Crime in Sports - #454 - Anal For Evel - Evel Knievel - Part 7

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

This week, Evel finally makes his long awaited flight across The Snake River Canyon... with mixed results. From his parachute opening too early, to the thousands of people who nearly plummeted to their deaths, just to get a good view. He also heads over to England, causing much commotion, and drawing 90,000 people at Wembley stadium. This leads to a 2 day retirement, followed by more insanity!!Get all snuggled up in you rocket cycle, pull yourself from the bottom of a canyon, and take England by storm with Evel Knievel - Part 7!!Check us out, every Tuesday!We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to crime and sports early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Until April 2nd, sky-high elegance at dream prices during the Air France Rendezvous. It's time to book your Rendezvous with Paris, starting at $765, or Madrid, starting at $885 return. From Toronto, tax included. You can enjoy a glass of champagne however you fly, economy included. Elegance is a journey. Air France.

Travel from March 17th to June 28th and from August 24th to November 30th, 2025. See conditions at airfrance.ca. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery, exposes a multi-billion dollar criminal empire. Every suspicious text you ignore, mass a huge network of compounds where thousands are held captive and forced to scam others under the threat of death. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody and welcome back to Crime in Sports. Yay! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed.

My name is James Metragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another wild edition of Evil Knievel Does Crazy Shit. We'll just call it. We should change the name of the show from Crime in Sports to Evil Knievel is fucking crazy.

That would be just as apt of a name. Thank you for joining us. We're going to continue of yay. He wishes be screaming we we make that coyote noise. So before we start though, definitely head over to shut up and give me murder.com. We got merch. We got tickets for small town murder shows. Come out and see us or stay in and see us for the 420 virtual live show, April the 19th,

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So by the end of this thing, he's going to be hurting. It's going to be a lot of fun. So shut up and give me murder. Even Sendog was scared of the bong. Sendog, you're going to do more than Sendog then this time. We're going to really, we're going to hook you up. So check all that out and we cannot wait for that. We're excited for that in regular live shows as well.

Chicago in May, come to that, we can't wait. Also, you definitely want Patreon. What are you doing if you don't have Patreon? Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material. Anybody five dollars a month or above, you get first of all an entire back catalog of things you've never heard hundreds of episodes you've never heard before immediately

upon subscription and then you get new ones every other week one crime and sports one small town murder. This week we're going to do for crime and sports we're going to talk about this Spanish Paralympic team who was not no one was actually disabled. They just wanted to win and a few other scams, but we're really gonna concentrate on that one because wow is that wild and funny. And then for Small Town Murder, we're gonna talk about this Netflix documentary, American Nightmare, and the story behind it.

It's, at first you think it's a Papini situation, like a fake kidnapping, but then it gets weirder and weirder and I read a whole book about this, so we're really gonna dive into this deep. It is the craziest story. I've never been on the edge of my seat more hearing a story, it's so crazy. I can't wait to tell you all about it.

We are gonna have to do that on Patreon this week. Patreon.com slash crime in sports and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well. Jimmy will mispronounce your name Don't you worry about that that said I think it's time everybody back into evil again I have to delay the scummies for a week because I'm an idiot and I added like new categories and I made it Yeah, I made it like a whole thing cuz we're gonna do it You know on its own a standalone show and then so I did all that and then I just didn't couldn't finish it cuz it's

So hard to do. Are you an idiot or do you just care? It's a lot. Yeah, maybe that's both I think. That's the problem. I'm an idiot for caring. No one cares. No one knows if we're going to have an extra two categories. Nobody cares about anything anymore. No one's going to fucking listen and go,

oh you know what, those extra two categories, that was a great idea. No one cares. And I'm like, oh I'll put it, those extra two categories, that was a great, no one cares. And I'm like, oh, I'll put it in anyway. I'm an idiot, that's what it is. Thank you for clarifying that. I'm an idiot because I care. So let's get back into evil here. He is creeping toward this snake river canyon jump

that will happen this week, I assure you. I promise you, the jumping will happen this week, I assure you, I promise you, the jumping will happen this week. We are starting out, we left off with Evil out doing his million dollar party, quote unquote, but you know, there's not really. Not quite. Not quite the million dollar party.

No, so he is out hanging out, he's with people, he's hanging out with Bob Arum and with Bobby Riggs, right, the tennis player. Yeah, apparently here we have, across the table from him is Ernest Hemingway's granddaughter. Sure. Why not? He's hanging out with Bob Bob Aram Bobby Riggs and

Margo Hemingway who is and Margo is with an X like what French spelling you a just a UX oh and she said that she was conceived on a night her parents got drunk on a bottle of very good Chateau Margot wine. There you go. So he's hanging out there. He's yelling and screaming basically evil about the governor of Idaho and there's press there obviously and because this is in the newspaper he said the governor of Idaho I've never even met that SOB. He's never told me good luck or God bless you or to hell or anything. They ought to throw his butt across the canyon to test the win. Oh Yeah, he did say I'd be a boost for item Idaho's economy

Well, I'll sure as hell tell you I'll be a boost for this state beyond anything that guy ever did here That's right, and he's buying drinks for the house as he's doing that. He's gone set the house up again on me He had he bought as many as 12 rounds for some people. 12. They were a buck. Fuck it. Yeah. His his bar tab for the whole bar is six hundred forty four dollars. So that's buying round after round after round. Then he says the secretary of the interior. What's his name? Rogers Morton. he's a friend of yours isn't he bobby screaming at bobby riggs said well he won't let me land on federal land federal property without a permit bobby send him a telegram this telegram dear mr. morton you played tennis with me

last week and i thought you were a hell of a guy but let evil land on your property or else you can kiss my ass evil stepmother is telling the press about he's always been like this his stepmother is telling the press about, he's always been like this. His stepmother says, you know, when Bobby was young, that's his real name, obviously, he once had a race with his brother Nick. Bobby rode a cycle and Nick rode a horse.

Doesn't seem like a fair race. Nope. At all. I mean, that's. Unless it's a one horsepower cycle. I'd say unless it's one of those shitty mini bikes. And darned if Bobby didn't run the cycle right into the rear end of the horse. That's how you win.

So that's what they're talking about. So they said that he carried his magic cane, this is from the book, he carried his magic cane and seemed to be in an angry hurry, barking at the people who worked for him. He was not afraid of using the magic cane to open a path. He was also seen late at night ordering another round of drinks for the bar at the Blue Lakes Inn, making pronouncements, giving more commands, nuzzling with assorted women who were not his wife sometimes when his wife was in a room just down the hall. Wow, the journalistic cynics

were not impressed. One freelance writer, Bill Cardozo, there's a lot of these writers is the first chance they're getting to spend time with him, because they've all kind of come in for this, and there's nothing else to do, so they're just following him around. This guy from the Boston Globe said, "'Bobby Knievel might have been the worst creep

"'I ever met, a philanderer and a bully, "'none of which of course should be held against a man, "'but he blew my vote of confidence "'because in public life He was a hungry spokesman against these evils whenever and wherever he could find an audience. Mr. Mr. Red white and blue. What an asshole Couldn't be more red white and blue in my opinion But he's mr. Hypocrite though. He's mr. Clean living and you know all that shit and then that's America at night. Yeah, that's Full of shit

He's a he's got it. So I mean evil is for better or worse Evil should be on the flag because yeah He's full of shit. Yeah reckless. Yeah fucking arrogant, yeah phony But does have water yeah, but does have balls so I mean that. Um, you know. But does have balls. But does have balls. So I mean that's kind of the, you know. That's kind of the American credo.

The whole thing. Hypocritical. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Hypocritical asshole who thinks he's better than everyone else. Yes, yes. Welcome. And he'll throw himself across a fucking canyon to prove it. That's the other thing. So Joe Esterhouse said,

I thought Knievel was a bully, abusive in his tone. He was like one of those guys who acted like he was the star and everyone else didn't matter. I thought he was a bully and a prick. There you go. He said that they talk about how he said that when he was assigned to cover Knievel, Esther House, he said, great, why not, basically? And the Rolling Stone told him,

you can write as much as you want. Do what you want with this. So Esther House said, I thought the story was larger than Knievel by himself. I wanted to do this gigantic picture of Americana, the whole panorama of Idaho and farms and motorcycles and kids, this event with evil at the center of it.

That was what he was looking for. They say not all the press for Eukeneville was bad. There were a few writers who painted the man of the moment as the next Lindbergh, or at least a sports page wacky reincarnation of him. I guess because Lindbergh had just died. So that's why they were, he was in the imagination at the time there. They said there were a number of writers,

a majority who started out intrigued by Knievel and the production, but who grew more and more disillusioned as the big day approached. Why are all those trucks with ABC logos here when Top Rank says the event will never be on free TV? What's up with that? Yeah, they said there were writers who had disliked Knievel's act before they even arrived But now one guy said as a one of the writers said I hope he doesn't die because then he'll be seen as a martyr I

Hope he doesn't die cuz that'll give him what he wants. Fuck this guy. We'll never forget about this prick No, I hope he's just mangled and limps a lot as basically they say I think So they said the promoters tried to strike down this kind of talk since it was a brush fire that could burn down the entire Production Bob Aram was moved to put on a show-and-tell demonstration after using a Paul his words So he said look at that pointing at the 13 foot rocket and the So he said look at that pointing at the 13 foot rocket and the hundred and eight foot launch rail and the wide deep Expansion of the canyon if it's a fraud. It's a fraud. Let it speak for itself Said the rocket looked very small though. It didn't look it kind of looked pitiful

It's this giant Yeah, that's kind of sad that's like a guy whipping out his dick going yeah, what do you think of this? And they're like, I don't know not much actually Not real impressive but it's like that's what they were swinging at him for to track like Dude it's a huge expanse and there's just as little rocket sitting there that just looks sad and small and comparison They say he was frenetic worked worse with each day, hour, and minute. This is about evil. He would talk about his family

and how much he wanted to be with them, how worried Linda and the kids were. He would order another round, kiss another woman. He would talk about his friends, the people from Butte, how much they always meant to him. He would explode at some small thing they did. Bob Arum said all the people he was with, the hangers-on, he abused them terribly. He's

so nasty to everybody, Evil. Filthy McNasty and his brother Wolfgang, remember them? Yeah, I do. Wasn't there a small town murder that a guy went by Filthy McNasty? I think there was, yeah. Not this guy though, different guy. But yeah, it was definitely a guy calling himself that. They arrived from Los Angeles. They had made their reservations long in advance at the Blue Lakes Inn. Knievel came to them and said they couldn't stay at the inn.

He said he needed their rooms. I need your rooms, you guys are out. There's not a lot of lodging around here, so you booked your rooms like well in advance and all that shit, so Wolfgang said. Imagine you're staying in a hotel and somebody knocks on the door and you answer it and Johnny Knoxville Just goes I need your room. I need your room. Yeah, there's no other rooms available You guys are gonna sleep in your car. So wolf gang told me go fuck himself. He said yeah, that's the answer

Go fuck yourself and they stayed in the rooms You're gray now. That's it. I don't know what to tell you dude. Don't you have an acting gig or something to do? Get out of here There was a dinner for the promotion staff at the Blues Blue Lakes Inn Facundo Campoy one of the engineers who had worked with Bob true acts from the beginning Brought along two young guys who had helped at the site Eve Knievel yelled at them or yelled at him from the head table Who are these guys? They weren't invited. And the guy answered, they've worked every day

since we got here. They've been working their asses off. And Evil said, not invited, get them out of here. Wow, fuck you, I don't wanna give these guys food. So they said Campoy and the two young guys left. Evil sort of apologized the next day. Campoy said that was fine, he was a professional. He didn't have to get along with the person that he was, you know, in charge to do a good job. Bob Arum said,

Knievel played it all wrong. He didn't think about kids when he did his promotion. His appeal mainly was to kids with the toys and television. Despite ABC and Sports Illustrated making it some kind of sports event, this was a kid event. Knievel wouldn't shut up about how he was going to die. The more he talked about dying, the worse it was. What parent was gonna let his kid go somewhere to watch someone die? That's not a kid-friendly event. That's a fact.

You take your kid to go see the guy succeed. You don't take your kid to go see him die. That's not what you do. So they want a whole family to go together to see this at the theater. So they said one question that Aram was asked often about was about whether he was promoting a suicide He said see that's not kid-friendly. That's what people are asking me. That's not good. He said no he wasn't He said there was no blood on his hands. No matter what happened. He said this is Bob Aram if there's a fatality Sunday I don't think we've promoted a suicide, he said.

Knievel was determined to do this crazy stunt. They said, yeah, but could he have done it without you? He's been talking about it for years. And he said, shh. I mean, Bob's basically doing the lateral move of promotion, because in boxing, that's kind of, it might be hyperbole,

but they always say, I'm gonna kill the guy. If the guy dies, did we promote a murder? I don't know, man. I don't know. He chose this. At the very least someone's might be unconscious by the end of it. That's not good. From a blow to the head. Is that any better? What are we talking about? So Bob said sure, he couldn't have done it with the same promotion. He couldn't have made such money, but he could have done it. He would have done it. He had been talking about it for six years. He was determined to go through with it, and we know, and six parts of a fucking episode, too,

of Crime and Sports. He made the decision. All we did was give him a good promotion. Aram said the rocket would lift off on time, no matter what the wind speed was, no matter what the weather was, because they have closed circuit. Rocket designer Bob Truax said a 20 mile an hour wind

was maximum where the rocket would not get fucked up and the mathematical calculations wouldn't be off. 21 miles an hour, we're in trouble. We're in deep shit, yeah. So anything higher would force a postponement, but Aram said that Knievel would be in charge of that and only a hurricane would bring a postponement. Basically, if it's humanly possible to do this,

we're doing it, nevermind safety, any of that shit. Twin Falls didn't have a lot of hurricanes, they said, so probably gonna do it. He also said television coverage would stay with the event no matter what happened. So the Rocket people did their work around the X2. They finished all the changes despite their tight schedule. They fretted about whether everything worked,

but they felt reasonably secure with what they had done which is not what you want if You're gonna fly over a canyon on something. We think it's we were reasonably sure that we think it's pretty good Yeah, not really. I don't even want that. I wouldn't drive a car that somebody said that about it The wheels gonna fall off this doesn't sound safe Reasonably sure you won't plummet to the bottom of a canyon. So, you know, they said a former astronaut, Jim Lovell, commander of the first spacecraft to orbit the moon, was part of the closed circuit

broadcast team. He took a look at the X2 and said that he would travel in it if Knievel had second thoughts. They said, hey, I'll get in that thing. Sure. Facundo Campoy and Bill Sprow also said they would fly in it if Knievel had second thoughts. They said, hey, I'll get in that thing. Facundo Campoy and Bill Sprow also said they would fly in the X2. They'd been putting it together.

Campoy said, I'd been a drag racer in speed boats until my wife made me give it up. That's the most dangerous thing you could possibly do. We've covered that, it's the craziest. Those boats come apart so fast. Oh my God, they flip over, you're dead, it's just, no, two seconds.'re dead, it's just no two seconds. One accident, those things just splinter, toothpicks.

