Jackass - Watch Full Episodes Online

Jackass

Overall Rating: 4.65/5 (66 votes cast)

to share your ratings with friends.

Jackass is an American television series, originally shown on MTV from 2000 to 2002, featuring people performing various dangerous, ridiculous, and self-injuring stunts and pranks. The show served as a launchpad for the television and acting careers of Johnny Knoxville and Bam Margera. Since 2002, two Jackass theatrical films have been produced and released by MTV corporate sibling Paramount Pictures, continuing the franchise after its run on television.

more...

Jackass Most Popular Posts

Jackass Popular Searches

Anchor Link

News

Anchor Link

Reviews

Anchor Link

Discussions

Be the first to discuss Jackass

Anchor Link

Jackass Cast & Crew

Anchor Link

Jackass Wiki

Premiere: October, 2001

Type: TV Show

Genres/Tags: TV-Reality

History

Birth of the show

The show developed from Big Brother Magazine, a skateboarding-related humor magazine that Jeff Tremaine, Dave Carnie, Rick Kosick and Chris Pontius all worked for, and featured regular contributions from Johnny Knoxville and Dave England, among others. The concept of Jackass dates back to 1999 when struggling-actor-turned-writer Johnny Knoxville birthed the idea to test different self defense devices on himself as the basis for an article. He pitched the idea to a couple of magazines and was turned down until meeting with Jeff Tremaine of Big Brother. Jeff hired him as a journalist and convinced Johnny to videotape this idea and other stunts for stories. The footage, which involved Knoxville being tasered, maced, and ultimately shot while wearing a bulletproof vest, appeared in the second Big Brother skateboarding movie Number Two (which is also the title of the second Jackass theatrical film) Johnny and the videos quickly became a hit. Future Jackass castmember Wee-Man made an appearance in the videos, and Florida clown Steve-O would send in submissions to be part of the videos.

Big Brother would go on road trips, which is believed to be where Johnny met Bam Margera and they became good friends. In addition to skateboarding, Bam Margera had recently released a movie entitled Landspeed:CKY which consisted of himself and his friends, which he dubbed the "CKY Crew", in West Chester, Pennsylvania performing various skits and stunts. Among the Crew included the colorful cast of Ryan Dunn, Brandon Dicamillo, as well as Margera's family April, Phil, Don Vito, and Jess Margera. Jeff Tremaine saw the tapes and drafted Bam and his crew into what would become the cast of Jackass. Later, the Jackass crew would personally recruit Steve-O in a Florida Flea Market where he worked as a clown for part of the show. To round out the cast, Dave England brought in his friend Ehren McGhehey, a fellow Oregon resident and extreme stunt participator.

Tremaine drafted his friend, director Spike Jonze to get involved with the show, and together, he, Jonze, and Johnny Knoxville served as executive producers. The idea show was pitched, and the cast was initially given an offer by Saturday Night Live to perform the stunts weekly for the show, though the offer was turned down. A bidding war eventually occurred between Comedy Central and MTV, which MTV eventually won. It was then that Jackass was born.

Controversy

Since the first episode, Jackass frequently featured warnings and disclaimers noting that the stunts performed were dangerous and should not be imitated, and that recordings of any stunts would not be aired on MTV. Such warnings not only appeared before and after each program and after each commercial break, but also in a "crawl" that ran along the bottom of the screen during some especially risky stunts. Nevertheless, the program has been blamed for a number of deaths and injuries involving teens and children recreating the stunts.

On January 29, 2001, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) publicly condemned MTV and Jackass in connection with a dangerous stunt that led to a copycat incident in which a 13-year-old Connecticut teenager was left in critical condition with severe burns. Lieberman followed up with a February 7, 2001 letter to MTV's parent company Viacom urging the company to take greater responsibility for its programming and do more to help parents protect their children MTV responded to the criticism by canceling all airings of Jackass before 10:00 PM, but Lieberman's continual campaign against the show led to MTV refusing to air repeats of the later episodes, a move which angered the cast and production crew of the series who were furious with MTV's "caving into Lieberman's demands."

A man named Jack Ass sued MTV for $10 million, claiming the series was plagiarizing his name. Jack Ass, formerly known as Bob Craft, changed his name in 1997 to raise awareness for drunk driving, after his brother and friend were killed in a vehicle accident.

Ending and farewell

In a 2001 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Johnny Knoxville announced that the show would end after its third season aired so as to allow the show to end on a high note. He also stated discontent at MTV and the censors, who, from the start of season two, began to hound the show's producers with notes regarding what the show could and could not depict. When the third season ended in 2002, MTV (who owns the rights to the name "Jackass") contemplated keeping the show going with a new cast of characters (even running a teaser for the show's return during the 2002 VMA Awards Show) before opting to let the show die. Because of problems with MTV's standards and practices department as well as the sudden departure of Bam Margera and the CKY Crew halfway through season three, the Jackass crew did not attempt to create a finale to bring the show to a close.

MTV released a DVD box set in December 2005. The box set included the three Jackass DVD volumes (which were not composed of all 3 entire seasons, but just 1:30-2:00 highlights of each season), a bonus disc that included the crew's trip to Gumball 3000, a "Where Are They Now" documentary, MTV Cribs Jackass Edition, and TV spots, and 48-page book of photos and inside stories.

Additional Links

About editing a page on SideReel

You can edit this page to add links to blogs, sites, and other information... If this page has a "PageType" set above - that will determine where the page is listed on SideReel. You can add text, a picture, links or more by editing the page... Check out the links above if you need help.