Martinex1: Growing up and in grade school in the 1970s, there was a brief period of time that I was highly influenced by the stunts and antics of Evel Knievel. And I am sure others were too. Whether jumping cars or buses on his motorcycle, or attempting to leap the Snake River Canyon in the steam powered Skycycle X-2, the stuntman had the world at attention. Well, at least he was the talk of the schoolyard.
Television shows, books, toys, collectibles, and comics were all suddenly enamored and emblazoned with the wild stunts of the well known daredevil. When I was in the fourth grade, I desperately wanted the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle (I received roller skates instead and had trouble hiding my disappointment). For a handful of years Evel Knievel had a cottage industry based on toys made in his likeness and branded with his name. He was an international hit by any standard.
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| I am not sure when Evel Knievel branched out to exploring but he sure captured the imagination. |
Knievel was everywhere. For the comic-loving fans, it was hard to miss the advertisements. Can you remember which books in your collection featured the back covers depicted below?
On television, it would take a lot to convince me that he didn't influence Happy Days or the television Captain America! The Fonz jumped fourteen garbage cans (unsuccessfully) on the sitcom, and that costume and those wheels for Cap surely owed something to "The King of the Stuntmen."
There was even a 1974 Saturday morning cartoon, Devlin, that leaned on the Knievel mystique quite obviously. Check out the show opening in the link here.
I guess I can give Marvel and Steve Rogers a bit of a break, as the character was riding motorcycles many years prior to the showman's fame but I suspect the addition of the bike to the television show and its increased use in comics had Knievel influences. On the other hand, nothing can excuse Team America; not only was it late to the party but it was horrible.
More close to home, who didn't envy a kid with the Evel Knievel lunchbox? And who didn't try to build a ramp to try out with a Schwinn Stingray? I still have some sore ribs from a failed attempt (Disclaimer: That is not young Martinex in the photo)!
So let's Chew the Fat! What were your daredevil memories? Did you gather with the neighborhood kids and try out some wheelies and jumps? Were you mesmerized by the Wide World of Sports stunt spectacular? How much did you pester your parents for the coveted toys? Share all of that and anything else that comes to mind as today we discuss Evel Knievel and all of his influential impacts.
15 comments:
. . . How many of us DISTINCTLY remember doing even a small ramp-jump, losing contact with the (banana-style Stingray) seat, and coming down on the frame in front of it. . . ? (Pretty much what's going to happen to the poor lad in the second picture, there?) I have many memories of both myself and pals writhing on the ground, waiting for the pain to subside enough to get back on the bike. . . or in a few instances to NOT get back on the bike. . . hoo-boy.
HB
E.K. was on the tip of everyone's tongue, to be sure!
Like HB, we did a lot of ramp jumping with the Schwinn's. My personal best was about 7 feet distance. Had a hockey helmet on, b/c it was obviously risky. Almost lost it and stopped there. My buddies quit at 4'.
Cap 128! My second comic purchase ever, in the summer of 1970, which put me at 8-9 years old. Still have it! Story did not do much for me, since there was no super villain, just bikers. My first purchase was a few months earlier: Spidey 86.
Almost died several times on motorcycles... 4 wheels (or two propellers) only for Charlie at this age!
I had the stunt cycle toy briefly. I bought it at a garage sale years later, but it did not survive the stunt antics a friend and I devised for it.
Did you guys know Team America was actually supposed to be an Evel Knievel comic, but when he got busted for domestic abuse (plus his dwindling popularity in general) they generized the toy line and Marvel had to come up with another conceit for the book?
One last thing: I remember asking my older brother when I was maybe 4, if Evel Knievel was actually "Evil," because I felt bad liking someone if they were a bad guy. :)
I wanted that stunt cycle toy badly! Never got it but a friend down the street had one. The limbs were flexible so when the toy wrecked we would take him off and bend his limbs odd ways to show broken bones. Pretty morbid weren't we?
Evel Knievel and Muhammad Ali were probably the most well known people in the world in that era.
HB, oh yes how I remember!
Yes HB, I think that was a common (and painful) result. I once didn't have my front tire properly locked in and when I jumped my tire rolled away. Landing hard on the fork and flipping was particularly painful. I think the youths in those photos experienced some agony a few seconds later.
CH47 - seven feet is a pretty darn good jump.
Dr O., Evel specifically spelled his name with an "e" because he didn't want to be perceived as an evil person. Still confused a lot of kids I am sure.
