Today, I just read the passing of a huge icon from my childhood, Evil Knievel. Now, he almost is one of those celebs that you have to look at the "Who's Dead/Who's Alive" website to check his status (I still don't know Abe Vigoda's status), but he is def. in the dead catagory now. My cousin, Roddy and I would be so excited to see his next stunt broadcasted on television, in a time where it actually was not a "Pay-Per-View" event. The hype alone was enough to make a kid go on an anxious "high" that not even Christmas could compete. I remembered watching his famed Snake Canyon jump where he parachuted to safety. The best was his jump over a bunch of buses, which inspired the Happy Days stunt of Fonzie jumping over various vehicles, and of course the shark tank, which coined the phrase "jumping the shark" so I guess indirectly Evil was responsible for that too. My fondest memory was having the Evil Knievel Stunt Cycle which provided hours of kid-joy jumping over make-shift furniture and stryrofoam cup obstacles. His stunts and supefly Elvis-inspired chops and jumpsuits are going to be etched in my pop-culture mind forever!
1 comment:
Geez, I'd forgotten about that Evil Kinevil stunt bike you had!
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