Jackass Scenes You Never Got To See
Over the span of two seasons of a TV series, three movies, and numerous spinoffs and side projects, Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, and the rest of the Jackass crew of self-punishing stunt comedians with little concern for life, limb, or dignity created some unforgettable moments of classic nonfiction comedy. Everybody has their favorite, of course, but these are the guys that gave the collective cultural consciousness stuff like a guy in a mouse costume crawling across a floor covered in mousetraps, a giant hand slapping the unsuspecting, and sticking a toy car up one's backside. Their brand is over-the-top, and even brutal, but it's undeniably funny.
Amazingly, the people that make Jackass have standards about what they will and will not release to the adoring masses. Based on what has actually made it into the Jackass movies and TV projects, it's difficult to ascertain what, exactly, is forbidden, but there's a lot of footage that didn't make it past the cutting room floor — raw, edgy, and hilarious stunts and pranks that live on thanks to the internet. Here are some of the best Jackass scenes that weren't quite ready for TV (or the cineplex).
Sick burn
No matter where or when you grew up, there was probably that one kid in your neighborhood who was just a little bit unhinged, the kind the parents in the cul-de-sac worried about, because his favorite activity was hanging out on the sidewalk all day with a magnifying glass, trying to tilt it ever so slightly so as to direct a sharp ray of sunlight to the ground... which he would use to kill insects and/or light small objects on fire. Well, that kid may have been a bad influence, or maybe he was just a future Jackass star in training. That kind of "let's try it out, enjoy the mayhem, never mind the consequences" essence permeates every frame of every Jackass project, and in this deleted scene from Jackass 3.5, the Jackass guys literally revived that old childhood chestnut, with a twist. Steve-O gets the party going — after using a magnifying glass to burn his own leg (because Steve-O is always his own test subject) — and other members of the crew use the simple tool to sneakily burn one another.
A body of work
For a collective of dark comedians, nihilists, and wily stuntmen, the Jackass crew is surprisingly audience-focused. Everything they do, they do to entertain the viewers watching at home or in a movie theater, and there probably isn't anything they won't do to illicit a chuckle, spit-take, or an even more visceral reaction. Okay, well, they also clearly set up their elaborate stunts and delightfully boorish personal pranks to entertain themselves and one another, but rarely is the victim of their mischief an unassuming member of the public who didn't know what they were getting themselves into. But in this prank, cut from Jackass: The Movie, the intended victims are innocent people just passing by, going about their day. Perhaps that's why the scene didn't make it — it doesn't fit in tonally with the rest of the film. Nevertheless, it's really funny to watch the Jackass guys frantically bumble their way through moving a "dead body" out of a van and into a dumpster... in broad daylight... on a busy street.
It's a course, of course
The Jackass universe is quite possibly the 21st century successor of Double Dare, the legendary 1980s Nickelodeon game show where kids won Casio keyboards and Huffy bikes for defeating super-messy games and a punishing obstacle course. Jackass isn't all that different — swap out the kids for adults who should know better, games (with clearly defined rules) for "let's try this silly thing and see what happens" set pieces, and the messiness for scream-inducing pain and the howling of others, and it's pretty much the same show with the same manic, gleefully wild flavor.
Some Jackass stunts are more Double Dare-esque than others, but none would benefit more from Marc Summers cheering on participants from the sidelines like "The Rube Goldberg Test." Taking its name from the famous inventor of needlessly complicated and elaborate contraptions, this obstacle course of self-punishment involves a slide, a comical boxing glove, and something far more disgusting than chocolate syrup: a tank full of decomposing flesh and fecal matter left to bake in the sun.
Let sleeping Bams lie
While some of the the best Jackass moments are elaborately and carefully planned, many others come about in a moment of inspiration, the way an offhanded, unscripted line can make its way into a comedy movie. While everybody was arriving to work on Jackass 3D, cast member Bam Margera took himself a little nap in the confines of a production van. When Johnny Knoxville got to the set, he heard about it and didn't think it was the best time for sleep, so, as he excitedly whispered to the camera, he set out to give his friend a "wake up" with a defibrillator, a mainstay of both the emergency medical technician's toolbox and frantic TV doctors looking to save a patient who flatlines on the operating table. While those people use real, expensive, state-of-the-art lifesaving devices, Knoxville approached Margera with one that some of the other guys on set rigged out of various dangerous electronic components and stuff they found laying around. "Clear!" Knoxville shouted as he stuck the paddles on Margera's chest. The victim was bewildered and confused, to say the least.
How about a cold one?
Steve-O is a man not only willing to suffer for his art, but who will enthusiastically endure permanent damage to his body in pursuit of an amusing event that will live forever on videotape. That seems to be his thesis statement over his long career as the world's most famous (and depraved) performance artist, especially since he almost always makes himself the victim of his pranks. Instead of setting up giant hands to slap people when they enter a room, or attacking sleeping friends, Steve-O sets out to get Steve-O (at least at first).
