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Evel Knievel Part I · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: This episode of Stuff He Should Know is sponsored by Squarespace.
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Speaker 1: Squarespace website. Go to squarespace dot com and set your
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Speaker 1: website apart. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House
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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's
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Speaker 1: over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know, the
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Speaker 1: one where Chuck and Jerry, who are old, reminisced about
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Speaker 1: Evil Knevil. We're all the same age, nobuddy man. That's true,
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Speaker 1: we're all in our forties. But I wasn't suddenly catapulted
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Speaker 1: or imbued with memories of Evil Knevil, So you don't
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Speaker 1: have any I had a I guess not. I mean
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Speaker 1: his star was fading by seventy nine. Let me ask
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Speaker 1: you what the stunt cycle was like. Was it a
1:01
Speaker 1: ramp where a man on a motorcycle was like wedged
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Speaker 1: in and then you like pull the rip cord and
1:06
Speaker 1: it shot off. Well, that's what Jerry was just talking about.
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Speaker 1: The version I had of the Evil Knevil. Stunt cycle
1:13
Speaker 1: was a little unit that had a ramp that this
1:17
Speaker 1: little motorcycle and doll on the motorcycle action figure would
1:23
Speaker 1: you could click it into place, and then there was
1:25
Speaker 1: a crank on the side and you cranked it, cranked it,
1:28
Speaker 1: cranked it, cranked it, and then I think it was
1:30
Speaker 1: a button or something you hit to release it and
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Speaker 1: it would go flying off. Okay, but Jerry, you had
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Speaker 1: the rip chord one. She's misremembering. I think she realizes
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Speaker 1: I had something with the rip cord. It was like
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Speaker 1: a knockoff of it or something. You had the awful
1:45
Speaker 1: canoffle Nice, which we'll get to, which actually a real
1:52
Speaker 1: thing that was smart, not a real toy. There's a
1:56
Speaker 1: real human who lived and die mute, butaute Montana. But
2:02
Speaker 1: Evil Kinevil was a big deal for me as a kid,
2:05
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah. I mean I was right in there
2:08
Speaker 1: at like six and seven years old when he was
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Speaker 1: doing his biggest stunts on ABC Wide World of Sports
2:16
Speaker 1: seemingly every weekend. Yeah. No, by the time I was
2:20
Speaker 1: like becoming aware of the world, he had already spent
2:23
Speaker 1: all his money in its bankrupt right Like you were
2:25
Speaker 1: like seventeen, You're like whoa, where am I? What's going on?
2:32
Speaker 1: Is everybody looking at me? Why am I still wearing
2:35
Speaker 1: a diaper? So part of this inspiration for picking this
2:40
Speaker 1: was I saw the documentary being Evil a few weeks ago,
2:44
Speaker 1: the Johnny Knoxville one. Yeah. Good, Um, it's not bad.
2:49
Speaker 1: Oh Johnny Knoxville is at homegoing. Yes, I mean it
2:52
Speaker 1: wasn't great, but um, I think the bar for documentaries
2:56
Speaker 1: is higher than it's ever been entertaining you. You know,
2:59
Speaker 1: they're making another five or six episodes of Making a Murderer.
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Speaker 1: That's what I heard. Um, it was okay. That wasn't bad.
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Speaker 1: Too many, too many interviews with modern day people. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that can easily ruin a documentary talking about you know,
3:17
Speaker 1: what he meant to them and stuff? Yeah, who cares? Yeah,
3:20
Speaker 1: go take your memories and go to hell. Oh no,
3:27
Speaker 1: I agree with you wholeheartedly. But it was good. It
3:29
Speaker 1: was you know, I watched it on a plane. It
3:31
Speaker 1: was worthwhile. Oh yeah, wait a minute, Wait a minute,
3:36
Speaker 1: you watch it on a plane and you weren't watching
3:38
Speaker 1: us instead, I don't watch us. We're kind of funny,
3:44
Speaker 1: That's what I'm told. You're missing out. Pal Internet round
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Speaker 1: ups the finest thing anywhere. Alright, So Evil kin Evil
3:51
Speaker 1: was born in October se and Butte, Montana. Yeah, a
3:57
Speaker 1: rough and tumble mining town still to this day, I imagine.
4:02
Speaker 1: But back then I thought if it's genteel but um,
4:05
Speaker 1: watching this documentary, Uh, he made a very strong point
4:12
Speaker 1: several times about how tough it was and like the
4:16
Speaker 1: men got into like there were fights every day. It
4:19
Speaker 1: was just rampant fighting in misogyny in this town. I
4:24
Speaker 1: think that's what it says, like, I'm the welcomed abuse.
4:27
Speaker 1: And of course it was the nineteen thirties and forties,
4:30
Speaker 1: so that kind of stuff was a little more acceptable,
4:32
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, but he throughout his career he was
4:35
Speaker 1: he was a bit of a misogynistic jerk. Oh yeah.
4:38
Speaker 1: He took that whole mentality and really ran with it. Yeah.
4:43
Speaker 1: But I read elsewhere, um that the the movie that
4:49
Speaker 1: was made about him, starring George Hamilton's, which he supposedly
4:52
Speaker 1: didn't like, it called Evil Kinevil. Yeah. There there's been several,
4:55
Speaker 1: but this is I think the first one. It was
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Speaker 1: in I think when he was really just starting to
5:01
Speaker 1: like gain his fame. Um. It was written by the
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Speaker 1: guy who wrote Apocalypse Now John Millius and he there's
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Speaker 1: a great documentary about him, by the way. Yeah, okay, Well,
5:13
Speaker 1: apparently the way that he wrote the movie really um
5:17
Speaker 1: created in Evil Kinevil's mind, the Evil Kine Evil persona,
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Speaker 1: and so he really adopted that like macho bravado tough thing.
