I won't belabor why Jackass works, although obviously it's authenticity, vulnerability and actual chemistry - when I discovered Jackass I was still in my 20s, missing being surrounded by the nonsense of my friends at college and beginning to experience the loneliness that men descend into without realizing it (or talking about it); it's also why shows like Ridiculousness suck, because it's one guy, he's just not that bright or interesting, and there are no relationships. It doesn't hurt that like me, they're all second-half Gen X guys, and I identify with them. (During an interview with Chris and Wee Man someone asked them what they listened to, and Wee Man answered "I only listen to about five bands. Slayer, Black Sabbath, Metallica...I only listen to about three bands.")
I just saw Jackass 5 and it's clear to me that Knoxville really does mean it to be the last one, so it's time for a look back - and some fan theories about this subtle and many-layered franchise.
The Structure of the Cast
Here's how I picture the relationships (for the classic era of Jackass 1-3, not including Loomis or CKY members who didn't cross the rainbow bridge into full casthood, and not including the new cast members of what I call the Mannerist period):
My justification: In the first movie, Steve-O was the most famous at first Knoxville (more on this later.) Bam had his own group, and later got big and had his own show and endorsements (you can hear the sarcastic "he's famous!" during the Terror Taxi skit in Jackass 2.) I can see how there would've been an initial rivalry between Steve-O and Bam, and though he would probably hate to admit it, there's a vulnerable narcissism in Steve-O that comes out easily, though he's smart and introspective enough to know this and tries to address it explicitly (he's discussed this with Chris on the show - how he was a little jealous of Chris at first.) Dave brought in Ehren, and I put them on the other side because Dave has said Bam didn't like him (and Bam called the cops on Ehren as a prank although I don't know if you can include that as evidence.) Wee Man and Preston made at least one trip to Pennsylvania (see Jackass 3), although Wee Man in particular seems up for anything - those two also filmed a little trip with Dave and Chris, and Wee Man appeared on Wildboyz. I always think of Pontius as the most Californian, but Wee Man has the strongest California accent I've ever heard on a human being (witnesseth: here, and here; probably unrelated, he also speaks German.)
I've always been interested in both Chris's and Steve-O's background and the connection they made - the kids of a cardiologist, and an international executive. Both high IQ, high achieving kinds of parents who may not have chosen this particular path for their sons, but it means they both inherited those genes, and had a lot in common in the abstract.
I'm not sure what sorts of things produce a Johnny Knoxville except being possibly descended from border reivers; and also, I had a friend who was a handsome and (at least in brief conversations) normal-seeming guy from Tennessee, and occasionally would casually mention that before moving to California he liked to do things like jump off trestles onto moving trains just for fun, so maybe it's the whole state. I'm surprised to notice Knoxville doesn't talk a lot about his attempts to break into acting before Jackass (I recently learned he was Keanu Reeves's body double in Dracula and actually took direction from Coppola); despite how we might all see him as incredibly successful, if his career didn't go as he hoped it would, that can stay with you in terms of core beliefs operating below the surface.
I've always argued that there's a correspondence between some Marvel and DC superheroes: Thor and Superman (both superstrong flying aliens who commit to guarding another planet, especially after their home planet is destroyed), Ironman and Batman (wealthy industrialists reliant on technology whose parents were killed, affecting their future psychology.) And finally this sort of thinking becomes useful, because I think there's a similar correspondence between some old and new cast members. Zach is the new Preston. Poopies is clearly the new Steve-O. Jasper is the new Bam - has parental involvement, had his own show before merging into the Jackass cast (Loiter Squad, watch it!), and I predict is most likely to bankroll his Jackass membership into future deals. I won't spend time here on the Jackass origin story, although I think there is a parallel to how Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus started (by assembling freaks from pre-existing groups - Big Brother and CKY.)
When someone has never heard of Jackass, after the first one I sometimes described it as the sequel to Animal House, in which the fraternity no longer has a home, but the institution continues, traveling around to hotels and random fields, countries, and companies, and its new recruits are Three Stooges, Hunter S. Thompson, and John Waters. And then they get a budget which they use to travel and film what they were doing anyway. (A friend of mine was an EMT in Westchester and said he was often at Bam's house, and they were not always filming.)
