The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle never worked.
It looked like great fun on the TV commercials in the mid-1970s, tiny Evel flipping wheelies, doing handstands and even jumping over “a four-foot ditch!” But in practice, the little daredevil couldn’t clear a box of Chuckles. The toy’s greatest stunt was veering off the sidewalk and into the gutter.
This was among the pangs of nostalgia felt at the Evel Knievel Experience in the Arts District. The place sits just across the street and east of The English Hotel, just an Evel Knievel jump from my own home.
That juxtaposition is appropriate. Evel Knievel was huge for youngsters, especially boys, in the ’70s. This was especially true in the Intermountain West (he was from Butte, Mont.), and in Pocatello, Idaho, where Evel’s aunt and uncle ran a corner grocery store.
The Experience covers it all, the triumph on the Triumphs and Evel’s famous crashes. A fantastic display of his 1967 Caesars Palace fountain show shows a mannequin Evel going tea-over-teakettle, tumbling over the handlebars, a moment caught for all time.
Other takeaways from Friday’s opener:
The Skycycle has survived: The contraption Evel attempted to fly over Snake River Canyon is scarred but still in pretty good condition after being plucked from the mouth of the mighty Snake. I’d never seen this thing up close. So primitive. It has about as much tech as a Norelco razor does today. And a very good move for the exhibit to include the “conspiracy theory” that Evel pulled the chute at launch. He reportedly had no idea how he would land this thing after completing the jump. But Evel did soar to the other side of the canyon before parachuting into the drink. Mission accomplished.
“Wide World of Sports” was a phenomenon. It is not easy to explain today, to those who didn’t live it, how big this show was — and how important it was in Evel’s career. Millions of sports and sport-adjacent fans watched his Saturday afternoon cavalcade of thrills (of victory) and agony (of defeat). Howard Cosell and Dandy Don Meredith called Evel’s jumps as if they were the dang Super Bowl, Cosell shouting, “Come fly with me, as the song says! And that’s the backdrop of the arrival here at Green Valley Race Track at North Richland Hills, Texas!”
The first time I ever saw Evel was on this show. “Wide World of Sports” famously featured the human drama of athletic competition, and the occasional jump-suited stunt hero flying over 50 crushed cars at the L.A. Coliseum, or 14 buses at Ohio’s Kings Island.
Evel was a bad influence: We should have obeyed, “Don’t try this at home,” but as boys on bikes, we didn’t care. A couple of planks of plywood set across a trash can, and it was “Wide World of Scars” in the back alley. Evel’s antics planted the idea that we could jump a Schwinn over a half-dozen packing boxes. Cuts under the chin, and even the occasional concussion, were the price of admission.
The man was a huge star: A display at the exhibit notes that in the early-1970s, Knievel was as big an international figure as Elvis and Muhammad Ali. He still is. The Evel action figure outsold Barbie in her 1974 prime. The daredevil was on “Donny & Marie,” “Dinah!” (massive audience in the day) and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” among many other daytime and prime-time shows. Even today, Evel’s red-white-and-blue, star-spangled Halloween costume is universally recognized (I say this from experience).
He succeeded far more than he failed: Evel once said, “My failures had a lot to do with my fame.” The quote is displayed in the downtown attraction. We more readily remember the crashes, especially the endless replays of him wiping out at Caesars. But Evel cleared about 90 percent of his jumps, his history of achievement laid out through the museum. He crashed just enough to create suspense. He succeeded enough to become a legend. The thrill of victory will live forever.
Cool Hang Alert
Staying with the Arts District, The Groove Culture plays Echo Taste and Sound at 1301 S. Main St. from 7-10 p.m. Wednesday. Leading this original project is drummer/percussionist Pepe Jimenez (Santana at House of Blues and Lady Gaga at Dolby Live are among his smaller gigs). Feel the folkloric funk, jazz and rock from Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and many Hispanic inspirations. Reservations are for 90-minute blocks. Go to echotastesound.com to make it happen.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.