49 Fun Facts About Jackass

The Jackass logo swaps the crossbones under its skull for a crossed pair of what?

Crutches. The skull-and-crutches mark became merchandise in its own right, turning up on a run of Converse All Star sneakers.

Along with Jeff Tremaine and Knoxville, which filmmaker co-created Jackass?

Spike Jonze. Knoxville and Tremaine pictured a talk show with a host behind a desk until Jonze told them the skate magazine's stunt videos already were the show.

About how many episodes of the original Jackass TV series were made?

25. The show that launched a film franchise ran for only three short seasons before Knoxville walked away in 2001, saying he wanted to quit while it was still special.

Which skateboarding magazine first filmed Knoxville testing self-defense gear on himself?

Jeff Tremaine was an editor at Big Brother and convinced Knoxville to film the article as a stunt.

Johnny Knoxville wrote his original self-defense article as a homage to which writer he idolised?

Hunter S. Thompson. Knoxville called the piece his attempt at imitating the gonzo journalist, and years later he sat in a New Orleans hotel room with Thompson, taking turns reading aloud from The Curse of Lono.

Bam Margera's home-video crew from Pennsylvania was known by what three-letter name?

CKY. Short for Camp Kill Yourself, the crew's videos caught Jeff Tremaine's eye, and he flew Bam out to Los Angeles and folded the whole gang into the new show.

Which Pennsylvania town is Bam Margera's hometown, the backdrop for his early home videos?

West Chester. Ryan Dunn recalled the Los Angeles crew 'wondering who these little jerks were in West Chester', and before long the whole gang had been recruited for the show.

Which sketch show offered to make Knoxville's stunts a recurring segment before Jackass became a series of its own?

Saturday Night Live. Knoxville turned the offer down, and the crew signed instead with the network that promised a weekly half-hour of their own and more creative control.

What was Steve-O doing for a living when Tremaine first asked him to film stunts?

Working as a clown. The clown-college graduate was performing in a circus inside a Florida flea market, and not one clip in the first batch of stunt tapes he sent in was cleared for broadcast.

In a running Jackass gag, Preston Lacy chases which castmate through the streets in nothing but underwear?

Wee Man. The joke is the mismatch, the show's biggest cast member thundering after its smallest, both in white vests and briefs, past baffled pedestrians.

What is the name of the production company behind Jackass, founded by the show's three creators?

Dickhouse Productions. The three partners later used it to make the sketch show Loiter Squad with the rap collective Odd Future, one of whose members went on to join the Jackass cast.

What is the real name of Johnny Knoxville, who took his stage name from his Tennessee hometown?

P. J. Clapp. Philip John Clapp left Knoxville for Los Angeles to act and was paying the bills with commercials when his self-defense stunt idea took off.

Which U.S. senator wrote to Viacom in 2001 urging it to take responsibility for Jackass?

Joe Lieberman. He wrote on behalf of a Connecticut father whose 13-year-old son had been badly burned copying a stunt, and asked the network's owner to cancel or change the show.

In which MTV spin-off did Bam Margera torment his parents, April and Phil?

Viva La Bam. MTV handed Bam his own show once Jackass had left television, and it ran for five seasons of stunts at his family's expense.

Chris Pontius and Steve-O roamed the world in which MTV spin-off?

Wildboyz. It traded pranks for travel, putting the pair dangerously close to wild animals over four seasons that director Jeff Tremaine has called his favourite show he ever made.

What was the name of Ryan Dunn's one-season MTV show, in which he trashed pranksters' bedrooms as revenge?

Homewrecker. The show turned the makeover format inside out: a prank's victim told Dunn the story, and he and a crew redecorated the culprit's room with malicious intent.

In his 2007 USA Network series, Steve-O played a doctor whose 'patients' were men who needed what?

Toughening up. As Dr. Steve-O he pulled up in a customised ambulance and put timid men through challenges, promising to 'de-wussify wimps, nerds and couch potatoes'.