A prankster is aware (and hopeful) of a chaotic consequence, so that means Steve-O knows what's going to happen at the end of one of his stunts, and he expects it to go that way, and then does it anyway. In this scene, Steve-O decides to give figure skating a try, although his way. Sure, he puts on a tutu and straps on some ice skates, but then he treks out onto a river in the winter. The ice is very thin, and, well, one can assume what happens next.
The dark reason why Don Vito got cut
Jackass crew stalwart Bam Margera parlayed his success and popularity from the Jackass show and movies into his own MTV reality series, Viva La Bam. A rollicking hybrid of The Osbournes and Jackass, cameras captured Margera and his pals hanging out with Margera's long-suffering parents, Phil and April Margera, and the star's uncle, Vincent Margera, a.k.a. Don Vito.... and then relentlessly pranking them. The worlds of Jackass and Viva La Bam merged for the movie Jackass Number Two, featuring a stunt where the guys tied a string to one of Don Vito's teeth and extracted it by tying the other end to a speeding car.
That preposterous idea was set to go into the movie, and was apparently such a highlight that it made its way into the official trailer. But then in 2006, Don Vito was arrested for allegedly inappropriately touching two girls at a Colorado shopping mall. That tooth removal scene quietly didn't make it into the final cut of the movie.
Fire bad
MTV might be a historically edgy network, but when lawsuits and the loss of human life come into play, it doesn't like to play with fire. In the early '90s, the network forced fundamental changes in the hit cartoon Beavis & Butt-Head. Beavis once loved to start fires and talk about fires, but those references had to be toned down after a child burned down his home, reportedly getting the idea from the cartoon. About a decade later, MTV initially allowed a Jackass segment called "Human Barbecue" to air. It featured Johnny Knoxville, who, while wearing a fireproof suit studded with steaks, allowed himself to be lit on fire. Knoxville makes it out alive because of the suit — it's all pretty much an elaborate, wild sight gag — but a 15-year-old boy who lit himself on fire nearly didn't. The Seattle-area kid soaked his clothes in rubbing alcohol and lit it while his friends videotaped it. He suffered first-degree burns over much of his body. Under intense pressure from media watchdogs, "Human Barbecue" disappeared, and wasn't included on Jackass DVDs.
This one is positively electric
This casual sequence, which is all about guys being guys and busting each other's chops in a relatively extreme way, was for some reason left out of the final cut of Jackass Number Two. It's an all-star assortment of Jackass favorites, too, from Johnny Knoxville to Steve-O to Bam Margera, and special guest Hollywood movie star Luke Wilson is there for the fun, too. Why was it cut? It's hard to say, but it's definitely one of the most shocking things that the Jackass crew ever committed to videotape.
Which is to say it is literally shocking — the guys administer mild electric shocks with the aid of a military-grade torture device. Chris Loomis, Margera, and others submit to it, with metal connectors applied to their appendages (or tongue, in Steve-O's case). Then they answer an imaginary phone call, more of a distraction than anything as they await their electrical punishment.
A stunning development
Not every Jackass idea has to be an elaborately and expensively staged production involving the whole crew, numerous builders, and so much pre-planning that by the time it's ready for execution, the guy who's supposed to it starts to get nervous. You're just supposed to think it up and do it, right?
Well, the "Stun Gun Hot Potato" (cut from Jackass Number Two) is definitely a fly-by-the-seat-of-one's-pants kind of idea. First of all, somebody unwisely gave a stun gun to the Jackass collective, or allowed it to be stolen by the Jackass collective, so that alone wasn't the best idea. That's because once they've got a handheld weapon that can send serious (but not fatal) electrical jolts through each other's bodies at the push of a button, they're going to find some way to incorporate that into a dark and clever bit of videotaped media. How it plays out: Knoxville, friends, and special guest Willie Garson from TV's Sex and the City try to play catch (and do other bad things) with a powered-up stun gun.
A tall order
This particular Jackass footage is both unaired and rare. It's also rare in that star Steve-O appears fully clothed, which rarely happens in Jackass productions, and he's fairly quiet and not his usual chatty, boastful self, as if he's a little afraid of how this stunt may play out. And that's justified. The usually fearless Steve-O is tasked with trying to walk on a pair of wooden stilts, which happen to be on fire.
Adding another element of danger to the stunt is a guy sailing over Steve-O's head on a skateboard, whom he "tags" by spitting a mouthful of alcohol onto a flame. But back to the main stunt: After a final check to see if everything's working properly, the flames rise perilously close to Steve-O, as he tries to take a step. He does, and then immediately falls, but in the direction of someone waiting with a fire extinguisher.
What's truly alarming is that Steve-O and company keep trying the stunt over and over again — fiery stilts, airborne skateboarder and all. In another attempt, some giant pants are placed over the stilts, and then those get lit on fire. That time, Steve-O gets a good walk going before he falls, somehow not breaking his legs or burning himself alive. Kids, do not try this at home.