Crazy Mike and High Flyin' Ryan: Bank Robbing Stuntmen?

He was a man with a dream –– and that dream was to fly. His brother shared this dream. Trouble was they weren't the Wright Brothers, they were Crazy Mike and High Flyin' Ryan. The brothers challenged gravity, the law and common sense... until the FBI stepped in. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Elizabeth Zaaren girl not much. It was ridiculous. Oh yeah,
I do you look like your face looks like.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
My face is ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
What's ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Christopher McTaggart rude dude sent us a message on Instagram.
Mister McTaggart, has happened almost ten years ago. Now where
were you when you heard that Leonard Nimoy died?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I was, Actually, this is an interesting question. I was
with missus Leonard Nimoy pillow No. I was helping with
the grieving process. I'm a minister, Elizabeth. I thought you
knew that, and my focus is space. So the family
came to me and they said, Zaren, we need you
to help us with this transition here. I said, space,
it's the final frontier.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
You're a death duel and death is the real final
front is it is?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
So he passed away? I spoiler?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
What happened with this?

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Well, there there was already this thing going on in Canada,
but like his death kind of like right, I guess,
I don't know, is any cling on or something? One
of them he's a little elf, yeah, exactly, So there
is this thing going on in Canada called spocking spoking.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I don't know. That's what's spocking.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Spoking is there's a five dollars bill. It has a
portrait of Prime Ministers Sir Alfred Laurier on it, and
he kind of looks a little bit like Leonard Meimoy.
So people started drawing on the bill a picture, right,
that's really good.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's better than the bill Murray five dollars bill with
the Lincoln.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, this will this will be an Instagram story where
we put the what's ridiculous? But you can see, like
some of them, he's doing the live long and prosper
hand and all they do is like give him that
goofball haircut and like mess with the eyebrows and do
the ears. Anyway, I think that that's kind of ridiculous,
but it's not illegal. Yeah, you can draw in.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
It, but they Canadian money.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
This is the some bank. Bank of Canada said it's
not illegal to write or make other markings on banknotes
because neither the Bank of Canada Act nor the Criminal
Code deals with mutilation or defacement of banknotes. But the
Bank of Canada feels that writing and markings on banknotes

(02:28):
are inappropriate because they are a symbol of our country
and a source of national pride. So they're saying, like,
it's not illegal, but isn't there money called the looney
But apparently, you know, you could try using it and
it could negate its legal tender status, so someone might

(02:48):
not take it.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
It becomes art once you draw on it.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, and then you can, you know, stick it on
a wall in charge eight million.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Dollars for it. Is ridiculous, Elizabeth, You know what else
is ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (03:02):
I would love to know.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, Okay, there's this guy named Crazy Mike and he
that's ridiculous. He's a stuntman. That's not the ridiculous part.
He has a brother, also a stuntman. He's named High
Flying Ryan.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Wait, Crazy Mike and Flying Ryan. Oh, Mama, tried.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Still not the ridiculous part. It looks like it right,
it's like right on the face of it, But Nope.
To get all the way there will require motorcycles, fire stunts,
bank robbery, and the FBI. Wow.

Speaker 5 (03:32):
Yeah, This is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and

(03:58):
outrageous capers, hi and cons.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous. Live Moss, Elizabeth Live Moss. As you know, Elizabeth,
I always wanted to be a stunt man. I talked
about this like for real, for real, we.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Call you an amateur stunt man.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yes, exactly, because I don't get paid for what I do. Now,
my heroes in the Blockbuster movies, those who do get paid,
those in the action films, the guys who always you know,
they took the real falls, the dudes who actually jump
from the building or building the building, the crazy cats
who drive real fast crash cars professionally my heroes, right, yeah,
And I'm not alone in this because my man Crazy
Mike and his brother hy flyin Ryan, they felt the same. Elizabeth.

(04:40):
Now you have a brother, I have a sister. We
both grew up with siblings. Did you and your brother
Trev ever get into like the stuntman life, Like do
you ever make crash pads and jump out of windows
or like every two two of you were like ride
down a stairs in a cardboard box.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah, we did a lot of dumb stuff like that.
We did. We built a BMX jump that was like
a piece of supply wood and what was elevating the
one end was like firewood.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Oh, lord. Oh yeah, we did that.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, that's how I broke my wrist.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
I bet you did.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
And then on like a ten speed Oh.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
God, I jumped on it firewood rolls.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, yeah, and that it does. And we also we
shared a bedroom we were really young, and uh we
hit There were these two twin beds and we would
each jump on them and then jump from one to
the other in high five in the middle. Yeah, and
then we broke them and then my mom Yeah, and
my mom was like, well, now you sleep on a
broken bed, like it's all slanted, because that's what you know,

(05:37):
that's what you get. So yeah, we did a little stunt.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah right now by my sister, uh, she's younger, so
she had to come like basically listen to my ideas
what I came up with. For example, once I asked
her she had this like a green plastic worm that
had wheels and she'd push it around because she's barely
walking at this point, and I convinced her to ride
that down a flight of stairs.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Oh god.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Oh yeah. She still talks about it to this day,
like apparently it's a very formative event for her. The
infamous steroide with my green worm I'm like, when will
you forgive me? My point is, Elizabeth, like, when you
have a brother, a sibling, a sister in my case,
you often can like kind of gin each other up
in a way. The people without siblings just don't really understand.
They have nobody with a bad idea going we got

(06:19):
to do this.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, well, and then you have this just like you know,
you don't worry about getting hurt and that kind of
My mom always said that we were like bear cubs,
tumbling around and doing crazy stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Completely.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
My mother always called us like insurance risks. That's when
she called us.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
We spent a lot of time in the ear.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Oh my god, yes, Saturdays in the ear. So you
and your brother also loved you. Guys were like us
in this regard. You love the TV show The Fall Guy.
Right reruns of that show. You've told me that you
you can sing the song? Do you do remember it?

Speaker 3 (06:50):
I remember it. I can't sing it right now.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
I'm not asking you, but you can sing it, like.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, this weird talent where either like an eighties t
TV theme song or a song like a eighties, nineties,
mostly eighties, someone mentions it and then I can just
start reciting the lyrics.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
You're uncanny. I've seen you do it here in h
Q when you're like someone will like mention a lyric,
or you hear a song and all of a sudden
you just start singing along.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, I went. I went pretty hard on ice Ice Babies.
But it was a very like intense reading of it.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yes, theatrical, very theatrical.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
No.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Oh, speaking of did you see the new movie version
of The Fall Guy?

Speaker 3 (07:31):
I did not, but I know that, Like I figured
that was made specifically for you pretty much.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
But you know Ryan Gosling, right, not personally, but I
know of him. Could you favor a little impression of
Ryan Gosling?

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Oh? Wow? Okay, yeah, I won three awards for this.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Oh. I don't mean to brag on.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
You, okay, but by Ryan Gostling and I got a
bright olbrow.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, I'm glad you called attention to best.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
That's all he talks about her is eyebrow.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
See's either that or his abs. I'm like, oh, dude, ibros, abs,
Like where do we put our eyes?

