Johnny Knoxville - Everyone's Favorite Knucklehead Added: 11/22/2007

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Johnny Knoxville has earned the title of “America’s Jackass” because of the success of his MTV television show Jackass that also lead to two very successful movies as well. The only concept behind any Jackass movie or television show is how much can something hurt, how far can you push people, and how gross can you be? That is it and it shot Johnny Knoxville right to the top. It wasn’t long before he was starring in a movie version of The Dukes Of Hazzard along with Jessica Simpson and Simpson and Knoxville had the tabloid papers all in an uproar with a rumored affair on set that supposedly led to the divorce of Jessica Simpson. Knoxville has starred in other movies that were not so memorable like his role as a man faking mental illness in The Ringer. But whatever Johnny Knoxville does seems to get people’s attention and as long as people are watching Knoxville will smile for the camera.

Johnny Knoxville was born as Philip Clapp in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 11, 1971. You can guess where he got his acting name from. His middle name is John and he took his last name from his home town where his dad still works as a used car salesman. There is a whole underground of videos and stunts that developed around the rock band CKY and all of that started with Johnny Knoxville. Knoxville was writing for a skate boarding magazine called Big Brother and he had done a story about self defense equipment. He had decided that he was going to have someone video tape him trying the various self defense equipment out just to see how it all looked. So he got the editor of Big Brother Jeff Tremaine to video tape Knoxville trying out this various self defense equipment. Those videos became the first few skits in the CKY Big Brother video series that started to gain a great deal of underground support from the skate boarding community and other extreme sports personalities as well. Before long everyone involved in that scene from Knoxville, to CKY, to skate boarder Bam Margera whose brother Jesse is in the band CKY all started to become quite famous from the videos. Knoxville and Margera would get a group of people together and make these videos where they do strange and stupid stunts and tricks and then CKY would put music to them. The whole thing became a ground swell of underground success and soon Margera and Knoxville found themselves becoming recognized all over the country. Soon it was time for television to step up.

Comedy Central and MTV got into a bidding war over Johnny Knoxville as he was always seen as the mastermind begind all the Big Brother videos. Finally MTV won the bidding war and in 2000 the television series Jackass hit the airwaves. Jackass was an instant hit and Knoxville became so attached to the show in people’s minds that he was starting to be referred to as Johnny Jackass. Ever since the show was a success Knoxville has been appearing in movies including starring roles in the 2005 movies The Dukes Of Hazzard and The Ringer. Knoxville has sustained some pretty serious injuries in his career in the Jackass television shows and movies but there is talk that a third Jackass movie is in the works. It never hurts to stick with what made you big.

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