WEBVTT - Evel Knievel Part I 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.880 This episode of Stuff He Should Know is sponsored by Squarespace. 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:06.640 Whether you need a landing page, a beautiful gallery of 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:10.160 professional blogger, an online store, it's all possible with the 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:14.200 Squarespace website. Go to squarespace dot com and set your 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:19.439 website apart. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:27.880 Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.040 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.280 over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know, the 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.680 one where Chuck and Jerry, who are old, reminisced about 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.920 Evil Knevil. We're all the same age, nobuddy man. That's true, 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.199 we're all in our forties. But I wasn't suddenly catapulted 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.880 or imbued with memories of Evil Knevil, So you don't 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.240 have any I had a I guess not. I mean 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:58.320 his star was fading by seventy nine. Let me ask 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.040 you what the stunt cycle was like. Was it a 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.200 ramp where a man on a motorcycle was like wedged 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.360 in and then you like pull the rip cord and 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:10.240 it shot off. Well, that's what Jerry was just talking about. 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.880 The version I had of the Evil Knevil. Stunt cycle 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.280 was a little unit that had a ramp that this 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:23.240 little motorcycle and doll on the motorcycle action figure would 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:25.920 you could click it into place, and then there was 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.360 a crank on the side and you cranked it, cranked it, 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.720 cranked it, cranked it, and then I think it was 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:32.280 a button or something you hit to release it and 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.080 it would go flying off. Okay, but Jerry, you had 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.440 the rip chord one. She's misremembering. I think she realizes 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.000 I had something with the rip cord. It was like 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.960 a knockoff of it or something. You had the awful 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:52.360 canoffle Nice, which we'll get to, which actually a real 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.760 thing that was smart, not a real toy. There's a 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:02.240 real human who lived and die mute, butaute Montana. But 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.840 Evil Kinevil was a big deal for me as a kid, 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.480 for sure. Yeah. I mean I was right in there 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.120 at like six and seven years old when he was 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:16.200 doing his biggest stunts on ABC Wide World of Sports 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:20.680 seemingly every weekend. Yeah. No, by the time I was 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:23.800 like becoming aware of the world, he had already spent 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:25.880 all his money in its bankrupt right Like you were 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:31.799 like seventeen, You're like whoa, where am I? What's going on? 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.679 Is everybody looking at me? Why am I still wearing 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.040 a diaper? So part of this inspiration for picking this 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.320 was I saw the documentary being Evil a few weeks ago, 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:48.720 the Johnny Knoxville one. Yeah. Good, Um, it's not bad. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.560 Oh Johnny Knoxville is at homegoing. Yes, I mean it 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.519 wasn't great, but um, I think the bar for documentaries 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.760 is higher than it's ever been entertaining you. You know, 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.959 they're making another five or six episodes of Making a Murderer. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:06.679 That's what I heard. Um, it was okay. That wasn't bad. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:13.680 Too many, too many interviews with modern day people. Yeah, 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.040 that can easily ruin a documentary talking about you know, 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.200 what he meant to them and stuff? Yeah, who cares? Yeah, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:27.160 go take your memories and go to hell. Oh no, 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.880 I agree with you wholeheartedly. But it was good. It 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:31.600 was you know, I watched it on a plane. It 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:35.120 was worthwhile. Oh yeah, wait a minute, Wait a minute, 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:38.040 you watch it on a plane and you weren't watching 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:43.400 us instead, I don't watch us. We're kind of funny, 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.720 That's what I'm told. You're missing out. Pal Internet round 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:51.040 ups the finest thing anywhere. Alright, So Evil kin Evil 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:57.680 was born in October se and Butte, Montana. Yeah, a 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:02.119 rough and tumble mining town still to this day, I imagine. 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.760 But back then I thought if it's genteel but um, 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:11.160 watching this documentary, Uh, he made a very strong point 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:16.200 several times about how tough it was and like the 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.560 men got into like there were fights every day. It 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:24.080 was just rampant fighting in misogyny in this town. I 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.680 think that's what it says, like, I'm the welcomed abuse. 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:29.760 And of course it was the nineteen thirties and forties, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.440 so that kind of stuff was a little more acceptable, 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.560 I guess. Yeah, but he throughout his career he was 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.400 he was a bit of a misogynistic jerk. Oh yeah. 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:43.280 He took that whole mentality and really ran with it. Yeah. 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:49.440 But I read elsewhere, um that the the movie that 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.720 was made about him, starring George Hamilton's, which he supposedly 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.680 didn't like, it called Evil Kinevil. Yeah. There there's been several, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:57.240 but this is I think the first one. It was 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.159 in I think when he was really just starting to 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.200 like gain his fame. Um. It was written by the 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.839 guy who wrote Apocalypse Now John Millius and he there's 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.120 a great documentary about him, by the way. Yeah, okay, Well, 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.520 apparently the way that he wrote the movie really um 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:21.960 created in Evil Kinevil's mind, the Evil Kine Evil persona, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.800 and so he really adopted that like macho bravado tough thing. 