Which heavyweight boxer knocked Johnny Knoxville unconscious in Jackass: The Movie?

Butterbean. The near-400-pound boxer left him with a concussion and bouts of vertigo, and the mismatch earned an MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Fight.

Which animal knocked Johnny Knoxville out cold during Jackass Forever, leaving him with a brain haemorrhage?

A bull. Knoxville was performing a magic trick for it when it flipped him through the air; coming round, he said, 'I guess that bull just didn't like magic.'

In Jackass: The Movie, what did a hospital X-ray find inside Ryan Dunn?

Toy car. He told the doctors he had a mystery pain after passing out at a fraternity party, and the X-ray that gave the game away became a popular T-shirt among fans.

Which studio distributed Jackass: The Movie to theaters with MTV Films in October 2002?

Paramount Pictures. The studio spent about $5 million and took in nearly $80 million worldwide; 'it cost nothing to make', as the film's cinematographer put it, 'and turned a profit'.

Which piece of classical music plays over the giant-shopping-cart opening of Jackass: The Movie?

O Fortuna. Carl Orff's doom-laden chorus from Carmina Burana plays it straight while the cast hurtles downhill through explosions, a send-up of the way Hollywood blockbusters open.

Which veteran comedian closes out Jackass: The Movie, Number Two and 3D?

Rip Taylor. Knoxville, a fan, had the confetti-throwing game-show veteran flown in to declare the first film over, and he came back to do the same for the next two.

Bam Margera's castmates exploit his terror of which animals in Jackass Number Two?

Snakes. The cast shut him in a trailer with a king cobra; 'I hate snakes', he said afterwards, recalling a day that took him at least four days to get over.

Which cult director, who once cast Knoxville, has a cameo in Jackass Number Two?

John Waters. The Pink Flamingos director championed Jackass as properly subversive, cast its star as Ray-Ray in A Dirty Shame, and two years later stepped in front of the Jackass cameras himself.

Which director and star of an early-2000s comedy played the cab driver in the Jackass Number Two prank on Ehren McGhehey?

Jay Chandrasekhar. McGhehey believed he was the one pranking a cab driver, but the driver was an actor and the whole cast and crew were in on turning the joke back on him.

Jackass Number Two ends with the cast singing 'The Best of Times', a song from which Broadway musical?

La Cage aux Folles. Jerry Herman's feel-good anthem becomes a Busby Berkeley-style production number, with the cast singing and dancing in formation while the stunts go on hurting them.

Where did Jackass 2.5, assembled from unused Number Two footage, premiere in December 2007?

On a free website. The studio and MTV streamed it with adverts a week before it went on sale on DVD, turning 'straight to DVD' into straight to the internet.

The 2008 direct-to-DVD film Jackass Presents: Mat Hoffman's Tribute honored which stuntman?

Evel Knievel. Knoxville, who counted him a hero, was only visiting the shoot when he agreed to try backflipping a motorcycle; the bike landed on him and tore his urethra.

In Jackass 3D, Ehren McGhehey has a crooked tooth yanked out by a string tied to what kind of car?

A Lamborghini. The car was Bam Margera's, and McGhehey picked the tooth himself: a healthy one that was just a little crooked, tied on with fishing line.

Which animated duo opens Jackass 3D with an explanation of 3D technology?

Beavis and Butt-Head. Their creator Mike Judge voiced the pair for the cameo, and their 3D lesson gives way to the High Five, a giant hand that wallops unsuspecting cast members.

What is the title of the Jackass theme song played in operatic form over the 3D opening?

Corona. The Minutemen's 1984 track is a protest song about a poor woman collecting empty beer bottles on a Mexican beach for the deposit, an unlikely anthem for a stunt show.

Against film's usual 24, how many frames per second did the Phantom cameras of Jackass 3D shoot?

