If you were kid growing up in the late ‘70s, you were probably all about “Star Wars,” but if you were carrying a lunch box to school before 1976, there is a good chance Evel Knievel was on it.
Subsequent decades were hard on the self-styled daredevil, but fans like skateboarding champion Tony Hawk and the “Jackass” MTV show’s Johnny Knoxville still remembered the tarnished icon. Daniel Junge revisits the highs and lows of Knievel’s story in the Knoxville-produced “Being Evel.”
Butte, Montana was still a bit of a rugged frontier town when young Knievel grew up there, but their cops were pretty funny. According to legend, Knievel once spent a night in the holding cell with a fellow troublemaker named Knoffle, prompting a deputy to dub them “Evil Knievel and Awful Knoffle.” That worked for Knievel, after softening the “Evil” with a second e.
