Jackass: The Movie
Jackass: The Movie
In the early 2000’s, Foxtel was a powerhouse of TV in
Australia. The cable network dominated the television world, and every man and
his dog were signing up. Before on-demand and Netflix came along to change all
that, we settled for having access to a wealth of movies and TV shows at our
finger tips, but… still had to wait until it was scheduled to air. Society had
patience once – not anymore! And Foxtel also hosted MTV, the station for the
young generation, populated my music videos and reality TV shows. Granted
“Survivor” was the first reality TV show in many opinions, another type of
“reality” TV was brewing in the background, and would take the world by storm.
The Jackass crew was banded together in the late 90’s,
scattered across the country. Johnny Knoxville was a struggling actor and
writer, so was doing some work for a magazine. Steve-O was working as a clown
in a flea market. And Bam Margera was already making crazy videos with his mates.
The original cast joined forces, pitched the idea for the show, and MTV
snatched it up.
The show itself only lasted two seasons, totalling 25
episodes. The cast and crew were hell bent on doing whatever they could to push
the envelope and hurt themselves and each other, in the most crude, rude and offensive
ways imaginable. The show broke into the mainstream quickly, dividing people
into two factions; those who though the show was immoral, offensive and dangerous,
and those who thought it was funny and worth imitating themselves. In 2001,
everyone was talking about Jackass. “Have you watched Jackass yet?” was a common
question. “Did you see the one where they walked into the McDonald’s and threw
their food order back over the counter?” was another question, as the shows fans
recalled the endless skits and stunts that were quickly striking up
controversy. I saw one episode of the show, and didn’t think much of it. As the
news started reporting incidents where kids and teens were starting to copy the
guys from Jackass, injuring themselves and even getting killed in some cases, I
wrote the show off in my own mind.
In 2002, it was just another Friday night with a couple of
mates at the movies. I told them we were going to see “Half Past Dead” starring
Steven Seagall. The film was panned by critics, but there was nothing else on. Actually,
I knew Jackass was showing, but didn’t tell my mate that as I knew he wanted to
see it. As we got to the cinema, he saw that Jackass was playing and a session
was about to start. “Let’s go see Jackass!” he said excitedly so I gritted my
teeth, and said “Fine”.
The theatre was packed. The lights dimmed, and the film began. I didn’t know what to
expect, but the opening certainly got my attention.
A cloud of smoke fills the screen. The words “A Dickhouse
Productions” appear. Then, out of the shadows, a giant shopping
trolley emerges, and inside it? The cast of Jackass. In slow motion, the
trolley careens down a bridge, with two guys hanging off the edge, and the rest
piled in like groceries. The song Excalibur plays in the background, building
up slowly as it does, then as it kicks into high gear, mayhem ensues on screen.
The guys start punching each other for no reason, and small explosions are set
off on either side of them, sending clouds of dust and shrapnel flying in every
direction. They are pummelled, enveloped, and start falling off the trolley,
rolling on the ground like rag dolls. The big finale involves Johnny Knoxville
saying, “Welcome to Jackass” and the trolley crashes into a market stall on the
side of the street, hurling all the remaining Jackasses through mid-air. The
movie begins. Check out the madness for yourself…
From here, it’s one stupid skit after another. Most are downright
crude and rude, but some are genuinely funny. The show’s decision to progress
to a movie was because TV wouldn’t allow many of their recorded scenes to be aired.
Head to the movies were censorship is lower, and you can get away with murder.
So that’s exactly what they did. Surely, the movie picked up some new fans
along the way, myself included, and despite my previous reservations about the
whole idea behind Jackass, I found myself enjoying it. At one point, we’ve all
done stupid stuff with mates, or at least thought about it. The Jackass gang
did everything they thought about and pushed it beyond the limits of what was
socially acceptable and thought to be physically possible. Somehow, they would
emerge from most of their self-inflicted acts of torture and torment unscathed,
with maybe just a sore head and a damaged ego being the worst of the damage.
The film is packed to the brim with skits. Some lasting a
few seconds, others going on several minutes beyond the point of sanity. Many
of them were planned and cleverly executed, whereas others where just thought
of on the fly, like the time where Ryan Dunn is just lying on a couch, and one
of the other guys walks past and throws a tennis ball at his balls! Funny, and
brief. Then there was the one where Johnny Knoxville attached himself to a
rocket, and was launched 50 metres into the air. Luckily, he landed in water.
Whatever you thought was over the top, ridiculous and gross
in every, you will most likely see that in the film. One of the Jackass guys
doesn’t take a crap for days, until finally he needs to go. So, he walks into a
hardware store, finds a toilet on display, drops his pants, sits down, and… if
you don’t want to see a giant tird that’s been brewing for 3 days, too bad –
you will! Let’s see, what else do they do? Using the gang’s resident midget and
resident fat guy, they perform the human bungee jump. Wee Man (the midget) is
attached to Preston (the fat guy) and hurls himself off a bridge platform.
Preston is meant to hold himself up there so Wee Man will gracefully bob up and
down like a bungee. Nope! Wee Man pulls Preston off the bridge, and they both
plummet into the water. But if you don’t like too see poos or human bungee
jumps, then wait for Party Boy! Jackass member Chris Pontius, likes to play a
song, and when it comes on, he just wants to party. Usually wearing a jump
suit, he could rip it off in one go, and is wearing a leopard skin G-string
underneath. Off he goes, dancing and shaking his butt around, taking a security
guards hat and rubbing himself against anyone and everything. It’s hilarious.
Just like the show would do at the start and end of every
episode, Jackass took some responsibility
and would put this disclaimer on the screen;
This was in response to the huge amount of backlash the show
got from all the little imitators out there starting to recreate Jackass
stunts. One even went as far as to douse his friend in gas and set him alight.
He got three years in prison, and said he saw it on Jackass. A stunt like that
was never done on Jackass. So how much of the show and its subsequent movies
could be blamed for the behaviour of little idiots with their video cameras? A
lot of the time in many opinions, and even if some stunts were not performed on
the show or in the movie, the type of behaviour was certainly the inspiration
behind the behaviour of it’s imitators, who were trying to outdo their own role
models, if you can call them that?
The show’s run and it’s first movie came and went before the
launch of YouTube, but the Jackass legacy lived on. Given YouTube was not really
being monitored for content (is it now?), anyone with the time and inclination
could put a video on the site and try to create their own Jackass following. It
would be four years before the original guys came back to the movies with
Jackass 2 in 2006, then cashing in on the 3D craze of 2009/2010 with Jackass
3D. Regrettably, I went along and watched those two films in at the movies as
well. But once again despite myself, enjoyed them none the less. The opening
and closing scenes of each film were probably the funniest.
I don’t know why. I guess I had become something of a
Jackass myself!
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