It looks like a tornado going through a fucking trailer park when those things explode. Just pieces of... And then the man's at the bottom of the lake. Oh man, pieces of fucking mechanical viscera just thrown about. And whatever happens, however, whatever they hit, whether it's a piece of the boat or the water, they're, every time they're unconscious. I've never seen a boat accident where the pilot,

is he a pilot? The captain? Captain. He's unconscious every time. Oh yeah, they have to save him from drowning. He's just bobbing in his life jacket the whole time. There's nothing else you can do. Holy shit.

He says, this guy goes on to say, in one season in my division, nine of the 12 racers were killed. That's not good odds, man. That's 75% chance you're going to die. That's crazy. How fun could it be? You know what I mean? To do that.

I'd rather do a job. The other three were just unconscious. They were pulled from the water. Jesus Christ. He said, so maybe I had a different perspective. Yeah, he's like, I mean, what? If you got 25% chance of living, that's pretty good. Truex was one dissenter.

He said he built rockets, didn't fly in them. He estimates on Knievel's chances had varied during the rounds of interviews, but he had settled on 60-40 odds on Knievel's chances had varied during the rounds of interviews, but he had settled on 60-40 odds that Knievel would survive. Not that he would pull the jump off, just that he would survive. He said that Knievel had the same chances as a good test pilot in a new untried plane. Jesus. Truex said, if you were going to give me $6 million for doing it, I'd say nothing doing it's too dangerous. So Knievel had heard all this talk, the book says, the pros and cons of whether he would

survive. Jimmy the Greek had arrived at the site. Oh, God. A famous oddsmaker there. Horrible racist things. He's going to call Knievel at least a Puerto Rican if nothing less. And he's also going to make some odds on him. He'll be Mexican or something? Jesus Christ. That's so funny. He's called Knievel at least a Puerto Rican, if nothing less. And he's also gonna make some odds on him. Will he be Mexican or something?

Jesus Christ. That's so funny. That's a guy, when you watch that whole thing, when you watch him, you're going, stop, stop, stop. No, dude. Yeah. He's trying so hard. But he's, I don't, it didn't come across

like he meant to be racist at all. No, no, no. It came across like he said. It was a very Andrew Jackson moment. Yeah. Yeah, he said some, that's from Small Town Murder if you don't know. Right. Not the real Andrew Jackson we're talking about.

That would be a very really racist person. We're talking, I don't think he was like that. I think he was like, oh shit, I said something. Let me dig out of it. Oh God, I'm making it worse. Oh no, this shovel's not going sideways. It's going deeper. Oh boy, oh boy. Hey, can you guys oh shit? I'm underground now

That's not trying to build a ramp out of this hole, but I'm just going deeper not good He Jimmy the Greek did say he wouldn't predict life or death But he said the odds are three to one that can evils crazy Which is good odds there probably would be more speculation about the man of the moment's fate in the next 48 hours than there had been in about any moment of any man's life. Knievel had the required imagination. He silenced a dinner table conversation at the Blue Lakes Inn when he read a quote from Jack London that he wanted inscribed on the side of the stone.

Jim May, the Twin Falls lawyer had found the quote, I would rather be ashes than dust. Can evil read. I would rather that my spark burnout in a brilliant blaze than be stilled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor than a sleepy permanent planet. The proper function is to live, not to exist. Can evil said, that's it. That's me. And then he started singing Bad Company's Shooting Star. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. But that's exactly what it was.

That was what he was doing. He was just reading the poetry version of fucking that. So leading up to the jump, they say, at ground level, as evil sat upside down, the first battalions of true evil believers had arrived. They were not a pretty sight, these believers. Dirty and self-medicated, pushing against the cyclone fence erected to keep them away

from the rocket. Biker guys and biker chicks pleading and snarling. One woman spaced out and topless, a crucifix bouncing between her breasts as she rode atop her boyfriend's shoulders was called the Hollow Lady by Esther House and the Quaalude Queen by Cardozo. She fit either description. A young guy, also on top of someone's shoulders, named himself the State Pig of Montana. He said, I'm the State Pig of Montana, he said over and over again.

He was covered in dirt. State pig, presumably as filthy as any state pig of Montana should be. The Quaalude Queen and the state pig kept up a constant clatter of evil, evil the tribes have assembled, calling to the man of the moment who probably couldn't hear them hung up in the sky. The Queen added the fact that she loved him and would be proud to share her love with him. The state, I wanna fuck you, evil.

Hey, evil. The quailude queen wants to fuck me. Evil. Oh, boy. Hope you survive so I can suck your dick. I have made it. Oh, boy. He's going victory is mine. That's why I got into this thing. Oh The man of the moment so me and the quail-ooed Queen can can can cock the fucking state

Yeah, oh, they're not together God so they said the state pig continued to state that he was a state pig. The man of the moment finally saw and heard all of this when he came down from the rocket with his blood still filling his cranky head. He told one of the guards that if any of the screamers made a move to climb the rocket to quote blow their heads off. Then he made a strange remark. Look at this he said loud enough for promoter Aram or anyone else to hear.

Sunday is the greatest day of my life and it's run by a bunch of goddamn New York Jews. Aram tried to shuffle the words off. My values are different from his. He's a cowboy, he's telling himself. He's a cowboy. It's fine. But that hung around like an unpleasant odor. What was that? A bunch of goddamn New York Jews? Things did not improve when Knievel returned to his trailer. Oh good, he's more belligerent. Excellent. This was supposed to be

the time finally when he sat for an interview. He went into the trailer. The ragged clot of press people closed around the door. a crowd, cameras, microphones sticking out from all sides. The plan was for Knievel to sit down on the steps of the red, white, and blue throw rug hastily supplied by Shelly Saltman. The plan, alas, would put him out of sight from reporters and, more importantly, cameramen in the back rows. Have him stand, Jim Watt, an NBC cameraman out of Los Angeles suggested. Before

a reply could be made, Knievel popped out of the door. He had heard the request and didn't like it. He said, if I want to sit down, I'm going to sit down. And then he kicked the guy out. Out, out. So out, they say, a strange dance began as Knievel turned and went back inside the door, then burst out again and said to Saltman, the next time he looks at me, tell him the next time he looks at me to have a smile on his face, and then to Watt, the cameraman, I'm not an actor, Mr. Cameraman, do you understand that? And then Watt replied, that's right. It seemed finished.

And then Knievel pushed it one more step. He said directly to Watt again, I said have a smile on your face. Watt What years later said I had just come back from working in Vietnam. I probably told him to go fuck himself Yeah, he's like I've been watching people's with their guts blown apart for months now. I don't care about this Yeah, I've seen villages burned. I'm done. I don't care He said what he really said was I don don't smile for anybody, which it meant the same thing. Watt was a smaller man. He was hamstrung by his equipment. Knievel bounced off the steps of the trailer,

swinging the cane at him. Oh, he's, okay, he's got a, yeah. He's bringing the weapon. He had a good angle. He hit Watts' camera. He hit Watts' shoulders. He knocked Watt to the ground. He stood over the cameraman.

Get him out, Knievel said. Out. I don't need any crap from a cameraman like you. Watts said I can't go without my camera. Knievel said I'll stick it in your ear if you're not careful. Jesus Christ. Not only was this ugliness, it was ugliness witnessed by the people who were sending all those words across the country.

This is the whole, there's microphones in his face while this is going on. It's recorded everywhere. Wow. Knievel clomped back into his trailer. Watt picked himself up and walked away with his broken camera. There were assorted guesses that this was part of the hype, a first cousin to those fights at the weigh-in between the two boxers. You know, that bullshit, you know, to promote a big heavyweight fight. Watt though made it seem real. A first cousin to those fights at the weigh-in between the two boxers.

To promote a big heavyweight fight. Watt though made it seem real. He was a real cameraman. Wacked for trying to do his job. Nothing else. Knievel also made it seem real. He was out of control. After a while he came back and sat down on the stairs and tried to explain himself.

He was more restrained than he'd been all day. Almost calm. He said said quote, I think all of you here know, regardless of what two or three jackasses might say or have said, out of the millions of legitimate press people in the world, what this thing is. It's a monster. I think you all know now by looking at me that I wish I didn't have to do this and I wish I wasn't here. But I'm going to go and I'm trying to keep my wits about me and you're all welcome to film whatever you want as long

As you're not as long as you're here to help me if anybody doesn't want to help me I'll go after them and throw them out. Just like I did the last guy Really their job is to help you. They're just you know documenting what's going on here Enter a guy named Don Branker Okay, the book says the person who hated Knievel the most was Don Branker. Wow, that's probably a tough club to be at the head of, I would imagine. There's probably a lot of people who hate evil Knievel, I would imagine. They call him a prick, for Christ's sake.

A fucking prick. Aram privately had decided that, quote, I would never root for somebody to die. Couldn't do that, but I wouldn't mind seeing this guy get bounced around a little in that rocket." He said. But mostly kept those opinions to himself. He had to sell tickets. Branker did not have that problem. The 28-year-old rock and roll site manager running on overdrive every day worried not only about whether or not Knievel would get inside the rocket, but also about details like providing one portable toilet for every five women in the crowd. One more for every ten men. That's interesting.

The theatrics had worn him down. He'd had enough. The relationship with Knievel was terrible. Knievel wrote him off from the beginning as a long-haired hippie asshole, a characterization that put him near the bottom of all shit lists for evil. Every suggestion Branker made wound up in a battle. One fight led to another. Knievel thought Branker didn't know anything. Branker thought Knievel was an idiot. Right.

You know, so why not? So Branker was called to the launch site the night before the jump for an organizational meeting at the Blue Lakes Inn. That's where he was and he got called to the jump site. He had hired a local Indian called Chief Red Cloud to help with as many problems that might develop in Twin Falls. The chief had done good work,

especially calming the local population, but this was a different problem than had been anticipated. The chief Red Cloud said, you better get out of here, there's a riot going on. Oh? Yeah, he said, Branker drove his rental car to the bouncy bumpy dirt road to the site. There were no lights at the site except in the trailers that the promoters used as offices and the spotlights on the ABC trucks and the rocket. Everything else was wilderness dark, darker than dark. Branker's

headlights when he pulled in gave him flashes of what was taking place. People were moving. Noises of destruction were coming from assorted locations. Anarchy! Uh oh. He drove as fast as he could to the trailer. Tommy Frazier, brother of former heavyweight champ Joe Frazier, was there. He'd been hired by top rank as security. Chief Red Cloud was there.

Filthy McNasty for some reason was there. What a crowd! We got Joe Frazier's brother, Chief Red Cloud, and Filthy McNasty for some reason was there. What a crowd. We got Joe Frazier's brother, Chief Red Cloud, and Filthy McNasty. In the early hours of December 4, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at him. And the suspect.

He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione. Became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. What if everything we thought we knew about justice was wrong? In This Is Actually Happening's new series, A World Beyond Revenge, we explore a radical idea that justice can be about healing, not just punishment. Through five powerful stories, we meet people who've experienced unimaginable harm, and those who caused it, as they come together to seek something radical. Healing. From a man tortured for a crime he didn't commit to a woman who misidentified her attacker. These stories will

change the way you think about justice, forgiveness, and the possibility of a better world. Follow This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to This Is Actually Happening ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. That's a hell of a six man tag fucking there. Not bad. He had showed up there driving a Cadillac Hurst with the name of his bar on the side. A few other people were there, Bob Arum and Shelly Saltman were on their way. It was a definite crisis situation. Branker said it was right out of a movie.

If you told people, they wouldn't believe it. The first thing I saw, they'd literally torn the top off a beer truck. Oh. Opened it like a can. Holy shit. Yeah, like it was full of beer in there, like a big pool of it. They were throwing cases of beer out of the truck.

People were running everywhere with cases of beer. It was Mad Max meets Evil Can Evil. Second sight was worse than the first. Screams came from the darkness. Female screams. Cheers. More screams. More destruction.

Fires were started. Portable toilets on fire. Concession stands on fire. Jesus Christ, the people in the Qualls family's fields, how many people? A lot. Were drunk and high and doing whatever they wanted to do and there was no one to stop them. The people had apparently been upset by the $40 fee to park.

That's so much to park. What year was that? 1975 or something. that's so here was 1975 or so that's insane that's absolutely and you could take your whole family out to a nice dinner for $40 back that's insane that's crazy $40 to park a car about the prices for the beer they thought they were being gouged it's Woodstock 99 except this except if they did it before the fucking concert $40 $40 they gouged. It's Woodstock 99, except if they did it before the fucking concert. $40. $40. They gouged back. Or maybe they simply wanted a party. Beer was now free. Yeah, the truck's open. Branker hired some shotgun carrying guards for the day, but they were gone. Who knew

where they went? Intimidated by the crowd, there were no guards. The one weapon available was a pistol that one of them had left in the trailer. Branker took charge of the gun. He had supervised the installation of the fences on the site. Most of them were along the edge of the canyon, the two fence system that would hopefully stop people from falling over the edge as they surged forward

when the rocket took off. So they have two sets of fences. So just in case, he'd had another fence constructed around the rocket, the television equipment, and the trailers. This had created a compound. The rioters had control of the rest of the site, the dark part. That's terrifying. You're in the light and it's just riots going on in the darkness around you.

Holy shit. Yeah, that's scary. They would make a move sometime toward the compound, the lit up part, for total control. That was to be expected. Yeah, they're coming eventually. Aram called the governor of Idaho, asked about the possibility of the National Guard coming to the scene. The governor said that could happen, but if it did, the rocket launch wasn't going to take place. If the National Guard is holding the site down. Branker called the adjutant general of the National Guard. The adjutant general said the guard had to protect the town in case there was a riot, not the promotion. So yeah, there's a riot

there. We'll go protect the town from you basically, but we're not going to protect you from you. They said there'd be no help from the National Guard. So Branker said so it was us. When the rioters came, he and Chief Red Cloud went outside to the fence for a confrontation. Branker carried the gun. He had been asked through the years how many rioters were involved. His answer had been maybe 5,000. What? You have a pistol for 5,000. your gun doesn't hold five thousand rounds fuck no But he had never been sure did he said did Custer count the Indians? The one thing he knew at the time was that there were a lot more enemies than there were bullets in his gun. Yeah Custer had a Calvary didn't a small they had a small crowd. That was it's why he got fucking whacked

But yeah, oh he was he it was he at the Alamo. No god. No little big Yeah, there you go, I know you're mixing up Custer and Davy Crockett now what the hell's going on We're all fucked up So they said the only thing he knew was that there are a lot more enemies than bullets a leader seemed to step forward From the crowd again like a movie a couple of lieutenants seemed to be behind him They said they were gonna tear down the fence and come into the compound Branker step closer with the gun by his side and said they were not You've got a gun the leader said a slurred mouth at work underneath bloodshot eyeballs

There's a lot of us here and you can't get us all. We're going to throw you into the canyon. Oh, that's great. So is this really happening? Branker wondered. If it was a movie, then he should answer with the appropriate lines of dialogue. You know what? Somebody might throw me into the canyon, but it won't be you.