Speaker 3 (08:11):
He's one of the many Ryan's.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
So many Ryan's, although few were these days.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
The reason I asked you to do an impression of
him and the reason I wanted to talk about the
fall Guy and just being stunt children is I wanted
to get your mind right for today's story of Crazy
Mike and High Flying Ryan stuntman brothers. Yeah, crazy Mike
born in nineteen eighty seven. Crazy Mike is not what
his parents named him. Yeah, it's a stunt man named
Elizabeth Government named Michael Gaboff. Now. His brother, high Flying Ryan,

(08:38):
also not what his parents named him. They named him
high Flying gab Off. No, they named him Ryan gab Off.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Now I was kind of hoping that Ryan wasn't his name.
It was like, you know, Flenge, I just want to
be Ryan.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Do you name the products at IKEA?

Speaker 6 (08:55):
I do?

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Be real with me? You do? You have such a
gift for the like I'm to put a couple of constants
together in a.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
J just called culture.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Ye'm sorry, Can let me sweat your flow? Now? These
two cats, the gab Off brothers, high Flying Ryan and
Crazy Mike, raised in New Jersey, starting out from a
young age, obviously, they found that they both love to
pull off heroic stunts, right, crazy dumb stunts, the kind
you pull when you have a brother close cousin, neighbor,
someone who's just as crazy as you are. Check out
their past work. I went and watched a YouTube video

(09:26):
that they had and had a bunch of them when
they were a kids, because apparently they were of the
age where they filmed like they had early VHS cameras,
then later on like you know, digital cameras, so they
just filmed everything, right, So they made this compilation edit
if you will. But it's also it's a documentary because
there's a story. I'll get into that later. The but
the documentary is called Crazy Mike is Dead. No he's not.

(09:49):
But that's the title. It's a grabby title, right yeah,
right now, Elizabeth. The documentary movie. It starts with a
disclaimer that YouTube has previously taken down the video because
said video quote violates our child safety policy.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Whether that happened or not. That's a really great way
to start.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
It off, totally. I mean, that is a marketing they're
trying to keep this.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Tell you, guys, iHeart didn't want us to hear this
episode doing it anyway.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Rebels like that. Now, the children at risk in this
video or obviously crazy Mike and high flying Ryan, right,
they weren't like getting other kids. Now, this video that
I watched as thirteen thousand views, so you know, just
getting good audience but not a huge one. But anyway,
this documentary pretty much recounts not just Crazy Mike's like, uh,
you know, their childhood, but like it's pretty much his
whole life. And he's a young guy, so it's not

(10:35):
a like, you know, not it's an hour and a
half movies when I'm basically trying to point out to
you good documentary. But mostly it recounts early on how
Crazy Mike High Flying Ryan become these stuntman brothers. Five
years old. His mother dubbed one crazy Mike because he
was that boy.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Right, his mom's the one who gives she gave.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Him the name.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, he was always throwing himself down the stairs, off
the couch, right. And then along comes brother baby brother,
pretty much the same. Soon enough, it's Crazy Mike High
Flying Ryan. Now the brothers Crazy Mike, High Flying Ryan.
They also have a big sister, Lindsey. No name for her, right,
but not that I could find. Maybe we'll call her
Lucky Lindsay. Alright, so Lucky Lindsay. The way she remembers
that her brothers were pretty much attached at the hip

(11:14):
like a pair of can joined twins, is how she
put it.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
How far apart in years were they? Do you know?

Speaker 2 (11:18):
No, I do not know a couple of years, but
based on how they look, a couple of years, I
do not know. She also connects that it was their
father who used to like jump four wheelers and drive
demolition derbies.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Oh well it is.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
He was the source of the boys crazy, all of stunts. Yeah,
and then we cut to footage of the like the
father who calls himself awesome, allan.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Awesome, his whole family is so good.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
So awesome. Alan standing in front of a totally wrecked
seventy two oldsmobile. He's clutching a trophy right from and
he's like he's won a demolition derby. And he's telling
this interviewer for like, I don't know, a public access
station in New Jersey and like eighty one or something.
It feels great. I'll split this couple six packs from
my buddies, we'll fix another car. We'll be down here
at the next derby.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Can I tell you something? I love a demolition derby?
Same girl, There's so fun.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
This is the best I'm surprised to hear you say
that kind of.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
I you know the there's one at the Yolo County
four Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
One that no, I know that one the one of
the best.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
It's so that I have a T shirt.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Do you do you go merch? I do so awesome.
Allen are like demolition derby expert will say, but driver
really he raises his boys to enjoy motorsports as toys.
So the brothers they ride four wheelers, dirt bikes, motorcycles,
jet skis. If it goes fast, they want to try it. Awesome.
Allen's like, get on boys, Hi flying Ryan. He puts it, quote,

(12:40):
we discovered adrenaline at a young age. Then after that.
So you have to keep in mind he's born in
eighty seven to crazy Mike, So by this point he's
like at thirteen and when at two thousand, right right,
Everything in two thousand, if you really take a look back,
was kind of extreme and insane for a thirteen year
old boy.

Speaker 6 (12:57):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
For instance, he next gets into backyard wrestling. Oh do
you know backyard wrestling? Do you remember the backyard wrestling videos?

Speaker 7 (13:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Like that. Boys would record videos of themselves like mostly
like in like Oklahoma, Southern Indiana, right, and some insane
wrestling moves like off of like a roof for a barn,
and then onto another kid who they would then go
through like a piece of wood and break it. Yeah,
maybe like on saw horses, or maybe just a table
or like their mother's old furniture, a car hood, whatever,
and they're doing like body slams. One of the kids

(13:26):
would have like their arm wrapped in barbed wire, right
jumping off the family home. Oh yeah, that's what a
backyard wrestling was nuts.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
There'd be a a kid would jump with another kid
onto like those metal trash cans that kind of you
can kind of bend and fold right exactly, and then
they would land on like a bed of broken glass.
I mean it was nuts. Uugh yeah, wait, it was
stupid insane.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
This is like the Jackass exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Two thousand, early two thousands, right, crazy Mike, high flying Ryan,
they go full tilt backyard wrestling dangerous limits. I'm telling you.
One friend remembered and I quote Mike was one of
the high usually found Mike going through multiple tables off
of a roof. Multiple tables, so imagine like those like
you know, tables for like a an outdoor event, those
plastic fold up condat just stack three high and then

(14:11):
a kid jumps off a roof and goes co kung fold.
That's the stuff, right. Another friend he recalled how quote
you'd see a shed that's fifteen feet in the air
and it goes without saying, you know, oh god, Mike's
gonna jump off of this. Of course he did. So
crazy Mike, he goes full dollar store jackass. Right. He
starts filming everything he and his friends are doing and

(14:31):
his brother Hi Falan Ryan are getting into around the
Greater New Jersey area.

Speaker 6 (14:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, So, as I said, this is the same stuff
that's like the Big Brother videos, the Bammar Jerra videos
that are like would lead to jackass and the high
I'm Johnny Knoxville, Welcome to Jackass.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, I guess Jacks totally familiar with those. I used
to live with BMX riders. Oh you know this, and
we would watch I always like when they'd watch videos,
they'd be like, put on the ones where they all
crack exactly. Do you like the Dead Sailor? And they yeah,
so I'm familiar with that genre.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
I thought you would be so crazy Mike and high
Flying Ryan. They are doing all these same things teen boys,
though like the younger version, they're looking up to these
the other guys who were like older teens and twenty
year olds. Right, it's all the while Crazy Mike is
also dreaming of fame and stardom in Hollywood, of course. Yeah, right,
So let's take a little break and after these fresh

(15:24):
out of the oven ads, Elizabeth, I'll tell you how
Crazy Mike becomes a real lifestunt man.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
I love this, and we're back a little Where were we, Mike?

