When Icons Jump The Shark, Or The Day I Walked With Evel

IF YOU'RE MALE and of a certain age today, you're probably like me. You're mourning an icon.

From the NYTimes:

Evel Knievel, 69, Daredevil on a Motorcycle, Dies

Evel Knievel’s famed jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in 1967; he was unconscious for a month afterward.

By RICHARD SEVERO

Published: December 1, 2007

Evel Knievel, the hard-living, death-defying adventurer who went from stealing motorcycles to riding them in a series of spectacular airborne stunts in the 1960s and ’70s that brought him worldwide fame as the quintessential daredevil performer, died yesterday in Clearwater, Fla. He was 69.

His death was confirmed by a granddaughter, Krysten Knievel, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Knievel had been in failing health for years with diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable lung condition. In 1999, he underwent a liver transplant after nearly dying of hepatitis C, which he believed he had contracted from a blood transfusion after one of his many violent spills.

Knievel is an icon whose death I found out about through a friend's Facebook status message. That is a first.

It's fine if you don't get what the fuss is about. I mean, he jumped things. Looking back now, it seems a bit silly, really.

One of the great lessons of my life has been about the fickle nature of iconography. In high school, when Ricky Nelson died, I made a joke about it on the announcements, and had to deal with a very angry female teacher who was hurt. An actor on Ozzie and Harriet meant nothing to me. But to her, it was everything.

I learned that day to be respectful of people's icons. (And also, that the baby boomers were the only people peculiar enough to expect that the passing of their icons should affect everybody as much as it did them.)

I was moved the day Kurt Cobain died. Not by his death, exactly. I mean, it was a drag, sure. But to me, that was just a rock star dying. It only occurred to me that something else was going on when about 500 kids showed up outside the Muchmusic building where I worked to spontaneously mourn him.

Years later, on a Six Feet Under episode, there was a flashback to young Claire (about 7 or 8) discovering Nate, who would be in his 20's then, crying over the death of Cobain. That bumped for me seriously because, dude, he'd be upset -- I was -- but not crying upset. Lennon? Sure. He was everybody's icon, but Cobain?)

Anyway, icons are a tricky thing. Point is, if you're under thirty, say, it doesn't matter a whit to me that you don't understand who Evel Knievel was -- other than "that guy who sued Kanye West," or why he was important.

But you do probably have a connection -- even though you don't know it. You're most likely way more familiar with the ripple events of Evel Knievel than the guy himself.

Specifically, jump the shark.

See, that website, the entire ethos behind it, is a ripple off the impact of Evel Knievel.

A quick recap, for the 2 of you who haven't come across it yet. In the popular zeitgeist, a show is said to have "jumped the shark" when a once promising series starts to suck. The episode comes from an episode of HAPPY DAYS, where Fonzie actually jumped a shark.

Why, you ask, would they come up with such a ridiculous plotline?

Evel Knievel.

Garry Marshall, Happy Days' producer, was famous for jumping on top of any trend that seemed popular. And daredevilism, specifically the kind of foolhardy heroics that formed Knievel's stock in trade -- was no exception. In fact, Fonzie jumping the shark was a kind of sequel to an earlier Knievel homage -- an episode where Fonzie jumped a bunch of barrels and slid into Arnold's.

If you're within five years of my age, and you lived in the U.S. -- especially Florida -- you had an Evel Knievel motorcycle and action figure. (I even had the Snake River Gorge Rocket Car set, and the bike tricked out to look like one of his Harleys, and more stickers, coloring books, patches, jump ramp sets and photos than you could shake a stick at.) You'd play Evel Knievel on your bikes, in the park. You'd jump ramps and probably crack your fool head open (I'm getting a smile-on right now picturing today's nervous parents dealing with freaking Evel Knievel as their kid's role model. Oh, 1970's, you were awesome.)

Evel is also the obvious inspiration for the Simpsons episode where Homer jumps Springfield Gorge. He also appeared on the original Bionic Woman. He played himself, natch.


It sounds ridiculous and cliche to say it, but I think the main reason why Evel meant so much to kids was that he always got up. When you're a kid, you're always doing dumb things and fooling yourself and trying stuff and banging yourself up. And Evel did all that. He took crazy risks. And he always got up.

And for whatever reason, that was important.

I met Evel once. I was eight, and his best daredevil days were behind him.

No, we did not fall in love. Let me finish...

I was living in Orlando, Florida, in a subdivision called Bay Hill. Golf fanatics will doubtless recognize the locale as the site of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

This is me in front of my old house in Bay Hill, a couple years ago. Back in the day, I'd pretty much rev up the Evel motorcycle and let'er rip right there on the sidewalk behind me. Sometimes I'd make him jump salamanders, or oranges from the tree down the street.

Anyway. One day, the rumor spread like wildfire through the neighborhood kids. Evel Knievel was up at the club having dinner.

We all got on our bikes and rode up, and got in and as far as the door to the dining room. And there, at a table, there he was, just sitting there. We were all disappointed that he wasn't wearing his trademark star-spangled jumpsuit.

But after a few minutes of fidgeting and quiet gawking, he waved us in. About ten of us bolted into the mostly empty dining room. He met us half way. I swear to this day, you could hear the metal in him clank a bit when he walked, but that might just be an eight year old's active imagination.

He talked with each one of us -- asked our names, and what we liked to do. We all volunteered that we had all his stuff -- the board game and the t-shirts, and the action figures and the motorcycles. I told him about the Rocket Car from Snake River Canyon and how that was my favorite. He smiled and said, "mine too. I almost made that one."

I guess Evel faded away into the rise of Darth Vader, and so marked probably the end of one era of iconic marketing. Because Star Wars surely started the next era -- and probably all the eras to follow.

The pointlessness of the tasks Evel set himself really hearken back to a more innocent time. I'm not sure what his message was, beyond a kind of bullheaded cowboy spirt, and that dumb, occasionally foolhardy brand of American optimism that can seem simple to the other nations of the world.

It is simple. But it's quite useful. I think it's that optimism, that says you can do better, that you can fulfill your dreams and that following your instincts is the way to go -- well, I like to believe that that's at the root of more than American risk taking. It's at the heart of what it means to be American. The star spangled jumpsuit was no accident.

And I still believe that kind of optimism has been more of a force for good in the world than bad. Even if that idea's been sorely tested in the past few years.

What I remember most about my few minutes with Evel, besides the long-lost autograph I wish to God I still had, but probably never even made it to Canada with me...The thing I remember most was what he told us before he waved goodbye:

"Boys," he said. "Don't let anyone ever tell you you can't."



Thanks, Evel. Hope you aced that last jump. And that somewhere, somehow, there's film. Cause that one I'd like to see someday.


For Jim Henshaw's rather more adult view of the Great Evel Knievel, click here.