August 11, 2016 • 43 mins
In today's episode, we cover part two of our Evel Knievel suite. The man, the myth, the legend. Check in and listen to the latter stages of Evel's career as the world's most legendary daredevil.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to stuff you should know Frounhouse Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry And this is part two
of the Evil Knevil Saga, the sequel. Yeah, we genuinely
(00:25):
didn't know. Yeah, we kind of. That's why he didn't
set it up as part one of them two because
we got into it and like, dude, this thing can't
be an hour and a half long. I guess it good,
but no, we found our sweet spot is not an
hour and a half of content. We did a one
part on Isaac Newton, but the two part on Evil Knel.
(00:47):
All right, so where we left off, we'll just get
right into it. Huh. Evil Knevil had just completed the
Caesar's Palace jump, completing it with his head and smashed pelvis. Yeah,
and by the way, he was in a coma for
twenty nine days after that crash. These were not light injuries. No,
and uh we left at a very important point right
(01:08):
when he went and did that jump. On his way
out to the jump area, he took a hundred bucks
put it on the blackjack table, promptly lost, hit the bar,
did a shot of wild turkey and went out and
jumped apparently with the two show girls, one under each
arm that was in head blocks. That was his style.
(01:30):
He lived hard because he was from the hard land
of Butte, Montana. So he lands right, and he didn't
land on his his bike. Like, I can't remember what stuck,
but something stuck. I guess his back tire was it.
It was usually spack tire that gave him the trouble.
He always almost made it like you were saying something.
(01:53):
I think it was back tire. I'm trying to visualize
the crash. But his his handlebars just get pulled right
out of his hands because the bike bucked down well,
and it's just such an impact with that three pound bike. Um,
he just couldn't hold on and so once he didn't
have the handlebars anymore, he didn't have control and he
goes flying off. Oh it's tough to watch. It is
(02:16):
tough to watch, especially in slow motion, which is how
I saw it. Yeah, it's the only way to see it. Um.
So he has finished this jump with his head like
you said, and his star is bigger than ever, like
because of this crash. He's more famous than ever. He's
making Grand per performance by And it was after the
(02:39):
Caesar's Jump where he first starts to plant the seed
to the press that he wants to jump the Grand Canyon. Um.
For some reason, I have a feeling this just came
out of his mouth, like what's the biggest thing I
can think of? Um. But he started a genuine, seemingly
genuine attempt to get permission from the National Park Service
(03:02):
to do this Grand Canyon jump. Over the years, he
needed permission from I think it was the Interior Department,
and they were like, no, absolutely not. And he said
why yea, And they were like, we really have to
tell you why you can't have permission to jump that. Um.
But he did keep it up. It was a drum
that he beat like almost constantly. During interviews. He would
(03:25):
say like, you know, coming one day, I'm going to
be able to jump the Grand Canyon. That's gonna be
my next big trick. And then in the meantime he
would set up these other exhibitions. Yeah and and chuck.
He said he was making Grand of performance. He was
doing a performance a week for a while there. Oh yeah,
I mean he was rich he was a wealthy man
at this point. Uh In nineteen seventy one, in January,
(03:49):
on the eighth, the ninth, he broke two records. He
sold out the Houston Astrodome twice over two shows in
a row. He sold out the Astrodome and one which
was a record. And then um in February he broke
an actual jump record by jumping nineteen cars on that
(04:10):
Harley XR seven fifty. It's pretty impressive. It's funny when
I'm looking at my my liner notes on this because
sometimes I'll just put kind of what's going on, so
it reminds me. It just says jump crash, jump, crash, jump, crash,
over and over and over. But that's what I'm saying.
Like he would, he crashed a lot, like the Pepsi
(04:34):
truck one. It turns out it was thirteen Pepsi trucks. Um,
he crashed that one. That one. It wasn't necessarily his fault,
like he had a short He had a fairly short
run up distance and it went pavement grass, pavement. Not ideal. Yeah, again,
he didn't really think through. I don't know if he didn't.
(04:55):
He didn't people thinking it through in his behalf. Yeah,
well he would just do whatever. Or like I said earlier,
like well this is how much room I have, wasn't like,
well maybe I don't have enough room, right, maybe this
is a bad idea. Well I said I'd do it.
So if I die, oh well, Well, in his famous
(05:16):
uh quote he always said was it's it's not about crashing,
you know, it's about getting up and trying it again.
You know, it's kind of a trite saying it's direct
from success through a positive mental attitude. Yeah. Probably, so
his favorite book, so, um, the Grand Canyon thing is
building steam um in some ways as far as leaking
(05:36):
it to the press, but the government is still like, no,
you can't do that. Little boys all over the country
are I think his one quote was little boys want
to be like me, men want to be me, and
women want to be with me. I Yeah, he definitely
thought a lot of himself. Uh So, finally, officially the U. S.
(05:57):
Department Interior said, I'm denying you airspace over the Grand Canyon.
This is not gonna happen. Please stop calling us. Yes, yeah,
So what does he do? Well, he apparently was on
a plane ride and he was over um Idaho, and
noticed that there was a pretty good sized canyon that
was formed by the Snake River around what's that down
(06:18):
there that looks like a canyon. Yeah, i'll jump that.
There's more than one canyon in the US and he uh,
he decided to go check it out, and outside of
Twin Falls, Idaho, he found a little area that was
just perfectly wide. Um, there was enough run up on
either side for him to try to jump it. Well,
(06:39):
he didn't need much run up and he uh, well,
he didn't know at the time. He thought he was
going to use a motorcycle. Um. Yeah, he did a
rocket cycle. Um and uh he uh. Most importantly, though,
it was was privately owned, so he didn't need permission
from any kind of government agency, although he did actually
(06:59):
that he had to get permission Um from the local
I think the county to register the vehicle. Is that
it and they registered at it as an airplane even
though it was actually a rocket, a steam powered rocket. Yeah.
He leased three acres for thirty five grand and said,
September seventy two, it's going down. ABC Sports said we're
not gonna pay whatever you're asking. So he said, fine,
(07:22):
remember how this worked out last time. I'm gonna hire
Bob Aram who was a boxing promoter still is I think, yeah,
his name sound of familiar unless he's passed away. But
he was, uh for Top Rank Productions. He said, all right,
you handled the filming and we'll do this new fangled
thing called close circuit TV show at movie theaters. We'll
(07:42):
all get we're all gonna get rich. Hard a subcontractor
and actually got engineers for this. And they built that
X one sky cycle, which, like you said, I've i'd
forgotten it was gonna be a rocket motorcycle, a rocket
powered motorcycle. And they built it and tested it that
went right down a mile down into the river. And
(08:04):
he said, maybe we should just do it like a
straight up rocket. And this this dude, this engineer. So
he hired an engineer named Doug Maliwiki, and Doug Maliwiki
subcontracted the actual like design and construction out to another
UM Aeronautics engineer. His name is Robert. I can't figure
out how to say this guy's last name. It's spelled
(08:26):
like true acts true. Yeah, I think I remember the documentary.
It was Robert Truick. Okay, So Robert Truix was the
guy who actually designed and I believe built the rocket,
the steam powered rocket, the X two that um that
Eva Kinnevel used to jump the Snake River Canyon right,
and as you'll see, it didn't go according to plan.
(08:49):
So this guy's son is the one who is behind
this jump that's being done by Eddie Braun in September
because he wants to vindicate his father that this thing
would have made it had this um, this parachute not
deployed and kept him from making So he's like, he
wants to show that this this would have worked, and
that his dad, who's had lots of scoring heaped on
(09:12):
him over the years, including publicly by Evil kinevil Um,
that it was all quite unfair. Well, we're getting something
in a minute, which makes him seem like a bigger
jerk even but things are going well, well that's not
exactly true. September eight n it's gonna go down. Uh.
This thing had turned into the party of the century,
(09:35):
like a hippie Hell's Angels biker party, a huge one.
And this is like Twin Falls, Idaho is not like
a hippie biker town. It was like a normal god
fearing country town and all of a sudden, thousands of
hippie biker weirdo Druggi's show up and start partying in town. Yeah.
They were hammered, they were drunk, they were high on grass,
(09:58):
setting fires, just setting fires. It was completely out of hand.
They had no idea it was gonna attract this many people. Uh,
and became like a three day party. Did you say grass. Yeah,
they're high on grass. Oh yeah yeah, now would a
(10:19):
weed probably herb, the herb nugs. So uh, it's a
huge party. It's like Woodstock. People are drunk out of
their minds. Yeah, high on the grass. Yeah, I bet you.
There's some LSD going around, maybe even maybe some Benni's.
And on this documentary I saw there was a real fear.