Speaker 2 (15:54):
Oh, that's Hollywood, New Jersey circa two thousand, before we
get to Hollywood Prime Jackass years more of these oh
innocent times. Crazy Mike continues to get better as an
amateur teenage stuntman. Right, there's footage of him doing the
car flying that I've told you about with my buddy Jay, Right, Like,
I'm on top of a car and someone he Jay
slammed the brakes and I go flying. Yeah, he created

(16:16):
I could do it a little differently. He would sit
on the hood of the car, like right up against
the glass windshield, and then his friend would slam on
the brakes and you go flying into like a bush
or whatever, right, a little less dramatic, but I'm like,
it's also more dangerous. I'm like, oh, you don't want
to be okay, you want.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
To Why is that more dangerous than you being on
the top of the car.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Because I would get up going really fast, and then
when he hit the brakes, I would go flying clear
of the car. He's basically in front of the car.
They're going much slower. And then when they because he
doesn't have to go as far right, so I'm essentially
getting up to a speed. When my friend hits the brakes,
we're separating me in the car. He's hitting the brakes
and the car's like going twenty miles an hour, so
like he could kind of fall in front of it,

(16:55):
right right, right, Oh man, That's how I was seeing it. Anyway.
My point is is that, like you know, I would
superman fly like hands in front of me, like through
the air, and then I'd hit and roll. He was
just like flinging himself.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Just what we're figuring out is that you were a
superior amateur stuntman.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
I just I think I studied it more honestly, Like
I mean, Yakim Uncanna, the stuntman who taught like John
Wayne how to be a John Wayne like. He basically
he meets his guy who's this like a real life
cowboy who's gone down to Hollywood, and he ends up
becoming a stunt man. First he's an actor, then they
make the talkies, and so Yaki Muchanna can't make the

(17:33):
transition into the talkies. Who becomes a stunt man. And
then you know, John Wayne steals his walk, his look,
his attitude, everything you see that that that hip walk
that he does, that's all Yaka Muchanna, the way he talks,
the draw Because John Wayne is from Iowa, he's Maryan Morrison.
So he goes out there and he basically has to
become a cowboy. He becomes Yaka mccannon. I studied that
guy when I was a teenager, So I think these

(17:54):
guys were studying Jackass when I was studying the original stuntman. Yeah, exactly,
this one is uh. I like this kid though, right?

Speaker 3 (18:02):
He seems fun?

Speaker 2 (18:02):
So what comes next for all crazy Mic? Great question, Elizabeth,
way to stick with me? Cut to older teen crazy
Mike jumping off of the roof with a table umbrella
as his parachute. You know, what what you hold? You
can push him up right? Yeah, for a backyard patios.
He jumps off a roof, holding that like it's a parachute.
Ain't gonna work, bro, it doesn't work too. Oh yeah,

(18:24):
it hits him. Cut to Crazy Mike jumping off a
brick wall onto the hood of a park GMC Jimmy,
why I don't know, teenage friend of Crazy Mics. He
would recall how at this point they're filming everything they did,
so they're this this free floating carnival of pain and
high jinks. As this friend put a quote, every night,
either someone was getting hurt or someone was getting arrested.

(18:45):
The cops showed up, Moura, then the people showed up
like they're inviting people to watch them do stunts in
a parking lot, and then the cops show up. So
his brother Hi, Flying Ryan. He also recalled about this
point in their life that the brothers quote didn't care
about the law. We knew what the law was. We
knew what we were doing was illegal. They're bad boys.

(19:05):
Cut Too Crazy Mic throwing a rock through the windshield
of a big yellow earth mover. Cut Too Crazy Mic
riding a BMX bike naked with just a ballaklava face mask.
Right back to high Flying Ryan. We didn't care about anything.
We didn't care about anyone. We didn't even care about ourselves.
No kidding really, for real, heart, what.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
There is that attitude like that? I lived with. Yes,
I drove to the er a bunch of times.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Let's go get stitches. Yeah, but it was like.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
You didn't fear that.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
They didn't think that.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
No, pain is like good skaters BMX bike the guys
who crash a lot. The pain you realize doesn't really
hurt if it's not like the back of your head.
You know, some things really do hurt. A lot of things,
just like I gotta go get that research.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
It's worth it for the experience of doing. Yes.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Now, these brothers also they love to compete because they're brothers,
all right. So they're scrapping and wrestling and fighting, but
they also get into boxing and fistfighting, always trying to
outdo each other. The only thing that seems to really
bring them together is the stunts. Like, you know, everything
else is like this brotherly like antagonism. Now, in two
thousand and three, a teenage spiky haired crazy Mike he
looks like at this point, the singer of crazy Town,

(20:15):
the guy did that song Butterfly, right, Yeah, like when
they were young, Like yeah, just like it's like.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
He looks like he's early on the bill on a
warped tour.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, and exactly early on the bill on warp tour
is exactly what Crazy going for too, Yeah, exactly. It's
Sonny out and hot. So this guy Crazy Mike. He
says it in two thousand and three about his high jinks,
and I quote, I just do stunts because I like
doing stunts. If I see a good roof to jump
off of, into a good tree, into a good pool,

(20:48):
into a pond, or even with my bicycle, I'm gonna
do it because just because it's there now, Elizabeth, you
may recall this is exactly what Sir Edmund Hillary said
about climbing Mount Everest. But he was a first Western
to climate back in nineteen fifty three. Folks asked him
why would he want to undertake such an insane challenge

(21:08):
to climb a mountain whose peak is higher than the clouds.
Then Sir Edmund Hillary said, because it is there now,
Except he didn't really say that. I looked it up
it's actually a different climber, George Leigh Mallory, who said
in the nineteen twenties, but he also never made it
to the summit because he disappeared on Everest.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
Because they have lady surnames, they get exactly so people anyway,
point is just like a great heroic and famous mountain climber.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
My man crazy Mike is also compelled to do something
simply because it's there. Now. The fact that something exists
is enough to compel them once again to do battle
with gravity. So fellow stunt man Leroy Patterson wanted to
put it in more elevated terms. He said, and I quote,
I like to thank them. We're all cut from the
same cloth, all the stunt people. You know, we do
what we do for a reason that most people don't understand.

(21:56):
I understand, Elizabeth. I'm one of those rare folks. And
I gotta say I agree with him. You kind of
nailed it before. There is a sensation of feeling. Yeah,
the adrenaline junkie thing is true. But the one thing
that killed me watching all the old footage of teenage
crazy Mic and hype flyinge Ryan is how bad they
were learning from their past failures.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Oh that's frustrating.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
They don't get any better. They just keep doing the
same dumb thing. It's driving me nuts watching it. I'm like, guys, guys,
it was painful to watch, Like you wouldn't be able
to watch the footage, like the way you know your
sympathetic system.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
And like the thing is, when I was younger, I
didn't have that problem. I loved watching the BMX stress videos.
I thought they were amazing. And then something happened.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
You became sensitive to life, things became real.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, and then now if I see those, I get
the pains in my legs.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
I can't watch your brain finished developing. That was it,
you know, those sympathetic pain reactions you get to watching this, Yeah,
you would have been vomiting on like on the floor
by seven minutes into this video.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
It was so many things, so.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Crazy, Mike, high flying Ryan. They just to keep they say,
they keep doing just the worst and stunts ever, like
zero safety protocols in mind, but total commitment, commitment, slim
margin of error too. It's got to like you gotta
right there, like if they if they miss, it's just
like there's nowhere else to hit.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Well, And if they're not honing their technique. That's terrifying.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh god by So by the way, as I said earlier,
like they're a slim margin of error and there's zero
safety protocols. They're crash pads. They would always be improperly placed,
like to do any real help. So it'd be like like,
for instance, their flight passed, like when they're planning how
they're going to jump, the flight pass are almost always
straight down, Like they jump out of a window and
go straight down. Like if I jump out of the window,
I'm able to get like ten twelve, fourteen feet please,

