April 3, 2018 ▸ People

Episode 285: Evel Knievel: The Godfather of Extreme Sports

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On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we do a wheelie all over the ultimate pop-culture icon of the 1970’s, stunt man extraordinaire, Evel Knievel. Evel Knievel was a stunt man and extreme sports grandfather figure. He jumped canyons, pits of snakes, mountain lions, and crashed. A lot. If you are old enough to remember his stunts, you know how big a deal he was back in the day. If not, you want to give this one a listen and go hit YouTube to watch some crazy action.

Knievel was born Robert Knievel in 1938 in Butte, Montana. He was raised by his grandparents and fell in love with sports and stunts at an early age. He was a gifted athlete, playing hockey professionally, and had a hard time keeping a normal job. He sold insurance, ran a motorcycle shop, poached game on federal lands, and worked in a copper mine, but none of it paid the bills well or became something he could stick with.

Finally, in 1966, he self-promoted his first stunt show and motorcycle jump. He saw how much money he could make doing this, and his life changed forever. He started to do local tours through California, each one boasting a bigger jump than the last one. He drove through fire and panes of glass and jumped more and more cars. Eventually, he conned his way into a jump over the fountains at Cesar’s Palace, and this put him on the map. He crashed on the landing, but he aired on ABC, and his career skyrocketed. He did bigger and bigger jumps in front of larger and larger crowds.

Eventually, he set his sights on jumping the Grand Canyon, but he was denied permission by the US government. Instead, he jumped Snake River Canyon in an experimental, steam powered rocket cycle. It didn’t go well. Who’d have guessed? So what propelled this man to keep doing stunts after breaking more than 40 bones and wrecking several times a year? What legal trouble did he get in as a poacher of big game? What happened that made him assault one of his promoters with a baseball bat? Why did Matthew McConaughey give the sermon at his funeral, and what did he die of? Listen, laugh, learn.

Plus as a bonus, it’s not the typical sausage fest in the Fight Club Studios; we have a very special guest with us in the studio on this one as well—Patti Larson from Just the Worst Podcast!