April 26, 2001

3:05 AM

Yet another "Jackass" injuryThis time some teenagers were videotaping themselves performing a stunt in which a guy dodges an oncoming car, apparently in hopes of getting on the show. Interesting video of the event, from both inside and outside the car.
posted by Potsy (35 comments total)

They kept looping this on MSNBCNNFox yesterday - of coursing achieving exactly what the kids were out to do. The idiot DA made some motions like they wanted to pursue action against MTV. For what?

My first witness for the opposition? "Mr. Chuck Jones, this all goes back to you, the coyote, the roadrunner and those damn anvils."

Note to parents: please do your jobs, abstain, or cut the tubes
posted by owillis at 3:43 AM on April 26, 2001

I agree... someone needs to sue the parents for raising stupid children...

I never tried to drop an anvil on someone's head cause I saw it on TV.

Never tried to do some "Extreme Skiing" when it was all the rage, even though I had opportunity to do it.

The gene pool diffenately needs some chlorine.
posted by da5id at 3:50 AM on April 26, 2001

Well, some of us were guilty of creating hairspray flamethrowers when we were kids... that doesn't necessarily mean we had irresponsible parents, nor does it mean we're stupid--it just means we were curious kids. Hell, I did a lot of dumb stuff when I was young... stuff I knew I shouldn't have been doing and stuff my parents told me not to do. Of course, that didn't stop me (or anyone else I knew, for that matter).

Kids are going to do stupid things, regardless of how good of parenting they get. It's just a function of their age. Now you can blame parenting for actions performed by children that are hateful and whatnot as those kids obviously haven't learned certain values, but when it comes to dumb stunts, most of us have done 'em, and I'll bet our parents weren't too shabby either.
posted by fusinski at 4:03 AM on April 26, 2001

I don't think that chlorine is quite strong enough.

This kind of stupidity amazes me. That MTV even airs such crap amazes me, but when you look at the rest of the garbage they have in their lineup I guess it fits right in.

I fear what my 6 and 8 year old nephews will be doing a few short years from now. After they hopefully get out of the annoying Pokemon craze that is.
posted by a3matrix at 4:06 AM on April 26, 2001

If anyone has seen the Reebok commercial that used to air during survivor, I believe this is what the kids were trying to copy. A guy is standing in the middle of the road and car comes at him and he just jumps up and right over it. This whole commercial (Called "Defy") is just trouble in the making for Reebok. Has anyone seen it lately?

I was surprised Jackass was still around after the fire incident, this is probably just one more nail in its coffin.

Note to parents: please do your jobs, abstain, or cut the tubes.

owillis, I can't agree more. There is a warning about every 30sec about how "These are professional stunt men" or "Mtv will not even view your video so don't bother" What ever happened to "Kids, Don't try this at home" meaning something?
posted by stew560 at 4:10 AM on April 26, 2001

Last night while watching the news they aired a story by one of the lawyers of one of the boys involved who was adamant that this was not an attempt or in any way influenced by Jackass.

I enjoy Jackass, and to my knowledge Jackass has never accepted submissions or aired stuff that Johnny Knoxville and his crew haven't been a part of. To say that they were doing it in hopes of getting on the show seems ridiculous.
posted by TuxHeDoh at 4:25 AM on April 26, 2001

I blame George Bush for this whole incident.

. . .

Well I do.
posted by Outlawyr at 4:27 AM on April 26, 2001

Heh heh. Bush SUCKS!
posted by holloway at 4:33 AM on April 26, 2001

Why do anything? This seems to be a classic case of natural selection. I saw let Nature run it's course....

I know, I know, if they hurt other, innocents blah blah blah.

This happens all the time. How do you think we discovered cyanide was poisonous?
posted by Dagobert at 4:56 AM on April 26, 2001

Darwin has so much more power today than we realize...
posted by delfuego at 5:02 AM on April 26, 2001

Stew: if you frame-by-frame the Reebok ad, you'll see that the car casts a shadow; the man jumping over does not. It's no realer than Wile E. Coyote getting brained with an anvil.