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.440 So I mean like he was a tough kid before 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.000 then and a tough dude. But apparently that really kind 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.799 of like laid the groundwork for him to be like, oh, 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:37.279 this is how I speak in public, and yeah, I 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.640 will go ahead and punch that cameraman's lights out. He 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.320 literally adopted it, like in the in the documentary, he 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.839 you know that there in the movie the John Millius script. 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:52.000 In the movie, there's a lot of long, uh voiceover 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.279 dialogue from George Hamilton as Evil Kine Evil and like, 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:56.920 you know, I would look the beast in the eye 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:58.640 and I would knew I would have to make the jump, 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:00.840 and then it would cut to Evil Evil saying these 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.000 things like he would literally lifted dialogue from his own 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.600 movie to use in the press stuff. It was very funny, man, 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.920 And rumor had it that he didn't when it came 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:14.960 time to read the script, he was like you read 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.600 it to me and he had, like George Hamilton read 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:22.040 him the entire script. Wow, yeah he yeah, well he 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.800 did drop out of school. Yeah. So he was a 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:31.479 kid born in beaute tough town, had uh first of 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.800 two kids his family. His birth parents pretty much abandoned 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.920 him to his paternal grandparents and kind of just checked out, 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.440 said so long evil. Yeah. I'm not sure what happened 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.640 to them, but they they did not stick around his parents, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.280 which had to have a bad effect on him. Yeah. 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.000 I have the impression though, that his grandparents raised him 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.720 as best they could. He wasn't neglected or anything like that, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.320 but I think it was one of those situations where 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.039 you tend to have a lot more um free time 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.560 when you're being raised by your grandparents and by your 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.600 parents who have a little more energy. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:14.480 Early on in life he kind of found he had 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.600 a knack for this uh P T. Barnum esque way 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.920 of drumming up attention, which would serve him later in life. 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.640 When he was a little paper boy, he would out 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:30.720 sell his counterparts by um making up headlines or at 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.680 the very least sensationalizing the headlines so he could sell 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:39.200 more papers. Elk goes on killing rampage. And by the way, 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.760 I got most of my stuff from the Evil Knevil website. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.400 His own website, yeah, which I believe is operated by 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:51.840 his son, Kelly. Yeah, at least he's he's signed on 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.760 to it. It's like an official biography. Yeah, it was. 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.040 It was a very much more complete biography than what 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:03.360 we had on our own website. Oh yeah, and I'll 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.440 see is the New York Times obituary. Those are always good. 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.240 Those are good. There's a great New Yorker article I 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:12.000 found about the guy. We'll talk about him later. There 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:13.880 was a great New York article I read. A good 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.120 review of the Johnny Knoxville documentary. Yeah, just some other 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:23.120 stuff around there was written by Johnny Knoxville. What is it? Brilliant? 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:29.840 Four stars? So, uh, he goes away to um the 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.040 army because he got in a lot of trouble growing 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:35.880 up with steel hub caps and motorcycles and things. So 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.079 he was faced with prison time or army. He chose 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.400 army and then eventually came back to beaute and married 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.240 a woman named Linda Boork who he stayed married to 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:51.320 for many, many many years until I think, yeah, you 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.600 just watch this documentary, man, you feel so bad for 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.520 this lady. Oh, I'm sure, because she's very sweet and 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.120 you get just see the heartbreak on her face of 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.880 being married to this man who just flagrantly, flagrantly cheated 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.920 on her hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times through 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:10.679 the years. So one of the things I saw was 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.480 that he did that, but he also revered her. So 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.800 how did they get into the documentary of how he 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.880 managed to balance that or rationalize that or is that 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.160 just not the case. I don't know. Man, the documentary 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:25.440 doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the man himself. 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.040 Well apparently that that would be a very glossy thing 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.360 to do, Yeah, because there was a lot of stuff 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.560 about this guy that's not so hot. Um, but he 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:37.200 I mean, you would have thought the guy was single 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.840 because he's literally like on TV, like leaving the casino 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.360 drunk with like four women, and you know, he'll yell 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.400 at the cameraman like you want to follow a store 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:48.960 room and you know what, we're in the honeymoon suite, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.280 and you know his wife's at home watching this on TV. Yeah, 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.760 it's terrible. So he worked. He went back home to 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.959 be worked at a mining company for a while. He 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.360 apparently then worked on the surface of the mine and 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:11.040 got fired when he drove a a bulldozer wheelie style 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.200 into the power lines, causing the city to lose power. 