Evel Knievel: America’s dastardly daredevil (with Horatio Gould) | Part one

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1:11Horatio Gould:So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Croc store today. Snake River Canyon, Idaho, 1973. A big mob of drunken biker gangs and bloodthirsty thrill seekers. Watch on as a lunatic in a star-spangled jumpsuit is strapped to a military rocket. And that was just an ordinary day for America's most notorious daredevil. He bunked up with Charles Manson, spunked$20 million on chinchilla fur coats, and smashed the world record for broken bones.

2:08Horatio Gould:From month-long comas to robbing banks with dynamite, buckle in for the unhinged tale of evil Knievel. Do not try this at home. Welcome to the Upshot for a big old special Bumper Bumper Omnibus It's a multi-parter Wow Longer than the man jumped Welcome, I'm Jack, we've got Zach Hello Jack Horatio Gould is joining us once again Back again Back again The Empire Strikes Back We go again, Stardom Garincha That was your test run That was your test run Yeah, and now we're properly going for it Yeah, that was the goat of goat fucking. This is the goat of jumping. Yeah, jumping. Did he ever jump over goats?

2:55Horatio Gould:He did jump over some animals. He did some man-eating sharks, snakes. Mountain lions as well. I'll freely admit that before researching this, obviously I knew the name. Yes, it was one of them. You just know him as a concept, Evel Knievel. I remember being in a playground. He is the stuntman. Yeah, and you're in a playground and people are doing jumps and they're like, I'm Evel Knievel. Right, yeah. Yeah, I feel like I did have quite a good sense of him. but I think my uncle was a massive fan in the 70s during his peak had the evil Knievel toy we'll chat about it later it was like best selling toy of the 70s I'm sure he had an outfit back in the Horatio is rocking the outfit for the benefit of audio listeners it's actually worth watching this on YouTube so you can see it it's weird not really knowing anything about the guy and then dressing up as him on the podcast you realise that the outfit you wear most days and I'm going to slowly find out things it was like he was a nonce he had reams and reels of child pornography at his home i'm just all right brilliant i should have brought a change of clothes this is you did have a nice moment where you bumped into someone coming out yes yeah the this this whole building is like everything's like an air lock and you can't get into any zone without having the right thing and i got stuck and i knocked on the door you know i think it's are those like um anxiety booths out there what are those like little things is that like a private private oh right it shows that i haven't had a real job ever all right is that where you guys like cry because you hate your job so much right brilliant and i had to knock and like get them to let me in and then i refused to explain myself well as in the outfit he's looking at me like and i was like

4:38Horatio Gould:evil kenevil right so we'd heard of him yeah zach your yeah I think I was I was very much aware of his jumps him as a character but I sort of thought like he's quite a niche guy whereas in reality if you've heard of him in London in the 90s it's probably because he's actually a mega star and he was now I've researched it he was a fucking massive star but there's not really any who's the next big stunt guy is he no one there was actually a British spin-off guy Eddie Keir Eddie Keir that was the one yeah right sounds like you were very into stuntmen as a child is it a sport or is it well is wrestling a sport um I mean I would say I would say I would say this is a sport it's like a it's in the same way that ski jumping is a sport yeah I guess it's a lot less boring yeah yeah it's quicker yeah but he is he's sort of the only super famous stuntman I think I mean there are some others who sort of try and emulate him but I think so I didn't realise that that he was like one of the most famous people in America in the 70s.

5:41Horatio Gould:Right, fuck. Huge star. Yeah. So much money flying around him on a par with, you know, your biggest bands and actors. Yeah. But also I didn't realise that most of the time he fucked the stunts up and got smashed to bits. Really? Because I thought, oh, it's because he was so good at them. He was, I'm not saying it was shit, but his eyes were bigger than his stomach. Yeah. I think that was part of the appeal because it was, people were going because it was like, it was an entertainment show and people, I think in the 70s, quite sadistic and just wanted to see a bit of suffering but even now the jeopardy is what makes it interesting right you want to know they could die but yeah it's like it's what Chappelle says when people sometimes ask for their money back if his show's got really like self-indulgent right so when Dave Chappelle's doing a stand-up show people he says I'm not Evel Knievel you pay to see the attempt it's not about whether it's good or not it's about the attempt that is a really good ass covering

