Being Evel!

There was never a better time to be a young motorcycle enthusiast than being a kid in the early ’80s. My brother and I would make ramps and jump our bikes to feel like the famous Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel.

Evel Knievel was an icon, he was my hero, he was one of a kind, even people who were not into motorcycles, stunts, or daredevils knew of his celebrity. Evel Knievel became synonymous with any “crazy or impossible” stunts and became a household term many adults used to describe us youngsters and our antics.

As kids we latch on to ideas and icons and are often times unaware of the full story and impact of who certain people or things are. As a child we rarely even gave a second thought to any of the details or origin stories of our heroes. They just existed. As we get older, curiosity (disguised as nostalgia) tends to get the better of us as we tend to wonder: who was that masked man? – Despite being a couple years old, I stumbled upon a 2015 documentary titled “Being Evel” which got me excited to learn more about this man, this myth, this legend.

The film is about 1:42 in length and briefly touches on Knievel’s childhood but focuses on his rise to fame, his fall from the spotlight, and his return to glory in his later years thanks to the extreme sports champions that he had inspired.

One thing I did want to highlight from the film: By the end of 1975, Knievel was said to have broken every bone in his body. The Guinness Book of World Record says he holds the record for “most broken bones in a lifetime” at 433 bone fractures.

Back when Knievel was performing there wasn’t the internet, social media and other outlets, so self-promotion was extremely challenging. The stunts were expensive and outrageous, and to pay for all those follow-on medical bills he had to get creative and use his larger than life persona to market his name – his brand, raise ticket sales and also develop memorabilia, toys and games for people to collect. Very forward thinking for the ’70s!

There have even been parodies of Knievel, in particular one you might remember from later in our childhoods: Super Dave Osbourne!

Super Dave was played by comedian Bob Einstein, and was a bungling optimistic stunt man who looked a lot like Knievel and 100% of his stunts went wrong. Some might consider this an insult to Knievel, but I view it as a tongue-and-cheek homage to Knievel’s work. Check out Super Dave on YouTube. But without going into a ton of additional detail, I’ll leave you to do your own research. You can learn more about Evel Knievel through wikipedia and also his career through IMDB and the documentary. There is a large collection of clips and interviews available on YouTube as well. The film “Being Evel” is currently available through the Amazon Prime streaming service. Enjoy!