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.360 Which this is a perfect example to me of this 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.240 legend of evil Knievel right right here. Some of the 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.679 sounds made up when you hear about it, even if 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.160 it's real, especially if it's real. When you hear about it, 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.480 you're like, what a what a legend, you know, But 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:34.240 imagine like being on that site watching this happen, having 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:38.160 your life just risked by some jackass um, and then 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.280 the entire town of Butte being like out of electricity 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.000 for hours because some guy did a wheelie and an 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.320 earth mover, if you like really put yourself in the 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:51.280 position of like being there in reality and seeing this unfold. Yeah, 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.120 a lot of ways. And he recounts the story with 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.720 like a whiskey about how great it was exactly um. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.440 In ninety six, he finally got in some real trouble 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.040 and was sent to a jail. And this is where 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.760 his uh nickname came up, because they're in the jail 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.920 with him was one William Knafel and he was actually 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:16.000 nicknamed Awful Knafel. That's where I made up that dumb joke. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.920 I thought it was a great joke. Well thanks, and 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.080 so apparently the guy that the jailer said, we have 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:26.959 Awful Knafel and Evil Kine, Evil and um. Later in life, 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:31.400 when he would get a sponsorship, he would officially take 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:33.520 on the name Evil, but he changed it from an 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:35.520 eye to an e because he didn't want to be 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:40.240 associated with being evil. Yeah, he had this really weird 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.920 duality or the economy going on where I guess he 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.440 wanted to be good, but he really just wasn't. But 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.600 he was always like that's why he wore the white, red, white, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:53.480 and blue, because he didn't want to be associated with 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.760 like Hell's Angels or black leather. Because one of the 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:03.200 things that Evil Knevil did was to two introduce motorcycles 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:08.120 to the rest of America in a non Hell's Angels way, 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.080 because after World War Two, you know, everybody on a 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:14.960 motorcycle was a member of a motorcycle gang, and that 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.160 was what America thought of people on motorcycles. Evel Knievel 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.559 comes along and he's like, no, no, look, you can 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.360 jump over Greyhound busses with these things. As long as 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.160 you're wearing red, white and blue, you're fine, right. And 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.360 he was also inspired too with the capes and things 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:34.960 by Elvis of course and Um Liberaci, which might seem 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.440 like an odd inspiration, but he thought Liberaci was like 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:41.320 the greatest showman on earth, like he and Elvis. Why not? 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.320 And when he saw his private life, he lived like Elvis, 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:50.400 very lavish spender. Um not smart with money. Yeah, he 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.600 said that there's there's nothing, no matter how expensive it is, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.000 that he's not going to have two of He was 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.960 one of those like, you know, I had two yacht, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.880 had two planes. He said, I've owned every diamond of 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.680 slept with every kind of woman I wanted to. Yeah. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.120 Apparently he had a yacht that you could lay in 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.800 the helicopter and it had a helipad. Could it land 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:15.679 to one on top of the other. The bottom one 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:17.560 had to be turned off at the time, though, or 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.880 else it would be bad. Yeah, that would be bad. 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.600 But he was a heck of an athlete. Um. As 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.880 a youngster, he was a really good hockey player. He 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.280 was a champion ski jumper. Uh, he actually played and 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:33.800 this is an amazing story. He played amateur hockey, I 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:38.800 guess semi pro hockey, and with that P. T. Barnum quality, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:43.400 he actually cooked up a real exhibition match with the 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:50.080 Czechoslovakian national hockey team in ye. He somehow cooked this 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.960 event up to have them come to Montana to play them, right, 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.440 and it worked. Yeah, it did work. The the Czech 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.760 Olympic hockey team came and played the Beute Bombers. It's amazing. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.120 Didn't see who one? I'm sure that it would say 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.079 the Bombers one. Yeah, they didn't, So I'm just assuming 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.160 the Checks just mopped the floor with the Baute bomber. Um. 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.160 Here's another example of like god, what a what a scamp, 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.160 what a legend? Whereas if you put yourself in the 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:21.240 real situation, you're like, what, yeah, take it away Chuck 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.840 Well after the match while he gets kicked out of 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.960 the match conveniently in the third period and disappears from 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.800 the venue. And then afterwards, the Check team went to 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.160 the box office and they're like, all right, where are 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.640 where's our money from the sales of the receipts, uh 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.280 the tickets because we were promised a certain amount and 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.560 they're like, there is no money it's it's vanished, it's stolen, 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:49.200 someone stolen. Who could it have been? I know? Now 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:54.520 here's the thing. If he like, that's that's not good, right. 