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Speaker 1: So I mean like he was a tough kid before
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Speaker 1: then and a tough dude. But apparently that really kind
5:32
Speaker 1: of like laid the groundwork for him to be like, oh,
5:34
Speaker 1: this is how I speak in public, and yeah, I
5:37
Speaker 1: will go ahead and punch that cameraman's lights out. He
5:40
Speaker 1: literally adopted it, like in the in the documentary, he
5:44
Speaker 1: you know that there in the movie the John Millius script.
5:47
Speaker 1: In the movie, there's a lot of long, uh voiceover
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Speaker 1: dialogue from George Hamilton as Evil Kine Evil and like,
5:55
Speaker 1: you know, I would look the beast in the eye
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Speaker 1: and I would knew I would have to make the jump,
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Speaker 1: and then it would cut to Evil Evil saying these
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Speaker 1: things like he would literally lifted dialogue from his own
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Speaker 1: movie to use in the press stuff. It was very funny, man,
6:09
Speaker 1: And rumor had it that he didn't when it came
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Speaker 1: time to read the script, he was like you read
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Speaker 1: it to me and he had, like George Hamilton read
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Speaker 1: him the entire script. Wow, yeah he yeah, well he
6:22
Speaker 1: did drop out of school. Yeah. So he was a
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Speaker 1: kid born in beaute tough town, had uh first of
6:31
Speaker 1: two kids his family. His birth parents pretty much abandoned
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Speaker 1: him to his paternal grandparents and kind of just checked out,
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Speaker 1: said so long evil. Yeah. I'm not sure what happened
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Speaker 1: to them, but they they did not stick around his parents,
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Speaker 1: which had to have a bad effect on him. Yeah.
6:51
Speaker 1: I have the impression though, that his grandparents raised him
6:54
Speaker 1: as best they could. He wasn't neglected or anything like that,
6:58
Speaker 1: but I think it was one of those situations where
7:01
Speaker 1: you tend to have a lot more um free time
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Speaker 1: when you're being raised by your grandparents and by your
7:08
Speaker 1: parents who have a little more energy. Yeah. Absolutely. Um.
7:12
Speaker 1: Early on in life he kind of found he had
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Speaker 1: a knack for this uh P T. Barnum esque way
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Speaker 1: of drumming up attention, which would serve him later in life.
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Speaker 1: When he was a little paper boy, he would out
7:25
Speaker 1: sell his counterparts by um making up headlines or at
7:30
Speaker 1: the very least sensationalizing the headlines so he could sell
7:34
Speaker 1: more papers. Elk goes on killing rampage. And by the way,
7:39
Speaker 1: I got most of my stuff from the Evil Knevil website.
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Speaker 1: His own website, yeah, which I believe is operated by
7:46
Speaker 1: his son, Kelly. Yeah, at least he's he's signed on
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Speaker 1: to it. It's like an official biography. Yeah, it was.
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Speaker 1: It was a very much more complete biography than what
7:58
Speaker 1: we had on our own website. Oh yeah, and I'll
8:03
Speaker 1: see is the New York Times obituary. Those are always good.
8:05
Speaker 1: Those are good. There's a great New Yorker article I
8:08
Speaker 1: found about the guy. We'll talk about him later. There
8:12
Speaker 1: was a great New York article I read. A good
8:13
Speaker 1: review of the Johnny Knoxville documentary. Yeah, just some other
8:17
Speaker 1: stuff around there was written by Johnny Knoxville. What is it? Brilliant?
8:23
Speaker 1: Four stars? So, uh, he goes away to um the
8:29
Speaker 1: army because he got in a lot of trouble growing
8:32
Speaker 1: up with steel hub caps and motorcycles and things. So
8:36
Speaker 1: he was faced with prison time or army. He chose
8:38
Speaker 1: army and then eventually came back to beaute and married
8:41
Speaker 1: a woman named Linda Boork who he stayed married to
8:44
Speaker 1: for many, many many years until I think, yeah, you
8:51
Speaker 1: just watch this documentary, man, you feel so bad for
8:53
Speaker 1: this lady. Oh, I'm sure, because she's very sweet and
8:57
Speaker 1: you get just see the heartbreak on her face of
9:00
Speaker 1: being married to this man who just flagrantly, flagrantly cheated
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Speaker 1: on her hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times through
9:08
Speaker 1: the years. So one of the things I saw was
9:10
Speaker 1: that he did that, but he also revered her. So
9:14
Speaker 1: how did they get into the documentary of how he
9:17
Speaker 1: managed to balance that or rationalize that or is that
9:20
Speaker 1: just not the case. I don't know. Man, the documentary
9:23
Speaker 1: doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the man himself.
9:25
Speaker 1: Well apparently that that would be a very glossy thing
9:29
Speaker 1: to do, Yeah, because there was a lot of stuff
9:31
Speaker 1: about this guy that's not so hot. Um, but he
9:35
Speaker 1: I mean, you would have thought the guy was single
9:37
Speaker 1: because he's literally like on TV, like leaving the casino
9:40
Speaker 1: drunk with like four women, and you know, he'll yell
9:43
Speaker 1: at the cameraman like you want to follow a store
9:45
Speaker 1: room and you know what, we're in the honeymoon suite,
9:49
Speaker 1: and you know his wife's at home watching this on TV. Yeah,
9:53
Speaker 1: it's terrible. So he worked. He went back home to
9:57
Speaker 1: be worked at a mining company for a while. He
10:01
Speaker 1: apparently then worked on the surface of the mine and
10:05
Speaker 1: got fired when he drove a a bulldozer wheelie style
10:11
Speaker 1: into the power lines, causing the city to lose power.