6:37Horatio Gould:that's genius it's just a terrible show you're paying to see me give it a go you're paying to see me try yeah that defence could cover all manner of sins couldn't it only pick up artists are listening that's great you should actually see because you know when like if like a Premier League team gets smashed 7-0 and then they like go out and like pay for the transport for the fans or something and like apologise for it just go the other way you pay to see us and they have and we fucked it up like 100 % have that's part of the game 2-9-0s for Sam Hampton. It's getting harder to defend, but they're Evel Knievel.

7:12Horatio Gould:Actually, so he ends up, he's got the Guinness World Record for the most broken bones ever. That's crazy. How many is that? I don't know the thing. That's basic, sorry. Oh, brilliant. You've got to research it when you say something, they pull it up. By the end of 1975, he'd sustained 433 fractures. Fuck. And he went on after that, really. Is there anyone who's pushing to beat his record? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. So I guess, because you have what? How many bones in the body? It's 200 something, right? I feel. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot in the foot is all I know. How many bones in the body?

7:50Horatio Gould:Is that how he's doing it? 206 bones. 206. So that's two. So I wonder how many he's repeated. Are there any bones he hasn't broken? Definitely, yeah. There definitely are. So I bet he's like... He never broke his neck. I know that. Yeah. no spoilers but he never breaks his neck yeah I think you'd find it's a lot of the same stuff yeah yeah he does a bit of scale which we'll get into but yeah he wasn't even in a way he wasn't that good yeah his left femur was his most broken bone five times five times okay was that leg I mean it was a broken back femur's this one I'd hate to break my back once I think four times would really what's a clavicle a clavicle what's that is that yeah it's a collarbone right I think we should get into the story before we do I just want to give a shout out to two things go on firstly the book by Stuart Barker entitled Life of Evil which is excellent highly recommend that got a lot of our best stories from that so thank you Stuart and go out and buy that book and secondly Horatio what would you like to plug oh right I've got I'm doing a tour extension in November.

9:04So the whole month of November, I'm just doing shows in fucking Manchester, Cambridge, Guilford, Winchester, Swindon, to name but a few. I sound like, you know, David Branson. He's like Bracknell, Swinners, Redding. You know. So go on my Instagram ratio, Gold Comedy, if you want to see me live attempt to do comedy. And you will pay for the attempt. And that's all I can promise.

9:31Horatio Gould:They prefer it when there's jeopardy. Break a leg. Break a clavicle. And your pods, Finn vs. History, Boys Gone Wild. Both excellent podcasts. Yeah, I do too many podcasts. Right, let's get into it, shall we? Yeah. Let's do it. So in 1938, a boy named Bobby Knievel was born in the town of Booth in Montana. So this is the midst of the Great Depression. and Bobby and his brother are raised by their grandparents because their parents have had to leave town in search of work. Hit this in his prime. So he's growing up in Butte, which is this small copper mining town. It's about 35 ,000 people. Basically looks like something out of the Wild West, gold rush type era.

10:21Horatio Gould:I guess it is Wild West. Yeah, it's sort of frontier, isn't it? Industrial. Yeah, it's not like a novelty Wild West town. It is in the West. There's not a gift shop. you can imagine it looks kind of saloons and tumbleweed I guess it's a bit more industrial how much do you are you bigger cowboy head for your life I've become one really recent times what's happened what went wrong you reached a certain age what's missing in your life a lot I find the concept of them going west not the cowboys so much as the people going west yeah into the unknown the genocide of the native America yeah I think it's the genocide I think people do fall into two camps as they reach ages it is either cowboys or war or second world war samurai there's the weebs I haven't got that yet if you're not the kind of Japanese heads the weeb guys you know yeah like white autistic Englishmen who are like posing in a mirror with a sword you are not ready with a fedora on I'd like to have a phase of that yeah I think so I'm probably more samurai cowboy never really I never fully connect with it Do you play like Red Dead Redemption?