He said he basically gave him the Ike Clanton speech. You can all rush me if you get me in a rush, but not before I make a canoe out of his head It's one of those deals, you know, so if you want to be the first to die go for it. This is worth dying for you And your behavior is gonna kill your friend So calm down. Well, he then said quote you and your two buddies behind you, I'm going to put two bullets in each of your heads. I want to make sure you're dead. You will be dead. Uh oh. There was a dramatic pause that followed and the leader said we'll be back as soon as

the sun comes up. Real quick we'll be back. The rioters went in other directions that involved more beer. The trouble was averted for the moment. The future though, Branker and Aram and the top ranked people worried. Even if the rioters didn't return, more security somehow was needed. The National Guard was out.

What would happen in the morning of the jump? Then it's the next day. Even if the 50,000 proposed attendance figures people were preposterous, even 15,000 people, 10,000 people would be a challenge. 5,000 people they couldn't control, so how are they gonna control more than that? Branker had been in a couple verbal confrontations during the preceding days with some huge biker.

The guy seemed to be a Hells Angel. Branker thought about him now. He told himself the guy would be laughing at him if he could see the situation he was in. Branker said that out loud. Quote, too bad the big Hells Angel guy wasn't here. He would have had a laugh. Chief Red Cloud said he'd seen the Hells Angel

and his friends set up camp at Shoshone Falls. So Branker, an idea clicked in his head. He grabbed Chief Red Cloud here, jumped into the rental car, spotted a man in his headlights carrying six cases of beer, three under each arm, and he ended up fucking, Branker offered $1,000 of free beer plus free food to the Hells Angels. That's a lot, that's a strong man.

Three cases under each arm? Each arm. He saw that and that was his idea, clicked, and he was like, ah, I know what we're doing now, beer. So he offers the Hells Angels, this is after Altamont, by the way, so this is a ballsy thing to do, to be like, we he offers the Hells Angel, this is after Altamont by the way, so this is a ballsy thing to do, to be like we'll use the Hells Angels for security.

We already tried that once. And there's a whole documentary about it, didn't work out well. Yeah, so he said that if the Hells Angel guy would collect his Hells Angels friends in the morning and have them work as guards for the Canyon Jump, $1,000 of free beer and free food. They'd also be stationed along the fences,

which they'd have the best seats in the whole place. So if you wanna see this, the Hells Angel guy said, hey, what the fuck, why not? Got nothing better going on. He and the other bikers weren't Hells Angels though. Most of them were from Denver and from different groups. There's a bunch of different groups here, but no Hells Angels.

But that was like biker gang person was Hells Angel back then. Kind of a Q-tip term for them, Kleenex. Name brand biker gang. So yeah, he said, where do you want us, boss man? And he showed up. At sunrise, the angels, or whatever they were, arrived at the site. A large line of men on motorcycles, normally a small town's worst nightmare. They were hungry.

Bob Arum said, give them what they want to the small kitchen in the compound. The cook said, we're not serving breakfast yet. Bob Arum said, motherfucker, you're serving breakfast. I think we're serving breakfast now. Dozens of fucking starving drunken bikers, probably coming down from their second all buzzes from the night before and shit like they need whatever they need so they said the hell's angels or whatever they were ate breakfast they were given red pieces of cloth to tie around some part of their bodies to

show that they were official guards so the great the day of the great canyon jump had arrived here we go it's jump day evil says i have two demands that if you don't meet, I'll cancel the show. He tells this to Bob Arum on the phone that morning. Oh, right now. Right now. He's done. Arum's like, oh, for fuck's sake.

So Evil Knavel said, first, I wanna have all the press meet my helicopter when it lands. I wanna make a statement. Arum said that would be impossible. Moving the entire press corps through the crowd could start a riot. So he said what he could do was bring Knievel to the press tent. That was possible. You're one person. Knievel could make a statement that way. Same result. Knievel said, fine, I'll do that. Second, I want you to bring your two sons to my trailer before the jump. I want you to say some words to them before the jump because people are going to blame

you for my death and I want them to know that it was my idea and I want them to sit with my family at the jump. It was not your fault I did it. He wants to tell Aram's kids your dad didn't kill me if I die, this is my fault. No matter what you hear in the press, it's my bad. So Aram said, done, fine. The boys were 11 and 9 and they'll do whatever I tell them to do. So great. He said, I'll get them there.

Knievel seemed sentimental in everything he did that morning. He seemed to be turning off the lights, locking all the doors, just in case. He had a picture of the canyon, just of the canyon, no sky cycle, no ramp that he secretly signed, Linda I love you across the blue sky. He told Kelly, his oldest son, last thing before everybody left Butte for the jump to pretend to go back into the house for his shaving kit and hang the picture on the bedroom wall. He wanted that waiting for his wife if somehow the results turned out badly. He wanted her to walk in and see this if she's mourning

his death. Even when he arrived at the site, the plane, the flight, the helicopter there, he was sentimental. Even when he talked to the press, quote, when I weighed last night all the good and the bad things that were said, it came out a million to three for the good, he told the press after he landed his helicopter. So I hope all of your landings in life are happy ones. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart So like could this be the same guy who's been such a dick to everybody for this whole fucking time One of the people said quote he apparently has not read all of the papers I think he's making his piece. They said this was a goodbye to his adversaries

He went into his trailer to get dressed and said goodbye to his family and to Bob Arum's son. So the crowd was somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand people. Not bad, but not what they were hoping for. Far fewer than he or the promoters expected, but still a nightmare of logistics. An absolute disaster. There were the same hard living characters who had run wild a night earlier,

now joined by reinforcements who made it way worse. So they said their burnt out chemical toilets and the knocked down concession stands were a testament to the work these people could do. The toilets that weren't burnt out and the concession stands that weren't knocked down were incredibly busy, I imagine. The temperature hung around 90 degrees all sunshine.

Oh Jesus. No shade. Up there? Oh boy. There's not a fucking tree out there either. It's just a, it is like Mars up there. Gross. A strong wind as much as 20 miles an hour, whipped clouds of dust everywhere. Oh, hot and dusty so it sticks to your sweat. Yay. Hot and dry, yay. Yay. Fucking wow.

The heat and the dust made a man want another beer or convinced a woman to take her shirt off. Both acts happened quite often. This is the 70s. The women were encouraged by more than one sign that read, show us your tits. Nice, drunk guys and titties out. That never goes bad.

That's always a winner, huh? It always works out well for everybody, I think, in the end. The crowd was forced to provide much of its own entertainment. The preliminary acts, Carl Wallenda walked across the high wire. Gil Eagles rode a motorcycle blindfolded along the rim of the canyon. A man named Sensational Parker swung out over the edge on an 80 foot pole, and the great man Zini escaped from a straitjacket while he was hung upside down over the canyon from a burning rope,

where they were performed out of sight from the live crowd staged only for the closed circuit viewers across the country. So the live crowd is sitting in the 90 degree windy heat all day just waiting for evil's jump. There's nothing else for them to see. No openers for them. Jesus Christ. That is fucking rough, man. Fenced off from the compound and the rocket and any activity around it with only a few remaining concession stands to visit with no security except the fences the crowd improvised freely yeah Bob Aram said quote these young girls these beautiful young girls were saying that

they wanted to give blowjobs for evil Bob Aram said and they did right there blowjobs for evil it was an amazing thing to see not evil can evil no no they'll suck whatever's dick near them is near them for evil We're gonna do it. I'm gonna dedicate this yeah That's terrific man Wow those are friendly young ladies evil in the jizz on my face Oh god, those are friendly young ladies shoot your jizz high up into the air like evil when it comes down Women don't go to rock concerts and blow dudes for time young ladies. Shoot your jizz high up into the air like evil when it comes down.

Women don't go to rock concerts and blow dudes for Tommy Lee. No, they definitely don't. I'm going to blow you for the crew, man. Nobody says that. This one's for Vince Neil. They want to blow them, or they did 40 years ago, not now. Maybe old ladies still want to blow them, but I don't think a lot of other people want to blow 60 year old men. Blowing the dudes standing next to them for... Just for encouragement. For Lars.

It's almost like just to keep the fucking, just to keep the spirits up around everything. You know, it's like... This one's for Chad Kroger. If we all have a positive attitude, then Kurt Cobain will come back to life. You know what I mean? For the blowjobs. Oh God. For Christ. Then Kurt Cobain will come back to life. You know what I mean? God one of the few live attractions was the Butte High School marching band and the accompanying

Purple bees drill team that's lots of entertainment for drunken bikers. That's what they want to say Here's some beer young kids who play the tuba a little bit. I'm surprised this crowd didn't rape the drill team, all of them. You know what I mean? Jesus Christ. Knievel had requested the presence of the band, even requested that certain songs be played, and had put up $2,200 to make the trip happen for them from Butte. Ken Berg, the 26-year-old band director,

in his first year at the school, had pulled all the pieces together. Said he was in charge now, over 100 kids dressed in heavy purple and silver uniforms, topped by heavy fur hats that were over a foot and a half tall. That's what you want in the 90 degree heat. The band had left Butte at midnight in buses Ridden for seven hours and appeared at the site at sunrise

The return trip would start immediately after the liftoff the buses were expected back in Butte around 2 a.m Jesus this guy said it was a lot of work. I probably saw less of what happened that day than anyone I was worried the whole time about those kids, as I would be, wandering off into the crowd to give blowjobs for evil. I don't know what to tell your mom. I'm glad one of them got one. Yeah, who knows? Boys, line up here. This could be good for you.

I've never been to a concert before and got a blowjob in the name of the band. That would be, that'd I have five of the band. They were giving strangers blowjobs for evil. It wasn't even their boyfriends. Yeah, they just said, guys, that's crazy. That's friendly young ladies they had there. The book goes on to say, the crowd, well, members of the crowd made comments about the

Butte High School band. The comments were not nice. The Purple Bees drill team girls had their butts pinched. That's nice. Stop it. Yeah, that's real nice. I mean, they're sexually assaulting high school girls in their band uniforms. Like that is just sad.

All in the name of a man riding a motorcycle across the campus. Jesus, it's ass pinches for evil is what we're doing. It's different than blow jobs. We're going to molest children. Yeah, it's molestation for evil. Lude suggestions were made to all females in uniform. Director Berg had to keep Photographers away from the drill team because the photographers were trying to take shots from ground level up the high school girls legs

Nice those are called up skirts you dirtbags dude unabashed fucking pedophilia going on here Just a public unabashed a whole crowds like it, who cares about any fucking moral compunction we might have at all. Fuck it, fuck these young girls. What's worse, red, white, and blue? Wow, that is wild. That's America, we're all, what the fuck is happening? The band already had planned to take part

in the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena on January 1st, 1975, appropriate monies having been raised this was not the Rose Bowl parade one of the flute players Judy Staudinger whose brother played the drums said we were a bunch of naive band students this was not a very naive crowd no these were drunken bikers the kids were mostly terrified they'd never seen anything like what they saw now Kim Ungerman a a photographer for the Montana Standard, stood on the announcer's platform to take a group picture of the band in formation. He said he could see four fights taking place in the crowd at one time.

One that involved 11 of the motorcycle gang security officers. There was little water on the site. We've talked about beer and there's no water. They don't have water. That's alright. What's the number one ingredient in beer, Jake? Fuck, just pound them. Less food, they said. The purple suits weighed a thousand pounds a piece. No one had slept. The ticket holders were upset because the band was on the far side of the first fence, a prime location. The ticket holders said more nasty things. At one point a riot seemed to be developing, an assault on the fence.

Someone from the promotion quickly asked the Butte band to play a song, any song, just play something. Try to, maybe that'll distract them. Berg whipped the troops together. They played a special Evil Can Evil song they had learned from the trip. The music curiously seemed to quiet the crowd. Like a bunch of tigers and someone started playing the violin. They just tracked it up.

This is pathetic. Happy birthday. They're like Frankenstein's monster. The promoter asked the band... Oops, sing putting on the ritz. Just anything. The promoter asked the band to keep playing. Judy Staudinger said, we come on, baby light my fire

I remember that it seemed to fit Fuck it. Whatever gets them to stop killing each other Yeah, play it the ceremonies before the launch were part of the halftime part Were part halftime at the Super Bowl part high mass at the Roman Catholic Church The broadcaster for the closed circuit show was David Frost. And if you don't know who David Frost is, he was an English interviewer guy.

If you've never seen the movie Frost versus Nixon, it's a fucking great movie, number one. That's who it's about, David Frost is the guy who interviewed Nixon years later and failed to ask him questions he should have. Anything that matters? Pretty much. Let him just fucking dance on him on TV for fucking three nights in a row so great movie though the heat so that's him noted as an interviewer for political figures and a fiance of actress Diane Carroll three

years in the future he would do interviews with Richard Nixon that would help explain what happened his color man was now Jim Lovell, the decorated American astronaut. Lovell said, this is reminiscent of early Mercury days, presumably talking about rockets, overlooking what was happening at the crowd at the launch site. Knievel came out of his trailer and bounded up the dirt hill that was at the base of the launch ramp. He looked clean and perfect in his red, white, and blue flight suit, the copy of his motorcycle leathers.

He was a Saturday morning cartoon brought to life, a well-dressed but worried Saturday morning cartoon. He shook a few hands on the way to meet David Frost on the platform at the top of the hill overlooking the canyon. Frost seemed nonplussed to be asking questions of a man who might be dead within the next five or ten minutes. Knievel talked in solemn tones, which befit a man who might be dead within the next 5 or 10 minutes. Knievel talked in solemn tones which befit a man who might be dead in the next 5 or 10 minutes.

It was not the greatest interview in interview history. Frost asked, have you prepared yourself physically and mentally for this? Knievel said, David, I don't drink very much. Yeah. Huh? What does that mean? And I've never taken a narcotic. I don't believe that.

No? And is that what I asked you? What are you talking about? They said, do you have any advice for people out there? And he said, live like you were made to live. Don't take a narcotic. Great, Evil. You should, you're, this a the actions of a person who's

on a lot of drugs first of all so even if he's not on a lot of drugs he should take drugs because he'd be act the same anyway. Might make him normal. Might be out like a he could he might blast a huge rail of coke and be like man where are the kids let's get the let's play some fucking play some uno or something what do you say some Yahtzee together let's do this. Fucking bored? Let's play some fucking, play some Uno or something. What do you say, some Yahtzee together? Let's do this. Fucking bored. Let's have pizza night, what do you say?

Calms it the fuck down. Frost's final question was whether or not evil was afraid at this moment. Can evil gave a lengthy answer that mentioned God and old glory, Jesus, and living in a country like this. He said, I think that a man was put here to live, not just to exist, and today is the proudest day of my life. I've been living a dream, I think that a man was put here to live, not just to exist. And today is the proudest day of my life.

