Evel Knievel - An insane man
doubledragon
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in Sports Talk
I wasn't alive yet when this guy was doing his thing, but I have been watching some of his stuff on Youtube lately and he was crazy and borderline insane. He broke a lot of bones over the years with his jumps. Who remembers watching this legendary man and his crazy, insane stunts?
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You know, he attemoted to cross Snake River Canyon in a freaking rocket! The stunt failed, and a parachute was deployed and he sank to the bottom of the canyon. He made the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Insanity.
Here is the video of his attemot to rocket over the canyon.
He also attempted to jump the fountains at Caesars Palace and missed the landing and broke a lot of bones.
The landing was where it went wrong.
Here is a video about his Caesars Palace fountain jump.
Everybody watched him, he had no fear.
Definitely a legend and a name I knew from early childhood. A name which was synonymous with being a daredevil .
This thread prompted me to read a bit about him. Just a cursory glance on Google shows that I know little about him, and that his story is rather extraordinary and a bit off the rails.
I watched all his stunts. He was so popular that one of the most popular sitcoms Happy Days had its main star Fonzie jump 13 trash cans in a 1976 episode when Evil was very popular. Evil played himself in a Bionic Woman episode. His toys are very collectible and he has a pretty neat card set. I have an unopened pack and some cards. Cool stuff.
I was more of a Super Dave Osborne fan.
He was truly fearless, jumping Harley's in the 70s is an incredibly difficult thing to do, especially the landings. The guys today have specially designed bikes for jumping and they have shocks on their bikes to help with the landings, and their bikes weigh less. Evel Knievel didn't have that luxury, he used the heavy Harley which was insanely difficult to land and as you can see from his Caesars Palace fountain jump, that the landings could be very costly. I think he broke over 40 bones in his body from that jump.
2:57
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
They also had Fonzie jump over a tank with a shark in it, thus creating the later-to-be-famous phrase "jumped the shark".
I was born in 76, so I was a little late to the EK party. But he was still a household name for me and my friends growing up for sure.
He had some stones, I'll tell you that. Can you imagine if the parachute would have failed on the rocket, he would have fallen all the way down to a certain death. The man was a god. A god I say!
I'm not going to lie, I've been poking around the Evel Knievel card section on the Bay, and I've got my eye on something, and I just might pull the trigger on it. You see, this is what happens when you guys start these kind of threads. Whoever started this thread is forcing me to spend money!
Check out Gary Wells's attempt at Caesar's. He was the 2nd guy to try it. Evel was 1st. I remember when this happened. I was a kid but it was brutal. It's a short video.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=uiRdiy-D3_8
Man, that was absolutely brutal. I'm surprised he survived that!
Let's get this out here so everyone can see this.
I had his 1975 bicycle that my parents bought for my birthday. Other kids in my neighborhood wanted it.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
I had this bad boy in the 70s, jumped the hell out of everything in the house.
Yes! I had that too!!!
My buddy used to work at the Davenport Hotel inn Spokane WA. He delivered a room service milkshake to Evil at 2:30 am. He met the man for 10-15 seconds. Big tipper too.
Dave
I was there. Only problem is I was a day late and a dollar short. I would have made it to the BIG BLAST OFF on time if only the Utah State Highway Patrol hadn't forced my friend and me to WALK 50+ miles from Spanish Fork to Salt Lake City. It's a long story. All I can say is......don't attempt to hitchhike on Interstate-15 in the state of Utah after spending a rousing evening at The Atomic Bar.
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Therefore, 🚔=🚫🚀
Simple logic.
Oh yeah. Had one but mine was orange. My bedroom was on the second floor and it opened to a hallway, then to a bathroom with a balcony. I used to run him out of my bedroom through the hallway and bathroom, off the balcony and down into the backyard. It was awesome. He was crazy and all of us boys knew it. Its why we loved him.