(10:40):
They had a temporary fencing put up to keep people
away because the lip of the canyon it's just a
straight drop. Yeah, so they have this temporary fencing and
we'll talk about the jump in a second, but when
it actually goes down, they bum rushed this thing because
you couldn't see it what was going on. And there
was a real fear that they were going to be
(11:02):
mass deaths like Lemmings. Yeah, where people would get shoved
off the lip of this canyon because the people up
front would just run and stop, and then five thousand
people behind him. I don't even know how many people
there was more than five thousand even, I think, but yeah,
that they were just gonna be like hundreds and hundreds
of people shoved unwillingly to their death. Yeah, I guess
(11:22):
more like the Three Stooges than Lemmings. I think that
could have happened. Yeah. Yeah, if you look at I
don't know how. I saw a video of this um
and there's just people like just looking over the ledge. Yeah,
I don't know how it didn't either. It's it's like
you just describing it scares me. You got a little shutter.
So here's what happens. Evil Kin. Evil is not feeling
(11:45):
good about this. He literally goes to his family and
the trailer and says goodbye, And they interviewed his family
and they were like, this sucked. Like we really thought
we were saying goodbye to our father forever, Like we
thought he was gonna die that day. No, like P. T.
Barnum bs going on, like we thought we were gonna
see his see his death in front of our face.
(12:07):
So he goes off, and um, the promoter apparently was like,
had these armed guards. He said that they looked like
they were there for the crowd control. He said they
were there to make sure he got in that rocket,
he said, because I was not going to let this
knot go down with that scene going on there. So
he gets in. They do the countdown. This steam rocket
(12:29):
goes off. It was built from the from I think
the fuel tank of a jet. Yeah, it's like a
little one man rocket. Yeah, and they like superheated this
water I think like five degrees to create this blast
of steam. It takes off and almost immediately the the
parachute is deployed, which provides drag, and it did not
(12:53):
get very far. No, but apparently if you look at
the initial trajectory, it was right on target, which is
why the engineer's son is like, it would have worked.
It will work if the parachute doesn't deploy. And in
the in the engineer's defense, the promoter and Evil Knievel,
so we're not testing this. We already spent all a
(13:14):
bunch of money on that X two cycle or the
X one rocket cycle. Um, we so just make it right.
So they had one parachute. They didn't test it, and
when he did this jump, it was the jump as
well as the only test that they've gone right. So
the parachute did deployed, but they think that had it
(13:35):
not deployed, he totally would have made it. But the
parachute did deploy, so he didn't make this jump and
started drifting, luckily attached to a parachute, into a mild
deep canyon. The thing is, I can't believe they did this.
They had him harnessed in his jumpsuit, was like strapped
(13:57):
to the seat this thing, so he had no way
of getting out. He had he needed help to get out,
and apparently there's no one waiting in the canyon down
below to help get him out. They were all on
the other side of the canyon. So had he landed
in the river, he would have drowned because he had
(14:18):
no way of getting out. Luckily, he landed within feet
of the river. So it goes a mile down drifting slowly,
totally up in the air. It's like a plank oat
chip at this point. Now no one knows where it's
gonna land. And he landed within a few feet of
the of the water, so that he survived amazing. Uh
(14:38):
you know how I teased you and said, there's a
little tidbit that makes him seem like a jerk. There
is speculation that Evil can Evil pulled that shoot because
he didn't think he was going to make this thing,
and and he might not have thought he was gonna
make it to begin with, and it was all just
a big publicity stunt, and he knew that he could
(14:59):
pull that shoot as soon as he took off and
float safely down. So in the documentary they talked about
a little bit. I saw another VH one What's the
behind the Evil? Yeah, something like that, where um he
was our true Hollywood story. I think um E network
and he um. They talked about it, and there too,
(15:20):
they were like his hand was on that lever, like
he was the one responsible for pulling that thing, because
they enter of the engineer and he was like, I
don't know how this thing like it should have deployed,
like he was getting all the scorn. Well, yeah, you
couldn't figure out how it deployed. And Evil can evenly
even call him an idiot. He's like kind never like
that engineer he was an idiot. So that does make
it way worse because apparently also the engineer was very
(15:41):
surprised to hear this because they were good friends. They
become good friends over the coach of this project. Now
he's publicly calling him an idiot. Yeah, I think he
took that secret to his grave, so we'll never know.
But there was definitely speculation that he never intended to
make that jump. I had not heard that, which is
pretty remarkable. Well, let's let's take a break, um, and
(16:03):
we'll come back, because, believe it or not, he kept jumping,
(16:31):
all right, Josh, Snake River Canyon is in the books.
It is, and apparently he made like six million dollars
from that job. Yeah, that's what he personally needed. And
then spend it like in the next three weeks on diamonds. Yeah,
because it goes like, yeah, we'll talk more about that later,
all right. So now we moved forward a few years.
(16:53):
He's in between seventy two and seventy five, does plenty
of other jumps and had plenty of other hospital stays,
and then May in front of once again ABC's wide
world of sports. The thrill of victory, the agony of
defeat that still around when you were around. No, I
watched the laugh Olympics. Wilde World of Sports is like
(17:16):
the biggest thing on TV on Sundays. Yeah, no, it was.
I think it was on. It just never caught my
fancy and it was so great the weekend. Seriously, it
was just all about cartoons with me, you know, like
there was that point cartoons would started like seven in
the morning and then go to like ten thirty eleven
sometimes and then like non cartoons would start and just
be like that's when you nave and put this on TV,
(17:37):
you said, and then at naptural prime time. Uh So
in seventy five he says, you know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna do the biggest jump of my career in England.
I'm world renowned jumper. At this point I can go
to London, England. Yeah, because again not just like he's
on the wide World of Sports and he's known for
(17:57):
the Snake River Canyon jump and like the sea just pals.
There's the stunt cycle toy was the largest selling toy
of Christmas nineteen seventy three. Yeah, he made a ton
of money off that. Atari had a stunt Cycle like
video console in nineteen seventy six. Um he there were
there were action figures. There's a whole like action figure
(18:19):
line by ideal. He was making mad cash from just
being a daredevil. Yeah, adds he was a pitch man.
He was making money hand over fist and like we say,
over and over spending it. And he was huge. He
was just a huge star. It's such a seventies thing
to be star for being a daredevil. Yeah. Yeah, it
(18:40):
beats the two thousand tens thing of just being a
star for being famous. No, I agreed. You know, at
least this guy was doing something. Yeah. Did Kim Kardashian
never put her life on the line. No, that's what
I want to see being Paris Hilton's assistant, probably because
she survived it. She was persisted. That's where she started out. Really,
(19:02):
what would you mean started out? She started out as
a rich kid in Brentwood. She did, but she wasn't
a celebrity by any MO until well until that sex tape.
But I think she was Paris Hilton's assistant at the
time that came out. That's weird. You know, Paris Hilton
has my same eye affliction, the tosis you paras Hilton,
(19:23):
Forest Wortaker, Tommy York. Oh yeah, he's got too huh yeah,
get that fix one day. I don't think you should
adds a tremendous amount of character. I don't know. It's
easy to say when you don't have a droopy eyelid.
I think you should keep that vestigial tail, right, that's character.
I like it. When you wag it, we'll see what
(19:45):
it's doing. Is it's it's inhibiting my vision. Well, then
I can see that, you know, not a ton. But
like when I left my eyelid up all the way,
I'm like, oh, I can see fift more of the room.
There's the sky. Yeah, anyway, that's my issue. So is
(20:06):
at Wimbley Stadium sold out Wimbley Stadium in London, England,
and he's gonna jump how many people that is? Well,
this is ninety thousand, the other articles at seventy. Either way,
it's a bunch between seventy and nine. So I don't
think we can sell that sell out Wimbley. No, but
we sold out two shows in London, so they clearly
have a jones for American American Americans making asses of them.
(20:32):
So he jumps these A E. C. Merlin busses, These
are not the double deckers, um, but they're still busses.
And it's a big jump. It's a believe as biggest
to date. And he crashes, of course, breaks his back.
Broke his back. Yeah, and in the very famous footage,
told Frank Gifford, I came in walking. I went out
(20:55):
walking because Frank Gifford's like, get this guy, stretcher. He's
broken his back. And Evil was like, I'm walking out
and he did. He did. It wasn't smart, but he
did it. Uh. Then he goes to another huge jump
at King's Island theme park in Ohio. I've been there.
I bet is it still around? I don't know, but
(21:17):
I've been there. And when when I was a kid,
it's clearly where is it? You know, I don't know.