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Speaker 1: Which this is a perfect example to me of this
10:18
Speaker 1: legend of evil Knievel right right here. Some of the
10:21
Speaker 1: sounds made up when you hear about it, even if
10:23
Speaker 1: it's real, especially if it's real. When you hear about it,
10:26
Speaker 1: you're like, what a what a legend, you know, But
10:30
Speaker 1: imagine like being on that site watching this happen, having
10:34
Speaker 1: your life just risked by some jackass um, and then
10:38
Speaker 1: the entire town of Butte being like out of electricity
10:41
Speaker 1: for hours because some guy did a wheelie and an
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Speaker 1: earth mover, if you like really put yourself in the
10:46
Speaker 1: position of like being there in reality and seeing this unfold. Yeah,
10:51
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And he recounts the story with
10:54
Speaker 1: like a whiskey about how great it was exactly um.
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Speaker 1: In ninety six, he finally got in some real trouble
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Speaker 1: and was sent to a jail. And this is where
11:05
Speaker 1: his uh nickname came up, because they're in the jail
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Speaker 1: with him was one William Knafel and he was actually
11:13
Speaker 1: nicknamed Awful Knafel. That's where I made up that dumb joke.
11:16
Speaker 1: I thought it was a great joke. Well thanks, and
11:18
Speaker 1: so apparently the guy that the jailer said, we have
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Speaker 1: Awful Knafel and Evil Kine, Evil and um. Later in life,
11:26
Speaker 1: when he would get a sponsorship, he would officially take
11:31
Speaker 1: on the name Evil, but he changed it from an
11:33
Speaker 1: eye to an e because he didn't want to be
11:35
Speaker 1: associated with being evil. Yeah, he had this really weird
11:40
Speaker 1: duality or the economy going on where I guess he
11:44
Speaker 1: wanted to be good, but he really just wasn't. But
11:48
Speaker 1: he was always like that's why he wore the white, red, white,
11:51
Speaker 1: and blue, because he didn't want to be associated with
11:53
Speaker 1: like Hell's Angels or black leather. Because one of the
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Speaker 1: things that Evil Knevil did was to two introduce motorcycles
12:03
Speaker 1: to the rest of America in a non Hell's Angels way,
12:09
Speaker 1: because after World War Two, you know, everybody on a
12:12
Speaker 1: motorcycle was a member of a motorcycle gang, and that
12:15
Speaker 1: was what America thought of people on motorcycles. Evel Knievel
12:18
Speaker 1: comes along and he's like, no, no, look, you can
12:20
Speaker 1: jump over Greyhound busses with these things. As long as
12:23
Speaker 1: you're wearing red, white and blue, you're fine, right. And
12:27
Speaker 1: he was also inspired too with the capes and things
12:29
Speaker 1: by Elvis of course and Um Liberaci, which might seem
12:35
Speaker 1: like an odd inspiration, but he thought Liberaci was like
12:37
Speaker 1: the greatest showman on earth, like he and Elvis. Why not?
12:41
Speaker 1: And when he saw his private life, he lived like Elvis,
12:44
Speaker 1: very lavish spender. Um not smart with money. Yeah, he
12:50
Speaker 1: said that there's there's nothing, no matter how expensive it is,
12:54
Speaker 1: that he's not going to have two of He was
12:57
Speaker 1: one of those like, you know, I had two yacht,
13:00
Speaker 1: had two planes. He said, I've owned every diamond of
13:02
Speaker 1: slept with every kind of woman I wanted to. Yeah.
13:05
Speaker 1: Apparently he had a yacht that you could lay in
13:08
Speaker 1: the helicopter and it had a helipad. Could it land
13:10
Speaker 1: to one on top of the other. The bottom one
13:15
Speaker 1: had to be turned off at the time, though, or
13:17
Speaker 1: else it would be bad. Yeah, that would be bad.
13:20
Speaker 1: But he was a heck of an athlete. Um. As
13:22
Speaker 1: a youngster, he was a really good hockey player. He
13:25
Speaker 1: was a champion ski jumper. Uh, he actually played and
13:30
Speaker 1: this is an amazing story. He played amateur hockey, I
13:33
Speaker 1: guess semi pro hockey, and with that P. T. Barnum quality,
13:38
Speaker 1: he actually cooked up a real exhibition match with the
13:43
Speaker 1: Czechoslovakian national hockey team in ye. He somehow cooked this
13:50
Speaker 1: event up to have them come to Montana to play them, right,
13:53
Speaker 1: and it worked. Yeah, it did work. The the Czech
13:55
Speaker 1: Olympic hockey team came and played the Beute Bombers. It's amazing.
14:00
Speaker 1: Didn't see who one? I'm sure that it would say
14:03
Speaker 1: the Bombers one. Yeah, they didn't, So I'm just assuming
14:06
Speaker 1: the Checks just mopped the floor with the Baute bomber. Um.
14:10
Speaker 1: Here's another example of like god, what a what a scamp,
14:14
Speaker 1: what a legend? Whereas if you put yourself in the
14:17
Speaker 1: real situation, you're like, what, yeah, take it away Chuck
14:21
Speaker 1: Well after the match while he gets kicked out of
14:24
Speaker 1: the match conveniently in the third period and disappears from
14:28
Speaker 1: the venue. And then afterwards, the Check team went to
14:31
Speaker 1: the box office and they're like, all right, where are
14:34
Speaker 1: where's our money from the sales of the receipts, uh
14:37
Speaker 1: the tickets because we were promised a certain amount and
14:40
Speaker 1: they're like, there is no money it's it's vanished, it's stolen,
14:43
Speaker 1: someone stolen. Who could it have been? I know? Now
14:49
Speaker 1: here's the thing. If he like, that's that's not good, right.