11:32Horatio Gould:No I'm not My gaming is normally sort of like nerdy cricket and free games Very sports based What's your fantasy man? I guess what is it? It's like pirate, cowboy, space Knight I guess What do you see yourself in your most embarrassing the depths of your fantasies? I think this sounds weird but I'm quite into like medieval sex play that as well medieval bum stuff I would say I'm quite interested but it's more sort of like a peasant world well you've got more confidence no I don't that's the thing in your fantasy you're just like oh please governor it's not governor even it's not governor a couple of coppers me lord that's it I want to be living in squalor rolling around with the pigs in the mud simple life in a way is there a witch burning element is there any excitement mundane there would be witch burning going on at the same time I think this is a sign of a lack of self esteem and self confidence because you say a humble life you can live a humble life I respect that but in your fantasies you can't be a peasant you can be a peasant in real life but in your brain yeah you've got to be you've got to be you've got to be the the lord of your own maybe that's a psychological defense peasant in your own head brother tilling the land of your brain you're oppressed by your own in your own fantasies it's your fantasies brother yeah maybe um maybe i could sort of fuse that with uh the evil kenevil type world maybe like a sort of yeah maybe it could be the evil kenevil of the middle ages i guess just like i guess i mean just living then was like a performing stunt trying to avoid fucking...

13:25Horatio Gould:I'd do it again to become a famous jouster. Okay. So we're going up the pecking order a bit. That feels better. I do think fantasies are fascinating. They're not talked about enough because I think there's something so truly humiliating if you actually talk... If you lay out your actual fantasies because it's such a personal thing you never even think about. Are these sexual fantasies? No, no, no. These are like hero fantasies. Right, yeah. Like I have a lot of really embarrassing ones about stopping terrorist attacks. Oh, that is classic. Like the London Bridge one. Yeah, I would have chased him down that.

13:53No, what I would have... I think in my fantasy, I'm at the other end, and I don't know who I'm talking to, but I'm like... I think... I imagine... I'm talking to quite an attractive woman, and I'm like, sorry, one second, and I run the whole length of London Bridge. What I do, though, and this is all caught on camera, is that I jump, and both feet are in the air, and I two-foot them on the chest. Oh, yeah. Off a bridge.

14:16Horatio Gould:Off the bridge. Like Eric Cantona. Yeah, sort of, but I get perfect connections. and you get this amazing photo. Oh, they flip off the bridge. Yeah, I just like on his chest there, just bang. And it goes flying off. You wouldn't get the gnar. And I'm super humble in all the... Yeah, I really, really like a background of this interview. You dress like this. Yeah, I did what I had to do. Didn't a guy chase one of them with a gnarool tusk? It was a... Yeah. And then there was the Millwall guy as well. What did the Millwall guy do? Yeah, that was during the London Bridge one when they were running around the borough market and then uh this millwool fan came out of a pub and shouted fuck off it's pretty good there was also the guy who's running away still holding his pint legend buy him a pint yeah that's a good fancy i think yeah yeah um yeah what was bobby yeah let's go back get back to bobby kenevil so um so this town butte it was uh you know It was once described as the richest hill on earth.

15:22Horatio Gould:We said it looks a bit like the gold rush there. This was the copper rush of Butte. One of the lesser note rushes. Quite the same. Simple wonder. It might make your ears go green. The copper stroll. But, you know, the Great Depression has hit and the town's fallen on a pretty hard time. So by the time Bobby was growing up, it's basically known as this haven of vice. It's full of gambling, drinking, prostitution. Oh my God. The sort of place you'd clean up. Yeah, definitely. You know what I'm like. There's rumours that it has the highest bars per capita of any town in America and about the same number of brothels as well.