I was always a passenger. I have no idea what
part of Ohio it's but it's clearly second Banana to
Cedar Point to Cedar Point pretty much everything is in
the world his second Banana Point. Yeah. No, this is
a your your parents hate you, do they take you
(21:39):
to King's Island instead of Cedar Point? Yeah. Uh. So
he makes us jump at Cedar Point at King's Island
and it is at the time, the highest rated event
and wild world wide. It's a tough one wide world
of sports history. Still still yeah, I guess so the
show's not around. Yeah. A hundred and six sixty three
(22:04):
successful jump. I don't think he even crashed on this one. Yeah,
this is an all around good one for him. You
got the buses. It's at King's Island, successful set, a record,
highest rated, everything's coming up basis on this one. It
is coming up basis and he says he's retiring. Yeah, yep,
he's Uh. He started to say that a lot, starting
(22:27):
with this jump. After just about every jump, he would
be like, that's it, I'm done. I'm never going to
do it again, and then he would do it again.
And actually I believe he retired after Yeah, he retired
after Wimbley. Okay, that's the famous line was I remember
now He crashed spectacularly, grabbed the mic and told the
(22:50):
stadium that you are the last people in the world
who will ever see me jump. I will never ever
ever ever jump again ever him through. And then five
months later he jumped to King's Island, right, and then
retired after that one. Right. Then he retired after that one.
He did another one um shortly after that at the
Kingdom in Um Seattle. Actually it was a year after
(23:11):
that when he retired again. That one that was like
Tyson's last fight, Like he he jumped seven greyhound busses
and I guess the crowd was fine with it, but
he apologized for it being not so great, for not
like being risky enough, and and so he retired again.
And then he came back again, right, and this time
(23:32):
he was channeling the Fons. Oh yeah, he was gonna
jump a tank of shark. He's gonna literally jump the shark. Yeah,
and he did well, he didn't in the seven in Chicago,
he saw Jaws the movie and said, let's just like
he kind of reminds me of my dad a little bit.
My dad has this weird If he would have had
(23:54):
a ton of money, he would have had this kind
of weird excess crazy ideas like the bombshell. After it
was like these dudes of this generation there was something.
They're all crazy. Yeah, they still hadn't they didn't get
movies yet. Yeah, that's what um. So he says he's
(24:14):
gonna jump a bit of sharks, put it on TV,
and during rehearsal, he has a really bad crash and
actually severely injured a cameraman. Yeah, the guy lost his eye. Ye,
and I guess that was a really big deal that
evil can even Yeah, he was like I can't come
back from that one. Nope. So did he not do
the actual jump? No, I think he called it off.
(24:36):
Had I been the cameraman, I would have been like,
so I just lost my eye for nothing. Yeah, he's
like getting that shark. Yeah, at least do the jump.
Uh Yeah. And apparently he sat on that footage for
almost twenty years, and then there was finally a documentary,
not the one I saw, but another one where he
allowed that footage to be shown and then he did retire,
(24:57):
So you know this is smart. I'm sure that camera
operator was like, oh, you couldn't have retired before you
took my eye out, not a week earlier. But that
was the one where he finally is like I'm done.
And he had a great quote. It was a professional
is supposed to know when he has jumped far enough.
Good quote. It is a pretty good quote. And like
he said, it wasn't just the Seattle jump that he
(25:20):
he He started doing less risky jumps toward the end
period that were like, I guess he lost his nerve.
Maybe after Boise or twin Falls the Sneake River, maybe
because it seems like that's where about it it changed.
Things changed, Although no, I guess it would have been
wimbley because you gotta have a lot of nerve to
(25:40):
try that. So maybe after he broke his back he
was like probably who all right, well, let's take another
break here and we'll wrap it up with a little
bit more on his private life and all those broken bones,
(26:16):
broken bones. Josh, you know the old rumor that he
broke every bone in his body. Yeah, not true, but
he does hold a record for most broken bones. He does.
Oh yeah, man, because he said he's broken thirty five bones.
That didn't seem like a record. Thirty five bones, four
d and thirty three fractures of those bones, and I
(26:38):
believe both of those are records as far as Genness
is concerned. Well, when you look his own website has
a neat little chart where the injuries are broken up
into fractured, broken, broken, and replaced and broken multiple times.
The other one that I'm I'm curious about, his crushed
like he crushed his pelvis, is that an actual medical term.
You see it, Yeah, frequently. What has to take place
(27:01):
for a bone to be considered crushed? My interpretation of that,
which is completely made up, is that it's fractured so
severely it goes beyond multiple fractures. They can't put Humpty
back together to just crushed into powder, fine powder. That's
what comes to mind. I'm sure that's not what happens,
but I think of like a big pile of like
(27:23):
sawdust in his butt. But if you look at his
injury list, it's you know, uh, skull, nose, teeth, jaw,
left and right clavical stern um, upper vertebrae, right arm,
left arm, all ribs, pelvis three times cox six both wrist,
(27:44):
hip and ball socket, lower bird of a femur. Five times.
He broke his femur. Can you believe that? Yeah? Yeah,
As a matter of fact, I can right knee, right shin,
both ankles toes. It looks like his left below his
femur on his left leg, he was virtually unscathed. Weird,
(28:04):
isn't that weird? No? No, no left end, no left
just say both ankles typically fallen into a certain fashion.
Maybe you know this is that's over Apple Cardiff. I
think that is what they call it. These are his
bones too. This isn't taking any account the coma he
was in and the multiple concussions he suffered. Yeah, and
(28:25):
I think he there was like internal bleeding and things
like that along the way too. And as as a
result of this, there was um there were rumors that
still stand, although I couldn't find much in the way
of substantiation of him that he was he took drugs himself,
probably painkillers. Apparently his good friends were like he ate
(28:45):
him like candy, Yeah, while grand standing against drugs. So
that was a really big part of what he was doing.
And one of the reasons why he did become a
role model to a whole generation of young boys was
he he had set himself up like that. He would
at the at the beginning of every UM show he
would basically do like a don't do drugs message, stay
(29:09):
in school, um, keep your word, And these were what
what UM he considered his his core values, right, So um. Yeah,
the idea that like he was doing drugs himself, it's
I have the impression if he was, it was very
much an Elvis interpretation, Like these aren't drugs. My doctor
(29:30):
gave him to me. I'm completely hooked on him, but
I got him from the doctor, right. Um, not like
he was like hitting like bumps of coke or something before.
He was, you know, hitting the ramp. Yeah, he was.
He was a bad drink or huge, huge drink. Drink
lots of wild turkey. Yeah. He At one point he
said he probably drank about a fifth of whiskey a
day with beer chasers in between. That's a lot, especially
(29:55):
when you're trying to control a motorcycle jumping a hundred
and sixty three ft over some greyhound bus. Well, I
don't think he would do those jumps wasted or anything,
but he would like probably drink afterwards. He would take
his traditional shot a wild turkey before. So you think
he did it straight? Yeah, I don't think he was
jump I'm very curious you think. Yeah. But a lot
(30:18):
of the stuff, a lot of the dirt that we
know about Evil Knevil came out in a book by
his former published publisher names Shelly Saltman. Yeah, that was
a big deal in the documentary, so I think after
the Snake River Jump in nineteen seventy four, Saltman published
a book about the jump um and it was an
authorized book, but Saltman decided to to point out that
(30:41):
um working working for Evil Knevil. A day spent working
for Evil Knievel was like spending three hours at the
dentists without novacaine. Um. That the he he said that
he abused, He was abusive towards his family. That he
um was totally he hooked on drugs and drank and
(31:02):
was immoral and all this other stuff just completely hung out.
All the guy's dirty laundry may or may not have
made up rumors. Well, and this is when you could
still lead kind of a private life, like you know
about the stuff now, but um, it's not like today,
like if you're carousing women in bars, there's ten people
filming you with a cell phone, right and like within
minutes it's like out on on the internet. No, this
(31:24):
is like it took a tell all biography for this
kind of stuff to get out, right. Um. So Evil
Kinevel goes and finds the guy and attacks him with
the baseball bat and had two broken arms at the time. Yeah,
oh he did. Yeah, he like left the hospital with
two broken arms and said give me that bat and
(31:45):
attacks his former good friend. Okay, like really badly well, bro, Yeah,
he shattered one of his arms. The guy had his
arm up to defend himself and that arm got shattered. Um,
And this was where everything really went off the rails. Um.
He did six months for that six months in jail,
and this is at a time when his stars as
(32:05):
high as it could have possibly been. Um. Remember he
had those action figures from my deal that he was
making so much money. Going to prison actually voided his
contract with them, so he lost all of his licensing
fees from that and that was a huge source of
his income at the time. Um. That him being in prison,
(32:26):
he had started the daredevil craze and there are lots
of people nipping at his heels. Him going to jail
opened up this huge vacuum to where every daredevil in
the world was trying to fill it. Now and there
was actually this guy that um that the house stuff
works recently ran a great article on called the Human Fly,
and his star rose because he was trying to fill
(32:48):
this void left by Evil Kinevil when he was in prison.