14:54
Speaker 1: But if he went back and was like, hey, fellow
14:57
Speaker 1: hard working beute bombers, here's here's your cut exactly. You know,
15:00
Speaker 1: your your equal percentage of the proceeds. Um we the
15:06
Speaker 1: check team is going to be taken care of by
15:08
Speaker 1: the Air National Olympic Committee, which is what happened. We
15:12
Speaker 1: can really use this catch. If he did that, maybe
15:15
Speaker 1: there's like a Robin Hood thing going on. If he
15:17
Speaker 1: kept it all of himself. Come on, that's just like
15:21
Speaker 1: that's theft, the burglary. And it doesn't explicitly say that
15:25
Speaker 1: he's the one who took it either. It's like this,
15:27
Speaker 1: hint uh, all right, let's take a break, okay, and
15:31
Speaker 1: we'll we'll get more into evil can evil after this?
15:58
Speaker 1: All right, Chuck? And I don't mean to be knocking
16:00
Speaker 1: in your childhood hero. Well no, he's not Knoxville after
16:05
Speaker 1: And you know, I never looked up to him like
16:07
Speaker 1: I want to be just like him one day. I
16:09
Speaker 1: think a lot of kids did, though, Like I jumped
16:11
Speaker 1: my bike and stuff and played with a toy. But um,
16:14
Speaker 1: did you ever hurt yourself? Uh? Never an injury from
16:19
Speaker 1: a bike jump. I mean I got hurt. I got
16:22
Speaker 1: stitches a lot growing up. I never broke bones. I
16:25
Speaker 1: was always getting cut. So he inspired you, he didn't
16:28
Speaker 1: You didn't idolize him? No, exactly? Okay, Um, there apparently
16:32
Speaker 1: there was a paper published in nineteen seventy six in
16:34
Speaker 1: the journal Pediatrics. This is from I think that New
16:37
Speaker 1: Yorker article where these doctors created a term called the
16:41
Speaker 1: evil Kinevil syndrome, where there was this outbreak of e
16:46
Speaker 1: er visits by young boys who were injuring themselves across America,
16:51
Speaker 1: and it was like happening with enough frequency that these
16:54
Speaker 1: doctors were like warning parents about this, Like your kids
16:58
Speaker 1: are watching this guy and then jumping their bikes and
17:01
Speaker 1: breaking their arms. Yeah, And it wasn't just like I
17:04
Speaker 1: remember the incentive to jump higher and longer because of him.
17:10
Speaker 1: I will say that, like, oh, here's a bike jump,
17:12
Speaker 1: but like let's make it two ft higher, and let's
17:15
Speaker 1: stretch it out, and then let's put something in between,
17:18
Speaker 1: like your friends are gonna lay down on the ground
17:21
Speaker 1: and you're gonna jump over them, Like that it definitely
17:24
Speaker 1: brought a different element to to play, so I can
17:28
Speaker 1: verify that. But I never got injured, and maybe I
17:31
Speaker 1: should have my friends hold the ring of fire. Well,
17:36
Speaker 1: I told you in that other show that I used
17:37
Speaker 1: to light the ring of fire and jumped the stunt
17:39
Speaker 1: cycle through it. Um, So all right, now we're in
17:43
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. He is uh he The first motorcycle
17:48
Speaker 1: action he gets into officially was a motorcycle racing circuit,
17:52
Speaker 1: So he would race bikes, get in wrecks, and you'll
17:55
Speaker 1: see this over and over and over. He would crash
17:59
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah. One of the things about Evil Kinevil
18:02
Speaker 1: and what he was doing is he wasn't very good
18:04
Speaker 1: at it. Well, whether he made it or not, it
18:07
Speaker 1: didn't matter. Yeah, he still got paid and he still
18:10
Speaker 1: got the publicity and more so if he if he crash, right,
18:12
Speaker 1: he was well aware that if he did crash, he
18:14
Speaker 1: would draw more people out to the next one because
18:17
Speaker 1: he I think he said, people didn't come to see
18:20
Speaker 1: him die, They came to see him defy death. So
18:22
Speaker 1: he was never all like, you just want to see
18:24
Speaker 1: me die, you pack of jackals. It was you know,
18:28
Speaker 1: he kind of got that people were like, yeah, maybe
18:30
Speaker 1: this guy's not gonna make it, and I don't want
18:32
Speaker 1: to miss that, but I do want him to make it.
18:34
Speaker 1: But if he doesn't, I still want to see, well
18:37
Speaker 1: you see his head come clean off. And here was
18:40
Speaker 1: the thing too, by watching this doc he went he
18:43
Speaker 1: didn't study the physics. There was not even advised on
18:46
Speaker 1: the physics of these jumps. Wow, like you need so
18:49
Speaker 1: much ramp area, this much speed in order to reach
18:52
Speaker 1: this kind of height and this much length. He would
18:55
Speaker 1: just say, like he would just eyeball it and be like,
18:59
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go fast as I can with whatever
19:01
Speaker 1: space I have. Fascinating, and he knew going into a
19:05
Speaker 1: lot of these jumps that he wasn't likely to make it,
19:09
Speaker 1: Like he wasn't like, oh yeah, I've got this one.
19:12
Speaker 1: But his one one way he was a very stand
19:15
Speaker 1: up guy, was he always did it well. That was
19:18
Speaker 1: one of his things was that he said that keeping
19:20
Speaker 1: your word was extremely important. Yeah he was, he was
19:23
Speaker 1: in that way. That's what he said to kids. Yeah,
19:25
Speaker 1: he didn't back out of a jump. Although, again dichotomously,
19:30
Speaker 1: he was famous for not paying his bills. Yeah, exactly,
19:37
Speaker 1: Dichotomus is right. So he's racing motorcycles at this point,
19:40
Speaker 1: he's crashing all over the place. He eventually gets the job.