I've been living a dream. I'm living a dream that they thought could never be done, but it'll be done. Jesus Christ, man. So, a letter to the citizens of Butte as well. This is on the front page of the Montana Standard. He says, after being close to home for the past days, hearing and seeing much evident

thoughts of all of you, I have wondered, especially these last few days as the jump time grows closer, how to let you know my feelings. Today, under my name on the sky cycle X2, there's a sign that says City of Butte, Montana, richest hill on earth. For me, that not only means richest for ore deposits, it also means richest for friends and loved ones that I have. On Sunday at about 3 20 p.m. Butte time, the countdown will start for a sky cycle shot the world thought could not be done. I know there are many of you in this little city that I call home who've always known that I would somehow

get a chance to realize my impossible dream. When the launch control center gives me in my helmet radio earphones T-minus 10 seconds to blast off, I'll give you the thumbs up sign. That will be my way of saying thanks. Evil. Alright, so the rocket is set at the 56 degree angle at the bottom of a 108 foot ramp. The sky.

Okay, now have you ever seen a picture of him in the ramp? In this rocket? Yes, there's like a pole and it's not, yeah. He's just like looking straight up basically, sitting in this rocket thing. We'll post pictures on this one for the social media. He said the sky was all he could see in front of him. Blue sky with a few far away clouds, the sky a kid would draw in the third grade, fat yellow sun with rays coming out from the

side, a picture that would be hung on the wall of the classroom on the night that his parents would visit the teachers. He pushed the button. The naked eye saw that something was not right almost from the beginning. This is amazing. From the beginning. Perfect. Right out of the beginning. This is amazing. From the beginning. Perfect, perfect.

Right out of the gate. Going great, obviously. A little girl's vagina was photographed for this. Yep. And this is what's not going right. Right. This is it. And this is the bad part.

This is the bad part, wow. The fabric, the white blur, began to unfurl from the back of the rocket. Oh no. The parachute. That's the parachute. That's drag, man. Right out of the gate? Yup.

The drogue parachute began to unfurl. The liftoff looked fine. The rocket going off in an impressive whoosh shot out of a steam cloud. Shoo, shoo, whoosh. There was enough power. Hell, that rocket could have made that flight easily, but when the fabric, the parachute, the little parachute started coming out before the rocket even left the 108 foot track, that was that.

The flight was doomed, over before it started. Fuck. On a windless day, or with the wind at his back, Knievel maybe could have completed the trip anyway, shoot or no shoot. The liftoff was that powerful. with the wind at his back, Knievel maybe could have completed the trip anyway, shoot or no shoot. The liftoff was that powerful. On this day, the 18-20 mph wind came straight at him, a second element to slow his progress. By the time the rocket cleared the other side, and it did clear the other side high in the

air, sort of like a Harman Killebrew pop fly, someone wrote, the shoot had pulled out of the main parachute and together, along with the wind, the shoot had pulled out of the main the little shoot had pulled out of the main parachute and together along with the wind they won the arm wrestling match with the steam power that had started the flight oh no the rocket rolled virtually stopped then flipped downward oh the parachute carried by the wind pulled the X2 backward over the canyon again. He made it over the canyon but the wind shot him back into the canyon. No way! Yes!

The rocket also slowly started to head downward, head first, as if it had jumped off a diving board in slow motion. Jesus Christ the man of the moment was going to land in the river, he's dead, everyone thought. Wow. That was the thought the Knievel family group and as everyone strained forward to see what would happen next. That was the thought in the press tent. Maybe the thing was for real after all.

He just plunged into a canyon. The cynics wondered if they'd been too hard, too flippin' in their writings. The laughs had disappeared. Oh shit, we just killed a guy. He did it and we marked him. Oh boy. That was what the crowd thought as people started to move forward for a better look. For $25, shit, you ought to be able to see if the guy was dead, they thought. In the simulation on Friday, Knievel had been slow getting out of the harness in the open

cockpit. The problem was that the clips between the harness and his flight suit were in the wrong place. Someone who could sew had been called out to that the clips between the harness and his flight suit were in the wrong place. Someone who could sew had been called out to adjust the clips on the flight suit. Then someone had done this on Saturday, though someone had done this on Saturday, but hadn't realized the Knievel had two suits. Only one of the suits was altered. So, oh, yeah, they adjusted the clips on one suit, didn't realize he had two suits, and he wore the one that wasn't adjusted. Yeah, today, early, Knievel had spilled something or simply found a smudge of dirt on his first

flight suit so he switched into the second one that hadn't been adjusted. The one where the clips are still fucked up. The problem was discovered when he was snapped into place on the rocket way too late to fix. His vanity changing suits might now cost him his life as the rocket was about to slide past the rim of the canyon Disappear from view the last picture showed him struggling furiously to get free. I fucking bet That's gonna save his life if he can get free that's the So the it got over the canyon got over to the other side, the wind blew him back in and he went straight down

and what did he hit, water? Well that's what they're trying to find out. They said if he was going to land in the water, he had to be able to get out of the cockpit. So if he did fall in the water, he's gonna drown if he doesn't get out of this fucking thing. If he doesn't have clip, is it a safety clip that's on the ship? Yeah, they're like a seatbelt. He's like clipped in so he doesn't bounce around in there like a fucking pinball. But he didn't have clip, clip, is it a safety clip that's on the shirt? Yeah, they're like, like a seatbelt, like a harness.

He's like clipped in so he doesn't bounce around in there like a pinball. Didn't wear that. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him. We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world. And the suspect he has been identified as Luigi Nicholas

Mangione became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history was targeted premeditated and meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse Weber host of Luigi produced by law and crime and twist this is more than a true crime investigation we explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever is awoking the people to a true issue. I mean maybe this would lead rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our health care system.

Listen to law and crimes's Luigi, exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple podcasts. Imagine this. You help your little brother land a great job abroad, but when he arrives, the job doesn't exist. Instead, he's trapped in a heavily guarded compound, forced to sit at a computer and scam innocent victims,

all while armed guards stand by with shoot to kill orders. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery, exposes a multi-billion dollar criminal empire operating in plain sight. Told through one family's harrowing account of sleepless nights, desperate phone calls, and dangerous rescue attempts, Scam Factory reveals a brutal truth. The only way out is to scam their way out. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So they said now nothing could be seen, nothing. His engines out level, the astronaut said on closed circuit, he's dropping at 17 feet per second, but from this angle, we can't see. They said none of them. That's's yeah I would say none of the many cameras could be trained on what was happening one camera showed a helicopter hovering near the bank on the bank near the bank on the near side of the canyon two men were rowing a boat furiously in that direction the river was a motorboat no they're rowing down there I don't think

I don't know if you're allowed to have them down there a great point Yeah, yeah They said the river was 15 to 18 feet deep certainly deep enough for a man to drown They said where were the power boats the angle only? Yeah, the angle showed only rocks on the near side of the canyon the camera was unable to pick up the near part Of the river and the near shore. One of the broadcasters, Aram had said, never said which one had declared that he would stop talking if Knievel died. He said he wouldn't do play by play of a man dying and David Frost wasn't

talking. So he thought he was dead. Yeah. Um, level said, David, I'm very scared. That's not good. The astronaut says this is fucked up. said David I'm very scared. That's not good. The astronaut says this is fucked up. Linda Knievel said why is this taking so long as she asked if as she took her kids all crying from the family area to be closer to the test of the press tent hoping to see a televised picture. She asked someone what happened did he open the parachute by mistake and the kids are crying. Shelly Saltman said, stop your crying. Your dad's going to be all right. He's fine. He said later on, he goes, I thought he was dead. I just said that. So the kids would stop crying.

Bunch of bulls. Hey, everything's fine. Don't worry about, Hey, you got a nice ass. This guy'd like to pinch it for you. Maybe we can get you a nice blowjob for, for evil. Um, Don Branker had hurried from the family viewing area where he watched liftoff next to Linda and the kids to get to the ABC control truck. He wanted to see different pictures. Maybe 15 monitors showed shots around the site. While other eyes scanned for the shot that none of the monitors had, the X2 Cycle and

Knievel, Branker was more interested in the action around the edge of the canyon. Yes, the fans had broken through one fence, two fences, and were headed to the edge. You're going to have thousands of people just plummeting off the edge of the canyon. Haven't you heard of the dodo bird? Jesus Christ, man. These people don't seem as bright as those. This is a pack of lemmings right here. They said, this was the worst possible situations, one of

those tragedies you always read about at religious celebrations in India or somewhere. Hundreds of people killed in a proud panic. He envisioned a great loss of life right there. Then an amazing thing happened. Branker saw it again and again. The Hell's Angels or whoever they were, the motorcycle guys, held their their ground the last ditch security guards themselves the people that the promoters had feared the most in their planning stood on the far side of the broken fences and through menace or charm or force or whatever was needed come to ever came at them these beefy bearded outlaws with their tattoos and ponytails their leather and denim were the quiet heroes of the entire production there you you go, they're making up for Altamont there.

We just watched them pinching children's asses. Maybe we just don't want to be near them. They're the only people that can't be blamed for that honestly, because they were on the other side of the crowd from the band, so there's no way they could, they were just around the canyon. So they're the people you would expect. They're like, hold on, there's teenage cooch over there, and I can't get at it god damn it This is bullshit Yeah, exactly they want to go fuck kids what do you want?

So he said they're there and there and there Branker saw them stop the charge or catch some people at the end of the charge and throw them back into the crowd, safe from being pushed over the side. And he said, these guys were terrific. No $1,000 for beer plus food had ever been spent better. Yeah. No, it was great.

The lack of information was a strange addition to the event. With cameras everywhere, all of them focused on this one man in a small area. How could he go missing? Yet he did. Like a quarter that had rolled under the couch. Had to be there. He somehow couldn't be seen and couldn't be found. That's what he is. Had to be there. Just where? Just where. And then he was. I think evil's getting into the helicopter, Lovell the astronaut shouted on the broadcast. Sure enough there he was. He was alive. He was alive. The camera angle never did show a picture of the rocket which

had bounced off an outcropping on the near side of the canyon. Ricocheted, fallen 50 feet more, finally came to rest in some brush a few feet from the Snake River. Almost fell in the river. Didn't even go into the water. Just missed it. Just missed it. The rescue happened out of sight. Knievel continued in his attempt to unlatch the damn harness after the crash. He was in a panic. He had cut his nose trying to pull off the visor on his flight helmet without unlocking

it. His legs ached from the first jolt at liftoff when they were slammed into the hatch. His body ached from the landing. Another jolt. But honestly he's less hurt than he's been in if he was trying to fucking jump 12 Volkswagen's There's a lot of shit down or did oh yeah, Jack. He rode it down as they're getting him out He's still trying to get out of the fucking thing. He can't get out He's he did not get out of the machine. No it bounced down and did all that shit with him in it. Oh my god

Yeah, it's probably for's probably for the best. It's pretty safe. I guess, yeah. I mean, probably better than falling outside of it. Yeah, better than exposing yourself to jagged ass rocks. Yeah, no, he just bounced down. The first people to reach him were Bob Garrison, a seven foot tall skin diver, and John Hood, a 48 year old guy from Trenton, New Jersey who worked for Knievel.

Hood had been lowered from the rescue helicopter on a rope Are you heard he asked no said Knievel? Can you move your arms and he moved his arms? Can you move your back? He moved his back He said I'm ready. Get me the fuck out of here. Jesus Christ. I want to be out of here So garrison and hood cut the daredevil from his harness so they had to cut him. He couldn't get out He's still stuck in the rocket They said yes He might have died if he landed in the water unable to unbuckle the harness, but the buckled harness probably saved his life

Falling in the situation he had by riding it down. He got lucky all the fuck-ups were lucky This guy is for him not to be dead. Yeah, he's he's just fucking dumb luck It's what I mean. He's dipped in gold dude. There's no for all the shit. He's done One little inch this way or that way dead, you know This is why he's the white trash Superman. We it is because he should be dead. Yeah, it's fucking crazy So he says hey y'all watch this and he survives most people say hey y'all watch this they're in a fucking casket Yeah, he just makes it to be in a hospital in a full body cast instead.

So yeah, they go on to say if he had been able to free himself, he might have been thrown out of the cockpit when the rocket first hit the rock or wherever it landed. Even if he hadn't been thrown out of the cockpit, if he hadn't been locked in and secured, he would have slid forward on impact and been mangled with the front of the rocket. Either way he would have brought serious injury.

The mistake with the suit actually saved his life. He stayed in place. Hood pulled him from the rocket, placed him in a boat, then transferred him to the rescue helicopter. Knievel waved to the closed circuit camera from the boat to show he was alright. Jesus Christ, he took Hood's place in the helicopter, the pilot said he would come back for Hood, then he took Knievel to the launch site. Keep in mind that this guy is at the bottom by the river and they're supposed to come back for him. Just remember that, okay? Because that's fucking hilarious. The amount of time involved, all this happening, was startling.

16 minutes after the man of the moment had blasted off in the rocket, scared to his core, then possibly dead, he was now back. He did all that in 16 minutes. This is what you gotta do for TV. This is a show. Yeah, that's how you make it broadcast worthy. If he just makes it, who cares? 15 seconds, it's nothing.

This is fucking drama. This is what does it. This is fucking drama. This is the high drama that people wanted. Right, and now he's white trashed Jesus. Jesus took three days to come back. He only took 16 minutes. 16 minutes. That's amazing.

That's not bad. I wonder if Jesus' followers tried to rape teenage band members. I wonder how wise those men were. Those wise men figured out how to duct tape a handy cam to a toe of his shoe. They invented the throw some coins down trick. Oh God. You say go on to say he jumped off the chopper and into the chaos at the site. From a distance, yes, he almost looked like Lindbergh in Paris there. A 16 minute Charles Lindbergh, perhaps.