So we're going to do a show on him too, right,
We've got to. Yeah, But so I won't say anything more. Okay, Um,
but but it was a big deal. This is where
things like really went downhill for him. But his son said,
I read an interview with his son and the Guardian,
his oldest son, Kelly, who I think is like kind
of the the executor of his estate and everything. Um,
(33:13):
he said that this this definitely was where it went downhill.
But his life, his dad's life never circled the drain
or anything like that. He didn't like just go completely
overboorder off the rails, despite the fact that like the
family like lost all their finances within a few years. Um,
he had to pay Shelley Saltman twelve million dollars. Well,
(33:33):
he didn't pay him a cent. Oh, he didn't know
he was ordered to er. Um. Yeah, there was a
lot of like all the money just went away. Yeah yeah. Um.
The reason he had to serve as full sentence. He
probably would not have had the judge not found out
that in his prison work release program he was being
chafferd and a limousine convertible back and forth and arranged
(33:58):
for other inmates to get mamzine transportation for their work release.
So the judge didn't think that was very funny and said,
you know what, You're gonna serve your whole sentence. So
he did six months, did the full six months, and
like you said, his beyond just losing money for the licensing,
it was just everything kind of went south for him
after that in life, his star fate was fading. Um,
(34:20):
it was not a great time to attack someone with
a baseball pat. You know. It wasn't like early in
his career he might have survived something like that. It's
not like nineteen forties or fifties, butte Montana. Yeah, but
people were kind of losing interest a bit. Well, yeah,
he he and he very wisely kind of faded back
into the woodwork a lot. Um. He had already stopped
(34:42):
doing stunts, but he he was still doing public appearances,
but more as like a motivational speaker or something like that.
This was where he like really began to retire. Yeah.
He made his own movie in nineteen seventy seven called
Viva kan Evil with gene Kelly. Sadly and um that
gene Kelly was in this. Gene Kelly's great. I know
(35:04):
it's sad for gene Kelly. He was in this garbage movie.
Lauren Hutton was in it and um and she's great too.
Evil Kine Evil played himself as Evil Kine Evil, and
he was bad and he his The plot was that
he um foiled Mexican drug traffickers, right, yeah, I mean
it kind of opens. I mean it was clearly him
(35:27):
saying like, this is the story I want to tell.
Like it opens with him like rescuing an orphan on
his motorcycle a lot of a bad orphanage, like riding
them out of there, and then he foils crimes and
forcing the orphan to make knockoff wallets. Yeah, and that,
you know, he even charms. I think the thing in
the review I read said he quote eventually charms the
(35:49):
feminist reporter assigned to him, which was Lauren Hutton. Really,
oh yeah, so he was one of those like you know,
what do you what do you like? He's writing a
bad article on me. Watch this, I'll charm the socks
off of you, pants off. It's worth watching a bit
of that, or at least a trailer hunt. I definitely
(36:11):
i'd watched that movie for sure. I want to see
the George Hamilton's movie of him. George, It's Hamilton's as
Evil Kine Evil I'm sure even George Hamilton's was like me, Well,
McConaughey for years was gonna do a movie. He would
have been perfect. I think he kind of had that
look a little bit. Yeah, but now I think that
(36:36):
movie has been trying to be made for so many
years now. It is currently Darren Aronofsky directing Channing Tatum
as Evil Kine Evil really, so we'll see. Okay, I
like Channing Tatum, I do too, but he's just got
this um vulnerability that I don't think even he's aware
(36:58):
of that he brings to every role. I don't think
it belongs anywhere near evil. Kannebl Well, that's true, because
he was like McConaughey would have been perfect. I think
he would. But Channing Tatum, he's he's one of those
guys that did not want to like, but then it
turned out like he was a pretty good actor and
funny and sort of self deprecating despite his looks. So
(37:21):
I was like, I guess I do like this guy.
I got nothing against him. I just don't think he
could be a good evil. Kannevil, Yeah, I hear you. Well,
he's an actor. Though he's an actor, he doesn't have
to personify the role. Yeah, I guess if George Hamilton's
did it, Channing Tatum can do. I think I've told
this story before. One of my good friends said that
(37:41):
he saw George Hamilton's on The Tonight Show in the seventies,
and Hamilton's said that he never wore the same pair
of socks twice. He always wore a brand new pair
of socks. And my friend was like eight years old,
and he was just thought that was the most like, yeah,
like exotic, wonderful thing of all time. And he's still
thinks about George almost at Alexander Hamilton's of George Hamilton
(38:03):
when he gets new socks and puts some money. Uh.
So Kenneble ended up being married twice. His first wife,
Linda thirty eight years. She hung him through the thick
and then uh, he divorced and then married a woman
named Crystal Kennedy for two years they were married. Yeah,
(38:25):
but apparently they've been together for a very long time,
and so he's like, while he was previously married, I
believe so um I saw I saw her described as
his long time partner. Yeah, she helped him after during
his illness, and it was a sad thing. At the
end for his his family and friends to see him
that way, right, Well, well, apparently they when they were
(38:47):
married for two years, they divorced and then reconciled and
then lived together as friends, um, but unmarried. They never remarried,
but they stayed very close. Yeah. And he eventually he
died of well what was it exactly? He died oddly
enough of diabetes, Okay, Well, he had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,
(39:11):
so I believe he actually, um had a heart condition
is what it sounds like, you no, a lung condition
of breathing problem. And I guess the impression I have
is that he just had just worn his body down. Yeah,
but it wasn't like, uh he broke bone or slipped
on a banana peel or something like you'd expect you. Yeah,
(39:32):
and his when uh in any of the documentaries, his
friends and family talked about how sad it is when
you see someone that lived a life like he did
to be so sick and uh. And I think he
converted to Christianity late in life and sort of he
was baptized publicly. Yeah. I tried to come clean about
not having done the right thing. A lot of times
(39:52):
and you know, kind of the classic story deathbed regrets,
but he he became. I mean, he was a led
and he's an American legend for sure. Yeah. He was
buried in a butte in two thousand seven and one
kind of cool thing that happened. He very much. They
call him like the Godfather of the X Games because
he has kind of inspired all that stuff, and they
(40:13):
brought him back to the X Games before he died
and paid tribute to him. And it was kind of
cool seeing all these kids that were like, you know,
like you're you're the dude, like you are evil Kinevil.
He got to experience that, yeah, because he he was
kind of broke at this point and not doing well
(40:33):
and he saw all these people kind of uh paying
homage to him and saying like You're the reason all
this is here. That's cool and I'm sure he's probably well,
can I get a cut of it? You just said
I was a reason? You know? He get my lawyer
on the phone. His very famous mostly white in red
and blue jumpsuit. I never already wouldn't say it that way,
(40:54):
and his motorcycle are in the Smithsonian. Yeah, the good
old white, blue and red right. That's how true patriots
say it. That's right. If you want to know more
about evil Knevil, you can't because there's nothing more to
know because we said everything. But in its Just in case,
you can type those words in the search bar of
(41:15):
your favorite search engine. You know, we'll bring up some
really interesting stuff. And since I said search engine, it's
time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this differential equations.
Hey guys, big fan, it's really excited on the latest
show on chaos theory, maybe the most irrelevant episode in
my line I worked thus far. I'm a PhD student
(41:36):
mechanical engineering at Auburn University boo, and I'm currently instructing
a class on system dynamics and controls. I can't believe
you mentioned differential equations. Been harping on my students on
the importance of UH the dif eq UH. But it
is a hard sell. Uh, It's not hard to believe,
my friend. Even more relevant was your decision on deterministic systems.
(42:00):
Whereas my work deals primarily with determinism's evil relative UH
stochastic systems randomness. My field of research involves state estimation, which,
put crudely, is the practice of applying statistics to make
the best guess of a systems state i e. Position, timmature, pressure, etcetera. Obviously,
the beauty of estimation lies in its ability to use
(42:22):
knowledge of a measurements uncertainty, or even the uncertainty in
the initial condition, for producing an optimal estimate. Anyway, I
could go on and on. I just want to say,
great show, great episode, great podcast. A side note was
the Isaac Cream Newton bit a nod to Wu Tang
clan as in cash rules everything around me c R
e A. M. Cream Get the money, Get the money,
(42:44):
dollar bills bills, y'all, Dollar dollar bills, y'all. That's from
Dan Dans multi talented. Yeah, he's into Wu Tang and
mechanical engineering. Yeah, at Auburn and he's doing it all
my kineevil. Thanks a lot, Dan, We appreciate that. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with us, you
(43:06):
can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you should know if you can join us on Instagram
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on the Web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for
(43:27):
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
How Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff you should know Frounhouse Stuff Works dot Com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry And this is part two
of the Evil Knevil Saga, the sequel. Yeah, we genuinely
(00:25):
didn't know. Yeah, we kind of. That's why he didn't
set it up as part one of them two because
we got into it and like, dude, this thing can't
be an hour and a half long. I guess it good,
but no, we found our sweet spot is not an
hour and a half of content. We did a one
part on Isaac Newton, but the two part on Evil Knel.