19:43
Speaker 1: He kind of had a bunch of little odd jobs
19:45
Speaker 1: over the years selling insurance. Well, that one seemed to
19:49
Speaker 1: come really close to being a career for him. Yeah,
19:52
Speaker 1: he was good at it. Yeah, he was very good
19:53
Speaker 1: at it, and they wouldn't promote him, so he quit.
19:56
Speaker 1: But before then he really got good at selling insurance. Yeah,
19:59
Speaker 1: and supposed he wanted to become vice president after three
20:02
Speaker 1: months on the job. Is that what it was? Wow?
20:06
Speaker 1: So he done a lot of himself, to say the least.
20:10
Speaker 1: He he supposedly sold two hundred and seventy one policies
20:14
Speaker 1: in one day to mental patients and in an institution.
20:18
Speaker 1: And then there's that. Uh. Eventually he would open a
20:23
Speaker 1: he would move to Washington State Moose's Lake, I'm sorry,
20:26
Speaker 1: Moses Lake like Mooses like better, um, and open a
20:32
Speaker 1: Honda dealership, Honda motorcycle dealership, which was a bit of
20:35
Speaker 1: a tough sell at the time. Honda motorcycles were not
20:39
Speaker 1: and just regular motorcycles, like you said, weren't all the rage, No,
20:42
Speaker 1: but especially not Japanese ones. A couple of decades after
20:45
Speaker 1: World War Two. Absolutely, so he started thinking of ways
20:51
Speaker 1: to draw people in. Well, he offered a hundred dollar
20:54
Speaker 1: discount to anybody who could beat him in arm wrestling,
20:57
Speaker 1: but that was implied that you had to buy the
20:59
Speaker 1: motor cycle, but you get a hundred bucks off. Yeah,
21:02
Speaker 1: there's something about these dudes, like the P. T. Barnum's,
21:05
Speaker 1: the Harry Houdini's, the the um uh, Sarah the Barracuda's husband,
21:14
Speaker 1: the lead, Sarah Palin's husband, Sarah Palin's husband. Yeah. Remember
21:18
Speaker 1: he was like they called him the first dude of Alaska,
21:22
Speaker 1: like race snowmobiles through, do donuts in like the town
21:25
Speaker 1: square and stuff. Yeah that guy then. Yeah, oh he
21:29
Speaker 1: was very much in this vein. Although he wasn't a
21:31
Speaker 1: felt promoter. He was just a dude. Oh gotcha, you
21:34
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Um, So, he wasn't selling a
21:38
Speaker 1: lot of Honda bikes, so he would offer to arm
21:40
Speaker 1: wrestle for money. And he started to to do tricks,
21:44
Speaker 1: like to do wheelies in the parking lot and right,
21:47
Speaker 1: you know the old trick where you ride through the firewall.
21:51
Speaker 1: You know they's set like a wooden wall on fire,
21:53
Speaker 1: bust through it on your Motorcyah, so the fire wall.
21:57
Speaker 1: Yeah what do you think, I said, firewall? Oh yeah,
22:03
Speaker 1: uh so sort of minor motorcycle stunts are going on
22:06
Speaker 1: at this point in his career. Well, and this came
22:08
Speaker 1: out of meeting a guy named, um Jim Pomeroy who
22:13
Speaker 1: raced motorcycles and he worked at Jim Palmroy's brothers I
22:17
Speaker 1: think dealership or shop, and he learned a lot of
22:19
Speaker 1: stuff from that guy that was huge. Um. And then
22:25
Speaker 1: prior to that, he had worked for a dude named W.
22:27
Speaker 1: Clement Stone at the insurance company that I worked for.
22:30
Speaker 1: In W. Clement Stone co authored a book called Success
22:35
Speaker 1: through a Positive Mental Attitude. It was a self help
22:37
Speaker 1: book and um, I guess uh. Evel Knevel picked it
22:41
Speaker 1: up and read it, and that really helped form another
22:47
Speaker 1: vital part of his personality, which was you know, like,
22:51
Speaker 1: you get out there and you do it, and like, um,
22:54
Speaker 1: whether you want to or not, hard work will help
22:56
Speaker 1: you persevere and just that whole kind of like ra
22:59
Speaker 1: ra all America can do spirit um that he just
23:03
Speaker 1: basically personified. Apparently it came from that. I'm surprised he
23:08
Speaker 1: was a good candidate for scientology. You know. Yeah, I
23:11
Speaker 1: want you to read this book called Dianetics. So. Uh.
23:15
Speaker 1: The other thing he was inspired by as a kid
23:17
Speaker 1: that he harkened back to later in his life was
23:20
Speaker 1: going to a stunt show from a guy named Joey Chitwood.
23:23
Speaker 1: And uh he was a motorcycle daredevil and a little
23:27
Speaker 1: evil little Robert Kenevil. He was a car car driver. Oh,
23:31
Speaker 1: he was a motorcycle No, that was Evil Knevil's big innovation.
23:34
Speaker 1: He was like, I'm gonna do this on motorcycles because
23:36
Speaker 1: it's even more dangerous. But he was inspired as a
23:40
Speaker 1: little kid to do something like this, and eventually he said,
23:44
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna cook up my own show.
