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the rattlesnakes are important because there's an uh uh an element of if you mess up the jump, not only are you gonna break bones.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, breaking bones wasn't scary anymore.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because he's breaking bones every time, you know.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think the element of no, you're gonna fall in a rattlesnake pit too.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, kind of adds adds to the danger, especially this is the Pacific Northwest, you know.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's terrifying.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: California, Washington, Montana, Idaho.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is where he used to do all this stuff.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nevada.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: 22 cars in 1972, and then at the LA Coliseum, 50 cars, jumping over 50 cars.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're getting to around the time where you and I start hearing them in the early, maybe you know, early 70s.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, 10 Mac trucks, 11 Mac trucks.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that got him real famous, and you alluded to this earlier, was the uh Snake River Canyon, 1974.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he always said he wanted to jump the Grand Canyon, but um, truth is he would have had to get so many permits from the U.S.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: government to do that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was never gonna happen.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, a lot of people think he did that.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think he he talked about it so much, and the Snake River Canyon looked kind of Grand Canyon-ish.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: That um, I'll bet you almost every day when um people go to the Grand Canyon, I bet they ask, where did Evil Kid Evil jump?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: There's probably even a gift shop that sells souvenirs from that, even though it didn't happen.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the Snake River Canyon is actually in Idaho.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um he didn't jump over it in um a motorcycle.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a rocket.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was a steam-powered rocket, yeah.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And um it was, you know, the when you think about the early 70s, you know, we were um doing um uh moonshots uh quite a bit.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: There was uh people were going up uh to the moon every year, it seemed like, and um rockets were kind of the thing.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um he so he took a steam-powered rocket.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Originally it was gonna be a rocket kind of attached to a motorcycle, but then eventually just was gonna be a rocket.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at the video of this thing, it's it's up at about a it seems like a 60-degree angle.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it's pointing nearly straight up.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And do you remember what happened, the results of that?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it fell short.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't the parachute come out early.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the parachute came out early and carried him.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: He probably would have cleared it, but the parachute came out early.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the parachute was supposed to bring him down to the earth after he cleared it, right?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: What happened instead was the parachute cleared, I mean, parachute came out early and then um brought him down to Earth and back towards the side that he launched from, and he actually landed just a few feet from the river.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Later, he mentioned that the um if he actually would have landed in the river, he probably would have drowned because his harness to get him out of the seat didn't work.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was stuck, and they had they had to cut him out.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if he had landed in the river, he probably would have died in right there from uh from drowning.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: But he didn't.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he ended up on the same side that he took off from, and it was considered kind of a failure.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wa.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, the next year he was back at Wembley jumping 13 buses.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, King's Island, the amusement park in Ohio, 14 Greyhound buses, and then 1977, he jumped over 13 sharks.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And remember I remember that that that's the year that Jaws came out.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, he was all absolutely always kind of taking what was popular and incorporated into his uh into his shows.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he jumped over 13 sharks, and then later that year, Fonzi did it on Happy Days.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And and didn't Fonzi crash?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't I I seem to recall there, or maybe they all I thought Pinky Tuscadero crashed.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they did it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they alluded to him crashing right before commercial, and then you know, so you come back one part.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a two-part or something.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Pinky Tuscadero.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember the the Malachi crunch, the the brothers in the demolition derby, and they would smash on either side?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because wasn't uh Fonzi involved in some demolition derbies too?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not sure about that.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: But that's another story.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is another story.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: That term jumping the shark, obviously, comes from happy days.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know what the term jumping the shark means.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard that term in pop culture?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think I have but um but but please remind me of the of the underlying meaning.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it usually refers to the point in the lifespan of a of a show or a band or or something where it gets bad.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything was good before this happened, and then they kind of jumped.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Cousin Oliver shows up.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they added a kid, or they yeah, Cousin Oliver is a perfect example.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: They kind of and the contention was that Happy Days was good before Fonsey jumped the shark and bad after he jumped the shark.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, Henry Winkler will has pointed out a number of occasions that they've uh they won Emmys after he jumped the shark.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was still the number one show on TV for a couple of years.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was probably more realistically it actually jumped the shark when um Joni and Chachi spend it off.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's also another story from the end.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: So So he succeeded.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um Evil Kinevil did jump over the sharks.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: He did jump over the sharks.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, when you say succeeded, um you know, he did jump over the sharks.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he broke his collarbone and his arm.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he crashed on the crashed on the other side.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you some of these injuries.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So uh he had he's in the Guinness Book World Record for the most broken bones in a lifetime.