The fences were down and as the helicopter immediately went back into the air, the crowd came around him and drunken congratulations. He was surrounded. A white dot in a sea of ants. 16 minutes. No time had passed. A lifetime had passed. 16 minutes. Knievel seemed more than a little disoriented and very tired. I bet. He basically had no idea what had happened

with the rocket. He didn't even realize that the parachute released early. Did he release the shoot himself? He didn't know. He didn't know what the fuck happened. He just got shot out next thing you know he's bouncing down. Imagine how quick that would be if you were in there. He just here, There's no rear view. And all of a sudden you're bouncing down. There's no side view mirrors on this thing. What the fuck, yeah. Now you're bouncing, now some guy's cutting you

out of a thing, and that's gotta be a wild few minutes, man. Didn't the fuckin' prototype the shoot released early too? And they were like, fix it? Yeah, one of them, yeah. And then they didn't fix it. One of them, yeah, it just didn't work out. So when his view from the cockpit had become a view of the canyon and not the blue sky,

that's when he said he had worried. Oh shit, I'm looking down now. He had thought he was gonna die in the water, and he was very lucky. He said both Ron Chase, who designed the parachute system, and Bob Truax told me that if I saw the canyon wall to get the hell out, and that's what I was trying to do But he was lucky after the quick interviews

He went through the crowd to his reunion with Linda and the kids at the trailer after the trailer He came out through a cane to the crowd not the real one a fake which started another fight amongst the rabble Of course, the cane was eventually broken into smaller pieces for the many members of the congregation What to take a piece of Wow he moved on to the helicopter with Linda and the three kids off with watch again to the Blue Lakes Inn done Wow, I'm so glad it's over 81 year old Emma Knievel told Associated Press if there's a party tonight I'll be there with bells on who the fuck is she that I think that's his mom Oh, yeah, mother or whatever the yeah

I'm sure he then go because she's staying up with him at his house. She's got her own room Jimmy the Greek says when you stop to think about it. This was the best thing that could have happened It shows you could have gotten killed. It wasn't a ripoff Yeah True. It wasn't a ripoff. Yeah, you got to see drama Yeah, and we brought a dumb white with another dumb white and got this dumber white. That's just crazy dumb this dumb as fuck So they said something still felt fishy even if nothing was America does not react well to failure in any form the same press tent critics who sucked in their breaths when the rocket went down

Now exhaled doubts could it have been a plot a scam Did evil release the lever for the for the drogue shoot just in time to shit save his ass Could this have been scripted all the way to the rescue was he ever in any real danger? You couldn't script that if you tried Jimmy the Greek is saying all this on TV No, no, no, no, no, this is what's like a lot of the reporters are saying. Jimmy the Greek was the one that goes, it wasn't a ripoff, I don't know. The veterans of closed circuit boxing shows

remembered that championship fights usually ended with an intriguing storyline to promote the next closed circuit fight. An odor often accompanied the finished championship fights. Was that the case here? A rematch maybe? Smelled like it. Clouding the case here? A rematch maybe? Smelled like it. Clouding the situation were immediate quotes from both rocket engineer

Truax and operations director Branker that they thought Knievel had released the lever by mistake. That's what Truax said or on purpose is what Branker said. Yeah so the truth soon discovered by Truax when he looked at video replays was that the top of the canister Containing the drogue chute had been blown off by the force of the liftoff. Yes too much wasn't anybody's fault the problem Not evil's fault. The problem was as simple as that The engineers had never run a single test not even a static test with the canister and chute attached They've never done that before

It was a curious decision since the parachute problems had plagued both test launches, but the madcap rush to finish was blamed. Nobody had checked out the parachute arrangement. Truax said it was our fault. He did everything he was supposed to do. He showed courage and performed like a good test pilot. I'm sure he did not release the shoot prematurely, but he thought he did it first. He came in and said, what did I do wrong but this guy says it wasn't anything it was a

mechanical failure so at the dinner at the Blue Lakes in a few days earlier Knievel had presented a $100,000 check to Trueaxe that he vowed to sign if the jump went successfully and he was alive I'll sign it if I'm alive well what about yeah what about half of that being good? No shit, well you sorta made it. I mean, in a quieter moment after the jump, Trueaxe ripped up the check in Knievel's presence and said he wouldn't take it.

This was much to the consternation of his assistants who'd been scheduled to receive substantial parts of that check. They're like, what the fuck are you doing? They thought Trueaxe was trying to ingratiate himself to pursue some future project here. They wanted their money. They said nobody was really happy about the result anywhere except for Knievel. He said people were praying and God made the wind blow when I landed on the bank. I would have been dead if I landed in the water. This, Jesus Christ.

So anyway, they talk about all of this shit. There's still fires and shit all with this. It's, you know, the scene is smoldering. Oh my God. You know, and everything like that. So they said at the end of this whole thing, once everybody left and like things are smoldering chemical toilets and all this type of shit, they said it's like there had been a great battle in a great war the one person that was there so that's what it fucking looked like we all did this over

a 16-minute jump in recovery of a man it's fucking wild dude there's a newspaper article that said at 3 47 p.m. evil can evil somewhat bloodier and less vocal than when last seen trudged across the helicopter past pad to advance a newspaper article I couldn't read what that said having survived the flight if not having crossed the canyon he was asked if he'd like to try it again and quick as a bird snatching worms he said I don't know what I'm gonna do which basically means shut the fuck no, I'm not doing that shit at all. Are you crazy? I was fucking insane what I just did. So I don't even know man, what could have happened and what, but it worked.

So yeah. What about the guy on the raft? Okay, the guy on the raft, that's why I said to remind me of that and we'll talk about him in a second. The aftermath of the jump was the final nightmare One more night of anarchy the fever that broke out in the crowd when Knievel went into the canyon Then grew when the fences were down and everyone rushed to the rim to get a better view continued to roar Until it simply roared itself out

The bizarre result mixed with an anger about ticket prices mixed with the days, day or days of drinking drugs and unchecked, abandon, abandoned left various spectators in various States. Some trudged home. Some waited for the crowd to disperse. Some continued to go wild. Remember Judy, the flute player from the band. Yeah. She said, I'll always remember that a lot of people when it was announced that evil was safe, we were not happy. We couldn't believe that. They wanted him to die.

They were shouting that the whole thing was a ripoff and a fraud. How could you have been rooting for someone to die? Didn't even see a spleen today. I mean, yeah, these are also people who are trying to fuck 10th graders, so really their moral compass seems to be a bit off. Who gives a fuck if they're happy? God, they said everything that could be burned was burned. Everything that could be trashed was trashed.

Broken pipes from the water fountains sent everywhere. The chemical toilets burned in a row. The ABC production crew was not saved from trouble. Burned the whole thing? The whole row, let them fly like dominoes. When evil went into the canyon, people broke through the fence and tried to climb the staging that was used as the control tower.

The climbing soon switched to violence and destruction. People took over the tower after the show was done. One of the ABC unit manager here said, there were a lot of spaced out idiots with knives. They cut wires, smashed equipment, ripped off headsets. Our guys had to abandon the site. They took out everything that would burn. They estimated that they lost about $10,000 in equipment. Wow. The only security, once again, provided by the few paid guards the promoters had hired, the Hells Angels guard departed once Gnevel was back from the canyon and the job was done. They

were like, well, we're done. No reinforcements arrived and that's it. One of the security guards said, we could have held them if we had any help from downtown. We thought we had enough help on hand, but all we could do was pull back and guard the launch area. So they said the big news in the newspapers was not the canyon jump. That was a final indignity.

In an attempt to lessen the amount of criticism he might receive, President Gerald Ford chose Sunday morning to announce that he had pardoned Richard Nixon, that day is when he pardoned him for everything, while he was president. The move drew storms of criticism across the country, and this is the same time this is all happening too. So the photographs and stories from the Canyon Jump,

which sometimes have been called the event of the century by promoters, were forced lower or even off the front page. So he's like, this is kind of good for him because he won't get any criticism because Gerald Ford's getting it all. So they said, the man of the moment commented on none of this. He flew back to Butte with Linda and the kids in a Learjet on Monday morning.

A crowd that the Montana Standard estimated at 1,000 people greeted him at the airport. He walked off the runway, picked up a handful of gravel, Bute gravel, and kissed it. Just like he said. And threw the stones high in the air. He shook hands with everyone in sight as if he were a politician returning from an important trip, a serviceman back from a foreign war, a daredevil back from a canyon jump. He said, I'll be alright. I'm tired, but I'll be alright in a couple days. It's a very minor injury. I've been hurt worse than other jumps. I'm happy to be alive. He's a hero. He said, I'm back for home for the fall, the hunting season, Christmas and so on, but I feel I don't want to try the canyon again.

Thank you all. So there you go. Now the Canyon Jump complete failure on all levels. Right. He said, never in our wildest dreams do we think a few people would watch, do we think so few people would watch the event, Bob Arum said. We were very, very disappointed by ticket sales. The goal had been to attract 1.8 million people to the closed circuit.

How many did it get? OK, that would be 350 theaters across North America, average ticket price of $10. Do that fucking math, OK? $18 million in full-circuit money they were planning on making. The final number of theaters shrunk before the event to 260. The number of people shrunk to less than half a million.

Way different. They're only making five million off closed-circuit and they have to pay the... Not as good. They said the results on the artistic side were as bad as the results on the financial side. Maybe worse. While publications like Time Magazine and Sports Illustrated perhaps sheepish about artistic side were as bad as the results on the financial side, maybe worse, while publications like Time Magazine and Sports Illustrated, perhaps sheepish about the attention they'd

paid to the event prior to liftoff, pulled their punches with phrases like a nifty failure and a bizarre spectacle garnished with machismo and the threat of death. That was in time. One person called him a star-spangled slob. That's America. time, one person called him a star-spangled slob. That's America. Star-spangled state pig. That's it.

Star-spangled Quaalude Queen here. One reporter said, I'm hoping you do retire. Take your $6 million check and disappear. We need somebody better for a hero. Another Bernie Milligot, a sports columnist for the Van Nuys News, said, Knievel's pre-thing remarks, threats, promises, predictions and brags, when analyzed in retrospect, show that the entire performance above and into the Snake River near Twin Falls, Idaho was much ado about nothing. And then he called it a dud as about about as thrill-defying as it was death-defying

And also said the hustle won't work twice Okay, now the guy a lot of people are pissed off. I'm talking about the guy in the canyon in a second here one guy here From a newspaper article. It says the man identified himself simply as thumper because the man identified himself simply as Thumper. He wore a grimy motorcycle jacket that testified he was a member in good standing of the Lonely Souls Nomads out of Kansas City, Missouri. He also wore an unkempt beard, a small gold skull and crossbones earring, and the unmistakable aroma of an avowed enemy of soap and water.

Fat Stinky Biker. Oh my god. So they said, anyway, Thumper allowed as how he was mightily upset. In a bellowing soliloquy he punctuated by obscene gesturing and beer can throwing, Thumper unloaded some choice opinions of evil can evil. His prime contention, condensed and laundered, translated something like this, fix ripoff, fix fix. Said it was of course the great rallying cry

of the American sports fan. When nothing happens quite like it's supposed to, our national assumption is that someone went into the tank. Somebody took a dive, which is true. Thumper said he felt cheated. Evil Knievel was supposed to either jump grandly across the Snake River or was supposed to splat and die. One of the two. Perfect or dead. He said, well he didn't make the jump and he didn't die and now Thumper was grumbling that he had been shortchanged. He said, paid

25 bucks and then couldn't see nothing but a guy over a ledge in a parachute. We busted into all the beer trucks and cleaned them last night. Tonight we're going to tear everything else down. We're going to burn down every portable John out here. Another man who... I'm going to like a whole bunch of people's piss and shit on fire over this. That's going to smell great. And the chemicals that it's housed within as well. That'll be really good Here is another guy that drove all the way from South Carolina for this Said it was over before it started hell I can stay at home and watch a guy jump out of a tree and get a bigger thrill

I felt like pushing him back over when they brought him back up Jesus Christ His buddy said damn right. I wouldn't pay a quarter to see him jump over a garbage truck. No, that's not him and thumper and all his buddies. Yeah, why not? I'll give anyone a quarter to jump over a garbage truck. Go ahead. I dare you. Yeah, I've paid more for less. Why not? What the fuck? So yeah, there's a bunch of people upset about it and everything like that. Um, let's, uh, that Let's read about of Joe Esther house what he says here The pile of bad reviews was capped off by Joe Esther house's unfettered Dissection of the Snake River in the November 7 74 issue of Rolling Stone magazine

Titled King of the goons the story ran for about thirty five thousand words That's a small book. Yeah, what, 35,000? A novel's about 70,000. To say he didn't make it? Yeah. Jesus. That's how much he hates him.

Covering 22 pages. God damn. Of Rolling Stone. I gotta look that up. I have that whole time, like the whole time Hunter Thompson wrote for him, I have like a whole thing of all of the Rolling Stone. How long is it?

I gotta look that up. How many pages is a Rolling Stone on average? Not that much. I mean They let him run with it I guess they said right as much as you want So they said without the pressure of a daily deadline and working on an open-ended expense account Esther house have been able to observe and record the excesses the weirdness the mud and the nonsense attached to the scene Not to mention the ongoing hubris of the leading man. He said, after a few minutes, with two or three thousand people still there,

Evil Knievel climbs into his helicopter, and whatchamacallit takes him back to the Blue Lakes Inn, he wrote in his closing section. Said, as I watch the helicopter take off and the dust swirl and listen to those unending Evil Knievel screams. I realize it's time for a final tally, so I check my list. The million dollar party wasn't a million dollar party.

The test failures weren't test failures. The sky cycle wasn't a cycle. The six million dollar check turned to rubber. The 200,000 people turned into 50,000 people. The 50,000 people turned into 50,000 people. The 50,000 people turned into 15,000 people. Elvis Presley turned into an invisible being. So did John Wayne. So did Steve McQueen. So did Justin Hoffman. The pub. This is great. The public relations men turned into misinformation men. The reporters turned into public relations men. The jump turned into a nose dive.

The abyss turned out to be harmless. The event of the century turned out to be a farce. I turned into a social leper. The star turned into a palooka. That's what he said. Esther House years later remembered that an evil Knievel alert was posted in the magazine's offices in San Francisco. Some phone calls had been made allegedly from Knievel and threats had been made about physical revenge. Yeah, if you write that about him

for 22 pages, he's gonna, he's gonna threaten to kick your ass for sure. Or worse, or worse. Staffers were told to alert the authorities if Knievel was spotted on the premises. Yeah, Jesus, nothing happened, but the depth of Knievel's anger would be shown 33 years later. In 2007, writer Peter Relic would ask to interview him for Rolling Stone. Knievel would decline because the magazine quote, in 1974 sent a shit named Joe Estherhouse to write about the Snake River, the king of goons, a story that hurt very, very much and I know a thing or two about pain. So he holds a grudge for 33 years to the public.

None of the same people are in charge of it. No, it's long been sold. Jan Wenner's not running this thing anymore. Yeah, they sold it a long time ago. In public though, after the jump, he stayed away from the fight. He said nothing. Even the greatly reduced paycheck didn't seem to bother him.

He survived the Snake River in a lot of ways. One of the Associated Press people said, what the hell? He's told them, what the hell? I'm still alive. I have the blue Montana sky. What do I need all that money for? Okay, now, remember dude at the bottom, Hood? Yeah, where's he at? Is he still there?

They didn't come back for him. They didn't come back for the guy. Ever? Days, never, no. He never got, the helicopter never came back. They said, we'll come back for you. So he said, okay, and then he waited there, and then it was two hours later,

and then it was dark, and then all the people left. And it's just him and a small chemical toilet. Do you have to do chemical toilet smoke signals? He doesn't even have a chemical toilet. He's at the bottom of a fucking canyon. He's shitting in a river right now. He just stuck down there. He's just stuck down there with nothing and nobody.

He's the only one down there. He's just living down there by himself. Eventually people came by in a fucking boat that were not there to pick him up like two days later and took him to safety. This poor bastard was stuck at the bottom of a fucking canyon. He just sat there and waited. Said he drank river water and sat and waited. Nothing else he could do.

You can't climb the side of the canyon so he was like, well. I drank part of the Snake River to survive. Fuckin' A that's what he had to do. So February 6th, 1975 the following exchange took place in Sportsline in the Charleston, West Virginia Daily Mail among other papers. Question, can you please tell me what the great king of the stuntmen, Evil Knievel, has been doing since the Snake River Jump? Also, does Evil plan to jump his motorcycle over any cars or trucks in the future?