Of course, the little dummies that did this probably don't know about AdCritic...
posted by nicwolff at 5:10 AM on April 26, 2001

Also with that Reebok commercial, there is more then one way of doing it.

The guy could have been to the right of the car, and made the jump. Meaning that he didn't jump over anything. At least that is what I first thought when I saw that commercial.

Guess I am going to have to browse AdCritic more often.

Fusinki - True, all kids doe stupid things, I am guilty of numerous incidents. Hairspray flame throwers, hell, I used to take my GI Joes, stand them up on a bench, and below them was a bucket of water that had gasoline which floated on top of it. I lit the GI Joe on fire, and then tipped him over to fall into the bucket which promptly burst into flames.

Not very smart.
posted by da5id at 5:22 AM on April 26, 2001

nicwolff...I never claimed the ad was real, it is just suspiciously similar to what these kids were trying to do.

I as well checked it out frame-by-frame and you can totally see that the guy is superimposed onto the frame. But run it full speed, along with the whole theme of the commercial and its a lot more convincing to the kid watching it than an animated character who ends up with birdies flying around his head.

On the topic of AdCritic, what is the deal with the "Spec" Ads? Are they AdCritic's own creations or submissions or what?
posted by stew560 at 5:24 AM on April 26, 2001

Reebok had DJ Shadow produce a version of "William Tell Overture" for the Spike Jonze-produced commercial spot..... this is the same commercial, right? Info from endtroducing.com
posted by ewwgene at 6:29 AM on April 26, 2001

When mad-danger stunt shows were all the rage I saw somebody do this very same stunt. The guy had some extremely good sense though because he chose to jump over a Ferrari (not very high!). Come to think of it, he may have done seven in a row...

Any ideas who it was?
posted by bloated_guts at 6:41 AM on April 26, 2001

That is some high-quality video those kids shot. :|
posted by rodii at 6:42 AM on April 26, 2001

I agree with most comments here. Idiots who really believe they can 'jump' a car should be filtered from the gene pool. Could I also ask for spammers to eradicated?
posted by ethelfarts at 6:53 AM on April 26, 2001

ladies and gentlemen, umpteen years in the making, I present to you: the lowest common denominator in humans

thank you.
posted by SentientAI at 6:54 AM on April 26, 2001

Stew, the spec ads are submissions by upstart ad agencies trying to generate business by showing that they can create professional spots for products they don't represent.
posted by machaus at 6:54 AM on April 26, 2001

When I was in college (10 years ago), after we'd get home from the bars on saturday night, there was a show on at 2am or so called (i think) "The Stuntmasters". It often featured a then-little-known (at least in the US) Hong Kong actor/stuntman named Jackie Chan. I'm sure I saw him do this stunt.
posted by jpoulos at 7:03 AM on April 26, 2001

ask the obvious question [...]

The obvious answer: because Jackass is "cool" and PBS isn't. Kids want to do "cool" things, not act out "lame" PBS infomericals.
posted by andrew cooke at 7:11 AM on April 26, 2001

The fun part of the story- The kid doesn't even have cable. I didn't see the MSNBC coverage, but I'm guessing they didn't mention that.
posted by ice_cream_motor at 7:32 AM on April 26, 2001

Let's be clear, here. They were not copying Jackass!

It may sound unimportant, but it's not. Something we need to keep in mind before we go around pulling stuff from the airwaves: Kids can be stupid without the help of TV. I don't like Jackass very much, but I think they're being perfectly responsible, what with all the disclaimers and such.

There will always (always) be one kid in a hundred thousand who does something stupid.
posted by jpoulos at 7:41 AM on April 26, 2001

Jpoulos, I remember a couple years back seeing a guy actually jump over a moving car as well, but I don't believe it was Jackie Chan (not that I don't doubt he can do it, or that he DID do it). I think it might actually be in the Guiness Book of World Records, but don't quote me on that. In fact, don't quote me on anything...
posted by fusinski at 8:00 AM on April 26, 2001

Is any body else amazed by the fact that this kid didn't break his back? They way he rolled off of that car...he's lucky he didn't die. I've never seen the MTV show but if it inspired these kids to do this maybe it should be called "Dumbass"
posted by treedream at 8:39 AM on April 26, 2001

Hmmm... "Jackass" or "Dumbass."