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've when I was a kid, I always wanted to be in the Guinness Book, uh, but never for this.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not saying that.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, there's certain things you don't want to be in it for.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You ever broke a bone?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, broken uh both my ankles, uh, one of them twice.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: And that's I I I uh dislocated my shoulder and also um broke what's the opposite of dislocation?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's uh relocation.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: No, there's there's there's like one way where it goes out this way and one way where it comes in this way.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, uh shoulder shoulders and ankles are my two big weaknesses.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, I've only broken my nose and you can't really do anything for that, but I've never broken a bone.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I can't imagine that it's fun.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: No um it probably hurts.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm guessing it hurts, especially multiple bones.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can imagine just like you got this pain in your in your lower extremity, but you also have a pain in your arm, you know, because they're both broken.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: That that would be terrible.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the Caesars Palace was by far the worst.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's a uh YouTube video.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I watched it uh uh preparing for this, and there's even a disclaimer at the beginning that you might not want to watch this.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now the resolution isn't that great, so it it's not that grisly.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: If it was an HD, it would have been pretty gnarly.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um but um but yeah, so he that was a 141-foot jump and over the Caesars Palace Fountains, and he crashed on the landing, and he was in the hospital for 29 days with a broken ribs, broken hip, crushed pelvis.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh now that doesn't sound fun.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, but but still, but still lived to ride again.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not only ride again, that was on New Year's 1967, New Year's Eve, and he was back in May 68, jumping over 13 cars.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: So he was in the hospital for a month, and then four months after that, he was jumping again.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: He he always said later in life that the number one thing for him was he was a man of his word.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: So if he promised somebody he was gonna do a jump, by God, he was gonna do a jump, even if he wasn't feeling it, even if he thought, well, this is probably not gonna go well.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: These people came to see me, I'm gonna jump, even if it means some broken bones, which is a really interesting way to look to to look at uh you know, death-defying um a job like that.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: That uh I'm gonna do it, come hell or high water.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's not it's not like um you know they talk about live to fight another day or just kind of like safety first, but no, he said, My honor comes first, safety comes second.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the morning of the Caesars Palace jump, he went to the casino and placed his, I don't know why it says last hundred dollars, but it said he placed his last hundred dollars on the blackjack table and lost.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So right there, most people would be like, no, this is a bad omen.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Bad sign, yeah.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he lost his money, then went to the bar, had a shot of wild turkey, and then went inside, and there was some uh uh showgirls there, uh kissed the showgirls, and then did his ride.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's that's just a badass.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: That that that is totally to a different era, right?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: That is that is the kind of thing that even even the most amazing person of today, the best athletes of today, that would not be their routine, right?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: He probably he probably smoked a cigarette in there too.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, that was New Year's.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then five months later, he's back jumping 13 cars, broke his leg in that jump.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, later that year, he broke his shoulder and his hip.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um in 1970, he broke his collarbone, jumped in the Pepsi trucks.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: He cracked his ribs and fractured his vertebrae later on in July.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was May, July, cracked his vertebrae, broke his shoulder and hand, hand in August, broke his hand the next year, broke his ankle, collarbone, and back in 72, bruised his kidneys in 73, broke his back and his nose in 74, broke his pelvis in 75, and broke his collarbone and his arm jumping the sharks in in 77.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we're in elementary school at that time.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're just fascinated by this guy that's every time you now he would be on TV a lot doing this too.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wild World of Sports is where you'd see this.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: You remember ABC Wild World of Sports?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um he tried to get them to televise the Caesars Palace jump and they they didn't want to do it.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he just became such a mainstream name, like a thing that you heard about even if it wasn't on TV, that they didn't have any choice but to have to show them.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he was on TV a lot doing these jumps, and they I don't know if they were live or anything, but we always seem to know about them.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, it was always the big topic at school the next the next Monday, right?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: You get back, like you said, you'd be out on the playground and I'm Evil Caneable.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ah Yeah, and you know what?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: You say you asked if these jumps were successful.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Most of them were successful in that he cleared whatever he was trying to jump.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes he would, you know clear and then kind of shake and land and crash his bike.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he he would land on the ramp and the bike would go out from under him and he would crash, or that Caesar's Palace one is nasty because he just kind of lands on his head.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't always wear a helmet though.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he was uh uh an advocate of helmet laws and used to go around to different states saying, I'm the advertisement for why helmets should be uh Right.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't be here if I didn't wear a helmet.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, brain bucket, right?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what kind of motorcycles he rode?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um they always kind of look like dirt bike kind of things.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, like I'm gonna guess Suzuki.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, his very first one was Honda.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he worked for a Honda dealership, right?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, but then he never rode those again.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and when you think about it, um well, um he switched to a Norton.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know Norton?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've heard of that.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he he rode Norton's for a while, and then um in um in 67 he switched to Triumph.