(00:47):
All right, so where we left off, we'll just get
right into it. Huh. Evil Knevil had just completed the
Caesar's Palace jump, completing it with his head and smashed pelvis. Yeah,
and by the way, he was in a coma for
twenty nine days after that crash. These were not light injuries. No,
and uh we left at a very important point right
(01:08):
when he went and did that jump. On his way
out to the jump area, he took a hundred bucks
put it on the blackjack table, promptly lost, hit the bar,
did a shot of wild turkey and went out and
jumped apparently with the two show girls, one under each
arm that was in head blocks. That was his style.
(01:30):
He lived hard because he was from the hard land
of Butte, Montana. So he lands right, and he didn't
land on his his bike. Like, I can't remember what stuck,
but something stuck. I guess his back tire was it.
It was usually spack tire that gave him the trouble.
He always almost made it like you were saying something.
(01:53):
I think it was back tire. I'm trying to visualize
the crash. But his his handlebars just get pulled right
out of his hands because the bike bucked down well,
and it's just such an impact with that three pound bike. Um,
he just couldn't hold on and so once he didn't
have the handlebars anymore, he didn't have control and he
goes flying off. Oh it's tough to watch. It is
(02:16):
tough to watch, especially in slow motion, which is how
I saw it. Yeah, it's the only way to see it. Um.
So he has finished this jump with his head like
you said, and his star is bigger than ever, like
because of this crash. He's more famous than ever. He's
making Grand per performance by And it was after the
(02:39):
Caesar's Jump where he first starts to plant the seed
to the press that he wants to jump the Grand Canyon. Um.
For some reason, I have a feeling this just came
out of his mouth, like what's the biggest thing I
can think of? Um. But he started a genuine, seemingly
genuine attempt to get permission from the National Park Service
(03:02):
to do this Grand Canyon jump. Over the years, he
needed permission from I think it was the Interior Department,
and they were like, no, absolutely not. And he said
why yea, And they were like, we really have to
tell you why you can't have permission to jump that. Um.
But he did keep it up. It was a drum
that he beat like almost constantly. During interviews. He would
(03:25):
say like, you know, coming one day, I'm going to
be able to jump the Grand Canyon. That's gonna be
my next big trick. And then in the meantime he
would set up these other exhibitions. Yeah and and chuck.
He said he was making Grand of performance. He was
doing a performance a week for a while there. Oh yeah,
I mean he was rich he was a wealthy man
at this point. Uh In nineteen seventy one, in January,
(03:49):
on the eighth, the ninth, he broke two records. He
sold out the Houston Astrodome twice over two shows in
a row. He sold out the Astrodome and one which
was a record. And then um in February he broke
an actual jump record by jumping nineteen cars on that
(04:10):
Harley XR seven fifty. It's pretty impressive. It's funny when
I'm looking at my my liner notes on this because
sometimes I'll just put kind of what's going on, so
it reminds me. It just says jump crash, jump, crash, jump, crash,
over and over and over. But that's what I'm saying.
Like he would, he crashed a lot, like the Pepsi
(04:34):
truck one. It turns out it was thirteen Pepsi trucks. Um,
he crashed that one. That one. It wasn't necessarily his fault,
like he had a short He had a fairly short
run up distance and it went pavement grass, pavement. Not ideal. Yeah, again,
he didn't really think through. I don't know if he didn't.
(04:55):
He didn't people thinking it through in his behalf. Yeah,
well he would just do whatever. Or like I said earlier,
like well this is how much room I have, wasn't like,
well maybe I don't have enough room, right, maybe this
is a bad idea. Well I said I'd do it.
So if I die, oh well, Well, in his famous
(05:16):
uh quote he always said was it's it's not about crashing,
you know, it's about getting up and trying it again.
You know, it's kind of a trite saying it's direct
from success through a positive mental attitude. Yeah. Probably, so
his favorite book, so, um, the Grand Canyon thing is
building steam um in some ways as far as leaking
(05:36):
it to the press, but the government is still like, no,
you can't do that. Little boys all over the country
are I think his one quote was little boys want
to be like me, men want to be me, and
women want to be with me. I Yeah, he definitely
thought a lot of himself. Uh So, finally, officially the U. S.
(05:57):
Department Interior said, I'm denying you airspace over the Grand Canyon.
This is not gonna happen. Please stop calling us. Yes, yeah,
So what does he do? Well, he apparently was on
a plane ride and he was over um Idaho, and
noticed that there was a pretty good sized canyon that
was formed by the Snake River around what's that down
(06:18):
there that looks like a canyon. Yeah, i'll jump that.
There's more than one canyon in the US and he uh,
he decided to go check it out, and outside of
Twin Falls, Idaho, he found a little area that was
just perfectly wide. Um, there was enough run up on
either side for him to try to jump it. Well,
(06:39):
he didn't need much run up and he uh, well,
he didn't know at the time. He thought he was
going to use a motorcycle. Um. Yeah, he did a
rocket cycle. Um and uh he uh. Most importantly, though,
it was was privately owned, so he didn't need permission
from any kind of government agency, although he did actually
(06:59):
that he had to get permission Um from the local
I think the county to register the vehicle. Is that
it and they registered at it as an airplane even
though it was actually a rocket, a steam powered rocket. Yeah.
He leased three acres for thirty five grand and said,
September seventy two, it's going down. ABC Sports said we're
not gonna pay whatever you're asking. So he said, fine,
(07:22):
remember how this worked out last time. I'm gonna hire
Bob Aram who was a boxing promoter still is I think, yeah,
his name sound of familiar unless he's passed away. But
he was, uh for Top Rank Productions. He said, all right,
you handled the filming and we'll do this new fangled
thing called close circuit TV show at movie theaters. We'll
(07:42):
all get we're all gonna get rich. Hard a subcontractor
and actually got engineers for this. And they built that
X one sky cycle, which, like you said, I've i'd
forgotten it was gonna be a rocket motorcycle, a rocket
powered motorcycle. And they built it and tested it that
went right down a mile down into the river. And
(08:04):
he said, maybe we should just do it like a
straight up rocket. And this this dude, this engineer. So
he hired an engineer named Doug Maliwiki, and Doug Maliwiki
subcontracted the actual like design and construction out to another
UM Aeronautics engineer. His name is Robert. I can't figure
out how to say this guy's last name. It's spelled
(08:26):
like true acts true. Yeah, I think I remember the documentary.
It was Robert Truick. Okay, So Robert Truix was the
guy who actually designed and I believe built the rocket,
the steam powered rocket, the X two that um that
Eva Kinnevel used to jump the Snake River Canyon right,
and as you'll see, it didn't go according to plan.
(08:49):
So this guy's son is the one who is behind
this jump that's being done by Eddie Braun in September
because he wants to vindicate his father that this thing
would have made it had this um, this parachute not
deployed and kept him from making So he's like, he
wants to show that this this would have worked, and
that his dad, who's had lots of scoring heaped on
(09:12):
him over the years, including publicly by Evil kinevil Um,
that it was all quite unfair. Well, we're getting something
in a minute, which makes him seem like a bigger
jerk even but things are going well, well that's not
exactly true. September eight n it's gonna go down. Uh.
This thing had turned into the party of the century,
(09:35):
like a hippie Hell's Angels biker party, a huge one.
And this is like Twin Falls, Idaho is not like
a hippie biker town. It was like a normal god
fearing country town and all of a sudden, thousands of
hippie biker weirdo Druggi's show up and start partying in town. Yeah.
They were hammered, they were drunk, they were high on grass,
(09:58):
setting fires, just setting fires. It was completely out of hand.
They had no idea it was gonna attract this many people. Uh,
and became like a three day party. Did you say grass. Yeah,
they're high on grass. Oh yeah yeah, now would a
(10:19):
weed probably herb, the herb nugs. So uh, it's a
huge party. It's like Woodstock. People are drunk out of
their minds. Yeah, high on the grass. Yeah, I bet you.
There's some LSD going around, maybe even maybe some Benni's.
And on this documentary I saw there was a real fear.