What's the difference? :-)
posted by da5id at 8:45 AM on April 26, 2001

fusinski:

I saw the stunt in the early 80s on "That's Incredible!" (old school reality programming). Could that be what you were thinking of?
posted by Dirjy at 8:47 AM on April 26, 2001

I saw the stunt too. I also recall seeing the stuntFool trying it, missing, and his left leg then merged with the oncoming windshield. Both shattered. Stupidity at its finest.
posted by kokogiak at 10:13 AM on April 26, 2001

Let's be clear, here. They were not copying Jackass

What, you mean the media are taking several similar but unrelated events, finding a mass media meme to link them to, and then calling it a social epidemic??!?!?

I'm shocked, shocked....

Indeed, kids have always done stupid things. My buddies from high school were very fond of filling a tuba mouthpiece with lighter fluid, holding a butane lighter in front of one end, and blowing fireballs.....have they tried that on Jackass yet?
posted by briank at 10:46 AM on April 26, 2001

Dirjy, it very well could have been.

On a separate note, has anyone else noticed that every "stupid kids" post that's in this thread is based on the misuse of fire? haha
posted by fusinski at 11:01 AM on April 26, 2001

I finally watched a whole -- well, two, actually -- episode of Jackass last Friday. I'd only ever caught it in passing, but there was something to the accumulated stupidity. The thing that struck me as I laughed my ass off was that any kids imitating the show just didn't get it. It's schädenfreude, my friends: you're supposed to be happy that guy crashing the shopping cart down the 45 degree hill isn't you.
posted by dhartung at 11:06 AM on April 26, 2001

The British variety of show Trigger Happy TV is less violent, more surreal, and above all funnier than Jackass (which yes I have seen). A development of Candid Camera, the show's star Dom Jolly spends hours creating incidents in the street and filming reactions. Examples:

A man in the picnic area of a park eating nuts is mugged by a group of giant squirrels.

A man with a giant mobile phone which rings in unusual places (the cinema, an art gallery, an internet cafe, the back of a tourist boat in Venice), prompting the shows only true catchphrase - 'Hello? Hello yes? I'm in Paris. Yes I'm on the Eiffel Tower. It's crap!'

Dressed as a park warden going up to old people and accusing them of taking part in kids activities: 'I'm sorry, to trouble you, but we've had a report of two people matching your description letting off fireworks.'

Walking a stuffed alsation. Tying it up outside a pet shop and going in to ask for dog food.

Some are take more of a set up:

Woman goes into a portaloo. Whilst she's in there, Dom arrives with the city mayor, a brass band and a page three model carrying a bottle of champagne and a huge banner. When the woman comes out of the loo she's awarded the prize for being the 1,000,000 user of the loo.

Dom sits on a toilet in the window of a bathroom showroom reading a newspaper. When the owner arrives, he tells him he won't be long and asks for some privacy.

There are also the celebrities. Interviewing Terry Gilliam about 'Fear and Loathing', a busker appears in the background and starts playing. Dom dashes over, smashes his guitar and starts kicking him around, promting the only other catchphrase of the series from Terry straight to camera - 'Fuq'

But some of Dom's work is done whilst doing publicity for the series, such as appearing on 'This Morning' a daily magazine show and faking sickness on air. Or producing a best of show, were 90% of the clips are unseen . . .
posted by feelinglistless at 1:07 PM on April 26, 2001

video soon to appear on AllTrue.com, no doubt...
posted by DiplomaticImmunity at 2:05 PM on April 26, 2001

Anyone figure out what the kids inside the car are listening to?
posted by modofo at 3:21 PM on April 26, 2001