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Triumph is the British British made um, yeah.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I always thought of those as more as road bikes, like not yeah, did they did they make those sort of more dirt bikey, you know, big shocks jumping kind of things?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in fact, in the 70s switched to Harleys, and he rode Harleys throughout the 70s, and I don't think of those as as dirt bikes either, but he he always rode this uh 750cc um and rode the Harleys till the end.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Harleys um at some point he kind of switched his his persona to be very pro-American, right?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, with the with the flags and the eagles and the red, white, and blue.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And his outfit, if you remember, when you picture Evil Knievel, what do you picture?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's got the what is he wearing?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: He's got the cape and the white with the stars and stripes on it.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um who else who else in the 70s wore an outfit?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he did break his pelvis.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, there you go.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm seeing the I'm seeing the evil can evil, Elvis the Pelvis.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's lots of awful canoeful.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: We should do one on Awful Canoffal sometime if I know what happened.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Part two.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it wasn't interesting enough.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe maybe that's uh maybe that's premium content for our Patreon supporters.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about him being the Elvis of his time and of of the um or of the same time, but uh Elvis of of uh Daredevil, he had the big belt buckle, he had the cape, he had the white suit, um uh lots of red, white, and blue all over it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just made sense to ride American bikes.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: True, true.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I guess I guess somebody would have pointed out that you know, if he was riding a Honda or a Suzuki, that that didn't really jibe.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, he was a never go back on your word guy, and also very much anti-drug and helmet law.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that was his big thing.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: He used to go around to schools and preach anti-drug message, which in the 70s um, you know, was he's one of the first kind of anti-drug people going around um pre-Nancy Reagan, um, pre-uh uh do you remember uh Toma?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that guy, Toma?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know who that is.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I think he was the guy that they made the show Beretta uh uh after.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think his name was David Toma.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: He used to come around to I thought he came around to uh my we didn't go to elementary school folks uh together.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Did did Beretta is he the one that had the parrot?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, parakeet, yeah.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or parakeet, okay.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: This guy was like, yeah, uh scared straight kind of uh fellow.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: He used to go around and and tell us how people were doing this together.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh not together jointly, yeah.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: In the same same time period.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: So so he you you mentioned the last jump I think you mentioned was 77.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like, did he jump into the 80s?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, he he had a couple that he uh had had um scheduled, but for in like in Australia, and I don't know if he went back on his word or if he wasn't available or if they couldn't from what the reading I I've I've done on this guy, the only thing that could keep him from doing something maybe is if they didn't pay him.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think probably um probably in Australia, the you know, because it's southern hemisphere, you have to job the other opposite direction, right?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and so yeah, it probably was a whole different deal, and maybe he just didn't have time to train for that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because Australian jumping is it's like the water, you know, how the water spins the other direction.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good that's a good point.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: No, actually in the 80s he fell out of favor.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and mostly because um of this one incident.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: So a guy wrote a book about him, and it was an unflattering book.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it talked about how he did do drugs and how he beat his wife.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um one time Evil Knievel was waiting um for this guy to come out of a club or something and beat the pulp out of this guy.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: Wait for the author?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: The author of the book?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, at the time, Evil Knievil had two casts.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: He had broken both arms and he beat up this guy um with the casts.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Which I don't know if that makes it easier or harder to beat up somebody.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, casts are pretty hard.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that would that would be you know just kind of like playing drums on his head.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: It must have been what he did because you can't really bend your arms.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you do have these two blaster uh well, anyways, he he he shattered the other guy's arm um in the process, and I that guy basically lost the use of his arm.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um well he lost all of his endorsements.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: This was in 1981.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh lost all of his endorsements, declared bankruptcy, uh, had a rough eight uh 1980s.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then 1984 was arrested for beating his girlfriend.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Look, folks, I told you a couple episodes ago, this is starting to epcity.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're not here to to uh praise these people, we're not here to to uh to to uh um bury them.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're just it is what it is, man.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some good people do bad, looking for the truth.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bad people do good, we're just looking for the truth here.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that girl, um, they got married uh uh after that in 1999, and even though she had a restraining order on him, that didn't matter.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: They stayed together until he died in 2007, and she inherited all of his money.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um they made a rock opera of his life, Evil Kineva's life in 2003.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: I got really excited because in my research it said that Jeff Beck made an opera of him, and then I noticed that Beck was spelled B-E-K.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, so uh kind of like evil evil was it was it was Jeff B-E-K E V-I-L.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was a different evil can evil, actually.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't that Jeff Beck, but it actually got pretty good reviews that it was a kind of campy rock opera.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: Was it a movie or a or a stage play?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Stage stage stage production like in New York or something.