(10:40):
They had a temporary fencing put up to keep people
away because the lip of the canyon it's just a
straight drop. Yeah, so they have this temporary fencing and
we'll talk about the jump in a second, but when
it actually goes down, they bum rushed this thing because
you couldn't see it what was going on. And there
was a real fear that they were going to be
(11:02):
mass deaths like Lemmings. Yeah, where people would get shoved
off the lip of this canyon because the people up
front would just run and stop, and then five thousand
people behind him. I don't even know how many people
there was more than five thousand even, I think, but yeah,
that they were just gonna be like hundreds and hundreds
of people shoved unwillingly to their death. Yeah, I guess
(11:22):
more like the Three Stooges than Lemmings. I think that
could have happened. Yeah. Yeah, if you look at I
don't know how. I saw a video of this um
and there's just people like just looking over the ledge. Yeah,
I don't know how it didn't either. It's it's like
you just describing it scares me. You got a little shutter.
So here's what happens. Evil Kin. Evil is not feeling
(11:45):
good about this. He literally goes to his family and
the trailer and says goodbye, And they interviewed his family
and they were like, this sucked. Like we really thought
we were saying goodbye to our father forever, Like we
thought he was gonna die that day. No, like P. T.
Barnum bs going on, like we thought we were gonna
see his see his death in front of our face.
(12:07):
So he goes off, and um, the promoter apparently was like,
had these armed guards. He said that they looked like
they were there for the crowd control. He said they
were there to make sure he got in that rocket,
he said, because I was not going to let this
knot go down with that scene going on there. So
he gets in. They do the countdown. This steam rocket
(12:29):
goes off. It was built from the from I think
the fuel tank of a jet. Yeah, it's like a
little one man rocket. Yeah, and they like superheated this
water I think like five degrees to create this blast
of steam. It takes off and almost immediately the the
parachute is deployed, which provides drag, and it did not
(12:53):
get very far. No, but apparently if you look at
the initial trajectory, it was right on target, which is
why the engineer's son is like, it would have worked.
It will work if the parachute doesn't deploy. And in
the in the engineer's defense, the promoter and Evil Knievel,
so we're not testing this. We already spent all a
(13:14):
bunch of money on that X two cycle or the
X one rocket cycle. Um, we so just make it right.
So they had one parachute. They didn't test it, and
when he did this jump, it was the jump as
well as the only test that they've gone right. So
the parachute did deployed, but they think that had it
(13:35):
not deployed, he totally would have made it. But the
parachute did deploy, so he didn't make this jump and
started drifting, luckily attached to a parachute, into a mild
deep canyon. The thing is, I can't believe they did this.
They had him harnessed in his jumpsuit, was like strapped
(13:57):
to the seat this thing, so he had no way
of getting out. He had he needed help to get out,
and apparently there's no one waiting in the canyon down
below to help get him out. They were all on
the other side of the canyon. So had he landed
in the river, he would have drowned because he had
(14:18):
no way of getting out. Luckily, he landed within feet
of the river. So it goes a mile down drifting slowly,
totally up in the air. It's like a plank oat
chip at this point. Now no one knows where it's
gonna land. And he landed within a few feet of
the of the water, so that he survived amazing. Uh
(14:38):
you know how I teased you and said, there's a
little tidbit that makes him seem like a jerk. There
is speculation that Evil can Evil pulled that shoot because
he didn't think he was going to make this thing,
and and he might not have thought he was gonna
make it to begin with, and it was all just
a big publicity stunt, and he knew that he could
(14:59):
pull that shoot as soon as he took off and
float safely down. So in the documentary they talked about
a little bit. I saw another VH one What's the
behind the Evil? Yeah, something like that, where um he
was our true Hollywood story. I think um E network
and he um. They talked about it, and there too,
(15:20):
they were like his hand was on that lever, like
he was the one responsible for pulling that thing, because
they enter of the engineer and he was like, I
don't know how this thing like it should have deployed,
like he was getting all the scorn. Well, yeah, you
couldn't figure out how it deployed. And Evil can evenly
even call him an idiot. He's like kind never like
that engineer he was an idiot. So that does make
it way worse because apparently also the engineer was very
(15:41):
surprised to hear this because they were good friends. They
become good friends over the coach of this project. Now
he's publicly calling him an idiot. Yeah, I think he
took that secret to his grave, so we'll never know.
But there was definitely speculation that he never intended to
make that jump. I had not heard that, which is
pretty remarkable. Well, let's let's take a break, um, and
(16:03):
we'll come back, because, believe it or not, he kept jumping,
(16:31):
all right, Josh, Snake River Canyon is in the books.
It is, and apparently he made like six million dollars
from that job. Yeah, that's what he personally needed. And
then spend it like in the next three weeks on diamonds. Yeah,
because it goes like, yeah, we'll talk more about that later,
all right. So now we moved forward a few years.
(16:53):
He's in between seventy two and seventy five, does plenty
of other jumps and had plenty of other hospital stays,
and then May in front of once again ABC's wide
world of sports. The thrill of victory, the agony of
defeat that still around when you were around. No, I
watched the laugh Olympics. Wilde World of Sports is like
(17:16):
the biggest thing on TV on Sundays. Yeah, no, it was.
I think it was on. It just never caught my
fancy and it was so great the weekend. Seriously, it
was just all about cartoons with me, you know, like
there was that point cartoons would started like seven in
the morning and then go to like ten thirty eleven
sometimes and then like non cartoons would start and just
be like that's when you nave and put this on TV,
(17:37):
you said, and then at naptural prime time. Uh So
in seventy five he says, you know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna do the biggest jump of my career in England.
I'm world renowned jumper. At this point I can go
to London, England. Yeah, because again not just like he's
on the wide World of Sports and he's known for
(17:57):
the Snake River Canyon jump and like the sea just pals.
There's the stunt cycle toy was the largest selling toy
of Christmas nineteen seventy three. Yeah, he made a ton
of money off that. Atari had a stunt Cycle like
video console in nineteen seventy six. Um he there were
there were action figures. There's a whole like action figure
(18:19):
line by ideal. He was making mad cash from just
being a daredevil. Yeah, adds he was a pitch man.
He was making money hand over fist and like we say,
over and over spending it. And he was huge. He
was just a huge star. It's such a seventies thing
to be star for being a daredevil. Yeah. Yeah, it
(18:40):
beats the two thousand tens thing of just being a
star for being famous. No, I agreed. You know, at
least this guy was doing something. Yeah. Did Kim Kardashian
never put her life on the line. No, that's what
I want to see being Paris Hilton's assistant, probably because
she survived it. She was persisted. That's where she started out. Really,
(19:02):
what would you mean started out? She started out as
a rich kid in Brentwood. She did, but she wasn't
a celebrity by any MO until well until that sex tape.
But I think she was Paris Hilton's assistant at the
time that came out. That's weird. You know, Paris Hilton
has my same eye affliction, the tosis you paras Hilton,
(19:23):
Forest Wortaker, Tommy York. Oh yeah, he's got too huh yeah,
get that fix one day. I don't think you should
adds a tremendous amount of character. I don't know. It's
easy to say when you don't have a droopy eyelid.
I think you should keep that vestigial tail, right, that's character.
I like it. When you wag it, we'll see what
(19:45):
it's doing. Is it's it's inhibiting my vision. Well, then
I can see that, you know, not a ton. But
like when I left my eyelid up all the way,
I'm like, oh, I can see fift more of the room.
There's the sky. Yeah, anyway, that's my issue. So is
(20:06):
at Wimbley Stadium sold out Wimbley Stadium in London, England,
and he's gonna jump how many people that is? Well,
this is ninety thousand, the other articles at seventy. Either way,
it's a bunch between seventy and nine. So I don't
think we can sell that sell out Wimbley. No, but
we sold out two shows in London, so they clearly
have a jones for American American Americans making asses of them.
(20:32):
So he jumps these A E. C. Merlin busses, These
are not the double deckers, um, but they're still busses.
And it's a big jump. It's a believe as biggest
to date. And he crashes, of course, breaks his back.
Broke his back. Yeah, and in the very famous footage,
told Frank Gifford, I came in walking. I went out
(20:55):
walking because Frank Gifford's like, get this guy, stretcher. He's
broken his back. And Evil was like, I'm walking out
and he did. He did. It wasn't smart, but he
did it. Uh. Then he goes to another huge jump
at King's Island theme park in Ohio. I've been there.
I bet is it still around? I don't know, but
(21:17):
I've been there. And when when I was a kid,
it's clearly where is it? You know, I don't know.