(23:36):
so I can hit and roll and spend some of
that energy from the drop they do physics, They just
drop straight down. That's a great way to break an ankle, right,
which they do, so they just get They break elbows, ankles, denting.
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
They have all the bones. I've broken. The nickel is like.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
That's a bad one, the worst. Yeah, yeah, well you
breaking knee. That's also a real past just located. But
there's some other ones. Yeah, your brother can tell you
about that.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
One, right, Travis dislocated his hip.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, but he's got My advice to these brothers, if
you're going to pick a fight with gravity, you gotta
spend some time in the dojo, you know, like they
do not, but they give a luck in young bones
to carry them through, which I've been there, I've done that.
But eventually anyway, Hey, there's this one footage. Oh my god,
I wanted to tell you about this. Okay, this is
a perfect example. Cut to some friend of theirs driving

(24:22):
a quarter pipe down a suburban street. And by driving
a quarter pipe, I mean they're pushing it with a car, right,
And then you see crazy Mike driving a riding rather
a dirt bike at the ramp and he launches himself
over the car. Now do you think he lands it?
Of course doesn't land it just bails hard on the
street once again straight down.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Doesn't like there's no landing plan.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
No, no, no, just like jump the car and can
I do this?

Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah? We talk about this with criminals. They don't think
about the other side of it.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
How do I land this and keep all my teeth? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (24:56):
So he went at speed toward a a quarterpipe.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Had a quarter pipe between them. Yes, hit the quarter
pipe goes over it. Now cut the crazy mic Ice
skating the street by hanging off the driver's side door
of a pickup truck, just on his shoes. There's no ice.
Just seeing those videos like Saury Arabian, Yeah, the Gulf States,
they can do it. They figured it out. They're hanging
off cars that are on two wheels on that angle.
They're doing all all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
I do like those videos.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Oh my god, yeah them I a video and they're
they're sitting there like respecting the physics. You watch it.
They're balancing their low. It's amazing stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
That was the last like m I a that I
listened to. She's gone crazy all.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
The way off the deep end. Yeah so uh Elizabeth,
As I pointed out the stunts, they bothered me because
he never seems to learn from them. It's just over
and over again. He won't even learn from nature, like
the one of the Capitol End. Like I'm like, Naser
won't allow.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
You to do this.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Like there's there's an example a right cut to crazy
Mike jumping a BMX bike off of the roof of
a school. It looks like down onto frozen wintertime grass. No, right,
there's no know something about frozen wintertime grass. The soil
is going to be hard. There's not like the springy
grass of the summer where it's moisture in there from
the rains. In said, you got basically concrete with lighting.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
It's the heavy sliding. I've seen guys ride BMX.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
You know school, Yeah, you know how to land those things.
You can't do it on icy downhill grass. Do you
think he lands it? Of course doesn't land in Elizabeth,
and Steady snaps an ankle, rolls down the hill and
then the bike ragged alls away from him. So Elizabeth,
consider the inspiration, like if you're going to do this
kind of stuff, like if you're going to jump off
a roof or jump off a car, you gotta considered

(26:33):
nature right right. The flying squirrel shows us how to
negotiate the air as a mammal with the wings, you
have to spread out, get get as much resistance air resistance,
going spot your landing, and then hit and roll. They
don't hit and roll, but that's us. We have to
hit and roll this guy. He just goes up and
then comes down.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
But you're a good amateur stunt man because you're very
nimble and you have good spatial awareness. And it sounds
like they do not no, no, like they.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Do like backflips off the roof onto a pile of snow.
Then so then sometimes they go rotate too far, hit
their face. They jump straight down, as they said, out
of second story windows. I mean, yes, I know you're
a kid, but you're also doing hundreds of stunts, like
you've got to learn from some of these. Don't you
two idiots learn anything? Yeah, I mean you've crashed through tables, ladderfalls,
window jumps cars, and then they end up bruising ribs,

(27:20):
twisting ankles, concussing brain pants. No learning occurring anyway. But
eventually the law enters the picture and they're like, we'll
help you learn a lesson. So now you see, not
only with crazy Mike filming all his bone jarring escapades,
who's also recording his and his friend's juvenile suburban crime spreeze.
Then they would edit them together, videotape, yell all their stunts,
their pranks, late night crime sprees, and they would sell

(27:41):
them at school.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Oh good, as Elizabeth didn't take.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Long for Crazy Mike's home movies to become the must
have item at his local New Jersey school. That's kind
of amazing, right then, that gets the other kind of attention.
School administrators hear about it, They learn about the tapes,
and then one gets handed over to them. They handed
over to the police, as high flying Ryan remembers it.
Of course, the tapes got into the wrong hands, and
the next thing you know, the police are at the
school taking us all into separate rooms, interviewing us because

(28:09):
they saw stuff that young people shouldn't be doing.

Speaker 6 (28:13):
Crime.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
It's like young Elizabeth holding the tape being like, I feel.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
I have to save them from themselves. One of them's
gonna die.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Clerk.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, I mean you need to see that the video
power nerd and away, but protecting your people exactly. So,
once they document their crimes and then pass out the
evidence to their friends' entertainment, boom. Now the family has
to hire a lawyer because the gay Bop brothers are
charged with in decent acts due to one shot, which
I assume is the one shot off crazy Mike streaking

(28:48):
a basketball game. You're gonna be a sexual offender. We're
gonna put you on the list and stuff.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
They know.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
But they did then they that's what.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
They say, saying. Yeah, but like back in the day,
they didn't. They didn't charge street.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
No, no, so they did not, you're right about that.
They kick him out of school. Yeah, so then he
has to go to five different schools in a four
year period. They just keep kicking him out of schools.
He's poor month oh yeah, oh yeah. So after high school,
Crazy Mike is finally free to go after his dreams.
Now he can go to Hollywood, get into the pictures.
He's well trained. Yeah, he plans to become a real,
full fledged stuntman. But so, but first he's gonna go

(29:23):
to film school because he realized that's important. He wants
to make movies. So the first time ever he excels
in school. He's doing what he loves, movies, stunts, filming everything.
No police are getting mad at him. He's a professional daredevil,
basically a film producer or real life stunt man. He's
doing it. So he and high Fly and Ryan they
start we play crazy productions. Okay, we play crazy Elizabeth.