23:47
Speaker 1: Maybe the promoter, maybe the marketer, right, the press release,
23:51
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the MC. Yeah. He did. Everything he
23:55
Speaker 1: did was just pretty impressive. Yeah he was. He was
23:57
Speaker 1: a tenacious guy. He did not fall into his money
24:00
Speaker 1: by accident. I'm gonna single handedly rob the box office. Uh,
24:06
Speaker 1: I bet you. How he robbed the box office is
24:08
Speaker 1: basically going up and saying, hey, Jeanie, just yeah, just
24:11
Speaker 1: go ahead and give me all the money, and they're like, oh, yeah,
24:14
Speaker 1: of course, this is your show. Cher I'll call you later. Yeah, exactly. Um,
24:21
Speaker 1: all right, where are we here? Oh so he's at
24:23
Speaker 1: his first show that he did everything for and I
24:26
Speaker 1: can't remember where it was. This is where he jumped
24:28
Speaker 1: to the rattlesnakes in the mountain lions. Yeah, so he
24:33
Speaker 1: got himself a bunch of rattlesnakes, put him in a box,
24:36
Speaker 1: tied up two mountain lions around the box, and then
24:40
Speaker 1: put a ramp on either side of this whole setup
24:43
Speaker 1: and jumped it and apparently almost made it, but the
24:47
Speaker 1: back wheel of his bike knocked the box over, and
24:50
Speaker 1: I guess the rattlesnakes all escaped toward the crowd. Is
24:54
Speaker 1: that that sounds like a bit of a stretch to
24:56
Speaker 1: probably how it really happened. Um, that's just a guess though, Yeah,
25:00
Speaker 1: but I guess the allud there was. Kids showed up
25:02
Speaker 1: literally thinking he might crash and be descended upon by
25:06
Speaker 1: lions and snakes right right in front of our eyes.
25:09
Speaker 1: Can I please go, Mom and dad? Because you know
25:11
Speaker 1: what snakes would do if a motorcycle crashed by him,
25:14
Speaker 1: They would say go get him right that way. They
25:18
Speaker 1: wouldn't slither off in fear for their life. They go
25:22
Speaker 1: after they'd be like, now is there a chance, that's
25:25
Speaker 1: a chance to take this guy out. So he was
25:29
Speaker 1: putting on more and more of these solo shows, and
25:31
Speaker 1: he realized he needed a sponsor if he wanted to
25:33
Speaker 1: really kind of kick it up a notch. Yeah, because
25:35
Speaker 1: he needed help. Yeah, he needed to not have to
25:37
Speaker 1: write all the press releases himself, so he could hire folks. Here.
25:41
Speaker 1: He got a sponsor named Bob Blair who owned zd
25:45
Speaker 1: S Motors, and he kept them flush with motorcycles in
25:50
Speaker 1: cash and um. He started his own stunt show, and
25:56
Speaker 1: this is where he finally changed his name. Originally it
25:59
Speaker 1: was called uh, I think Bobby kne Evil and his
26:03
Speaker 1: motorcycle Daredevils. And then the guy the sponsor said, now
26:08
Speaker 1: everyone knows he was Evil Knevil. Call yourself Evil Knevil.
26:11
Speaker 1: He said, all right, but let's spill it with an
26:13
Speaker 1: E because I don't you know, everyone knows I'm a
26:15
Speaker 1: good guy. I'm a role model. Uh So then in
26:21
Speaker 1: nineteen he debuts that show in Indio, California. Yeah, and
26:26
Speaker 1: it was a big success, crashed through firewalls. Um, it
26:31
Speaker 1: was a success, but he also was injured, right, sure,
26:34
Speaker 1: he was well, this one was when he tried to
26:37
Speaker 1: stand there on the ground. This was a big trick
26:39
Speaker 1: he did, and he would leap up into the air
26:41
Speaker 1: spread eagle in a motorcycle would drive between his legs. Okay,
26:44
Speaker 1: so the one in India California went without a hitch.
26:47
Speaker 1: It was the one a couple of weeks later in
26:49
Speaker 1: Barstow where that didn't go so well. That trick, no,
26:53
Speaker 1: And you can see this footage like, oh it's out there.
26:56
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't see that one. Yeah. Yeah, the
26:57
Speaker 1: motorcycle helmet of the dry iber hit some square in
27:02
Speaker 1: the crotch and he flips up like fifteen ft in
27:06
Speaker 1: the air and lands on the ground. And he's not
27:09
Speaker 1: you know, he's not wearing a helmet and pads on
27:10
Speaker 1: this because he's on the ground. Oh why would he
27:12
Speaker 1: He's not the one on the motorcycle. Yeah. So it
27:14
Speaker 1: did not go well, to say the least. He Yeah,
27:18
Speaker 1: he went into the hospital for a couple of weeks,
27:20
Speaker 1: but when he came out, he went right back and
27:24
Speaker 1: finished the show like a month later, and that became
27:27
Speaker 1: a hallmark. If he couldn't finish the show, then he
27:30
Speaker 1: would come back to the same town and complete the
27:33
Speaker 1: jump that he crashed, and the crowd wouldn't be allowed
27:35
Speaker 1: to leave the colosseum until they came back a month later.
27:39
Speaker 1: We've been living here for four weeks and get pretty
27:42
Speaker 1: gamy in those places. So then he decided to do
27:46
Speaker 1: his own solo performances. Uh, the Daredevil show broke apart,
27:51
Speaker 1: and he said, I don't need those guys anyway, and
27:54
Speaker 1: started doing his solo shows. And then nineteen sixty six
27:58
Speaker 1: in Montana, Missoula, he kind of had his first big
28:01
Speaker 1: car jump where he drumped twelve jump twelve cars in
28:05
Speaker 1: a cargo van, and he crashed that one as well.
28:09
Speaker 1: He crashed a lot. He did crash a lot. I
28:12
Speaker 1: think I saw that he landed as often as crashed,
28:16
Speaker 1: but from going over like his stunts, it seems like
28:19
Speaker 1: he crashed more than he landed. And he would usually
28:22
Speaker 1: crash upon a semi successful land like he would hit
28:27
Speaker 1: the ground and for a second you think he made it.