I was always a passenger. I have no idea what
part of Ohio it's but it's clearly second Banana to
Cedar Point to Cedar Point pretty much everything is in
the world his second Banana Point. Yeah. No, this is
a your your parents hate you, do they take you
(21:39):
to King's Island instead of Cedar Point? Yeah. Uh. So
he makes us jump at Cedar Point at King's Island
and it is at the time, the highest rated event
and wild world wide. It's a tough one wide world
of sports history. Still still yeah, I guess so the
show's not around. Yeah. A hundred and six sixty three
(22:04):
successful jump. I don't think he even crashed on this one. Yeah,
this is an all around good one for him. You
got the buses. It's at King's Island, successful set, a record,
highest rated, everything's coming up basis on this one. It
is coming up basis and he says he's retiring. Yeah, yep,
he's Uh. He started to say that a lot, starting
(22:27):
with this jump. After just about every jump, he would
be like, that's it, I'm done. I'm never going to
do it again, and then he would do it again.
And actually I believe he retired after Yeah, he retired
after Wimbley. Okay, that's the famous line was I remember
now He crashed spectacularly, grabbed the mic and told the
(22:50):
stadium that you are the last people in the world
who will ever see me jump. I will never ever
ever ever jump again ever him through. And then five
months later he jumped to King's Island, right, and then
retired after that one. Right. Then he retired after that one.
He did another one um shortly after that at the
Kingdom in Um Seattle. Actually it was a year after
(23:11):
that when he retired again. That one that was like
Tyson's last fight, Like he he jumped seven greyhound busses
and I guess the crowd was fine with it, but
he apologized for it being not so great, for not
like being risky enough, and and so he retired again.
And then he came back again, right, and this time
(23:32):
he was channeling the Fons. Oh yeah, he was gonna
jump a tank of shark. He's gonna literally jump the shark. Yeah,
and he did well, he didn't in the seven in Chicago,
he saw Jaws the movie and said, let's just like
he kind of reminds me of my dad a little bit.
My dad has this weird If he would have had
(23:54):
a ton of money, he would have had this kind
of weird excess crazy ideas like the bombshell. After it
was like these dudes of this generation there was something.
They're all crazy. Yeah, they still hadn't they didn't get
movies yet. Yeah, that's what um. So he says he's
(24:14):
gonna jump a bit of sharks, put it on TV,
and during rehearsal, he has a really bad crash and
actually severely injured a cameraman. Yeah, the guy lost his eye. Ye,
and I guess that was a really big deal that
evil can even Yeah, he was like I can't come
back from that one. Nope. So did he not do
the actual jump? No, I think he called it off.
(24:36):
Had I been the cameraman, I would have been like,
so I just lost my eye for nothing. Yeah, he's
like getting that shark. Yeah, at least do the jump.
Uh Yeah. And apparently he sat on that footage for
almost twenty years, and then there was finally a documentary,
not the one I saw, but another one where he
allowed that footage to be shown and then he did retire,
(24:57):
So you know this is smart. I'm sure that camera
operator was like, oh, you couldn't have retired before you
took my eye out, not a week earlier. But that
was the one where he finally is like I'm done.
And he had a great quote. It was a professional
is supposed to know when he has jumped far enough.
Good quote. It is a pretty good quote. And like
he said, it wasn't just the Seattle jump that he
(25:20):
he He started doing less risky jumps toward the end
period that were like, I guess he lost his nerve.
Maybe after Boise or twin Falls the Sneake River, maybe
because it seems like that's where about it it changed.
Things changed, Although no, I guess it would have been
wimbley because you gotta have a lot of nerve to
(25:40):
try that. So maybe after he broke his back he
was like probably who all right, well, let's take another
break here and we'll wrap it up with a little
bit more on his private life and all those broken bones,
(26:16):
broken bones. Josh, you know the old rumor that he
broke every bone in his body. Yeah, not true, but
he does hold a record for most broken bones. He does.
Oh yeah, man, because he said he's broken thirty five bones.
That didn't seem like a record. Thirty five bones, four
d and thirty three fractures of those bones, and I
(26:38):
believe both of those are records as far as Genness
is concerned. Well, when you look his own website has
a neat little chart where the injuries are broken up
into fractured, broken, broken, and replaced and broken multiple times.
The other one that I'm I'm curious about, his crushed
like he crushed his pelvis, is that an actual medical term.
You see it, Yeah, frequently. What has to take place
(27:01):
for a bone to be considered crushed? My interpretation of that,
which is completely made up, is that it's fractured so
severely it goes beyond multiple fractures. They can't put Humpty
back together to just crushed into powder, fine powder. That's
what comes to mind. I'm sure that's not what happens,
but I think of like a big pile of like
(27:23):
sawdust in his butt. But if you look at his
injury list, it's you know, uh, skull, nose, teeth, jaw,
left and right clavical stern um, upper vertebrae, right arm,
left arm, all ribs, pelvis three times cox six both wrist,
(27:44):
hip and ball socket, lower bird of a femur. Five times.
He broke his femur. Can you believe that? Yeah? Yeah,
As a matter of fact, I can right knee, right shin,
both ankles toes. It looks like his left below his
femur on his left leg, he was virtually unscathed. Weird,
(28:04):
isn't that weird? No? No, no left end, no left
just say both ankles typically fallen into a certain fashion.
Maybe you know this is that's over Apple Cardiff. I
think that is what they call it. These are his
bones too. This isn't taking any account the coma he
was in and the multiple concussions he suffered. Yeah, and
(28:25):
I think he there was like internal bleeding and things
like that along the way too. And as as a
result of this, there was um there were rumors that
still stand, although I couldn't find much in the way
of substantiation of him that he was he took drugs himself,
probably painkillers. Apparently his good friends were like he ate
(28:45):
him like candy, Yeah, while grand standing against drugs. So
that was a really big part of what he was doing.
And one of the reasons why he did become a
role model to a whole generation of young boys was
he he had set himself up like that. He would
at the at the beginning of every UM show he
would basically do like a don't do drugs message, stay
(29:09):
in school, um, keep your word, And these were what
what UM he considered his his core values, right, So um. Yeah,
the idea that like he was doing drugs himself, it's
I have the impression if he was, it was very
much an Elvis interpretation, Like these aren't drugs. My doctor
(29:30):
gave him to me. I'm completely hooked on him, but
I got him from the doctor, right. Um, not like
he was like hitting like bumps of coke or something before.
He was, you know, hitting the ramp. Yeah, he was.
He was a bad drink or huge, huge drink. Drink
lots of wild turkey. Yeah. He At one point he
said he probably drank about a fifth of whiskey a
day with beer chasers in between. That's a lot, especially
(29:55):
when you're trying to control a motorcycle jumping a hundred
and sixty three ft over some greyhound bus. Well, I
don't think he would do those jumps wasted or anything,
but he would like probably drink afterwards. He would take
his traditional shot a wild turkey before. So you think
he did it straight? Yeah, I don't think he was
jump I'm very curious you think. Yeah. But a lot
(30:18):
of the stuff, a lot of the dirt that we
know about Evil Knevil came out in a book by
his former published publisher names Shelly Saltman. Yeah, that was
a big deal in the documentary, so I think after
the Snake River Jump in nineteen seventy four, Saltman published
a book about the jump um and it was an
authorized book, but Saltman decided to to point out that
(30:41):
um working working for Evil Knevil. A day spent working
for Evil Knievel was like spending three hours at the
dentists without novacaine. Um. That the he he said that
he abused, He was abusive towards his family. That he
um was totally he hooked on drugs and drank and
(31:02):
was immoral and all this other stuff just completely hung out.
All the guy's dirty laundry may or may not have
made up rumors. Well, and this is when you could
still lead kind of a private life, like you know
about the stuff now, but um, it's not like today,
like if you're carousing women in bars, there's ten people
filming you with a cell phone, right and like within
minutes it's like out on on the internet. No, this
(31:24):
is like it took a tell all biography for this
kind of stuff to get out, right. Um. So Evil
Kinevel goes and finds the guy and attacks him with
the baseball bat and had two broken arms at the time. Yeah,
oh he did. Yeah, he like left the hospital with
two broken arms and said give me that bat and
(31:45):
attacks his former good friend. Okay, like really badly well, bro, Yeah,
he shattered one of his arms. The guy had his
arm up to defend himself and that arm got shattered. Um,
And this was where everything really went off the rails. Um.
He did six months for that six months in jail,
and this is at a time when his stars as
(32:05):
high as it could have possibly been. Um. Remember he
had those action figures from my deal that he was
making so much money. Going to prison actually voided his
contract with them, so he lost all of his licensing
fees from that and that was a huge source of
his income at the time. Um. That him being in prison,
(32:26):
he had started the daredevil craze and there are lots
of people nipping at his heels. Him going to jail
opened up this huge vacuum to where every daredevil in
the world was trying to fill it. Now and there
was actually this guy that um that the house stuff
works recently ran a great article on called the Human Fly,
and his star rose because he was trying to fill
(32:48):
this void left by Evil Kinevil when he was in prison.