(29:45):
They filmed stunts, extreme sports, anything that can kind of,
you know, excite an audience. And then they make these
videos and they catch the attention of their industry. One producer,
this guy, Steve Schlitz or Schliz, He recalls me, first
saw crazy Mike's videos, and I was like, this guy's
a maniac. I mean, Katie's definitely crazy. Crazy. Mike definitely

(30:06):
stands out of a crowd. Right, So that's his impression.
He's making industry name for himself.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Cut too crazy mic saying he's gonna do a backflip
on a dirt bike. He guns the throttle, races a
poorly constructed and oh badly placed ramp, rolls off the ramp,
does the backflip. Does he land at Elizabeth? No, doesn't
land it. The dirt bike comes down, smacks him in
the head. He lands on top of a pile of
dirt and the bike lands on top of him. The
brand Echo Seasons are like, this guy, he's great, he

(30:32):
gets attention, so they sign him to be a content
creator for them. Oh, he starts producing videos of him
and his buddies from We Play Crazy. Right. So, imagine
two young dudes dressed as like college football mascots running
around in a field in you know, America, except they're
also on fire and they're running to a pond to
be able to put out the fire. That's a crazy
mic joint.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
I feel like I feel like Johnny Knoxville has like
a cease and desist in his pocket for this.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Yeah, they're doing the waves. The wave is so great
though that people at this point they're not gonna end. Yeah,
because also Jackass was kind of an imitating imitation of
some stuff that was going on in the culture and
skateboard videos, so it was a culmination. But so they're like, oh,
this is just the culture, right, and there they are
the like w c W wrestling to WWE, they are

(31:20):
the bitter. But it's all just a little bit exactly so.
And also, as I said early two thousands, right finger
on the pulse of this zeitgeist. He has got it.
I mean when you watch his videos, if I played him,
you could just hear the corn and Limp biscuit playing
over the video at it. Yeah, right, Like do you
like a good God Smack soundtrack, Cause they've got you covered.

(31:41):
So at this point, Crazy, Mike, Hyfelin, Ryan, the rest
of them we played Crazy crew are showing up on
late night clip shows right of the lesser legacy broadcasting
companies like upn Spike, Spike TV. Right yeah, right, so
they make it also eventually onto MTV's ridiculousness very fit, right,
They got some clips former skater Rob dry Deck, who's

(32:02):
like runs that he has about the same reaction I
do to seeing a Crazy Mike stunt and his safety
prep for it break. I'm not sure if you know
the show, he'll had like a panel of gas. Right,
they do a clip right, so he's got this panel
of guests the studio audience. Rob plays a clip of
Crazy Mike jumping a motorbike off of the steep embankment
into like a red clay ravine. Rob Drydeck is like,

(32:22):
here we go, We're just out here and boom we
see Crazy Mic gun it off the edge. Then he
ditches the bike in midair as is his way. Then
he plummets and crashed lands and what looks like a
mound of like I said, just earth like it looks
like tailings from a mining operation.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Little John who's on the panel all of the ridiculousness,
he's watching this with stuned disbelief, like, oh no, right,
and then Rob dry Deck is like, there's no water, there,
there's no sand, there's no foam pit, there's no girls,
there's no nothing, right, none of the fasts.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
He's gonna land on a pile of girls. No sand,
no foam, no pile of girl.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
They're kind of softly eight year old girls. So none
of these facts top Crazy Mike. Not even gravity can
stop them. So what do they do now? These guys
they make movies. Of course. Their first movie is called
Hella Crazy.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Oh yeah. At this point we're in box office success.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Two thousand and six, big full on Bush ears like
very America WWE is huge. To put it in musical terms,
Elizabeth missed. New Booty by Bubba Sparks is at the
top of the music charts.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Only bigger hit that year is Crazy by NARLS. Barkley.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Oh no, yeah, so just look at.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Your mind, right yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
What a terrible, terrible time.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
A more innocent nation. Kind. So their movie Hella Crazy,
which is just a super cut of all their craziest
stunts and fails it. It's edited to a new metal soundtrack, right,
so it fits right in there. It's a hit. Now
like at the box office, they're selling DVDs online in
independent stores, skate shops, some music shops, head shops, that
kind of place. But two thousand and eight, Hella Crazy

(33:59):
is sold so well well enough that they secure a
distribution deal to put their DVDs now in Target, Circuit City,
best Buy, Barnes and Noble will sell Hella Crazy. Elizabeth.
Oh yeah, they move enough units to make Hella Crazy
two still crazy. Okay, I added that last part it's
just called crazy two, but that one also a financial hit.
So they make Hella Crazy three crazy as I want

(34:21):
to be again last part. Guy added that finally Hella
Crazy four to Hella too Crazy thing again.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
Me.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
Sorry, but I can't help myself. The series gets some heat, right,
infamous publisher of Hustler magazine, Larry Flint. Yeah, he sees
the work. He gives some praise. He calls Crazy Mike's
work it's like Jackass on drugs. I think he met
that as a compliment. Anyway. The extreme sports fans, the skaters,
the pop punk kids, what's left of the new metal crowd,
even the new emo kids, they all love Hella Crazy.

(34:50):
Anyone who's like, oh I love backyard wrestling. This is
like backyard wrestling but even better. Yeah, so they go
nuts to watch Crazy Mike put it all out there
for the fans. Elizabeth. There are so many clips that
would have made you empathetically vomit. We'll get into the clips.
Just imagine they're hell crazy. So anyway, Crazy Mike he's
on the come up pretty soon. It's going to be
full on like Jimmy Cagney and White Heat, like Crazy

(35:11):
Mic out there made him up top of the world. Right,
he's getting really cocky at this point, right, he's getting
really loud. He's trying to get a lot of attention.
They start showing up on like Doctor Phil.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Wait, yeah, you can't.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
You remember he's doing he's selling clips. People are starting
to become aware of him. So, yeah, can you get
anything more early two thousands than Doctor Phil. Let's take
a little break. I'll let you think about that. When
we get back. I'll tell you why he was on
Doctor Philka all right, Elizabeth, I promise you Doctor Phil. Yeah,

(35:57):
all right, picture the Doctor Phil set crazy spiky hair, right,
blonde tips. Doctor Phil has them on for a public intervention.
We're gonna stop Crazy Mike. That's the call. Doctor Phil
has experts on doctors to try real doctors to try
to convince crazy Mike to stop doing his crazy stunts
and wrecking his body. Okay, because I also, I would add,
because you're bad at them. Yeah, but in his own defense,

(36:19):
crazy Mike tells the audience and specifically doctor Phil, how
do I getting hurt? You know? Like, I mean this,
this makes me happy. It's like a drug. Stunts are
like a drug to me. It's like it's my cocaine.
I need it to do it to live. I need
that adrenaline rush to live. I try to take safety precautions. Yeah,
I might not be professional, but I'm taking safety and

(36:40):
precaution now, Doctor Sphil says in a sarcastic way. Yeah,
we all saw the safety protocols with the vending machine
right now. The vending machine. It was this super viral clip.
It's why he's on Doctor Phil. Crazy Mike does a
backflip off of a vending machine. But get this, he
doesn't landed, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Oh you're kidding.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
He smacks the hell out of his face against the pavement. Ah,
this brain genius does the same stunt again, and get this, Elizabeth,
Crazy Mike didn't land it again, but he did yet
again smack his brains against the concrete and then he
knocks himself out. So this viral video lands him on
doctor Phil for the public intervention, and again in his
own defense, Crazy Mike tells Doctor Phil, in order to
be old and wise, first you have to be young

(37:19):
and stupid. So Doctor Phil's rebutted, well, that's just stupid.
So around the same time, DVDs they stop selling, right,
just as a market now because people can illegally download
Hello Crazy three and Hello Crazy four for free online.
So what's the crazy Mike to do?