Killraven I think 90% of the fun was making him crash - I remember jumping my friend's stunt cycle off the back porch pretending to have Evel plummet into the Grand Canyon.
I never had the stunt cycle either, but I think a friend of mine had one. We also set up ramps in the alley to jump our bikes over (ramps like in that second photo, never anything as elaborate as the first one). And of course, we put baseball cards in our spokes so we'd sound like Evel Knievel on his motorbike :)
Marti - I feel your pain! My front tire vibrated me over the handlebars on a steep hill once.
Shoot did that hurt! Buddy had same experience on same hill.. road rash from forehead to beltline and it was ugly!
But the 7' was actually measured and was the absolute limit. I would have needed more speed than I could generate with the Schwinn banana. It did not have any gears. My tire vibrated when I landed too and I said to myself, "I may be crazy but I ain't stoopid..." Enough!
I thought the Human Fly was pretty bad, too. Great costume, though.
My dog got hold of my Evel action figure and killed him. He had a problem with dolls...he just didn't like them.
He also mangled my Stretch Monster, which was amazing. That thing weighed twenty pounds and was as big as he was. There was jelly coming out of it. That took dedication.
M.P.
Never had the toys, but Evel was the frequent subject of conversation among my group of friends.
Charlie and HB- man, those banana seats were cool. Had a Huffy, cherry red with black seat and the 'sissy bar' (the tall arced back supporting bar behind the seat, that was what it was called in our neighborhood). Never crashed on a jump, but had a painful spill upon hitting a patch of gravel. Stitches in the knee, and unpleasant digging out of dirt and pebbles. Bike was unharmed, though...
I did have a neighborhood friend whose folks (although not particularly wealthy) bought him all of the hot toys and games when they came into vogue. He had both the Evel and Bobby figures with their stunt cycles. They were fun for maybe an afternoon or so-- but they kind of epitomized the "fad" toy experience, where the fun engagement is a heck of a lot more limited than the commercials lead you to believe.
Nah-- give me the SSP Smash-Up Derby cars for the repeated-use toy experience!
(Also, although it was in college, I too had a disengaged-front-wheel-crash similar to the ones cited above. My own variation is that I was going darned fast on my 10-speed, and popped a bit of a wheelie to absorb a small curb bump. And the wheel came right off as I lifted. Thus, I had that extra second or three whilst suspended to take in the departure of the wheel, and know that when the empty forks came back down it was going to be less than pleasant. . . )
(Several students saw me crash in a tangled heap. No one came to see if I was okay. Sheesh--)
HB
Red - I think "sissy bar" was universal, lol! IN retrospect, now that I think of what a "sissy" meant back in the day I don't get it, b/c we all thought the sissy bar was really cool!
Also, I am thinking that b/c we about the same age of 55+, we never had "toys" that were dolls? I never had EK toys, or GI Joe? But my younger brothers did.
I'm pushing 49, myself. So I fell into that window where you had Mego figures, G.I Joes with the "real hair" that fell out in patches like mange. Don't put 'em in the bathtub, even if they have scuba gear. And the Evel Knievel guy with the bike and the ramp, and the cord you would pull and it would zip two feet across the garish mid-seventies carpet.
Ah, good times.
M.P.
(oh, and your class picture looked like you were auditioning for the Bay City Rollers)
Oh ho ho, CH47-- unless my memory fails me, our good friend d_butler may have a rebuttal on that particular topic-!
But I'll pinch-hit for him in the meantime (56, me) : The Original 10" tall, articulated GI Joes were enormously popular in our neck of the woods in my childhood. Pretty much everyone I knew had at least one laying around somewhere, and they did get a heck of a lot of use. Much of it wildly abusive (or at least violent), sure, but they had a long and distinguished fantasy-play career. And early on there were some less well-made western-type figures as well: Johnny West, Lone Ranger & Tonto--- and their horses. But, like Barbie, those guys were simply to immobile to be a lot of fun. The success of GI Joe, I think, was in being able to realistically manipulate the figures.
I honestly think I was an adult before it ever occurred to me that these "action figures" were really just dolls for boys. Brilliant marketing on Mattel's part.
HB
Gosh- we never talked about the Evel TV-movie bio-pic (it was a television production, yes?), starring George Hamilton, which was honestly not a bad little picture at all, y'know? The opening sequence was sort of an odd little small-town caper comedy all its own. . . and boy you just can't look away from the heavy use of Evel's real-life jumps and crashes through-out, yeah? That Caeser's Palace crash is etched into my brain forever. . .
HB
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