28:31
Speaker 1: But keep in mind he was jumping a three hundred
28:33
Speaker 1: pound street cycle like They modified it some over the years,
28:38
Speaker 1: and he would eventually end up with the Harley XR
28:40
Speaker 1: seven fifty is his main bike, but these were not
28:43
Speaker 1: the bikes that they used to jump in the X Games,
28:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, not like not close, Like the things that
28:50
Speaker 1: used today are built exactly for that. And did you
28:53
Speaker 1: see the world record jump the current one? Dude, it's nuts.
28:58
Speaker 1: How far is the jumped a football field? Oh wow,
29:02
Speaker 1: I don't remember how many feet it ended up being exactly,
29:04
Speaker 1: but it's it looks like it's it's the most unbelievable
29:09
Speaker 1: thing I've ever seen. How far this guy jumps, and
29:11
Speaker 1: how and how smooth it all went, like the take off,
29:16
Speaker 1: the approach, the landing, it was all just like butter
29:18
Speaker 1: was it? Tony Hawker did it? I think it was.
29:22
Speaker 1: But you watched like this guy's jumped today, and how
29:25
Speaker 1: does flawless and beautiful and graceful it is? And then
29:29
Speaker 1: evil evils jumps and it's funny by comparison because he
29:34
Speaker 1: was clearly a skilled motorcycle rider. I'm not saying that,
29:37
Speaker 1: but yeah, oh man, no, he could like ride a
29:40
Speaker 1: moorcycle standing on it. Yeah, doing all sorts of cool tricks.
29:44
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a three pounds is a definite handicap,
29:47
Speaker 1: and jumping cars and things and busses, well yeah, and
29:49
Speaker 1: when you and when you look at the footage compared
29:53
Speaker 1: to today. What your immediate thought is is this guy
29:56
Speaker 1: had no idea what he was doing, you know, and
30:00
Speaker 1: he didn't. He wasn't studying the science of it, so
30:05
Speaker 1: he started. His whole thing was when he would come
30:09
Speaker 1: back to a town, the same town to get people
30:13
Speaker 1: to come, he would just add another car too, just
30:18
Speaker 1: make it bigger. People wanted to see longer, farther jumps,
30:22
Speaker 1: or a different kind of car, like in Yakima, Washington.
30:25
Speaker 1: He once jumped or tried to jump a number of
30:29
Speaker 1: Pepsi trucks. I think like twelve or fifteen Pepsi trucks. Um,
30:34
Speaker 1: it didn't make it, but that's unusual Pepsi trucks. Who's
30:37
Speaker 1: ever tried that before probably got money from Pepsi. They
30:40
Speaker 1: was sponsored by Pepsi or gray Hound busses. He jumped, though,
30:43
Speaker 1: so he would or stacked cars. I think he might
30:47
Speaker 1: still hold the record for the number of stacked crushed cars,
30:51
Speaker 1: because someone does that anymore. He jumped on a hardly,
30:53
Speaker 1: specifically a hardy, which I think probably ties and I
30:57
Speaker 1: didn't understand it before until you said that that probably
31:00
Speaker 1: ties into that that the record is on Harley because
31:05
Speaker 1: these days. There is a well, there's a dude now
31:08
Speaker 1: that's trying to recreate some of his jumps using that
31:11
Speaker 1: same bike. Oh really, yeah, is his name Eddie Braun
31:15
Speaker 1: M I don't know. I didn't get his name. There's
31:18
Speaker 1: a dude who's a stunt man, pretty well known stunt
31:20
Speaker 1: man named Eddie Braun or Brown. I'm not sure. He's
31:25
Speaker 1: recreating the Snake River jump this September. Oh, I saw
31:29
Speaker 1: that in the news, like it was in the news yesterday. Yeah. Crazy,
31:33
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. Evil Kin Evil stars
31:36
Speaker 1: rising and my eyes are getting heavy, So chuck evil
32:04
Speaker 1: Kin Evil. In uh sixties seven, he started to make
32:08
Speaker 1: a name for himself. He'd been on the Joey Bishop
32:10
Speaker 1: Show and he was going to see a heavyweight fight
32:14
Speaker 1: in Vegas, and while he was there, he noticed the
32:18
Speaker 1: fountains in front of Caesar's Palace and he was like,
32:21
Speaker 1: I think I should jump those. They spoke to him,
32:24
Speaker 1: apparently there'd be a fine thing to jump, and so
32:27
Speaker 1: he started to try. His start had risen, but he
32:30
Speaker 1: wasn't nearly as famous as he would be in the
32:33
Speaker 1: next few years, so he couldn't immediately get in touch
32:37
Speaker 1: with the President of Caesar's which he needed to because
32:40
Speaker 1: you got to get permission for that kind of thing
32:43
Speaker 1: or sponsorship or money or something. So he needed Caesar's, Um,
32:48
Speaker 1: Caesar's CEO, I think Jay Sarno is his name. Uh,
32:52
Speaker 1: he needed his blessing or his help with it. And
32:55
Speaker 1: so to do that get this, he decides he's going
32:58
Speaker 1: to jump Caesar's in to in November. After just two months,
33:04
Speaker 1: he's got the whole thing set up and is doing
33:06
Speaker 1: the jump. Yeah, but he had two year's eve nineteen seven,
33:11
Speaker 1: is what happened. He had to hound the guy though
33:13
Speaker 1: to get him to do it, and he actually kind
33:15
Speaker 1: of um duped him a little bit. Yeah, he made up.
33:18
Speaker 1: He made a series of calls from as different people. Um.