Speaker 3 (37:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Takes his act to the people. They start doing live events.
Cut to Girls Gone Wild style footage, but young men
doing violence to their own bodies, calling it stunts and pranks.
Right again, Elizabeth, I will spare you any of the
graphic descriptions of what went down at a We Play
Crazy live event, but there is this one video love
high flying Ryan standing in a field. Okay, then you

(37:58):
see this Dodge Econo line van barreling right at him.
Strapped to the front of the van are like two
children's mattresses, two children, no, two children's mattresses, like a
little and then the van just runs into him and
kind of over him, and they both smash into a
pyramid of empty cardboard boxes.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Wait, he just got hit by a van. Watched we
get hit by a van.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Safety and precaution, the crowd goes wild. So their live
events typically featured also some oil wrestling on an air
mattress platform. So you got two women in bikinis doing
oil wrestling, and then I never saw men doing it.
I didn't see any men because of course the men
were involved in the boxing Gloved Fight Club, So just
two guys in a field punching each other. Now for

(38:40):
live music, they had their own We Play Crazy official band.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Yeah they Toxic Masculinity, Yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
It's why high Fly and Ryan put it. We get
people entertainment, no matter what it is, no matter so there, no,
it's high Flying, Ryan recalls, I mean crazy. Mike was
a getting ready to move on from this because they
were successful. So he goes out to Hollywood, takes this
show on the road, and then, as his brother recalls,

(39:08):
it wasn't hard for him to get work. People wanted him.
He had talent, he had character, he knew he could
perform the stunt work. He was physically fit, he was
a good looking guy. He had agents lined up. People
wanted to manage him, right, That's the story. And then
came the ghost Rider too stunt. He goes out to Hollywood,
starts to become a success based on all the hell

(39:29):
of crazy success ye, and then comes the Ghostwriter Too stunt?
What is the ghost Rider Too? God?

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Please tell me.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Elizabeth, I'm so glad you asked that documentary Crazy Mike
is Dead, made by we played Crazy Productions. Well, I've
been quoting from it to a bunch And it opens
with Crazy Mike explaining this stunt to the viewer, the
one that he's going to perform, and Crazy Mike says,
I'm jumping my motorcycle over that Crazy Mike ramp in
a ghost Rider suit into that lake that's I'm not

(39:58):
gonna lie, only probably about five feet deep. Oh God, Elizabeth,
I forgot to mention. For this done, crazy Mike would
also be on fire. Well, the ghost Rider is on fire,
He's got to be on fire, so you know it's
a promotional event. April twenty first, twenty twelve, Crazy Mike
is in a desert east of Los Angeles working on
the promotional video for the sequel to ghost Rider Too.

(40:19):
The plan is for him to ride a motorcycle wall
on fire hit a super steep ramp but also super
short launch ramp and which Will jettis him, him and
the motorcycle high up into the air and he'll land
in the pond, which will extinguish the fire. I think
that's the general Cage would not approve. No, we would not.
The early safety concerns are not about the launch ramp,
which just looking at it, I had my safety concerns,

(40:42):
but it's not like what I would do. So anyway,
the most folks, they seem to be worried about the
shallowness of what they keep calling a lake, which is
actually a pond. It is a really small, shallow poddle. Yeah,
it's crazy. Mike pointed out. The pond is like five
feet at it at its deepest, right, they have like
guys walk out into it to measure how deep the
pond is. It is way out They're like, oh, let's
say it's up to my shoulders. I'm six feet, So

(41:03):
there you go. That's the measurements. Crazy Mike fires up
the motor onto the dirt bike. He takes a couple
of practice runs in shorts and running shoes. Once he
feels good about the speed he'll need to get going,
which looks to be something he's kind of just guessing at,
like there's no one on set that I can see,
like with a stunt schematic. There's nobody who's got the
speed grafts or some mock up of the physics of
the jump. It's just Crazy Mike going back and forth

(41:24):
a few times bred and he's like, okay, oh yeah,
I should be good. Ready to go over to wardrobe
for his costume, then over to hair and makeup. Once
he's got all in, all the all black leather of
the ghost Rider outfit, the chain around his chest, that's
where the production team is secreted a GoPro camera. Crazy
Mike holds his ghost Rider's skull head in his hands.

(41:45):
Right the production crew rolls sound.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
It's just a sea of flat build Fox baseball caps.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
At this point, I wish there were more of them.
I think some of them would have stopped so they
sink with the sound. With the clapboard, someone calls action.
Crazy Mike pulls on his rubber ghost Rider full on,
full head safety mask and this is it for the fire.
He climbs aboard his all black ghost Rider dirt bike.
He takes a few more practice runs, right if you

(42:12):
last minute wardrobe check with the costume, then all set
for the big stunt. Yeah, Crazy Mike comes tearing into
view on his dirt bike. He's on fire, flames are
licking the air behind him. He speeds towards the ramp.
He smashes through a set of long white fluorescent light bulbs,
because that's like a Hella Crazy signature move, like run
through fluorescent light bulbs. They go yeah, the sh so

(42:35):
they shatter into puffs of white, and then he's launched
off the ramp, goes in skyward Elizabeth, and then you
see Crazy Mike lose the dirt bike in midair, right,
because that's his signature move. I ain't gonna land this, yeah, Now,
Immediately people start to react. He's just left the ramp,
and you hear in the footage people they know this
is not how the stunt should be going. If he's

(42:56):
going right. Personally, having seen his stunt work, I can
I can't tell the difference to you going right, but whatever,
it looks like all of the stunts to me anyway,
he always ditches the bike right mid air. He never
lands it. So I'm like, I don't know, he's ditch
the bike, he's not gonna land it. But what I
can also see is he's going way too far into
the sky and too fast, so he's gonna clear the lake.
Oh no, so you hear people shouting, oh oh no, whoa,

(43:18):
and Crazy Mic is now plummeting like a rag doll
that's on fire. Uh huh, clears sailing over the lake right,
that's actually a pond. It seems to he went way
too fast off the ramp because I remember he different
and then practice that was it. So gravity wins their
long standing fight. My man, Crazy Mike drops about sixty
feet slams back down to earth like a modern Icarus.
It's bad, Like, I don't want you to worry about Elizabeth.

(43:40):
He's not dead. Crazy Mic is not dead. However, this
stunt is so poorly planned. There's no one hidden in
the tree line close by for the landing spot in
case something goes wrong. So no one's ready with a
fire extinguisher. No one's ready with the blankets. No no. Instead,
remember crazy Mike is he's on fire. He's still on fire.
So now he slammed into the ground on fire. Production
crew now is to make a panicked dash of like

(44:00):
sixty yards to get to them. Oh go, so, and
they're all like making they're all panicked. Now they're like,
oh my god, just running around chickens with their heads
cut off. The first people to reach them, they just
start kicking dirt and sand on the flames.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
He is rolling, Why aren't they rolling him?

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Finally folks reached with fire extinguishers, apparent they were slower runners,
and then and they didn't give the like they should
just give the fire singers the fastest crew. Not that right,
They managed about out the fire. Then they turned the
yell medic. Medic, Well, that's sure.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
You don't want to roll because he probably broke his neck.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Exactly, No, definitely, Like I'm losing it at this point, right,
worst safety crew for a big stunt I've ever seen,
just amateur hour clown show panic everywhere. Right, Anyway, they're rolling,
they're moving him like it's it's in everything. You don't
want to see.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
His CTE must be so bad.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, I hadn't even thought about that.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Yeah, his brain is just you know, the helmet.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
Helmet helped. It kept him from a traumatic brain injury.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Yeah. But like the number of times that he's crash, Yeah,
just like the shaking.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
He's basically an NFL athlete. I felt defensive yeah, so
Crazy is fine. The ambulance takes him away. He's banged
up real good though, right, this is his worst injuries yet.
His arm is all bent, all kinds of wrong. He's
lying there, moaning, half conscious, but he comes around. He
tries to fight the medics so he can get up.
He's like me, He's like the worst patient. They try
to keep him calm. They still trying to triage all

(45:19):
his injuries. All told, Elizabeth, he has a broken back,
a broken neck, a broken pelvis, two broken arms, a
broken collar bone, multiple broken ribs, collapsed both of his lungs,
and he has the second degree burns from the fire.
But he's not dead.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Does he have health insurance?