Answer, His Highness has been counting his money since Snake River. There was a lot less to count, incidentally, than announced. Evil's final cut came to around $600,000, which is still a shitload of money back then, but maybe not for your whole six years of work. And for a chance of dying for $600,000 which is still a shitload of money back then yeah, but maybe not for your whole you know six years of work and chance of dying Fuck our source says the misfire which resulted in his parachute dizzyingly Dizzyingly down the canyon left him badly shaken for the first time no more cars or trucks for a while When his nerves are steady again evil said he will ride his sky cycle over Mount Fujiyama near Tokyo.

Okay, wow. So they said in the book here, his highness was not sitting at home counting his dollars and licking any and all wounds. Yes, he might have been bruised in the wallet, more than disappointed about the financial outcome, and his reputation might have taken a coast to coast pummeling for his cantankerous snarling approach at Snake River followed by the odd finish, but his ego had emerged untouched and unscathed. No shit. He said he wasn't hard to find, he was everywhere. He was playing tennis in Dayton, Ohio, paired with professional Jack Kramer against Bobby Riggs and television talk show host Phil Donahue. Phil Donahue plays tennis?

Imagine Phil Donahue, bright white. Imagine him in shorts. Number one. Just imagine Donahue in shorts. Covered in sunblock. Done. Fucking SPF 600. Holy shit. He Knievel said, I haven't played tennis much, he admitted.

He was traveling with college senior football players from the east west game to visit kids in Shriners hospitals in San Francisco in Seattle. He was presenting the Seattle post intelligence or award for athlete of the year from the state of Washington to bowler Earl Anthony at a, at a banquet. Yeah. There's not a better athlete in the entire state of Washington than a fucking bowler? What are we doing here guys? Jesus Christ, it's an indoor, no one's playing basketball up there, what's happening?

Shine has never a problem, had not intruded now. Everywhere Knievel went, he gave speeches, signed autographs, shook hands, he also played golf. He definitely played golf. In a three week stretch in January, He probably played more golf than Jack Nicholas. He probably played against Jack Nicholas. He played in the pro am at the Phoenix open. He played in the pro am at the Dean Martin Tucson open. He played in the Joe Lewis open in San Dimas, California. He played in celebrity fields that included Bob Hope, Glen CampbellLean Stevenson Maury Wills Forest Tucker Dean Martin

Joe Namath Hank Aaron Jack Lemon and Lawrence Welk nice. It's a pretty good crowd there Okay, May 26 1975 There is the Toronto star has a headline Evil Knievel pockets $10,000 for two goals Okay, it says Evil Knievel who will not endanger the livelihood of any hockey player even in this era of deluded shinny, managed to score two goals against Toronto Toros goalie Les Binkley in a special promotion at Maple Leaf Gardens last night. The show took place between the second and third periods of the Toros World Hockey Association game

against the Vancouver Blazers. Knievel the motorcycle daredevil who once aspired to play pro hockey scored two of the four penalty shots he took, getting $5,000 for each of them. Binkley received $1,000 for each of the two saves, the money earmarked for the Toros' playoff pool. Binkley would like another crack at him, saying, quote, he flubbed both shots that went in,

said Binkley, a little distressed afterwards. There were too many pucks out there and I was never certain which one he was going to take. Why didn't they just place the puck in the center circle like all penalty shots? He, no, you can't have a guy who just fell into a canyon three months ago Score on you and say why didn't they just do it? They should have done it more fair for me. You're a professional hockey player That's why he doesn't play hockey No, he's a 40 year old that has broken every bone in his body shouldn't be able to score on you period

Knievel later referred to his goals as his trick shots on his first attempt he topped the puck and Binkley made an easy save but on there on the second he came from an angle and with a quick change of pace slipped a backhand or past the veteran netminder. Binkley stopped the third attempt a rising drive with his stick hand glove and on the fourth Knievel topped the puck again and it slid along the ice inside the goalpost to Binkley's left. That's fucking interesting. This attempt by the way will be shown on Wide World of Sports that week. Right. Yeah. May 8th, 1975. This is from a newspaper. The Liberace of the Motorcycle. Oh, that's not, I don't want to be caught out of anything.

I know. We called him that earlier. Yeah. Yeah, that's fucking funny, man. So yeah, the Liberace of the, well I mean, it means you're rich and fancy. Yeah, yeah. And surrounded by women. Yeah.

You might not be fucking any of them, but you're surrounded by them. You are not interested in them at all. No, Jesus. He says that he hopes to speak on things now, politics, narcotics, the sort of things that if you had a younger brother, you'd be proud of him for him to listen to.

Oh my God. I don't wanna hear that from him. I really don't. He said, I always tell young people that drugs are like putting nitro in a racing engine. You'll blow it to hell. You'll also win the race, though, evil. That's the difference.

Yeah, you go real fast. Evil can evil. They say that evil can evil likes room to breathe. He says you have to risk a little if you're not going to live in a fog or twilight, which puts a person in a position where he has no chance to reach out either for victory or defeat. Okay, that's quite the fucking quote, man. Wow, they say, what about your wife and your children?

And he says, they have their own life to live. I wasn't put on earth to satisfy a woman or her wants. I told my wife if she was going to marry me, she'd have to go along with what I do, and she has. Okay, that's, I'm like, bother with her bullshit. she was going to marry me, she'd have to go along with what I do and she has. Okay. That's like bother with her bullshit. That is fucking amazing. He then talks about that he wanted to meet the Duke of Edinburgh. But he, and he's going to get his chance later,

but then he had to go back to the United States for a charity function as it isn't going to get to meet him. He said, I understand the Duke's a hell of a guy. Okay, that's fun. Hell of a guy. He then ends up touring Britain in May of 75. Oh, okay. Yeah, and they're excited to see him because they don't, hasn't had the same exposure. So their papers right away, they're like,

there's more than 200 bones in the human body and Evil Knievel has broken most of them in his pursuit of danger. They're introducing him to all of this shit. They're talking about him dropping out of school and talking about him being a rodeo cowboy and all that kind of bullshit here. So the book talks about the England tour and Knievel said, now listen, here's the way the tour is going to be. I have a few ideas that are going to be great for publicity.

First, wow, first we'll get a girl to go to the highest building in London. First we're gonna get some clam, right? First we'll get some coos, all right? Some real good looking wool, we'll get her in here. You get all the press and television cameras there and we'll get the girl to slowly take off all her clothes and throw them onto the sidewalk off the top of the building.

When she's finally naked, she throws her arms in the air and shouts, don't miss Evil Knievel at Wembley Stadium. That's his idea of a promotion, a naked girl screaming, which will get attention He said the other thing I need her six Rolls Royces Oh, okay. He said what I'll do is this each week. I'll wreck one. Oh, will you oh? Sounds great once a week. I'm gonna trash something very valuable on your die Okay, an RIP a work of art from your country by the way the thing you're one of the things you're most proud of I'm gonna trash something very valuable on your die. Okay, an RAP a work of art from your country

By the way, they'll think you're one of the things you're most proud of I'm gonna destroy it before your very eyes He said some I'll drive in a wall at 60 or 70 miles an hour. Not dangerous really Okay, and some I'll drive into the Thames There has never been anything driven 70 miles an hour into a block wall that wasn't dangerous. That's what I'm saying. He said, not that dangerous. Like what? I think that's fucking, that's pretty dangerous.

And he said, we'll get a headline every week. Evil Knievel wrecks another rolls and each time we'll have a picture. They said the deal had been made. His management team of George Miller, American representative Fred Shire, and advertising director Howard Gottlieb mingled in the suite with Aram, with Zeke Ross, with Jonathan Martin of ABC, with Fred Bezark, with John Hood, and assorted other characters.

Hood is the guy they rescued out of the bottom of the canyon, or didn't rescue. Thank God he's alive. So he made it to England anyway. He's not still sitting there, but they totally forgot about him. Everything went, the whole team left, and no one said, hey, he's not still sitting there, but they totally forgot about him. Everything went, the whole team left, and no one said, hey, where's John?

No one said that. Knievel said from the suite, the European people are very stuffy and dry. He said, they are serious people, don't look for a free laugh. They have seen guys strapped into cars off a ramp over two or three cars land on another ramp and they say wasn't that great. But they've never seen a guy hang on to the

handlebars of a motorcycle and go over 13 buses. They know there's no bullshit involved. And if you have any apprehension about what European people will think, you can forget them. I'm the greatest stunt man and daredevil in the world. Ever. Yeah. He said, among the group who knew better, but nevertheless nodded in unison at the European appraisal by the boss, were Brian Cartmel and Harry Ormesher.

Cartmel had been hired by John Daly to run the publicity for the event. Cartmel had been hired by Orschmell, had hired Ormesher, a London sports photographer known as Harry O, later to become a famous fashion photographer to take pictures. I've heard of that guy actually as a photographer. The two were destined to become

Knievel's tour guides in London, a somewhat smaller version of the Learjet tour of the United States before the Snake River. This was their first view of their man. He seemed a bit excitable, yet by British standards, he's an alien. Especially British back then. This is pre like Gordon Ramsay He seemed a bit excitable. Yeah by British standards. He's an alien Especially British, you know British back then this is pre like, you know Gordon Ramsay or anybody's showing emotion This was like if anybody showed any outward anything they were like, oh what's wrong with him?

This was not this homosexual. Yeah, who is this one? What's going on? Well, they didn't like displays of anger or anything else. Yeah, you could just be like, wow, what's wrong with you? So they said, was this the way he always acted? They didn't have to wait so long to see what kind of high maintenance would be involved. He said, quote, look, you guys,

I'll tell you who I'm bringing with me to England. It's gonna be a hell of a show. There's this guy called, the phone rang, Knievel paused. Somebody stop that fucking phone, he says. He began talking again. There's this guy called the phone rang again. I told you to stop that fucking phone. He moved in a flash, grabbed the phone with both hands,

looked at it as if he were going to throw it, kick it, strangle it into submission. This was the intermittent rage that was familiar to anyone who had worked at the Snake River. Anything was possible. I don't like to be interrupted when I'm speaking." He says, John Hood took the phone from him, took the receiver off the hook. The room had grown very quiet. Would he strangle Hood and the phone at the same time? Everybody waited. Gneevil said, don't let the fucking phone ring again. Yeah, take it off the hook, idiot. And then it was done.

He said, now, I was telling you about a guy named Orville Kisselberg. You have to see what he does. He shoves a stick of dynamite up his ass. What? And blows himself 40 feet into the air. No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't.

Done. Cardmel and Ormesher looked at each other. They had the same thought. This guy was out of his mind. We're dealing with some American madman. Who the fuck? No, in England no one shoves anything up their ass and blows it up as a stunt. That's not...

Well because... Gunpowder and fecal matter don't mix over there. Whereas over here they go together like fucking apple pie. That is peanut butter and jelly. Peanut butter and jelly. Oh God. They said this is his most ambitious schedule in years. He'd be paid $450,000 for the tour.

If all went well, as everyone had hoped and predicted, he would continue to continue across the English Channel and throughout the rest of Europe, play a string of dates on the continent before a triumphant return to the United States. He asked the Cartmel guy, are the women in England as beautiful as they say? And he said yes, they're called English roses. And Knievel said, good, I'll water a few of them. With my jizz.

Yeah. I'll internally water them. Goddamn it. Oh gross. Vile. Fucking gross. With my jizz. Yeah Gross vile fucking gross, so he presented some obvious PR challenges for this crew Yeah, he is so you gotta like I guess you would sell as come see the crazy American spectacle I would imagine well how you You have to sell it, right? Over there? Yeah, bring one of your birds. So they said, bring him your bird. Blow jobs for evil, crossed the pond.

Though he thought every Englishman and certainly every English rose knew all about him, he was mistaken. The average London resident had no idea who or what evil Knievel might be. Wow. They don't know who the fuck he is over there. This is pre-internet and shit, so they don't know.

This isn't like, it didn't travel over there. Get the Rolling Stone over there. No, Wide World of Sports doesn't play over there. You know what I mean? Unfortunately, that's Wide World of America. Yeah. So the Canyon Jump had stirred little interest because they don't know what the fuck

the Snake River Canyon is over there. The presence of English commentator David Frost at Snake River was seen as more interesting than anything Knievel did. They're like, oh, David Frost is there. Cartmel would have to blitz the British press to draw any kind of crowd to Wembley's vast spectator terraces. He would have to work around Knievel

instead of with Knievel if the naked woman on the building, something out of the 1930s, was supposed to be a grand promotional idea. He'd have to make his own ideas appear to be Knievel's ideas. Suggestion was needed much more than argument with this character. An example, a test case arrived here. A conversation in the crowded penthouse had taken an inevitable turn toward the thousands of dollars in diamonds that the daredevil was wearing. He freely explained the logic behind them yet again. A man buying diamonds when he can't get insurance. He told his little stories about each piece of jewelry. He said a woman a few nights

earlier said the diamond on his left hand was so large she thought it was a portable television set. He estimated the value of his diamonds at $600,000. So they asked Harry Oh asked what happens if you get mugged? Where's your insurance then? He said this is my insurance and pulled out a snub nose 38 Smith and Wesson revolver from his pocket pointed it straight at the photographer and said the guns loaded you know he brought that he brought that over there they were like all right then okay they said I sleep with this baby under my pillow every night in case some dumb jerk gets the idea of robbing me so Harry oh once his nerves settled suggested that a picture of Knievel

loading the 38 Smith and Wesson at night maybe with some money and jewels sprinkled around the bed, would be a great publicity shot. Crazy American. Fuck it. Look at him. Diamonds and guns and look at these people. Papers everywhere in England would use it, he said. Knievel immediately said, the picture's impossible. I don't pose for pictures.

I don't do it and I wouldn't do it for anybody. That's what he said. I don't do it and I wouldn't do it for anybody. That's what he said, I don't pose for pictures. So Harry O. thought about that and the cart-mail guy thought, the photographer said after a little while, Evil, what if I showed up just as you were going to bed and took a picture of what you were doing before you went to bed? Maybe caught you while you were loading your gun. That wouldn't be posing.

If we do it like a verite, I'll just hang out till it happens." Knievel considered the request and said, quote, I'll be taking a nap tomorrow afternoon. He's going to nap plan the next day. He said, if you were around, I suppose you could take the picture. They're both what he's going to pose is what that means. And they're setting up a time to do a photo shoot, which is even more like that. He said the European tour would be a chance to create new fans and possibly bring back the disenchanted. The challenge was familiar, the format was familiar, no button to push here, no bucket of bolts, he could do what he had always done to make himself famous, get on the bike and

fly. The people of the British Isles would certainly be amazed here. So he said if it wasn't for America, you too would be krauts. That's what he told the two guys there. Jesus, okay. Which is true, technically. I mean, without the Russian winter, we might all be krauts. That's... Yeah, they were fucked before that.