33:23
Speaker 1: Sometimes he was a lawyer calling Sarno. Sometimes he was
33:26
Speaker 1: an executive from ABC TV. Sometimes he was from Sports Illustrated,
33:31
Speaker 1: asking like is this jump gonna happen? I keen hearing
33:33
Speaker 1: about this, and he would like he would take care
33:35
Speaker 1: to mispronounce Evil Kinevil's name, his own name, very smart
33:39
Speaker 1: to make it sound like he didn't It wasn't him,
33:42
Speaker 1: because what man would mispronounce his own name? And so
33:44
Speaker 1: I guess Sarno was like, I don't know who this
33:47
Speaker 1: guy is, but everyone's calling me all of a sudden, Right,
33:49
Speaker 1: couldn't they all sound similar? But they all pronounced his
33:52
Speaker 1: name differently, so couldn't be him. And it worked. And
33:56
Speaker 1: I think he'd already been on ABC's Wide World of
33:58
Speaker 1: Sports before, right, And so he went to them and said, hey, dudes,
34:02
Speaker 1: you guys want this, and they said no, but film
34:06
Speaker 1: it and if it's awesome, maybe we'll buy it from you.
34:09
Speaker 1: Then it was awesome. Yeah, it was very awesome. He
34:12
Speaker 1: hired his own film crew to the filmmaker John Derek Bow,
34:16
Speaker 1: Derek's later husband. Okay, at the time, he was married
34:21
Speaker 1: to Lynda Evans from Dynasty. Dynasty who actually filmed. Yeah,
34:26
Speaker 1: she the very famous shot of the crash was her camera.
34:30
Speaker 1: Supposedly she was the operator, the lady from Dynasty. Uh,
34:34
Speaker 1: So he privately hired people to film it. It was
34:37
Speaker 1: the very he made it over the fountain. It was
34:39
Speaker 1: a beautiful jump hit the ramp and he hit it
34:42
Speaker 1: with such force that his hands were just ripped off
34:45
Speaker 1: of the handlebars and he looked like super Dave Osborne
34:50
Speaker 1: going over the handlebars, and he just looked like a
34:53
Speaker 1: straw dummy flopping around on the ground, and um, it was.
34:57
Speaker 1: It was a magnificent crash. It really is. It's tough
35:01
Speaker 1: to watch, but I think magnificent is the right word.
35:04
Speaker 1: Spectacular crash and he um. He went back to ABC
35:10
Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, we definitely want this footage,
35:12
Speaker 1: and he said, well, it's a lot more expensive now,
35:15
Speaker 1: So it kind of worked out for him. We needed foresight,
35:19
Speaker 1: so Chuck that when ABC buys this and puts it
35:23
Speaker 1: on Wild Wide World of Sports, Evil Kine Evil Stars
35:26
Speaker 1: made yes, right, yep, legit star and that's it. That's
35:31
Speaker 1: the end of Evil k that's the end of Evil
35:33
Speaker 1: Kin Evil Part one. Oh yeah, we're gonna do a
35:35
Speaker 1: two part of huh yeah, this story is so robust
35:39
Speaker 1: that we're gonna have to split it up into two parts.
35:42
Speaker 1: And uh but we'll do a regular listener mail and
35:44
Speaker 1: sign off right, yeah, let's um. If you want to
35:47
Speaker 1: know more of Evil Kannevil, just you wait for part two. Agreed.
35:51
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, while you're waiting, it's time for
35:54
Speaker 1: listener mail. I'm gonna call this, Oh interestingly, it's about
36:03
Speaker 1: ad breaks. Hey, guys, love the show, you guys are
36:06
Speaker 1: the dope show. For sure. I am already a researcher
36:09
Speaker 1: by trade, but your amazing podcast makes me the annoyance
36:12
Speaker 1: of all my friends because I suddenly seemed to know
36:14
Speaker 1: about something from everything from poop to nuclear bombs to Barbie.
36:19
Speaker 1: But I'm writing in because I've noticed that when you
36:21
Speaker 1: Chuck prompt a commercial break, he always poses as a
36:24
Speaker 1: question to you, Josh. Uh, like, Josh, you want, you know,
36:28
Speaker 1: you want to take a break? Uh? Josh always so
36:32
Speaker 1: willingly complies. Do you ever think he'll say no? Have
36:35
Speaker 1: you ever said no, Josh? Has there ever been a
36:38
Speaker 1: time where you're on such a role and Chuck asked
36:42
Speaker 1: and you just want to say no in defiance, I'm
36:46
Speaker 1: gonna let you answer that. Uh. Sometimes I will actually
36:51
Speaker 1: suggest an ad break and Chuck will say no, let's
36:54
Speaker 1: finish this one part, and I'll say, Okay, that gets
36:57
Speaker 1: edited out though, right, that's what she didn't get. Uh. Likewise, Chuck,
37:01
Speaker 1: have you ever worried that Josh will deny your request
37:02
Speaker 1: for a commercial break in a coup style? I don't know,
37:06
Speaker 1: but every time Chuck says should we take a break,
37:08
Speaker 1: I just sit on the edge of my seat, waiting
37:10
Speaker 1: to see if Josh pulls the fasts one on us. Anyway,
37:13
Speaker 1: you guys are great. Keep on being you eagerly awaiting
37:16
Speaker 1: the uprising, alright, Ash Hill, and we'll keep an eye
37:19
Speaker 1: out for it. Then maybe we just will do that.
37:23
Speaker 1: I will do that, all right. Yeah, I'm sick of
37:25
Speaker 1: getting kicked around with the ad break thing right. Thank
37:29
Speaker 1: you very much for that email. We appreciate you. If
37:31
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, you can
37:33
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37:35
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37:39
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37:41
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37:43
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37:47
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37:49
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