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: So in in 1999, he actually, you know, he he had a lot of bad health.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: He had hepatitis, he needed a liver transplant, and um ironically, um, he got a liver transplant in 1999 from a guy who died in a motorcycle accident.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, yeah, that's full circle right there.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah um he had multiple strokes, he was doing so bad health-wise that in 2006, because of the uh liver transplant and because of uh all the broken bones in his lifetime, they actually installed a morphine pump inside his body, kind of like the kind you have at the hospital where you just push the button.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it was inside his body.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's activated with each heartbeat.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: So each time his heartbeat, it it triggered a little bit of morphine.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: I guess so.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know exactly how that works, but man, you imagine how much pain you have to be in.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I that was mostly his back is just totally disappointed.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: That probably wasn't fake.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: That was probably real pain.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would imagine, you know, as as you get older, those injuries turn into arthritis and turn into stiff joints, and you know, when it rains, you can feel it in your knee.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, my goodness.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's that right there though, is somebody that that lived for lived for the young years and maybe wasn't thinking too much about what's it gonna be like when I'm 60, 70 years old, you know.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think this guy actually had both.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: He lived to be 69 years old, yeah, but his candle burned bright.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think there's a lot of people that do that, that live that hard live that long.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: Although, although it sounds like his last 20 years was not very, not very pleasant, right?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: He he had um a lot of health issues, he was in a lot of pain, he was accused of stuff, he was getting into fights.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know what I mean?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't sound like those were his golden years.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Really the last 30 years.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_02: His golden years were much earlier in his life.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess the 70s is when he burned the brightest.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, like, like I guess a meteor coming through the atmosphere as it gets closer to the ground, it it burns less because it's burned up.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's basically exhausted its fuel.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know who gave the eulogy at his funeral?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I you know, I started with Ronald Reagan.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna guess Ronald Reagan again.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_02: This was 2007.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um wasn't Hulk Hogan.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't that be funny if Hulk Hogan we had another one who he just goes around and gives eulogies?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: No, who who gave who gave Evil Knievel its eulogy?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew McConaughey.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Who's our age?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: But they became friends.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Matthew McConaughey has been wanting to make a biopic and play Evil Knievel um ever since he had the power to do that.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's been trying to get a script together.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um he should just watch this episode or listen to this episode and that's what I was thinking.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: He he really had it's the script is done, Matthew.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they look they've looked very similar.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um that uh at his age, um later in life, I think uh Avil Kidibel might have had some plastic surgeries that didn't go so well.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, at that point, what do you have to lose?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's like it's like when you get a tattoo, and then people say, Well, that's not gonna look great when you're 80.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so nothing's gonna look great when I'm 80.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Who cares?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really good point.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard that argument, but that's a really good point.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: But this eulogy um was really touching, and they gave uh as the casket entered the uh arena, they had fireworks going off.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was kind of you know what you would expect from uh somebody like Evil.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: Where where was he buried?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: Was he buried in Montana?
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was a fully attended um Butte, Montana.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Butte, Montana.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: In a in like a civic center, you know, an arena type.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: So what I want to talk about now is the legacy of uh of Evil Kinevo.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now now that we can look back and say, well, what was this guy's legacy beyond just you know you and me?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Lunchboxes popping wheelies in our our uh in our cul de sacs.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: Lunchboxes and the and I think he was responsible for the little motorcycle that you cranked, and you push the button and it would take off.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, and I think Hot Wheels made that.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I think a lot of people ripped them off.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there were Saturday morning cartoons.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: There was one called Devlin, um, that was basically an Evil Knieval ripoff.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Super Dave Osborne.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Super Dave Osborne was he was more he was more of a parody than a ripoff.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, I guess I'm when I talk about legacy, I'm talking about you know, what exists now that wouldn't have existed if it weren't for Evil Knievel.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some people credit the X games to Evil Knievel that there wouldn't, you know, there was a whole generation of people.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think the first X games were probably people from our generation that um, you know, people like you think about somebody like Tony Hawk and how wouldn't have probably maybe wouldn't have been inspired to do all the things that he did if there weren't an evil can evil.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: All the skateboarders.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: They look at him and they see somebody who broke so many bones so many times and yet kept going.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, okay, it's possible.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it makes you realize that you if you don't die, you can probably get up and do it again, especially if you're young and you mend quickly and you know you got the right doctors and all that stuff.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: But but yeah, it it maybe inspired people to push their limits a little more because they realized how hard evil had pushed it, and he still he still ended up dying of quote unquote natural causes later in life.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't die from smacking into a wall.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that what uh what doesn't kill you makes you stronger?