So we're going to do a show on him too, right,
We've got to. Yeah, But so I won't say anything more. Okay, Um,
but but it was a big deal. This is where
things like really went downhill for him. But his son said,
I read an interview with his son and the Guardian,
his oldest son, Kelly, who I think is like kind
of the the executor of his estate and everything. Um,
(33:13):
he said that this this definitely was where it went downhill.
But his life, his dad's life never circled the drain
or anything like that. He didn't like just go completely
overboorder off the rails, despite the fact that like the
family like lost all their finances within a few years. Um,
he had to pay Shelley Saltman twelve million dollars. Well,
(33:33):
he didn't pay him a cent. Oh, he didn't know
he was ordered to er. Um. Yeah, there was a
lot of like all the money just went away. Yeah yeah. Um.
The reason he had to serve as full sentence. He
probably would not have had the judge not found out
that in his prison work release program he was being
chafferd and a limousine convertible back and forth and arranged
(33:58):
for other inmates to get mamzine transportation for their work release.
So the judge didn't think that was very funny and said,
you know what, You're gonna serve your whole sentence. So
he did six months, did the full six months, and
like you said, his beyond just losing money for the licensing,
it was just everything kind of went south for him
after that in life, his star fate was fading. Um,
(34:20):
it was not a great time to attack someone with
a baseball pat. You know. It wasn't like early in
his career he might have survived something like that. It's
not like nineteen forties or fifties, butte Montana. Yeah, but
people were kind of losing interest a bit. Well, yeah,
he he and he very wisely kind of faded back
into the woodwork a lot. Um. He had already stopped
(34:42):
doing stunts, but he he was still doing public appearances,
but more as like a motivational speaker or something like that.
This was where he like really began to retire. Yeah.
He made his own movie in nineteen seventy seven called
Viva kan Evil with gene Kelly. Sadly and um that
gene Kelly was in this. Gene Kelly's great. I know
(35:04):
it's sad for gene Kelly. He was in this garbage movie.
Lauren Hutton was in it and um and she's great too.
Evil Kine Evil played himself as Evil Kine Evil, and
he was bad and he his The plot was that
he um foiled Mexican drug traffickers, right, yeah, I mean
it kind of opens. I mean it was clearly him
(35:27):
saying like, this is the story I want to tell.
Like it opens with him like rescuing an orphan on
his motorcycle a lot of a bad orphanage, like riding
them out of there, and then he foils crimes and
forcing the orphan to make knockoff wallets. Yeah, and that,
you know, he even charms. I think the thing in
the review I read said he quote eventually charms the
(35:49):
feminist reporter assigned to him, which was Lauren Hutton. Really,
oh yeah, so he was one of those like you know,
what do you what do you like? He's writing a
bad article on me. Watch this, I'll charm the socks
off of you, pants off. It's worth watching a bit
of that, or at least a trailer hunt. I definitely
(36:11):
i'd watched that movie for sure. I want to see
the George Hamilton's movie of him. George, It's Hamilton's as
Evil Kine Evil I'm sure even George Hamilton's was like me, Well,
McConaughey for years was gonna do a movie. He would
have been perfect. I think he kind of had that
look a little bit. Yeah, but now I think that
(36:36):
movie has been trying to be made for so many
years now. It is currently Darren Aronofsky directing Channing Tatum
as Evil Kine Evil really, so we'll see. Okay, I
like Channing Tatum, I do too, but he's just got
this um vulnerability that I don't think even he's aware
(36:58):
of that he brings to every role. I don't think
it belongs anywhere near evil. Kannebl Well, that's true, because
he was like McConaughey would have been perfect. I think
he would. But Channing Tatum, he's he's one of those
guys that did not want to like, but then it
turned out like he was a pretty good actor and
funny and sort of self deprecating despite his looks. So
(37:21):
I was like, I guess I do like this guy.
I got nothing against him. I just don't think he
could be a good evil. Kannevil, Yeah, I hear you. Well,
he's an actor. Though he's an actor, he doesn't have
to personify the role. Yeah, I guess if George Hamilton's
did it, Channing Tatum can do. I think I've told
this story before. One of my good friends said that
(37:41):
he saw George Hamilton's on The Tonight Show in the seventies,
and Hamilton's said that he never wore the same pair
of socks twice. He always wore a brand new pair
of socks. And my friend was like eight years old,
and he was just thought that was the most like, yeah,
like exotic, wonderful thing of all time. And he's still
thinks about George almost at Alexander Hamilton's of George Hamilton
(38:03):
when he gets new socks and puts some money. Uh.
So Kenneble ended up being married twice. His first wife,
Linda thirty eight years. She hung him through the thick
and then uh, he divorced and then married a woman
named Crystal Kennedy for two years they were married. Yeah,
(38:25):
but apparently they've been together for a very long time,
and so he's like, while he was previously married, I
believe so um I saw I saw her described as
his long time partner. Yeah, she helped him after during
his illness, and it was a sad thing. At the
end for his his family and friends to see him
that way, right, Well, well, apparently they when they were
(38:47):
married for two years, they divorced and then reconciled and
then lived together as friends, um, but unmarried. They never remarried,
but they stayed very close. Yeah. And he eventually he
died of well what was it exactly? He died oddly
enough of diabetes, Okay, Well, he had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,
(39:11):
so I believe he actually, um had a heart condition
is what it sounds like, you no, a lung condition
of breathing problem. And I guess the impression I have
is that he just had just worn his body down. Yeah,
but it wasn't like, uh he broke bone or slipped
on a banana peel or something like you'd expect you. Yeah,
(39:32):
and his when uh in any of the documentaries, his
friends and family talked about how sad it is when
you see someone that lived a life like he did
to be so sick and uh. And I think he
converted to Christianity late in life and sort of he
was baptized publicly. Yeah. I tried to come clean about
not having done the right thing. A lot of times
(39:52):
and you know, kind of the classic story deathbed regrets,
but he he became. I mean, he was a led
and he's an American legend for sure. Yeah. He was
buried in a butte in two thousand seven and one
kind of cool thing that happened. He very much. They
call him like the Godfather of the X Games because
he has kind of inspired all that stuff, and they
(40:13):
brought him back to the X Games before he died
and paid tribute to him. And it was kind of
cool seeing all these kids that were like, you know,
like you're you're the dude, like you are evil Kinevil.
He got to experience that, yeah, because he he was
kind of broke at this point and not doing well
(40:33):
and he saw all these people kind of uh paying
homage to him and saying like You're the reason all
this is here. That's cool and I'm sure he's probably well,
can I get a cut of it? You just said
I was a reason? You know? He get my lawyer
on the phone. His very famous mostly white in red
and blue jumpsuit. I never already wouldn't say it that way,
(40:54):
and his motorcycle are in the Smithsonian. Yeah, the good
old white, blue and red right. That's how true patriots
say it. That's right. If you want to know more
about evil Knevil, you can't because there's nothing more to
know because we said everything. But in its Just in case,
you can type those words in the search bar of
(41:15):
your favorite search engine. You know, we'll bring up some
really interesting stuff. And since I said search engine, it's
time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this differential equations.
Hey guys, big fan, it's really excited on the latest
show on chaos theory, maybe the most irrelevant episode in
my line I worked thus far. I'm a PhD student
(41:36):
mechanical engineering at Auburn University boo, and I'm currently instructing
a class on system dynamics and controls. I can't believe
you mentioned differential equations. Been harping on my students on
the importance of UH the dif eq UH. But it
is a hard sell. Uh, It's not hard to believe,
my friend. Even more relevant was your decision on deterministic systems.
(42:00):
Whereas my work deals primarily with determinism's evil relative UH
stochastic systems randomness. My field of research involves state estimation, which,
put crudely, is the practice of applying statistics to make
the best guess of a systems state i e. Position, timmature, pressure, etcetera. Obviously,
the beauty of estimation lies in its ability to use
(42:22):
knowledge of a measurements uncertainty, or even the uncertainty in
the initial condition, for producing an optimal estimate. Anyway, I
could go on and on. I just want to say,
great show, great episode, great podcast. A side note was
the Isaac Cream Newton bit a nod to Wu Tang
clan as in cash rules everything around me c R
e A. M. Cream Get the money, Get the money,
(42:44):
dollar bills bills, y'all, Dollar dollar bills, y'all. That's from
Dan Dans multi talented. Yeah, he's into Wu Tang and
mechanical engineering. Yeah, at Auburn and he's doing it all
my kineevil. Thanks a lot, Dan, We appreciate that. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with us, you
(43:06):
can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you should know if you can join us on Instagram
at s y s K podcast too. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works
dot com and as always join us at our home
on the Web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for
(43:27):
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