Notes on Jackass 1
Part of why I imprinted on it was the moment the referee announced in his thick Japanese accent, "From Wesuchestaa, Pensevaniaa, Lai-ann Dunn!" I had no idea they were from Pennsylvania. I grew up about 45 minutes up the road and the last place I lived was about 15 minutes from Westchester. I now live in the Bay Area, but I get back frequently.
Because I'm definitely not an obsessed stalker, here's a picture of me in Bam's driveway, September 2025. I blur my face because I'm a respected physician-philosopher, family man, and pillar of the community and I can't be seen having any association with ruffians, deviants or miscreants of this sort. You'll just have to believe it's me.
Dave shitting himself in the van is, for me, the moment when Jackass really became Jackass - when it morphed from a stupid little show on MTV to a stupid big movie franchise. It had all the elements: a prank, the prank going wrong because they couldn't resist torturing one of the cast, shit, the cameramen being shown and then being shown puking, the rest of the cast and crew fleeing in disgust and the hilarious humiliation of it all. Carrying out the actual prank later on was almost second after the setup. (Taken at Hippo Hardware in Portland, conceived by Whitey McConnaughy who was also behind a lot of Red Fang videos.)
Me at Hippo Hardware, with a parasite on my back. Zoom in and you can see the instruction not to sit on the toilet, sadly necessary because of this movie.
There is also a standout cast member in each one. In Jackass V, Steve-O claims he was never the MVP but I disagree. In the first one, it was clearly him. He was the one people were talking about after they saw the movie. And I have no photographic proof of the following, but my next door neighbor claims that she got backstage at a Steve-O live show in Michigan back in the day and he offered her cocaine; always very special milestone in a young girl's life. However, she claims she did not partake of said booger sugar.
Observations on Jackass 2
Joining a very short list of franchises, the second one is arguably better than the first (Godfather and arguably Terminator are the only two others.) Tremaine said they cast was "ready to die." My two favorite stunts, the Fart Mask and the Toro Totter, are also in this one. As Tremaine, Steve-O, and Pontius had been filming Wildboyz (which is a totally underrated series, you should watch it), there was some more exotic traveling in this one, including India and Argentina. There were pranks in the first one but this one had better ones: the first one was just the razor, but here it was the wind tunnel (really the cobra) and the Terror Taxi. They also started learning about, and capitalizing on, the cast members' phobias. If you were in this group, why would you EVER let people know your phobia? Part of the authenticity is hearing the second thoughts during the stunts - during Toro Totter, Pontius (it sounds like him, it's off camera) says "Why did I agree to do this one?" This is also where the x.5 versions of the movies began with the extra stunts, it's also not always clear to me why stunts end up in x.5 vs the main film. For example, I think Cajun Obstacle Course, Bed of Nails (with the cobra on Ehren) and golfing off of Ryan's ass are all solid and in fact, better than Terror Taxi! (The more you hate Ehren, the more you like Terror Taxi I guess.)
To put it mildly, these movies are interesting as a psychiatrist and physician. DSM is often criticized for "too many versions" of antisocial PD, based on symptom combinations, and these fellows aren't about to rob a bank as they're clearly enriched mostly for the poor-impulse-control, factor 2 psychopathy. To wit: I can't find it now but I once saw an interview with Dave where he said even if he got really rich he would spend all the money right away on "little pieces of shit". Classic! I will also add here that, were I ever in such a position, my willingness to do stunts is influenced by my medical training (and if you also don't sit there and think of which ones you'd do, then why are you watching these.) For example, when Dave eats the cow/horse shit in the field, that worries me. It's not just gross. That would be a great way to end up with neurocysticercosis. I might even take my chance with a bull before that one. The only way I would eat livestock shit, for any amount of money (and it would have to be a lot more than $200) would be if I had time to pre-load with prophylactic praziquantel (an anti-worm agent) which I would also continue well after the event.
Above: you don't want your brain to look like this. Each of those holes is where a worm is eating them. You get those worms by orally ingesting them, usually by not adequately washing your hands after encountering livestock feces. Or, intentionally eating it to get $200 from the 3-6 Mafia in a field in the South Central United States. Below: for your consideration. Note the "getting knocked out" point.