16:04Horatio Gould:Where's this? Montana. Does it still? I'll be right back. Is that like an industry they have protected? Slap the tariffs on that. Yeah. C-sex work thriving though. Hopefully it still is. Golden age. Yeah, golden age. oldest profession so Bobby's grandfather ran a tyre shop in Butte and apparently on that block alone there were 500 prostitutes working on one block on one block apparently that's density that's what he said he even said I'd have choice paralysis yeah that's too many it's like when you're on Netflix and you're like I just sometimes wish there was just channels so there's just something on yeah just give me two options because every time I'm having sex with that prostitute I'd be like I picked the wrong one yeah I probably should have you know when you're ordering food and then you see someone else and you're like that looks like a shit like that there's some good good names to the brothels so evil said I was raised right in it blonde Edna's whorehouse was right across the street from it dirty mouth Mary's was on the other side that's good stuff dirty mouth Mary dirty mouth Mary she just swears a lot which back then it does seem like it was just darn it hell you go to hell oh can't get that oh you dirty mouth Mary can't get that kind of talk anywhere oh hell so Bobby Knievel one of his earliest pastimes was throwing stones at these prostitutes so their game was him and his brother they chuck stones at them and then the pimps would chase them which is fun yeah and when he comes of age Bobby graduates from throwing rocks at them to throwing cash at them so he estimates that in a 10 year period he spends five to six thousand dollars in sex what's that adjusted for inflation i reckon 50 exit yeah so he yeah maybe 100x so at the time he was paying three dollars a pop so it's five to six thousand yeah yeah even dirty mothberry will throw a few three dollars throw a few slurs at you as well for good good measure so he had a loyalty card i wonder if there's any savings on yeah surely as a regular maybe maybe he gets because his granddad owns the tyre shop on the same blocks maybe that's sort of a local business discount yeah yeah yeah 2 ,000 shags 500 prostitutes 4 per prostitute right 10 years Bobby might have found one that resembles his absent mother and quite possibly roughly might be where she's working they said you left town so that's 200 a year dirty mouth Mary's yeah so that's over half the days of the year he's shagging it.

18:46Well, he's a 10-year period.

18:47Horatio Gould:Yeah, 200 a year. Yeah. So is he getting his money from stunt driving? Yeah, how's he funding this? This is later. So this is... We actually jumped ahead a little bit in the story. Those are curious stats. Take it back to his childhood. So when he's eight, Bobby goes to see a Daredevil show and it's sort of the making of him. So he sees these guys on motorbikes jumping over cars, jumping through hoops, flaming hoops. And he's absolutely blown away by this and decides that is his calling. So he starts doing jumps on his bike. He charges his friends two cents to watch. Wow. That's an interesting area.

19:22Horatio Gould:And yeah, which you only charge you two cents a time to get up to$3. You've got to do a lot of jumps. 150 jumps. For one shag. You can see why I broke so many bones. Also, he's like, he really wants to make a show of it. So he'd set fire to tumbleweed and jump over that. Wow. That's one way to deal with an awkward silence, isn't it? So tumbleweed. Yeah. tumbleweed it's just one of his jokes bombed and it's just like it's a distraction yeah yeah he's not too bothered with school but he is very good at sport he plays a lot of ice hockey he also wins a Rocky Mountain ski jumping competition travels around Montana doing rodeo as well so he's into the the thrill-seeking dangerous sports he leaves school when he's 16 the earliest possible opportunity that he can and you know He's got this quite expensive poncho for Dirty Mouth Marys to fund.

20:18Horatio Gould:So he goes like any good butte man does and works down the mines. Yeah. Tough old career. Not much fun, I imagine. It's dangerous. A lot of people die down there. He doesn't like it. And eventually he manages to wangle with his gift of the gab a job driving for the mining company. Instead, much safer. A little bit boring. you're basically picking people up bringing them to work moving fucking rocks around yeah and imagine you get looked like you're a pussy yeah you're not good you're copped out because all the burly men are going down to the you're like the cowards in the hall yeah yeah the medics of course you do so he anyway he's getting pretty bored so he decides to spice it up so he starts driving really wildly all the time as soon as someone gets in he's just like tearing it around right right right you know it's quite You're driving over these mine hills.