You think so? Oh, I know so. No, they were already done. The Russian winter certainly fucked them. That was that side, but the other fronts, they were fucked. They were done. They were done already by then. But they weren't done when they were bombing the shit out of fucking London I know that much without Einstein. I think we all be fun. Yeah Yeah, we all might be a little shitty there not even though because that was just the the Western Front was done by then

Yeah, I mean that was Jewish Rounding up the Russians were closing in on Berlin, but how long was he gone before that you Yeah. I mean that was Jewish rounding up the Russians were closing in on Berlin. But how long was he gone before that? You know what I mean? Well yeah and in the East though they we had firebombed the we burned half a million fucking Japanese people to death with fire bombs. But those were because of Einstein those fire bombs. No the fire bombs were not technologically advanced. That was not his? No they weren't the nuclear weapons. That was what we did before the nuclear weapons. We were fire bombing wooden cities and burning men, women and children alive in their fucking

beds. Watch the fog of war. I don't want to watch it. It's fucking it's cool. It's Robert McNamara is like 80 years old and he's talking about all this shit and he talks about that. Talking about that and he's talking about all this shit, and he talks about that, talking about that, and he's like, what's worse? We would have had to burn the whole country alive,

because they would have fought to the last man and child if we didn't drop those nukes. He was saying that it was actually humane to drop the nukes because less people died in the end. That's his, what he's saying. God damn. Because we burned more people alive than were killed by the nukes. God damn.

Yeah. Oh, fuck that. The Japanese were, ask what they did to China. They deserved every fucking minute of that. What they did to Pearl Harbor for no reason. Well, that, but I mean China, they were fucking, oh my God, they tortured people and did crazy medical experiments. Really?

Dude, look up with the Japanese. I still to this day, watching China, I go, go they are gonna fuck Japan up one of these days. They that's a long game There's a little in China They don't forget shit, and that's a long grudge, and I have a feeling as soon as they can they're gonna Obliterate Japan as payback for that shit. Yeah, that's they're doing a long game here Korea's still mad at them too for the shit. They did Japan was bad during World War II. Bad people. Okay, back to this. Krauts. Alright. You would have been Krauts. One of them said, how'd you work that out? So Evil said, because you stupid son of a bitch, we won the fucking war for you. It was our bombers that flattened the Kraut cities

and it was our destroyers that sank all those submarines. If it was up to me, I'd have let all of you rot What do you think of that? Okay He said here's what I think you don't know your history from your arse he told him so there you go he arrived in London and in May of 1975 giving him three weeks to promote

his May 26th jump at Wembley. The tour would continue there for the next two months, finishing up with a week in Blackpool at the end of July. So they said, there's no need to hold back. He says, I hope to make a sincere effort to become the world's first private astronaut, he announced. They wanted to do that as well. Trying to get attention. Knievel met Harry O at Wembley one morning

and told him to take only one picture. That was a shot, the 13 buses in a line. Knievel standing at the far end of that line. He was a speck dwarfed by the obstacle that confronted him. Got that? It was a heck of a shot. He never had jumped 13 buses. Nobody had.

Knievel said he was done posing. Harry O said it would be great if you did a wheelie tomorrow morning in front of Buckingham Palace. Sort of this is the first thing the Queen saw when she started her day type of thing. Sick. Knievel said no. What, why not?

He said no. He said quote, Elvis Presley never did a wheelie in front of Buckingham Palace when he came to London and I'm not gonna do one either. I don't think Elvis is capable of that. No, he'll fall over. He'll probably fall off, I would imagine. I bet he sang songs though, and you're not doing that,

so what are we talking about? I'd be pretty fucking badass. Ask any hillbilly in Alabama if they wanna ride a wheelie across the front of fucking Buckingham, I'll do it tomorrow. I don't think Elvis had the capabilities to do that. So, he said he did take a walk around the Tower of London and assorted spots for Wide World of Sports Which would broadcast the jump on a delayed telecast the following Saturday

He also did a press conference and a jumping exhibition of the parking lot outside of Wembley The jump was minor a ramp on one side room for a van or two in the middle a ramp on the other pictures were taken Gneevil went back to talking and headlight and buying tabloid headlines one side, room for a van or two in the middle, a ramp on the other, pictures were taken. Knievel went back to talking in tabloid headlines. Harry Oh, the photographer, left with nothing to do for the moment while Knievel entertained the reporters, looked at the ramps and the distance in between, looked again and asked another photographer

if he could borrow his motorcycle. Harry Oh knew how to ride a motorcycle a little bit, and of course, he tested the ramp, made the same little jump that Knievel had made then returned the bike to its owner. Knievel was not happy. No Yeah, no, he said you're showing me up man. Yeah, don't do what I'm doing. Harry ho said I just did a jump. Yeah He's I'm not taking pictures of you asshole. So you don't be jumping Knievel said well don't ever do it again

Which honestly is fair? Probably yeah, yeah, you don't show up the headliner. What the fuck are you doing? Yeah, I'm gonna do the headliners closer before he fucking does it go grab Robert Plant's guitar and place their way to heaven for the crowd I think Jimmy Page is who you're going for but I get it. Yeah Fuck no Robert Plant's never had an instrument in his hand in his life. Maybe a tambourine I've never seen him play shit. No, he doesn't play the guitar No, Robert plant does not play the guitar. No, I mean he might but he's never has like Maybe plays the bass

Not one that's John Paul Jones bass and keyboards, is that right? Yeah, man That's John Paul Jones, bass and keyboards. Is that right? Yeah, man. Why the fuck is he here then? To sing. Because Jimmy Page can't fucking sing. Oh, because he can't do that fucking scream? Yeah, he can't do that.

The Immigrant Song? He can't do that shit. Well, that's a fucking useless piece of shit. We don't need him. Well, that's every singer then. And the singers who play usually aren't that good at it. They're usually holding the band down musically because it's hard to sing and play at the same time that brown is fucking great at all of it but that's country that's not that's not musicianship

that's bullshit anybody can strum a crap that's what i mean that shit's easy that's fucking easy but he fucking shreds that slash can't sing because he's doing too much you know what i'm saying But he fucking shreds that slash can't sing cuz he's doing too much. You know what I'm saying? No time to sing. What's he gonna do? Axl Rose doesn't sing cuz no one else doesn't do what he's doing, you know, does he play guitar? I don't know no No None of those guys from that era play that Vince Neil and I think you're thinking like the 80s good None of those guys do that none of them do Kurt Cobain played. I mean James Hetfield plays yeah, he does he plays rhythm though not not lead. Yeah, this is doing rhythm All right, yeah, he does fine with it, but I mean he's not playing lead though. He's not doing fucking solos while he's trying to sing

So yeah anyway They're they're talking here and they and they said Linda and the kids were expected to join him later in the tour. He lived like a single man in a suite at the Tower Hotel overlooking the river. There was golf, there was women, drinks, howling at the same moon in a different country. Not a bad life for a married man. No! And he says what he's going to do.

I'm going to fuck all these English roses. I'll water the whole fuckin' lot of them. So the Wembley Jump takes place May 26th, 1975. Knievel returns to this, his first ABC Wide World of Sports jump thing here. This is in front of 90,000 people at Wembley. Wow. That is like, close to an indoor record.

That's close to an indoor record that's close to an indoor record It's definitely his biggest crowd. It's fucking insane. That's so many people Knievel crashed while trying to land a jump over 13 single-deck AEC Merlin buses The term London buses used earlier in publicity had led to the belief that it was to be made over higher the double-deck buses But it wasn't after the crash despite breaking his back earlier in publicity had led to the belief that it was to be made over hire the double deck buses. After the crash, despite breaking his back, Knievel addressed the audience and announced his retirement. Near shock and not yielding to Frank Gifford's plea to use a stretcher, Knievel walked off

the Wembley field stating, I came in walking, I'm going out walking. With a broken back. Jesus. So yeah, this is a little more detail from the book. This was the largest live crowd that had ever seen him perform, the largest by far. This was the crowd that should have been at the Snake River, kids and families. The prices ran from $3 to $8 US dollars for the show, affordable.

This was his public relations masterpiece right here. He came down the ramp on that third trip after giving a thumbs up to television, to the television to let the producers know that this time was for real, tried to get up to speed somewhere between 93 and 95 miles an hour, the number he felt that would give him a distance of 130 feet, enough to clear the buses, and failed. They said it was all wrong from the beginning. Too flat, too short, he came down hard on the front wheel on the plywood safety extension that covered the top of the last two buses.

Same as Caesar's palace. Blam, the 13th bus. The motorcycle bounced high in the air, he was thrown forward. They said there was a moment perhaps when he could have saved himself. He tried to hang on, tried to hang on, but then he was gone. Over the handlebars, flipped, flying and gone.

He landed and rolled over and over again. The motorcycle followed him, stalked him, seemed to know what he was doing. Same as Caesar's palace. When he stopped rolling, the motorcycle rolled on top of him. Ouch. He's down and he's hurt, Gifford said on the telecast. Oh my god John Hood was the first one to Knievel. Please don't leave him in England now this poor guy Yeah, that's true at least there's food and water and roses

He pulled the motorcycle off Knievel's legs Frank Gifford was close behind. What the fuck is he gonna do? cycle off Knievel's legs. Frank Gifford was close behind. What the fuck is he going to do? What is Frank Gifford going to help? Prostitute in the ass. So I was going to say, Kathy Lee, come help me. What are we talking about? I know that he played football, but he played football in a time that I didn't watch football. So the only thing I know. We weren't born for 30 years. That's why. The only thing I know about Frank Gifford is that he loves to prostitute something. Yeah. So we found out from Kathie Lee. And he always seemed drunk on Monday Night Football. Those two things.

Oh my god. He's dead now, right? I think he's dead. Yeah, he died. He died. I think he had like terrible Alzheimer's or something and died. I think that's true. He thought Kathie Lee was a prostitute by the end,

he didn't even know anymore. Sad, it was really sad. That's all he wanted out of the prostitutes, that tells me Kathie Lee does not take it up the hatch. Oh God, no. No, no, I don't think, imagine if Kathie Lee Gifford was the biggest freak ever. Right!

That was just like this, this weird persona, then she's like, fucking come on, fucking stick it in me from both ends, let's go. What's up Frank, you don't have any ex-teammates that want to come over and foul some of this fire? Have Al Michaels and John Madden come over if you won't fuck me then. I call my pussy red alert, bring somebody over here and let's hit this bitch up. Where's Al Michaels? He can come in here and tag this shit. I don't give a fuck bring Dan Deardorff up in this bitch

I'll fuck the whole Jets offensive line who sings. Are you ready for some football? Come on Let's go pick the bugs out of your beard and plow this red pussy Man so bugs out of your beard and plow this red pussy. So Gifford was terrified. He saw a bone sticking out of Knievel's hand. He saw blood coming from Knievel's mouth. These are not things you want to see.

Gifford thought not only he'd been part of a televised death, he was part of a televised death of a friend. The crash was violent and stunning. How could anyone survive? Knievel had almost landed at Gifford's feet when he finally stopped. The announcer dropped his microphone and bent down and was only slightly heartened by the fact that Knievel was trying to speak. This would be the daredevil's dying declaration, possibly his last words.

Gifford listened very hard because he wanted to make sure he heard exactly what evil can evil said Frank he said yes evil Gifford said back Quote get that broad out of my room Broad out of my room, that's what he said. There's a broad in my room my room. My wife is here. Dude this guy's laying in a heap with bones sticking out of him and he's like get that broad out of my room. Oh dude. That's amazing. I mean Frank did fuck that broad in the ass. He did. He her good. He said, this is for the old stars and stripes, lady. Yeah, I'm gonna...

I give anal for evil. For anal for evil. Anal for evil is the name of this episode. It was gonna be blowjobs for evil, but it's going to be anal for evil. I don't care. I don't care if it offends people. They don't want to listen eat shit That's funny so he said

They go on to say he didn't want to go to the ambulance. He wanted to go to the ramp wanted to talk to the people He wanted a microphone forget the blood the bone in his hand the root was turned toward the ramp the room was cleared with each step Microphone was brought close. Knievel asked to be helped up. The process was very slow. When he finally stood, one arm over the shoulder of promoter John Daly for balance and strength, he made his announcement. Ladies and gentlemen of this wonderful country, I have to tell you that you are the last people in the world who will see me jump because I will never ever jump again. I'm through." They said there was as many boos as there were cheers. A lot of people who

thought this was an act. He really wasn't hurt. Couldn't be hurt. He was up there talking. This was like bad theater. That's what it was. The people around him knew differently. They knew he was clearly injured. He was in a lot of pain, winced every time he moved. His hair was everywhere. His face was dirty as if he had come from eight hours in a butte mine. He should have been somewhere in the middle of the city by now. Siren blaring headed toward an emergency room and he was here. He wanted to walk off the ramp. Walk off the ramp.

Gifford suggested he had done enough and he should get a stretcher. Help me walk off the ramp, he said. Gifford said, I got you buddy. He walked off the ramp very slowly Being helped on both sides And they got a stretcher and he said I want to walk out. Please help me out. I want to walk out, please He said I want to tell you something Frank. I don't know how I got here. I'm awful hurt awful bad I walked in I want to walk out and he eventually was put on the stretcher put into an ambulance and taken to the hospital And he eventually was put on the stretcher, put into an ambulance and taken to the hospital. Because you're fucking so injured, man.

Oh my god. He was diagnosed with a broken right hand, compressed fracture of the fourth and fifth vertebrae in the lower part of his spine, fractured left pelvis, and a seven and three quarter inch split in his right pelvis. Holy. He is fucked up. He has a Snake River Canyon in his pelvis. Holy shit, yeah man. It's big snake River Canyon in his pelvis. Holy shit. Yeah, man

It's big enough for Frank to fuck. It's huge No way Once again his injuries as serious as they were did not match the impact of the pictures of the crash that gave him the injuries The entire stretch of film the crash the dialogue the words to the crowd the way he looked The this again was stuff that never had been seen on television. This was more than reality The entire stretch of film, the crash, the dialogue, the words to the crowd, the way he looked, this again was stuff that never had been seen on television. This was more than reality. This was hyper reality.

He looked as if he were dead. Producer Doug Wilson said, he's lying there, broken this, broken that. Instinctively he says, I gotta talk to the crowd. It was part showmanship, I guess, but part knowing who he was. So there's newspaper articles all over America, last jump for evil, is this evil,

is this the end of the road for evil? Blah, blah, blah, I mean, it's just people freaking out. Is evil gonna come back, is he gonna do it? We gotta know, and they're quoting people, they said he's very shaken and depressed, but he got his injuries after he completed what he came here to do. So they said in the hospital in the succeeding days, Knievel blamed the idiot mechanic who would have, that's Hood, the guy who they left at the bottom of the canyon.

Idiot. Idiot. He said the gears in the bike had been set up wrong for the jump and that a counter shift should have been added. He said that a different gearbox had been ordered from New Jersey too late and never reached London in time. He also said that the size of had been ordered from New Jersey too late and never reached London in time. He also said that the size of the London buses was a problem. The American bus was 8 feet wide, the London bus was 8 and a half feet wide.