The anaconda bit wouldn't be so bad although I did wonder why of all people Wee Man was chosen for that one, because an anaconda actually has a shot at swallowing him! (More testament to the forethought that clearly goes into planning their stunts; as Dave once said in an interview, "No. No. It doesn't work like that.") Knoxville was obviously and intentionally grabbing it not on the head so it would bite him (but hey, it's Hollywood; Steve-O later noted he got chewed out for not reacting enough during Beehive Limo.) I also like where you can see effects earlier in the movie (edited together out of real-time chronological order) from things that happen later in the movie - during the "hotel hallway love note" bit, you can see the blood on Knoxville's shirt from the anaconda bites. In the first movie you can see a shaved bald spot in his hair during the "less lethal ammunition" bit. I was amazed that in the fourth movie they were worried about Knoxville's Jamie Lee Curtis hair showing up out of order. Tremaine, did you actually ever think that continuity would be a problem for your audience?
An outstanding question: where was the Big Red Rocket filmed? I think Pyramid Lake along the Grapevine portion of the 5, but I've never been able to confirm. I once asked an AI about it, and it offered to compare scenes in the movie to the shoreline on various maps, and I started to feel bad for taking up processing power with this and desisted.
The MVP of this movie was Ryan. Besides that this is intuitively correct (In the shopping cart launch his comment "You're an ass-hole" alone would win the title) I should note here that after Jackass 3, I did an analysis of what makes Jackass bits funny: I made a spreadsheet of all the bits, I rated them, and then annotated each bit for who was in it, was there an animal, was there emission of body fluids and if so which one(s), unexpected pranks, etc. And what I found was that, of the first three movies, the best predictor of a stunt being funny was Ryan being in it. I did not perform a Bonferroni correction calculation for multiple comparisons; my statistical argument for this is fuck you.
Thoughts on Jackass 3
This is the first one I didn't see in a theater. It came out while I was in medical school doing Serious Things and I didn't even realize it was out until clips starting showing up on Youtube. This one has the only stunt that I can't watch, the sweatsuit. I can't do spit or sweat.
There's a stunt in this one that people like to pick on which is Beehive Tetherball, because apparently bees were added digitally in post, since you couldn't see them. So what? Were the bees actually there, stinging Dave and Steve-O? Then who cares? If not, then Dave England has to be the best actor of his generation. (Dave's near-complete dissociation under stress, as he demonstrates here, is one of my favorite things about Jackass, also evident here or here or here; I was not surprised to learn of his alter ego Darf who appeared while he was intoxicated.)
Sober Steve-O is so much more compelling as a cast member. Before he was just like an android or a talking crash test dummy - you couldn't identify with him at all. Imagine old not-sober Steve-O in the Poo Cocktail Supreme - not a tenth as funny. (I like that it's in the third movie we see the cast members starting to speculate that maybe they're irrational - see the exchange between Johnny and Steve-O about Steve-O's fear of roller coasters and similar rides. I find this fascinating - for him as (early in his career) an acrobat/stilt-walker, proprioception and control are key to his security.
For me the MVP of Jackass 3 was clearly Wee Man. That parachute stunt is gnarly, but also Super Mighty Glue, and without him as the setup-man in the High Five I think it wouldn't been half as funny. And the yoga ball should have been in the main movie.
Me and Wee Man, December 2011. I went with my girlfriend to Wee Man's Chronic Tacos in Redondo (sadly now closed)and he was there. Despite that he was interviewing someone for a job and I interrupted them, he was extremely cool and showed me the tattoo of Ryan he got.
It was the year following Jackass 3 that Ryan died driving drunk. He could've still been with us, making the Jackass movies better (as I showed mathematically that he did). There were ominous signs, some explictly discussed on screen by Jackass personalities, others that fans can shake their heads at ironically. The first was a rollover accident that Ryan had in Pennsylvania in the 90s, discussed by Bam's mom in the piece made in Ryan's memory after he died. This one struck home because I remember the accident, since I remember being stuck in the traffic jam near King of Prussia that day! The ironic one was the golf cart accident in the first movie, containing a wince-inducing comment by someone off-camera: "Dunn can't drive for shit." It's worth saying that I personally know two people that have been killed by drunk drivers, and I personally know two people who have been picked up for DUI multiple times and continue to refuse to take responsibility (and who I have lost all patience and sympathy for.) Don't do this to yourself, and don't do it to people that love you.