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I do believe that.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, I guess evil cinevas the example of that.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Although his bones were probably not stronger.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: His bones are probably weak.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and stronger is a relative term.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: Stronger, do you mean stronger physically?
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean, yeah, something could put you in a coma.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: And are you stronger?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: But but um so I'd say in most cases, I believe it, there are some exceptions.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so you you look at guys like Tony Hawk, you look at the X games, even there's a lot of Olympic sports these days.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Olympics have been trying to snowboarding.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of sports that are more uh kind of daredevil-ish um than you know, aerial sports that didn't used to be a thing.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: But he really probably influenced all that stuff.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: He was, you know, man for the right time.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: That whole description you had of him uh jumping over Caesars Palace and like you know, putting putting a hundred bucks on on the roulette table and doing a shot of Jack and smoking a cigarette and kissing the showgirls, that was a time, right?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was the kind of stuff that you did in the 70s, but that doesn't really fly today.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know who like there were actors that were kind of like him, like Steve McQueen, you know, just badass guys, men's men, right?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Burt Reynolds, um, guys like that.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then you know, you don't know what's real.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think for Steve McQueen it was probably real.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh he's he was a really tough guy like that.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: But they made boys our age want to be cool like him.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Fonzi himself was probably, you know, the idea of being cool and um taking risks and all that kind of thing.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_02: Leather jacket and having your office in the bathroom.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's hashtag goals.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not to get too deep on this, but the whole concept of risk taking, um, even if it's like not actual risk taking, but like business risk taking.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if if he influenced people from our generation in terms of making them riskier, making them realize that what what do you have to lose?
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: You might as well go for it, which is yeah, like Shark Tank, right?
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, yeah, yeah.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: And there's another Shark Tank.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's where Shark, yeah, maybe that's where Shark Tank uh kind of got the name.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Cuban, Mark Cuban was a big fan.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned merchandise before, you know, before Star Wars, there was Evil Knievel stuff.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and we had G.I.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Joe, but G.I.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Joe Joe wasn't a real person.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, Star Wars weren't real people either, but I mean action figures of people that actually existed.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Evil Kinevil lunchboxes and action figures and the little motorcycle thing.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: I also though think that he probably didn't get he probably died a wealthy guy.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: He declared bankruptcy.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like he should have been able to.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: He used to get about$25,000 for those appearances, and he would do about four or five a year.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's not including any of the licensing.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was just appearance fees, you know.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, he was he was such a famous guy, though, that um he was as famous at one time as probably Muhammad Ali.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: And even even today, young kids who don't know who he is, they've heard the name, right?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: It rhymes, it runs, it's just part, it's embedded in our culture.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's embedded in American lore.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think you think your son knows who evil Kinevil is?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think he's heard the name.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if he could say he was some sort of stunt guy.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, I'll bet he I'll bet he I'll I'll ask him.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'll ask him.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Report back to us.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: So so Alex, uh, I mean, overall, what were your what were your thoughts on the guy?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: Was he was he a good guy?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: Was he a bad guy?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: Was he a little morally ambiguous and who knows?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: But he did some good things.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Evil Kineva was an important person for people from our generation that came up in the 70s.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he was a very influential person, and I think you have to respect the fact that this guy came along.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else would have done what he did.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was such a unique person, but he influenced so many people in lots of silly ways, but lots of maybe important ways too for people of our generation.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, overall, more positive than negative on the world.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think more good than evil.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: They should have called him good Knievel.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I like that.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Good Knievel.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he should have named his son, Good Knievel.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it, everybody.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the life of Evil Knievel.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: I uh hope you uh learned a little bit about Evil Knievel and uh even less about Awful Knoffle.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um but thanks for joining us on Dirt Knap City.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to contact us, um, like our our friend Dave in Dublin, uh, please contact us at dirtknapcity at gmail.com.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to hear from you if you have any um suggestions for future episodes.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but this has been another episode of Dirt Knap City.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Bye, everybody.