21:12Horatio Gould:Apparently, pretty soon, people working for the mining company are refusing to get in the car if somebody's driving it. They're just like, not him. And the final straw for that job comes when he persuades a colleague to drop a giant boulder in the back of his truck so that he can pop a wheelie. I mean, this sounds like something out of a cartoon from the era, but apparently the truck rears up so high on its back wheels that he takes out all the overhead power cables and the whole town is without power for several hours. very wacky races. So he's fired. That's the end of the mining, mining company job.

21:45Horatio Gould:After that, he has a brief stint in the army before returning to Butte to launch his own ice hockey team, the Butte Bombers. Are they still around? They were quite short-lived, I think, yeah. Yeah, well, I think, yeah. So obviously, Bobby Knievel's an entrepreneurial guy. He's dreaming of bigger things. And when he hears that the Winter Olympics are coming up in California, he manages to wangle an appearance from the czechoslovakian team damn who are very good by all accounts they're big on that shit out there aren't they yeah yeah so they come and he persuades them by saying i'll pay all your expenses because he knows he's going to make all the money on drinks and popcorn and entry and stuff so it's all looking good until the checks arrive and they've got a massive entourage right like for every player there's like three other people and he's like i can't afford these fucking expenses he can't call in enough favors at Blondedners.

22:37Horatio Gould:Yeah. Is that what their expenses were? Free tab. So he panics and decides the only way to avoid paying the expenses is to nick their receipts. Because obviously they've got this big bag of receipts of all their costs. So he breaks into the dressing room, nicks that. And then when they come to him and they're like, we want our expenses. He's like, what, where are your receipts? So I can't do anything without a receipt. That's interesting. Like an office, like an HR manager. Yeah, that's very like, kind of actually very dry way to get out of it. you had to process the receipt sorry without the requisite paperwork I am I'm going to be unable to so this causes a massive argument because he's like well there's nothing I can do sorry and there's briefly looks like a diplomatic incident might do they realise what's happening is he is he what's that what are those papers yeah I think it is that crazy invade the United States World War 3 no I think the Czech embassy are very ticked off right eventually the US Olympic Committee has to intervene and pay up.

23:38Horatio Gould:So Evil at that point is off the ice hockey team. No one wants him anywhere involved. But we are, you know, we're already seeing signs of the man who will become Evil Knievel. You know, the thrill-seeking stunts, the marketing genius, the borderline con artistry. And of course we've seen the shagger as well. But he did have a long-term girlfriend he was going steady with. Yeah, long-term and long-suffering. the lovely Linda high school sweetheart I think she was about four years below him right which you know it's the 30s that was normal at the time the least of the crimes that were being perpetrated I just hope it stops there yeah that outfit just for my outfit looking a little uncomfortable in the outfit so Evil decides around the age of 20 that actually I want to marry Linda and make an honest woman of her and there's just one small snag which is that her parents absolutely loathe him fair enough I mean his reputation ain't great yeah yeah He conned the checks.

24:34Horatio Gould:He's regularly down. Wait, is this before he was 20? He did the whole thing? Yeah. He's a jack of all trades, really. Yeah. Anyway, so the parents won't approve them to get married, which leaves him with only one rational option, which is to kidnap her. So one day she's skating at the local ice rink and he just turns up, bags her up, puts her in the car. Hogtizer. Yeah, hogtizer. And they drive off for Idaho, where he plans for them to do a quick wedding. unfortunately they are intercepted by a blizzard damn cosmic justice the road's completely blocked and the cops catch up with them and Linda is liberated yeah which I think her dad you know he was already a bit suspicious about Bobby before and the kidnapping didn't really that was it that was the final straw I knew there was something about this so once they once the police bring them all back to town he refuses to let Linda see Bobby again so they sort of keep their relationship guy on the sly creeping around for a couple of years.

25:32What, Linda still bloody loves it?

25:33Horatio Gould:Linda still, she loves it rough. Of course she does. Minx.

