You may remember the good old days on MTV. “Video Killed the Radio Star” and Devo’s “Whip it” should bring back fond memories of music videos that were fun, overplayed and inoffensive. In the 90’s, a rougher edge of MTV started to surface. VJ’s glistened with facial piercings and tattoos, and damn it if Beavis and Butthead didn’t kill the video star.
In the last few years, MTV’s gone crazy. Now music videos are hard to find, but the Real World dramas are addicting America, Road Rules jocks are eating worms in South Africa, and Celebrity Death Match is tearing out Fidel Castro’s entrails.
Just when you think MTV has gone too far, the world premiere of JACKASS aired Sunday, October 1st. It was pushed hard in the weeks prior, and then the show started as many MTV shows do-with a disclaimer.
“WARNING The following show features stunts performed by professionals and/or total idiots. In either case, MTV insists that neither you or any of your dumb little buddies attempt the dangerous crap in this show.”
The first stunt began with a moron donning a strap-on jack (pelvic dildo support assembly), and pretending to go about daily life with a hard on. Looking like the horniest guy alive, he thrusts his hips up with the fake phallus as he gets a manicure and says, “ooh, that tickles.” He plays basketball, shops for a car, and lifts weights at the gym-all the time having people stepping away from him and shaking their heads.
In another stunt, an idiot says he’s going to get pepper sprayed, hit with a stun gun, and then tazered. When his friend douses his face with pepper spray, he’s a mess but he gets out the quip, “it feels like my eyes have gonorrhea.” As he recomposes, his friend hits him with the stun gun. This knocks the guy flat. Again he pulls himself together, only to have two hooks shoot into his skin, delivering a 50,000 volt shock. Between getting juiced five or six more times by it, he says the tazer is the most painful yet. The shot with him pulling the hooks out of his chest with pliers was absolutely creepy.
You get the picture. JACKASS is extremely funny if you’re into stupid shit. It airs every Sunday on MTV at 10 p.m.