6 inches per bus over 13 buses is 7 something feet, which is enough to fuck everything up. So yeah, they said that that came out to 6 and a half foot difference. Give him the extra six and a half feet and he would have made the jump perfectly they said yeah But if you if you know that you're saying it's so Obvious if that was so fucking up. Why did you jump? Yeah, take one of the buses off. Hey, these are wider Who's the idiot now? Yeah, yeah once it's there though once he said he's gonna do it He has to do it, he said. He said, given the different gears, based on the knowledge that the buses were wider, he would have made the jump perfectly if he would have gotten the gears right too.

That idiot mechanic kept quiet at the time because he was in need of a job, but pointed out a couple things years later. First was that Knievel had practiced only once, and that was that time for the press in the parking lot. He jumped a couple of once, and that was that time for the press in the parking lot. He jumped a couple of vans and that was it. And even then even was more interested in a couple of girls that were around than what he was doing in practice.

The second thing was that the first time in his life Knievel ever talked about technical things. He said he was not a technical man. He basically, not a technical man is a good way to put it for evil. He, that could be a title too, not a technical man. He basically, not a technical man is a good way to put it for evil. He, that's all, that could be a title too. Not a technical man. Not a technical man? Technical man. Anal for all. So he said he basically used two Harley XR750 bikes for

his shows, one bike for wheelies, the other for jumps. The wheelie bike was geared lower so it was easier for him to flip the front end upward and ride that way. The jumping bike was set up with higher gears for the speed necessary to make the jump. No specifics for each jump were ever determined for the jumping bike. The jumping bike was the jumping bike. No gearboxes were ordered from New Jersey. He's like, that's bullshit. It's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. He said the mist was no different from any other of Knievel's misses. It was a miscalculation by Knievel He had no speedometer on the bike. No tachometer. No research. No nothing He just jumped on and he looked at the buses and did a fucking run and tried to do it

You know, no tack and no speed nothing and nothing still Is this it? Yeah, he said the buses were higher He said he jumps on instinct and feel and his feeling was wrong here The buses were higher than American buses as well as wider. That was his problem this time. He didn't go high enough He didn't go far enough He was bounced in the air and didn't and couldn't hang on the crash was no different than many other crashes in the old days He didn't have enough information. You look at those jumpers who came after him. They had everything figured out. He just didn't want to know So that's it. Now a few days later, the article says here, Daily News Journal says, might change mind,

injury's not that serious. So now he's going to jump again. He's fine. Not that serious. Okay. Not that serious. He's fine. He'll be all right.

Yeah. They said, no worries. He'll be okay. Bone sticking out of his hand, broken back, Snake River Canyon. A hole big enough for Frank's dick. Fine, I'll jump again. No worries. Yep.

Their book says the retirement lasted three days. The Wide World Show wouldn't be seen until Saturday, and on Thursday at 5.30 in the morning, Doug Wilson's phone rang in New York. Wilson had returned home to edit. Knievel told him to make a big edit. Wilson should cut out that whole speech to the crowd. Turned out Knievel didn't mean it

and he wasn't gonna retire so the speech would look stupid. Wilson says, no it won't, we'll say something, people will understand. And Knievel said, you can't run it. And they said, we're gonna fucking run it. Like, you're not controlling ABC and what we put on the air. So he became angry, threatened to sue Wilson, threatened to sue ABC, threatened to sue ABC,

threatened to sue everybody basically here. Wilson told him, look, it's gonna be fine, sue all you want, but we're putting it on the air. You said it, we're putting it on. You said it. And on Saturday, the show ran, the retirement speech ran, and they said the tape was spellbinding. Like Caesar's Palace, there was something

that people did not see in the technology of 1975. This was different, this was exciting. Argue the technology of 1975. This was different. This was exciting. Argue the mortality of what this guy did for a living. Fine, but admit that it was some kind of show. He walked in and he was going to walk out. After that flop at the canyon, this was the rebound of Evil Can Evil. This was his best moment.

Wilson said he never apologized for yelling at me, threatening to sue. But when he came back from England Jim McKay met him at the airport to do an interview for us. Evil was on a gurney but he had his helmet on he had his helmet with him from the jump. He said give this to Doug that was the closest he could come to an apology. That's pretty cool he's got Evil's helmet from the jump that's neat. He had been in the hospital for 11 days then back at the tower hotel for five more Before coming back home on June 10th 1975 Linda hurried to London along with Kelly and Robbie

They accompany accompanied him back to New York then to Butte where he was scheduled for three more weeks of bed rest He said he would return to London and on the fall to tackle those buses again He said you sold are you told 70,000 people you were going to retire? The reporter said. He said, how can you say that? That now you're going to go back. Knievel said, quote, I don't care what I say. The schedule calls for me to jump again in September. I'm on shift. I got to go. I got to go, man. So we'll finish up with this here. Here's a story from the book. The Lamborghini was parked in front of the Tower Hotel the entire time he was in the hospital.

By the way, there was a huge thing where he said he wanted a Lamborghini. He wanted to buy this Lamborghini. He saw a Lamborghini, wanted to buy it while he was in England. But there was like three Lamborghinis in the entire country of England to buy. So they had to find, when they finally found him this Lamborghini, he wasn't in the color

he wanted, but he was tearing ass all over the place with this fucking Lamborghini. So they said, management liked the idea of a famous expensive car in the front driveway so it was never moved during his recuperation. When he came back, he and any visitors to his suite could look down on the car. It was easy to spot. The color was bright red. Come on, we're going for a ride, Knievel said one day during his recuperation to Harry O. We're going for a drive.

You can't drive, Harry O. said. You have that broken back or whatever it is. He said, no, you're going to drive. I'm going for the ride. Knievel needed help to get dressed, help to get out of the room in a wheelchair. He needed help from the two men who carried him to get into the car. Harry got into the driver's seat, which was on the right side, like the rest of the cars in England.

As they drove along, Harry, feeling out the temperament of this cheetah of an automobile, Knievel became impatient. The speed limit on the highway was, say, 70 miles per hour. Harry would not go over the speed limit. English laws were tough. Come on, Evil said, no. Come on, no. Evil somehow worked his right leg over to Harry's side,

worked his right foot over to Harry's foot on the gas pedal, and Evil stepped hard on Harry's foot. The speed shot up 100, 110, 120 miles an hour. Harry screamed and again thought this motherfucker is crazy. We're about to die. He is fucking crazy man. So yeah there is a article here called Evil Knievel portrait of a daredevil where they're gonna run a three hour long ABC sports special will be the first in-depth look at Knievel since the spectacular crash So there they've turned this into an even bigger thing now. Yep. They said at first He said he would never jump a motorcycle again, but he's regained his health and he's indicated

He might be able to attempt the Wembley leap again So evil Knievel portrait of a daredevil will also trace his personal history from the days of his youth when he had a brush with the law. Yeah. That's mild. A bunch of them. And the rest of it here, and that will air, and that will do it for us for this week. And I think we have two parts left.

So, yes. I think that's what we're gonna do. I think we have two parts left. It's been wild so far, let's just say that. It's been fucking crazy. We got two failures today. Two complete failures, yeah. So anyway, there is Evil Knievel,

and he's out of his fucking mind, obviously. If you enjoy or are enjoying this series, please damn it. Please, please, please let us fucking know that you're enjoying the series and that you're having a great time with it. Say so, post it, do it on social media, do it wherever the fuck you gotta do it. So keep hanging out with us.

So that's the important part. Definitely do that. Also head over to shutupandgivemurder.com. Get your tickets for live shows. They are out there for the rest of the year. And of course, these are for Small Town Murder for the virtual live show on April the 19th as well. That's available for two weeks after that.

It's the 420 virtual live show, just like a regular live show, but you're in your living room or wherever you have internet anywhere on the planet and I'm gonna make Jimmy smoke copious amounts of weed out of some very intimidating apparatus. So that's gonna be a lot of fun. Can't wait for that.

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You get every last damn drop of it. This week, which you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to talk about some some cheating stuff that was gone on in sports. But my the main issue of it is going to be the Spanish Paralympic team and the fact that none of them are actually disabled in any way, shape and form. It's going to be fucking crazy stuff We'll talk all about that and then for small-town murder Maybe the craziest story I've ever heard American Nightmare is the documentary on Netflix

And there's a book called victim F also about this case and you think it's a Sherry Papini Situation and it turns out that it's something much different and it's it's the craziest shit I ever saw you'll never want to you'll never want to punch a man named mustard more in the face than after you watch this Put it that way. We'll talk about that and more that is patreon.com crime in sports and You get a shout out at the end of the show here Well, we thank you heartily for what you do for us and that happens right now Jimmy Well, we thank you heartily for what you do for us and that comes right now Jimmy hit me with the names of the people Who would never ever ever ever want us dead at the bottom of a canyon?

No matter how much they paid to come there hit me with them right fucking now This week's executive producer Andrea fellows Joe Boyd and her daughter Jocelyn. Happy birthday Jocelyn. Happy birthday Jocelyn Happy birthday to you. It's a great day Norway see you in DC, Kyle. That's going to be great. Kyle, why do I feel like he lives fucking far? Actually, no, I think he's up there. It doesn't matter.

Kyle, you're terrific. Can't wait to see you. Kyle, we love you, damn it. Also, Pat McCrotch, James. I'm positive that's really their first name. Back again, old Pat McCrotch. That's very nice. Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, John McCoola,

Janice Hill, Scarlett Horbeast III, Danielle Tisch, Tim Kane, Kelsey, probably not that one, is it? Yeah, it's the senator from. That would be amazing. I'm sure. Kelsey Abbey, Peter's brother, Mark McNeely, Laura Gordon. He felt Mike's punch, it was so hard. Alyssa Rockenbach, Felicia Barnes,

Sarah would know last name, Michelle Almeida, Ryan McClelland, Doug Kozak, Christine Kober, Dina W., David Shaddy, Kaylin Chukri, Gina Taylor, the other Jeffrey Lebowski James No, not the one the other dude, but the other one Fiona Fiala Max Newbold Crystal Martinez Kylie Hollis Adam Hauser a Melissa Victoria Doug Rose Grace hunt Tracy Thalme or Tom probably Tom, right? Betty and Eddie both of them Betty is the more important one, obviously.

Molly Ellis, Kurt Jacobson, Patty Nelson, Brittany McClure, I'm knitting right now, Beeksa, Beeksa, B-E-E-K-Z-A, Beeksa, with no last name. Emily with no last name, Whitney Amokri, Benjo Benji, Benji 2525, or is it Benjo? I don't know this could have been who knows only flams James Yeah, flan the desserts Rachel would know I'm Jay Jones probably Jenny from the TV show. She was wonderful I'm actually she wasn't from what I'm told she was a monster. She was a comic. You know, she was a nightmare Yeah, she was a pain. wasn't from what I'm told. She was a monster. She was a comic.

You know she was a nightmare. Yeah, she was a pain in the dick. You know, she was a horrible person. She's a comic who had to go into talk shows. Bitter. Bitter. And hire some random dude that fucked everybody. Wasn't that true?

I don't know. I just know that there was the, she had the, the guy got killed on her from her show because she brought the gay guy on to say she had a crush on some guy. Yeah, that wasn't cool. Cindy Labonte, Jasmine would know last name. J.R. Henry, Hugh Garden. What is this? Amy Johnson, Calista Milligan, Samantha Crouch, Sean Anegas. Oh, you better save that one, right? Claudia McClau, Caitlin Bradbury, Andrea would know last name, Rachel Holluboff, Holluboff, Courtney Newby, Tammy Hartwig, Kim Sammartano, almost relation, not quite.

Oh, it's a Bruno. Mara Hempel, Madison Laustra, Carly Yu, John Donnell, Lalani Zwaga, David Thompson, Wesley Larson, Patricia Campo, Heather Hang, Mike Greer, Christina Janell, Nick Dish, April Lee, Heather Feek, Carolina Nunez-Pacheco, Meredith Ivy, Dagoofy, Dagoofy Fokker, James. I don't think that's any of those are their names.

Yeah. I don't know, thank you of those are their names. What's that? I don't know, thank you. Think we're well off base on that one. A real name. Rebecca Garner, Brittany Holyfield. Holyfield, Holyfield. Oh, O'Vanders. Yeah, and with an I.

God damn it, got robbed, Brittany. There's lots of money on the other one. Kim Runkle. Oh no, he pissed all that away. Did he? Oh yeah. Probably. He built a house the size of a town, he pissed all that away. Did he? Oh yeah. Probably. He built a house the size of a town.

Fuck it all up. Didn't even buy a new ear. Sean Buck, Kat Hollabo, Hollabago. Hollabago? Holy fuck. Wow. Emi Peniko, Kimi Quacker, Quackenbush. Oh boy, Kika L, Kaitlyn Nicole, Wade Huggins,

Jeffrey Robinson, Benjamin Sanders, Ashley Torango, James Lebensky, Jennifer Lacombe, Tabatha with no last name, Addie Kristen with no last, oh that is the last name, T. Smith, Susan Slagle, Jamie Hofton, Michael Joan, Victor, oh John, that's John, James, that's how you spell John. That's J-O-H-N.

Is it? Joan. What the fuck? Victor Garcia. Joan, John. That's John, James. That's how you spell John. That's J-O-H-N. John. What the fuck? Victor Garcia is Joan. Joan Doe over here. Your name is Joan now. Tanya Gali. Royal with no last name. Kajal Lake.

Christopher Andrade. Jay Jones. Another one. Jesus. Alicia with no last name. Jacob with no last name. Jacob would know last name, Sarah would know last name, Random Kennedy, Scary Hendrick, Elite for Jimmy, PKM, MSTR, what is that?

What, I don't know what that is, PKM Master? I don't know what you're doing. But you're Elite for me or him. Alex Z, Kerry Gage, Matt, that, I hope that's not some fucking like BDSM thing. Like a coded death threat maybe? That's what I automatically go to. Get either of us. That's where I go.

Kerry Gage, Matt Herkey, Joe Nasternak, Alex Z, I think I said that. Joe, nope, Jay Munna, Ash B, Debbie with no last name, Carol Kervech-Kerchevich, Kerchevall, Eden McElwany, Tasha with no last name, Brittany Jacobson, Dave F. Vivian Souza, Vivian Souza, Laurie Smith, Janice Clark, and all of our patrons, you guys know you're the best. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody, from the bottom of our patrons, you guys know you're the best, thank you. Thank you so much everybody, from the bottom of our cold dead hearts.

We appreciate all that you do for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to do that, for everything you do for us, thank you, just thank you. And we're excited here, and we're gonna keep this Evil Knievel series going. Scummies also are gonna be in the mix, so we'll look out for that. And yeah man, we're excited, thank you so much so much follow us on social media you can go to shut up

and give me murder calm drop down menus will take anywhere you want to go live from the crime and sports studios we will see you next week If you like crime and sports, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If a good time sounds like, or golden hour tastes like, and getting back to yourself feels like, you've got a sense of New Brunswick.