25:41Horatio Gould:But they're keeping it on the down low until 1959 when her dad makes the mistake of going away on a fishing trip. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that does. Come on. Late 50s fishing trip. Yeah, sure you will. That's Broback Mountain. That's the plot of Broback Mountain. Yeah, it's literally why do you not bring any of your fishing rods don't need them spearfishing spearfishing we were in a way we were yeah well whatever he was up to he's out of town for the weekend and Bobby seizes his opportunity and sneaks off with Linda to elope kidnapped again I know I think this was consensual this time yeah don't know what the mum had to say but anyway actually funny enough so it's the 50s it doesn't matter

26:35Horatio Gould:Years later, Evil and his father-in-law, Linda's dad, do bury the hatchet and they go on a fishing trip together. Yeah. There's one way to make it up to me.

26:49I mean,

26:51Horatio Gould:that actually, you know what, that actually makes a lot of sense because on that trip, the father-in-law dies. He gets swept away in the river. Right. come so hard he dies is that what the implication is and then the body gets thrown in the way it's better off so Evil's bumped anyway so that's actually years later that's in the 80s he's wanked himself to death that happens much later so at this point the father-in-law is just on his fishing trip fishing trip with a man with a mate yeah didn't really fishing rods but you know it's better and Evil's married his sweetheart secretly and you know he's got a new wife to support now so he needs some cash the mind minds won't take him back and so he takes the logical next step and turns to a life of crime and he starts out on quite sort of homespun projects he's rubbing hubcaps he's known around town for what hubcaps you know on a wheel oh right yeah the wheel yes it was a big thing stealing half-cats.

27:55Horatio Gould:Rims. Well, yeah, valuable metal, especially in a mining town. I don't hear about it anymore. But anyway, not a word you said is wrong. What do we reckon that metal is? It's probably an alloy, actually, isn't it? I think we've got our clip now.

28:14Horatio Gould:Very reasonable. Yeah, so anyway, he was famous for the way he had a special screwdriver that he would use. It was a very specific screwdriver. but he was known around town for being able to steal the hubcaps from someone's car while they're sat in it which is pretty impressive apparently his trick was level crossings you know where trains cross with roads because the train's so noisy he'd wait there cars stopped like a Formula One team yeah just quickly yeah so anyway he moves on quite quickly from rubbing hubcaps to running an extortion racket. All right. So he's upping the stakes. He'd approach local businesses in Butte offering protection.

29:00Horatio Gould:Yeah, classic. Protection from me. Exactly. So if they refuse, they'd find very quickly that their shops... On holiday in Napoli, someone said, your car, protection for your car. I'm like, from who? It's from me. Straight up. Just straight up from me. Okay, brilliant. Did you pay? Yeah. Yeah, gotcha. That's not even doing... He's just like, give me 30 euro, I kick your window in that's not doing the charade that's a good deal can you not at least be like nice Fiat 500 you have here you know yeah it was clearly it was do the charade a bit it was near the end of the day I think it was he's phoning it in it was Friday it was like 4.30pm tired he's phoned that one in did he give you a little ticket to put in your windscreen I don't know I've been gone clever badge do not smash but yeah anyway so he's doing this protection racket it and eventually it just escalates to straight out hold up so he's robbing grocery stores banks pharmacies particularly targets pharmacies because he's recruited a gang of drug addicts to do these robberies with him right and they assembled a heist team yeah it's like a method yeah um so they get the drug they're keen to get into the pharmacies Also, pharmacies in the 40s.

30:20Horatio Gould:You've got to have your crack head. Crack team.

30:28Horatio Gould:Pharmacies in the 50s, 40s, you're getting everything, aren't you? They said cocaine. Heroin. Yeah, good stuff. Rich pickings. Is this before big farmers started really fucking turning the... I think this is sort of the beginning age, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, the Sackler guy, the first Sackler. In a way, yeah, he's sort of the Luigi Mangione of his generation. Right. Yes. Yeah. So they're robbing these pharmacies. He gets the cash. They get the drugs. And robbing banks as well. He tells a story about stealing dynamite from his old mining job and blasting a hole through the roof of the local courthouse to rob that.