Nicholson, Noah

The Return of Jackass

In 1992, long before the first episode of Jackass was even thought about, Big Brother magazine was founded in california. This was a magazine targeted towards skaters and used a crass and overboard sense of humor. This is where most of the Jackass cast got their start. Whether they were in the magazine or they were editors on the magazine, most of them got their start here.

Seven years later on the other side of the U.S. Bam Margera created CKY, a skate video that mixes elements of getting hurt, pranking people, and of course skateboarding. CKY is what Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine brought to pitch their idea of a show (with Bam’s permission), and it was picked up by MTV.

The first pilot episode was aired on April 12 2000, it did well and MTV aired the first season, and then 2 more seasons after that. Jackass was an icon in pop culture at the time. People from all over knew Bam Margera, Johnny Knoxville, Steve-o and the rest of the cast.

They went on to make 3 movies after the show and were even more popular than before. Just one year after their 3rd movie was released one of the star members, Ryan Dunn, passed away. At this point it was probably assumed that there wouldn’t be another movie. 12 years later, however, Jackass 4 was released. But was the fourth movie any good?

“Yes, it was funnier than the first,” said Max Leavitt, a Freshman. When Jackass was announced I was expecting it to be funny, but I was worried that the idea of it might have aged poorly. However, quite the opposite, not only is it funny but it also reached a whole new generation.

“They used more common celebrities,” said Max. Not only did they use celebrities this generation probably knows, but they also added a whole new younger group to the cast. Which could open up the idea of the movies continuing with a new cast.

“At this point I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Duncan Speel, a sophomore, when asked if he thought there could be another movie.

“It wouldn’t be the same though” said Max when presented with the idea of the new cast doing their own Jackass movie.

In the end, they were able to keep their low-brow, crass sense of humor while reaching a whole new generation of kids. As stupid as these movies may seem I think they are really good, and the original cast is really brave for doing this while they are in their 40s. They do stupid things so we don’t need to, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy every second of the newest movie because that would be a lie.