Speaker 2 (45:34):
And his helmet, as he told you, kept his brain
safe from the traumatic injury. But no, he does not
have health insurance. He's doing all of these stunts with
no health insurance. I just okay, Yeah, So the footage
of the medics treating him, you can hear someone say
he'd want you to film this, so of course they
record the entire thing. The paramedics rolling Crazy Mic onto

(45:56):
the backboard, stabilizing him, carding him off into the ambulance. Now,
after that stuff, goes horribly wrong. Life takes a dramatic
turn for Crazy monduse as you pointed out, he has
no health insurance and he's doing these stunts. As I said,
no health insurance America, right, which eventually has to file
a lawsuit against the ghostwriter to production company because he's
got like a million dollars in medical bills.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Yeah, of course, But I'm thinking if we had socialized
medicine with universal health care, I wouldn't want my tax
dollars going to his coverage stop.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
No, then what we can do with with everybody who
speeds and because there's so many people.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Who make risky decisions.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Just crazy Mike, you.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
Have a crazy Mic again.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Well, Crazy Mike's legal team they contended that the production
company for Sony, and they alleged that Sony's producers of
Break Media and Next Point, Inc. Were quote consciously chose
to proceed with the dangerous activity with a conscious disregard
of the safety of those observing the activity. I'm like,
I was reading it. I'm like, bro, you're serious. We're
crazy Mike. I mean, crazy Mic is not man. All
that was filmed. We all saw the prep. It's like,

(46:57):
there's no protocol. Clearly there was terrible say so the
lawsuit he loses. Cut to the present or close to
it twenty twenty two, ten years later, all right, where
is crazy Mike? Now, Elizabeth in a nursing home. Well
to answer that, I'd like you to close your eyes, al,
I'd like you to picture it. It's just before two

(47:17):
pm on a Monday afternoon in August, and you, Elizabeth,
are in Franklin Township, New Jersey. You recently moved to Franklin,
New Jersey for a new job. You took an offer
from a cousin. Now you're working at a Christmas tree farm.
You're in charge of the Douglas First, which you are
not your favorite Christmas tree, but a job is a job.
At the moment, you're standing in line in the local
Chase Manhattan Bank, it's been a long day and it's

(47:39):
only two pm. You wait with a few others. You're
trying to make it to a friend's house for a
dinner party. Just a few errands to run and then
you can pop home and relax. You're there to deposit
your first paycheck from the Christmas tree farm. The young
man ahead of you in mine is listening to his
music on his oversized headphones, loud enough that you can
actually wrap along with jay Z whenever you recognize a line.

(47:59):
Then you hear it. A motorcycle pulls up outside the bank.
A short moment later, the door to the bank opens
with the familiar chime of the bell. Then you hear
motorcycle boots on hard tile. You turn to look and
see if it's a big old biker. It's not. Instead,
you see a young motorcycle guy. He's about five seven.
He's in all black, black shirt, black pants, a black

(48:20):
helmet with a black visor, black on black on black.
The most importantly, he's also wearing a black face mask.
There's an open space for his eyes, but not even
his eyes are visible because they're covered by wait for it,
black goggles. You listen to his motorcycle boots on the
cold tile floor of the bank. As you do, the
man darn it, this is a robbery. Why does this
always happen to you, Elizabeth? The man in all black

(48:41):
walks past the line of waiting customers and heads right
up to a teller one who's busy with a customer,
a local plumber. When the customer turns and sees the
man in all black and his face mask. The middle
aged plumber lets out a tiny gas. The man in
all black doesn't speak. He slyly nods to the side.
The plumber understands. He steps away. You can't hear what
the robber is saying. All you can hear is muffled

(49:02):
jay Z. He sort of mouthed the words when jay
Z gets to allow me to reintroduce myself, my name
is ho oh h to the hovie. The bank robber
works his way down the line of tellers. You assume
he must have a gun, but you don't actually see it.
The tailers do as instructed. They hand over wads of
cash from their drawers. You mentally calculate how much this

(49:23):
payday could be might be Your best guess is maybe
thirty thousand dollars tops. But the man in all black
sure seems pleased with his tape. Shoves the money into
a small, loose sack, then like about like a half
sized pillow. Then he shoves that sack of cash into
his leather jacket zips up. He pulls his helmet down
over his head, but as he does, he knocks his
goggles loose. You see his eyes and they look kind

(49:45):
of familiar. You actually wonder if you know him. Why
does he look so familiar? The man in all black
doesn't hesitate. He rushes for the door, his boots slapping
at the cold, hard tile floor. No one stops him.
The double doors swing open, then swing back shut. The
bank robber gone. And that's when it hits you, and
you mutter to yourself, Hella, crazy four. You recognize the

(50:08):
man in all black from those dumb videos your old
roommate used to watch back when you worked for the
traveling circus. Outside the bank, you hear a motorcycle roar
of life and races away. As the sound fades away, Elizabeth,
you mutter to yourself under your breath, crazy Mike, is
that you okay? So after that mass bandit fled on
his motorcycle, the police of Franklin Township hopped to it

(50:31):
is sprung into action. First they established a perimeter, then
they called it in the FBI since it was a
bank robbery, right, so the field ages. They're quick to
their local cops aid, the FBI is there. They make
this search, but it's all for not. Bank robber escapes.
This begins Elizabeth, a three month investigation three months ninety days,
at the end of which the FBI local police they

(50:52):
have a solid suspect. They've worked their leads, and they
have a real live suspect. Guess who, Elizabeth, that's right,
one Mike gave aka Crazy Mike. On December second, a
little more than three months after the late August of robbery,
the FBI swat team from the Newark office raids the
gab Off home. Mike isn't there, and his family gives
misleading info about where he might be, try as they might,

(51:14):
though this head start doesn't last long. Crazy Mike is
subsequently arrested for the bank job. He's charged with second
degree robbery, second degree conspiracy to commit robbery, both felonies.
But that's not all. His father, Awesome Allen, his mother Sharon,
and his little brother Jesse Gabos Sassy Sharon, we're all
arrested for a third degree hindering. So wow, those charges
were later dropped. So what happened? Was it all? Because

(51:36):
the medical bills probably most likely right? Well to answer
that question, Elizabeth. Recently, Crazy Mike sat down for a
video interview to talk about robbing a bank in New Jersey. Yeah, now,
thirty seven years old, Crazy Mike, still wearing sunglasses and
still spiking his hair, explains to the camera how and
why he was arrested. But from his side of the

(51:56):
legal ledger quote on December, I was rudely awakened by
a police and they handcuffed me, saying I was arrested
for bank robbery. And yeah, I spent five days in
jail and I got released on this thing called pre
trial conditions. Now, the interviewer, I just asked them straight up,
did you rob a bank? Yeah, Crazy Mike says I

(52:17):
did not rob a bank. But then he clarifies, however,
my brother robbed a bank.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Oh, he puts it on Ryan.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
That's right, Elizabeth, it wasn't Crazy Mike. It was High
Flying Ryan. Back to Crazy Mike for more clarification. And
you know, some say I had like a slight involvement
in it. I have to be real careful of my
words because the case is still pending. And makes a video,
but to his credit, the video is no longer on YouTube.
I had to look public defender. Yeah. So it turns

(52:46):
out in April twenty twenty three, his brother, High Flying Ryan,
was arrested on the same charges of robbery and conspiracy
to commit robbery. It seems at most Crazy Mike may
have been involved in the getaway, or, as Crazy Mike
put it, by way, teasing the cop who was investigating him.
Another great choice when you're still in trial. I don't
know if Detective Grosso really thinks I was really the

(53:08):
ghetaway driver for this bank robbery. Detective Grosso, why would
I have my iPhone on me? Ye? Silly Goose?