1,000. Against the usual 24 frames a second, that slows every punch and explosion about fortyfold, which is why the film's opening and closing mayhem seems to hang in the air.

In Jackass 3D's final stunt, Steve-O is strapped inside what before being flung about on bungee cords?

Portable toilet. It was fully loaded, and the bouncing on the cords left Steve-O drenched in its contents.

Which cast member strips to a thong and dances at strangers as the character Party Boy?

Chris Pontius. His cue is a blast of dance music: he tears away a sweat suit and gyrates at whoever is nearest, a routine he took to the streets of Tokyo for the first film.

Bad Grandpa was the first Jackass film nominated for an Academy Award in which category?

Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Stephen Prouty's prosthetics turned Knoxville into an old man convincing enough to fool the strangers in its hidden-camera pranks, though the Oscar went to Dallas Buyers Club.

The opening of Jackass Forever spoofs which kind of film?

Monster movie. The cast flees a full-size city set while a green monster tramples a miniature one, Godzilla-style; what the monster really is, one newspaper critic wrote, was unprintable.

Which skateboarding legend turns up as a guest in the Jackass films, starting with Jackass: The Movie?

Tony Hawk. He had known the crew since their skate-magazine days, which he remembers as 'the rawest and funniest magazine out there', and he has been a guest in the films since 2002.

Why was Bam Margera dismissed from the production of Jackass Forever in 2020?

He broke a sobriety agreement. His contract required regular drug and alcohol tests; the studio dismissed him over one result, he sued, and Knoxville called the split 'heartbreaking'.

Which newcomer to Jackass Forever had a scorpion sting her lips on camera?

Rachel Wolfson. Knoxville recruited the stand-up comedian after coming across her comedy; her mother, a Las Vegas judge, was the one who sent O. J. Simpson to prison in 2008.

Jackass 4.5, the outtakes companion to Jackass Forever, skipped its studio's own streaming service to premiere on which rival?

Netflix. So much had been shot for Jackass Forever that the cut stunts and outtakes filled a second film, and it went to a competitor of the studio's own service in May 2022.

Jackass: Best and Last opens with a young Knoxville shooting himself to test what?

Bulletproof vest. The clip is from the 1990s self-defense test that started it all: he strapped on a cheap vest and shot himself with a .38, and tapes of the stunt were soon passed around Hollywood.

Jackass Shark Week 2.0 set out to cure which castmate's fear of sharks?

Poopies. A shark had bitten him during the first special a year earlier, and the channel billed the sequel as the cast going back 'to finish what they started'.

A Montana man called Jack Ass sued MTV's owner in 2002, claiming Jackass had done what?

Defamed his name. Bob Craft, who had been Jack Ass since 1997, asked for at least $10 million and acted as his own lawyer, and the suit was dismissed.

Jackass director Jeff Tremaine went on to direct The Dirt, a 2019 biopic of which hard-partying band?

Mötley Crüe. Tremaine said the job made sense for him: it was 'loveable boys behaving badly', bad people you somehow end up rooting for.

Which 2007 video game's lead, Travis Touchdown, did designer Goichi Suda model on Johnny Knoxville?

No More Heroes. Suda, a Jackass fan, gave his beam-sword assassin Knoxville's look, and also drew on the wrestler Josh Barnett for the character.

A Jackass television special was filmed at which celebrity road rally?

Gumball 3000. Knoxville and Steve-O did more than film it: they entered the rally themselves and raced around Europe with MTV's cameras rolling.

Which film critic's tweet after Ryan Dunn's fatal 2011 crash drew a backlash?

Roger Ebert. 'Friends don't let jackasses drink and drive', he wrote before the facts were known; he conceded he had been too quick, though tests later put Dunn at more than twice the legal limit.

Which 2018 comedy starred Johnny Knoxville as the owner of a dangerously lax amusement park?

Action Point. The shoot left Knoxville with four concussions and a sense that his stunt career was winding down, which is why he at first resisted making a fourth Jackass film.