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.040 But if he went back and was like, hey, fellow 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.800 hard working beute bombers, here's here's your cut exactly. You know, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.960 your your equal percentage of the proceeds. Um we the 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.040 check team is going to be taken care of by 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.600 the Air National Olympic Committee, which is what happened. We 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.080 can really use this catch. If he did that, maybe 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.240 there's like a Robin Hood thing going on. If he 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:21.520 kept it all of himself. Come on, that's just like 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:25.480 that's theft, the burglary. And it doesn't explicitly say that 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.400 he's the one who took it either. It's like this, 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.080 hint uh, all right, let's take a break, okay, and 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.000 we'll we'll get more into evil can evil after this? 0:15:58.320 --> 0:15:59.920 All right, Chuck? And I don't mean to be knocking 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:05.760 in your childhood hero. Well no, he's not Knoxville after 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:07.360 And you know, I never looked up to him like 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.160 I want to be just like him one day. I 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.080 think a lot of kids did, though, Like I jumped 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.960 my bike and stuff and played with a toy. But um, 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:19.840 did you ever hurt yourself? Uh? Never an injury from 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.440 a bike jump. I mean I got hurt. I got 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.000 stitches a lot growing up. I never broke bones. I 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.000 was always getting cut. So he inspired you, he didn't 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.800 You didn't idolize him? No, exactly? Okay, Um, there apparently 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.800 there was a paper published in nineteen seventy six in 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.840 the journal Pediatrics. This is from I think that New 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.680 Yorker article where these doctors created a term called the 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:46.280 evil Kinevil syndrome, where there was this outbreak of e 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:51.560 er visits by young boys who were injuring themselves across America, 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.400 and it was like happening with enough frequency that these 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.400 doctors were like warning parents about this, Like your kids 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.000 are watching this guy and then jumping their bikes and 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.560 breaking their arms. Yeah, And it wasn't just like I 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:09.920 remember the incentive to jump higher and longer because of him. 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.800 I will say that, like, oh, here's a bike jump, 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.680 but like let's make it two ft higher, and let's 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.240 stretch it out, and then let's put something in between, 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.280 like your friends are gonna lay down on the ground 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.359 and you're gonna jump over them, Like that it definitely 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.160 brought a different element to to play, so I can 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.920 verify that. But I never got injured, and maybe I 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.040 should have my friends hold the ring of fire. Well, 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:37.679 I told you in that other show that I used 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:39.560 to light the ring of fire and jumped the stunt 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.000 cycle through it. Um, So all right, now we're in 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:48.840 the nineteen sixties. He is uh he The first motorcycle 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:52.240 action he gets into officially was a motorcycle racing circuit, 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.840 So he would race bikes, get in wrecks, and you'll 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.520 see this over and over and over. He would crash 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.120 a lot. Yeah. One of the things about Evil Kinevil 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.840 and what he was doing is he wasn't very good 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.720 at it. Well, whether he made it or not, it 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.040 didn't matter. Yeah, he still got paid and he still 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.919 got the publicity and more so if he if he crash, right, 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:14.600 he was well aware that if he did crash, he 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.360 would draw more people out to the next one because 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.000 he I think he said, people didn't come to see 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.639 him die, They came to see him defy death. So 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:24.800 he was never all like, you just want to see 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.960 me die, you pack of jackals. It was you know, 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.879 he kind of got that people were like, yeah, maybe 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:32.520 this guy's not gonna make it, and I don't want 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.879 to miss that, but I do want him to make it. 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.360 But if he doesn't, I still want to see, well 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.159 you see his head come clean off. And here was 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:43.359 the thing too, by watching this doc he went he 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.600 didn't study the physics. There was not even advised on 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.359 the physics of these jumps. Wow, like you need so 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.560 much ramp area, this much speed in order to reach 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.639 this kind of height and this much length. He would 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.640 just say, like he would just eyeball it and be like, 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.679 I'm just gonna go fast as I can with whatever 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.399 space I have. Fascinating, and he knew going into a 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.879 lot of these jumps that he wasn't likely to make it, 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:11.880 Like he wasn't like, oh yeah, I've got this one. 