jackassworld

It was an insane week leading up to the takeover, but it was a lot of fun once the cast arrived. We pre-shot a few bits in that week, and everyone’s energy was really high (we haven’t shot anything together for over a year). The first thing we filmed was Party Boy and we had 20 dudes dressed like him up in a production office at MTV. Chris gave them a quick dance lesson and then we hit the streets of Times Square. We’ve never really shot anything in NYC for jackass, so it was really exciting—and cold. Chris was red hot and so were all our new party boys. The week got a little rougher when Preston scrubbed my face with “Bronx Bum Shit.” Then the boys started getting hurt. First Preston re-injured his back when I tackled him, Bam and Steve-O got wrecked “urban sledding,” and Dave England blew his knee out wakeboarding over barrels on ice. So we all went in to this thing injured and sleep deprived.

We’ve never done anything like the live takeover and I was sure it was going to be a train wreck—I just wasn’t sure when the wheels were going to fly off. They gave me a headset to wear so I could hear what was going on in the control room and give them some commands. There were directors, producers, and lawyers all talking on it. This turned out to be a hilarious tool for me because whenever things started getting out of control, all these voices would start panicking in my ear, saying either “Go to tape!” or “Cut to a commercial!” and I would yell back “Stay with this, stay with this!” To MTV’s credit, they stayed with a lot of things that would never be allowed on air under normal circumstances.

I ended up in front of the camera way more than I would have liked. Two times that were particularly unpleasant were the “Box of Things That Suck” bit and “Dizzy Boxing” Kosick. I knew they were going to drag me into spinning the wheel to decide which “thing that sucks” would get tested on me, but I didn’t know that rat traps were going to be on the wheel. We’ve never used rat traps on each other before and I will testify that yes, they certainly do suck. Then at 4am I was called out to “dizzy box” Rick. He hit the shit out of me in the first round, but the last round I tripped (check the tape) and he didn’t even attempt to get dizzy. I didn’t contest Rick’s false win at the time because I was just happy it was over. Whatever. Then the sun came up and I thought, “Awesome, we did it,” only to check my watch and realize we still had six-and-a-half hours to go.

Our goal in doing this was to make MTV how we would like it even if it was just for 24 hours. We wanted to play more music videos and run wild with no real format. Really, I’m just glad it’s over. Seriously.

- Jeff Tremaine