Jackass 4
That did something to Bam for sure. I thought it would be hard to make another Jackass movie after Ryan because it would be sad - the myth of immortality had been punctured and the special connection that Bam and Ryan had was gone. And I think completely unsurprisingly, Bam took a turn for the worse. It was clear that he was trying to bring in Novak as his new best buddy, but it was completely different and kind of gross, going well over the line from brotherly slapstick into the physical abuse of a pathetic addict. (Yes I know it's from earlier but the dynamic is so different than with Ryan or any other CKY person. He's just a helpless victim and it's not funny.)
And that's why I was worried about Jackass 4. I didn't expect that they would do anything but lean into Ryan's memory, but it still crossed my mind that maybe Knoxville didn't need extra convincing to leave Bam out. To be sure, Bam gave him all the reasons he needed. My understanding is that one of the hardest parts of making these movies is, unsurprisingly, getting insurance, and psychiatrists and actuaries will tell you that a substance problem makes the chance of accident, or intentional harm to self or others, much higher. In another bizarre connection, he showed up at Christmas tree lighting one year in my city in Northern California where he has a kid with someone. This was interesting because I've said if he were to show up intoxicated to one of my showings I actually would call the police on him to get him away from my house and family (not that I'm holding my breath about this.) Wait, didn't I figure out where his house was and stalk him? NO WAY MAN HE'S THE STALKER, HE MADE ME DO IT. (In all seriousness, I was less worried that security would come out, and more worried that HE would.)
I'm obsessed enough with the franchise that I've had dreams where I'm on set, and I look around and think, this is awesome! And then I think, wait, this is terrifying, I'm about to get bitten by snakes or set on fire or have some kind of animal fluids dumped on me or something, I gotta get out of here! Indeed, Eric Andre made the comment that he grew up idolizing Jackass (his show, which you should watch, shows the influence) and that it was a dream to become part of it, and then that he realized it was actually a nightmare. (Stockholm syndrome is a strange thing.)
The question of authenticity does bring up: are there things you still don't talk about? Money is kind of a buzzkill for most people I think, and it was unfortunate to hear how much Steve O had to fight to get what he was worth to make it on Jackass 4, but Bam not being there probably made it easier for him to negotiate. Then again, it's showBUSINESS, regardless how bizarre your act is. (Similar conversation on Conan with Eric Idle about the debates with other Python members; I was always bummed when I heard about how Cleese and Jones disliked each other.)
There is no serious disagreement that the MVP of Jackass 4 is Ehren McGhehey.
Jackass 5: A Retrospective
No spoilers. Go see it. Yes it's a lot of repeat footage and stories about the previous movies, but there's stuff you've never seen before (there was stuff I didn't even know about.) Some of the cast were nervous that people would feel shortchanged since a lot of the movie is stunts from previous ones. There are new ones and they're great, but if you go knowing you're mostly seeing a farewell, you'll be happy. This is the first I've seen in a theater since 2006, and I sure was.
Berkeley, California, July 2015
My bachelor party was laid back: I got a couple hotel suites and we drank and watched Jackass 1 and 2. It was pretty great. As we were walking out of the hotel about 1am, I looked over at the check-in desk and there was this guy checking in. There was Knoxville, checking into my bachelor party hotel. It was like a bad sitcom where I was bidding farewell to my singlehood and being ferried across the Styx by the about the best symbol of childish, untamed male ridiculousness there is. Before I approached him, I checked to make sure no one had put LSD in my beer and that's why I was seeing Johnny Knoxville. (I would be more embarrassed as a psychiatrist getting caught talking to a hallucination in public, than slurring my words talking to the real Johnny Knoxville while I was intoxicated.) Fortunately, it turned out he was intoxicated as well and had just been out with people from one Pixar. (I've tried to figure out which movie it would've been.) I told him "a bunch of doctors and engineers were just killing our brain cells watching Jackass, you're making the world a worse place" and he said "Yeah I get that a lot." Which of course is a total lie. There is no other movie franchise that I have enjoyed as much and continue to. I hope you guys see this, because you've all participated in creating something really special and hilarious and made my life, and many people's lives, and the world, a much better place, and the love you all continue to get is deserved. Thank you.