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.320 But his one one way he was a very stand 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.399 up guy, was he always did it well. That was 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:20.639 one of his things was that he said that keeping 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:23.399 your word was extremely important. Yeah he was, he was 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.600 in that way. That's what he said to kids. Yeah, 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:30.639 he didn't back out of a jump. Although, again dichotomously, 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:35.560 he was famous for not paying his bills. Yeah, exactly, 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.440 Dichotomus is right. So he's racing motorcycles at this point, 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:43.480 he's crashing all over the place. He eventually gets the job. 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:45.240 He kind of had a bunch of little odd jobs 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.639 over the years selling insurance. Well, that one seemed to 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.960 come really close to being a career for him. Yeah, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:53.720 he was good at it. Yeah, he was very good 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.040 at it, and they wouldn't promote him, so he quit. 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.280 But before then he really got good at selling insurance. Yeah, 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.440 and supposed he wanted to become vice president after three 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.959 months on the job. Is that what it was? Wow? 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.240 So he done a lot of himself, to say the least. 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.320 He he supposedly sold two hundred and seventy one policies 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:18.040 in one day to mental patients and in an institution. 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:23.000 And then there's that. Uh. Eventually he would open a 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.720 he would move to Washington State Moose's Lake, I'm sorry, 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:32.000 Moses Lake like Mooses like better, um, and open a 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.800 Honda dealership, Honda motorcycle dealership, which was a bit of 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.080 a tough sell at the time. Honda motorcycles were not 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:41.919 and just regular motorcycles, like you said, weren't all the rage, No, 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.440 but especially not Japanese ones. A couple of decades after 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:51.040 World War Two. Absolutely, so he started thinking of ways 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:54.160 to draw people in. Well, he offered a hundred dollar 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.800 discount to anybody who could beat him in arm wrestling, 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.639 but that was implied that you had to buy the 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.560 motor cycle, but you get a hundred bucks off. Yeah, 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.920 there's something about these dudes, like the P. T. Barnum's, 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:12.600 the Harry Houdini's, the the um uh, Sarah the Barracuda's husband, 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:18.560 the lead, Sarah Palin's husband, Sarah Palin's husband. Yeah. Remember 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.720 he was like they called him the first dude of Alaska, 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.600 like race snowmobiles through, do donuts in like the town 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:29.399 square and stuff. Yeah that guy then. Yeah, oh he 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.840 was very much in this vein. Although he wasn't a 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.440 felt promoter. He was just a dude. Oh gotcha, you 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.639 know what I mean. Um, So, he wasn't selling a 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:40.879 lot of Honda bikes, so he would offer to arm 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.040 wrestle for money. And he started to to do tricks, 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.960 like to do wheelies in the parking lot and right, 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.240 you know the old trick where you ride through the firewall. 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:53.200 You know they's set like a wooden wall on fire, 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.919 bust through it on your Motorcyah, so the fire wall. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.640 Yeah what do you think, I said, firewall? Oh yeah, 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.439 uh so sort of minor motorcycle stunts are going on 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:08.800 at this point in his career. Well, and this came 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:13.320 out of meeting a guy named, um Jim Pomeroy who 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.359 raced motorcycles and he worked at Jim Palmroy's brothers I 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:19.600 think dealership or shop, and he learned a lot of 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:24.160 stuff from that guy that was huge. Um. And then 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.560 prior to that, he had worked for a dude named W. 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:30.520 Clement Stone at the insurance company that I worked for. 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:35.040 In W. Clement Stone co authored a book called Success 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:37.480 through a Positive Mental Attitude. It was a self help 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:41.760 book and um, I guess uh. Evel Knevel picked it 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:47.360 up and read it, and that really helped form another 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:51.440 vital part of his personality, which was you know, like, 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:53.800 you get out there and you do it, and like, um, 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.440 whether you want to or not, hard work will help 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.439 you persevere and just that whole kind of like ra 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.560 ra all America can do spirit um that he just 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:08.040 basically personified. Apparently it came from that. I'm surprised he 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:11.919 was a good candidate for scientology. You know. Yeah, I 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:15.200 want you to read this book called Dianetics. So. Uh. 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:17.040 The other thing he was inspired by as a kid 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:19.840 that he harkened back to later in his life was 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.960 going to a stunt show from a guy named Joey Chitwood. 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:27.720 And uh he was a motorcycle daredevil and a little 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.600 evil little Robert Kenevil. He was a car car driver. Oh, 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.360 he was a motorcycle No, that was Evil Knevil's big innovation. 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:36.760 He was like, I'm gonna do this on motorcycles because 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:40.119 it's even more dangerous. But he was inspired as a 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:44.520 little kid to do something like this, and eventually he said, 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:47.119 you know what, I'm gonna cook up my own show. 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.200 Maybe the promoter, maybe the marketer, right, the press release, 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:55.320 I'm gonna be the MC. Yeah. He did. Everything he 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:57.000 did was just pretty impressive. Yeah he was. He was 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:00.480