Jackass was famously the subject of a bidding war before the show even aired a single episode. MTV, Comedy Central and FX all liked the pitch enough to make offers, and at one point, Saturday Night Live even got involved. Star Johnny Knoxville and his producing partners Spike Jonze and Jeff Tremaine of course went with MTV, but that hasn’t stopped fans from playing the what-if game for the last quarter century, especially about SNL.
Well, it turns out the sketch comedy offer was a little different than at least I had realized. Ahead of Jackass: Best And Last, an old Howard Stern interview with Knoxville has gone viral in which the subject of Saturday Night Live came up. The actor said he met with showrunner Lorne Michaels, who offered him three to five minutes of airtime each episode, but he ultimately turned it down because apparently it wasn’t for Jackass. It was for him and wouldn’t have included the rest of the crew.
At that point, we were making the pilot for Jackass, and it was me and all my friends and Spike Jonze and Jeff Tremaine, and I would have to leave that to do Saturday Night Live… So, at the time, in my ignorance, I, once again, I’m like, ‘I’m just gonna bet on us.’
For some reason in my mind, I envisioned a weekly stunt or prank that involved Knoxville and the other guys, but this makes a lot more sense given how SNL casts work. It apparently would have just been the lead actor himself doing some bit of craziness.
I’m sure that would have been funny and blown the minds of network TV audiences who would have been shocked, but that wouldn’t have been Jackass as we know it. That would have just been Knoxville doing his thing. I wonder if he would have gotten the chance to appear in other sketches like a traditional cast member too. He’s hosted the show before so we know he would have been able to pull it off.
This might sound out of left field for Saturday Night Live. In some ways, it obviously is a big departure from the heart of the show, but it’s not quite as crazy as it might seem. There’s definitely an established pattern of SNL partnering with comedians to do something other than traditional sketch comedy.
When the show first premiered, it included a more adult version of The Muppets that Jim Henson created. There have also been plenty of filmmaking duos who have made weekly shorts for the show that are pre-taped with The Lonely Island probably being the most prominent example.
I’m sure SNL would have loved to get in on the Jackass phenomenon, but we should all be happy that it worked out the way it did. Arguably the best part of the entire franchise is the chemistry and love between the leads. Everyone laughing at each other helps the audience feel okay with laughing, and the show and subsequent movies also benefited from having a high number of sketches in order to play to different comedic tastes. Some people want to see Knoxville attach bottle rockets to roller skates. Some people want to see Steve-O get stung by bees, and some people want to see Pontius dance for random people. It’s an eclectic vibe.
You can catch the main Jackass guys one final time in Jackass: Best And Last, which hits theaters this weekend. The film is a mix of older footage, unaired stunts and new bits the team shot, alongside some of the newer cast members that appeared in Jackass Forever. It's getting very strong reviews.
