jackassworld

In the beginning there was Big Brother and CKY. They say great minds think alike, but in this case it was more like birds of a feather flock together—the dodo being the avian species in question here. So it seemed like a natural fit when Jeff Tremaine and Johnny Knoxville first considered enlisting Bam Margera and Brandon Dicamillo for their “dream team” on jackass. Up until this point, however, we’d had minimal contact with Bam, other than a random run-in with him and his father Phil in the streets of Philadelphia while on our Big Brother East Coast road trip in 1995, and I believe he was only 13-years-old then. Little did we know, but in five years time Tremaine, Knoxville, and Spike Jonze would be calling him up to ask if he would be interested in joining forces, so to speak, for an all out idiotic network television blitz. (more…)

For all I know this may just be mythical calcium deposits on my long since romanticized brain, but I swear from the moment we first blued up Wee Man for the Big Brother shit video in 1995, Jeff Tremaine was hell bent for Wonka on stuffing him into an Oompa Loompa costume. Five years later his wish came true.

This was, however, not something entirely done for jackass, as it occurred within the “tweener” stage of Tremaine’s involvement with Big Brother magazine and the show—right around the time MTV was mulling over the idea of giving these idiots money to film a pilot presentation in early 2000—and primarily focused on Wee Man’s pro spotlight interview. Jeff wisely banked some additional Oompa Loompa footage, though, knowing full well he’d be able to put it to good televised use when the time was right.

I’m not going to get into the long and short of Wee Man’s interview—you can click on the images here to get easily digestible spreads—but I would like to mention one very special thing about this particular issue of the magazine, especially since it made big time entertainment news on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno soon after it came out.

For those unfamiliar with the publishing history of Big Brother, it was, at the time, owned by Larry Flynt—that’s right, the very same proud pervert that bitch-slapped Jerry Falwell in the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, apparently there was a little mix-up in the subscriptions department at LFP that month, because instead of receiving the latest issue of Big Brother, subscribers received Taboo.

Now when it comes to layers of filth at LFP, Taboo was at the absolute rock-fucking-bottom. Actually, they might have even featured that activity in Taboo at one time, because the cum rag was basically geared to fetishists into all things perceived to be kinky and deviant, e.g. rubber wear, bondage, golden showers, extreme corsets, and piercings up the wazoo.

Anyway, can you imagine some 13-year-old boy getting this porn mag in the mail instead of his crummy issue of Big Brother? Woo-hoo! Boobies and scary shit! (Well, to be fair, I guess you should also imagine some ruddy piss-guzzling pincushion opening up his envelope and discovering an Oompa Loompa on the cover. Woo-hoo! New fetish!)

The first few months we started filming for jackass were real special moments—and by special, I mean like with those adorable little kids that ride the short bus and play in the Widney High band. There is no better evidence of this than the “Blind Driver” prank starring Ehren McGhehey (with a minor supporting role played by Dave England). (more…)

Way back in 1995, when we were all living the dream on Big Brother, Chris Pontius whipped up this simple but effective piece of art that read, “Keep God Out of California.” (more…)

When someone first hears about the “Poo Cocktail,” a stunt where Johnny Knoxville enters a locked-and-loaded port-a-potty in anticipation of being inverted for a downtown brown shower, their face invariably warps with disgust and the first few flabbergasted words out of their mouth are, “Who’s fucked-up idea was that?” Well, rest assured, it wasn’t entirely Knoxville’s. (more…)

Typically we spotlight a single segment with these “Flashback” programs, but this particular one is more of a strange day in the life of jackass when a seemingly shitty setback yielded two golden moments of televised glory: the “Mullet” and “Goldfish Trick.”

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In this second “Flashback” installment we’re dredging up “Roller Jump,” a segment that for whatever reason fell off the episodic map and went MIA in the various DVD releases of the jackass television series. In all new interviews, Jeff Tremaine, Chris Pontius and Johnny Knoxville reflect upon Bunny the Lifeguard, the stunt, and a silly little injury that nearly hobbled production on the first season in June 2000.

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Welcome to an all-new jackassworld web exclusive series called “Flashback,” where we crack open the archives of footage—both seen and unseen—and re-examine certain segments from the old jackass television series. And what better way to do this than by shitting all over the holidays with an early bit that combined the best of both worlds, the “Santa Colonic,” featuring all new interviews with Johnny Knoxville, Spike Jonze, and spelling bee champ Ben Kaller. (more…)