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Is silly goose?

Speaker 2 (53:17):
That's a direct quote, direct quote. Now, did Crazy Mike
help hide his brother, High Flying Ryan?

Speaker 3 (53:23):
He sold him out?

Speaker 2 (53:25):
I don't know. I can't answer that question. But Crazy
Mike wasn't the man in all black that you saw. Oh,
in April of last year, his brother, High Flying Ryan,
peacefully surrendered to authorities.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
No word on his motive, so I don't know if
it's like his brother's medical costs or not. However, since
that's not the best Danu mal, I do have this
little fact for you, Elizabeth. I happened to know that
in twenty twenty two, Crazy Mike went back to the
desert to retry the same ghost Riders stop that nearly
killed him. No, yes, yes, yes, no stop in this one.

(53:55):
This time it's the adrenaline, baby, you got it. You
can't understand unless you feel I just can't. This time
the ramp looked even worse in my opinion. Give me
just shoot you straight up into the sky. Right at
the top of the plywood. Someone and it's also like anyway,
the top of the plywood, someone drew a red arrow
pointing at the sky and there's just one word destiny,

(54:15):
and people as you, oh my god, yes, and as
you heard me like practically sputtering a second ago. This
old school plywood ramp looks like something my friends and
I built when we were twelve, Like can you talk
about that ramp on the firewood? Yes, just a little
bit better. It's like when we go and take scrap
wood from them building homes and like old nails and
like make these little X frames and then try to
build a ramp. It's like that level of construction, and

(54:36):
it's all pot like ply with overlapping. It's like, all right,
I just put this here, and somebody's just like not
even attached. Just we just laid it on because there's
got some water here. Anyway, what do you think happens Elizabeth,
does he land this jump?

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (54:50):
Well, first the police arrive, they see what I see.
Someone else called in and then they showed up like,
oh Jesus, we got to talk to somebody, so they
nearly shut the stunt down. However, crazy Mike he uh,
is able to sweet talk the cops, and by sweet
talk I mean lie. He just straights up, tells him, oh, no,
we're not gonna jump that. No, I don't know. No,
We're just gonna setting up for photos and stuff. Right
then the cops are convinced. They decided to let Crazy

(55:11):
Mike be Crazy Mike, and they go away. So Elizabeth,
again I asked, does he land it?

Speaker 3 (55:16):
Yes? And then he flew off in with the angel destiny.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Well, I'll turn it over to crazy Mike. A gear up,
soak all my leathers with the water to prevent any burns.
Put conditioner all over my hair and face. I go
in the spot where I'm about to begin. I gas
my jacket up nice and carefully. Now, if you don't
have a gas in your jacket up, he's gonna be
on fire. So pouring gasoline on his leather jacket, and
the video shows him pouring gas out of a gatorade

(55:41):
bottle onto his jacket that's just lying on the cement,
all crumpled in different angle. It's not like a smooth
like we've applied this with a brush. It's even and
we we're gonna have vapors coming. No, it's just yea
some here, some there. Anyway, back to crazy Mike. He also,
I should tell you he's got a partner named mister
Stobb who's paying for this, so he'll come in into
the story in a second. Yeah, So back to Crazy Mike.

(56:02):
Mister Stobb says a prayer for me. I get on
the bike. He lights me, and I'm going I'm riding
as fast as that bike will go. And something came
out of my mouth that I didn't even control, saying,
what do you think? He said, Elizabeth, No, don't guess.
I'll tell you what I guess, he says, and I
quote I am the ghost Rider. And then as he

(56:27):
tells it, and.

Speaker 7 (56:28):
I hit that ramp full beast mode and I was
just flying felt like slow motion to me. Spotted the
water and I was like, whoa, that water seems so
far away from me right now? Who landed in the water?

Speaker 2 (56:41):
He landed at Elizabeth, Not really, he landed. He just
grabbed down the water. No biking him together again more accurately,
he watered it. So anyway, I got out of the
water so excited. The feeling that I had when I
got out of the water was pure bliss. This is
why I do this crazy shit. That is always why
I do this. It's crazy because I chase that feeling.

(57:04):
So there you go, straight from the jackass's mouth. Is
that why high Flying Ryan rob the bank? I cannot
tell you to build the ramp? I don't know. Maybe
the head, I think, though we do know it had
something to do with that feeling and perhaps a desperate
need for money, which is, you know, nothing to laugh at.
So I don't mean to make light of that. However,

(57:24):
crazy Mic and High Flying Ryan, they are ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
Oh definitely.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Man, do I love them for it?

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Definitely?

Speaker 2 (57:31):
So, Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous takeaway here?

Speaker 3 (57:33):
I'm curious as to their pain management protocols, like do
they have that's dangerous to be injured so many times?

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Completely? And yeah, so that's there was no mention in
the documentary, so I don't know if they have any
issues with that. Interesting, that's my ridiculous takeaway. Thank you
for asking, Elizabeth Is I you know I always tell
you this that like I consider myself kind of the edge,
Like if you are past me, I get work about you.
These guys were so far past me. I could barely
see him on the horizon. I was like, man, I'm

(58:05):
worried about them. Are they still there? Anyway? There you go.
That's all I have. Are you in the mood for
a talk back? Always well, producer d can you hook
us up? Oh? Oh my god, did you just see that?

Speaker 3 (58:24):
I let get.

Speaker 6 (58:28):
This is not a crime story, but it fits in
with your sense of humor.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
Period.

Speaker 6 (58:36):
I think you would enjoy looking into the life of
the Macho Man, a pro wrestler from the eighties period.
Hope you enjoy it, Period.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Well, thank you, Period. That was awesome. I ready you
know macho Man, he's an amazing wrestler. The really tragic
story and we're not going to cover it because it
will toughly hit. Oh yeah, but thank you for the
the the talkback. We do enjoy those as always that
You can Period find us online Ridiculous Crime on the
social media. We have our website Ridiculous Crime dot Com

(59:13):
and as I said, please leave us talkbacks like this
will last one as you go to the iHeart app
download it and to hear your voice here on the
show emails. I'll see if you like a Ridiculous Crime
at gmail dot com. Once again, thank you for listening
and we'll catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted

(59:34):
by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnette, produced and edited by
Daredevil Dave Houston, and starring Annals Rutgers. Judith Research is
by Mad Mad, Marissa Brown and Andrea Song Sharp and
Tear You a New one. Our theme song is by
Thomas Majestic Lee and Travis Double Dare Dutton. The host
wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup

(59:56):
by Sparkleshot and mister Andre Hotel accommodations provided the OBNEC.
Executive producers are The Human cannon Ball, Ban Bowling and
the Human racking Ball. No Brown.

Speaker 7 (01:00:14):
Ridicous Crime Say It One More Time Giquious Crime.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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