Does Evel Knievel really need any introduction? The motorcycle stunt performer was perhaps even more famous for his spectacular crashes and long list of broken bones (433 fractures across his career, a world record that still stands) than he was for any of his successful jumps. Knievel was a highly telegenic and colorful character, practically tailor-made for television.
Evel made his first televised jump on March 25, 1967 on ABC’s Wide World Of Sports, a successful leap over 15 cars aboard a Triumph Bonneville T120. Reportedly, ABC did not air the jump live, for fear Evel’s first television appearance would also be his last moments alive. Eight months later, ABC put Evel on the air again for an even more spectacular stunt, a flight over the fountains at the Caesar’s Palace casino in Las Vegas. Evel covered 99 percent of the distance with ease, but alas, it’s that last one percent that gets ya. Evel came up just slightly short, his Bonneville’s rear wheel landing on the flat edge of the landing ramp instead of the slope. The jolt bucked Evel’s hands and feet off the handlebars and pegs, sending him over the bars to ragdoll across the pavement. Evel went into the hospital with broken ribs, a broken hip, and a crushed pelvis. Twenty-nine days later, he left the hospital as a star.
Evel went right back to jumping, with bone-breaking wrecks between every five or six safe landings (you can see a list of all his jumps here), each success growing his fame by a little and each failure growing it by a lot. Evel was a hero to kids in particular, who emulated “The King of the Stuntmen” by jumping their bicycles off home-made ramps, but had little in the way of motorcycle toys for simulated Evel Knieveling.
Ideal Toys, best known at the time for games such as Mousetrap and Battling Tops, saw the potential for a hit toy, and licensed Evel’s likeness in time for toys to hit stores in 1972. Not that his likeness mattered to kids much, I suspect; I think Ideal could have just molded Evel’s head as a solid helmet and kids wouldn’t have cared, as long there was a body in an Evel Knievel outfit on a motorcycle. Nonetheless, Ideal did a creditable job modeling Evel in vinyl, and put his plastic noggin atop a rubbery body molded over a wire armature to enable poseability while offering the extreme durability that would surely be required.
For Evel’s motorcycle, the ability to actually perform jumps and survive wrecks was essential. Ideal ingeniously engineered a self-balancing, powered toy motorcycle equipped with a metal flywheel that stored energy to power the bike while also acting like a gyro to help it stay on two wheels. A high-ratio gear reduction inside the bike allowed kid-power to spin the flywheel up to speed using a hand-cranked “energizer.” The bike engaged the energizer via a recessed gear, and slots held the bike in the correct position for proper gear mesh. A took a good ten or twenty crank-turns to get Evel up to max power, and when you stopped the crank, Evel shot out of the energizer with impressive speed.
And he really could jump! Maybe you didn’t land your jumps as frequently or smoothly as the kids in the commercials, but seeing lil’ Evel eat it was just as much fun as a successful touchdown. The rugged motorcycle would get quickly and thoroughly scraped up, but thanks to flexible plastics and the spring-loaded fork that pivoted backward if the bike smacked into anything, it was hard to actually break it.
Ideal quickly expanded the Evel Knievel line with all sorts of vehicles for Evel to crash and smash, including the “Formula 1 Dragster” pictured above, which was modeled after a full-size wheelie car that Evel had built to expand his brand and stunt repertoire. There was also a funny car (below) a “rocket” bike with spark-shooting exhaust, and, bizarrely, a chopper motorcycle that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Easy Rider. I cannot tell you what I would give to see the real Evel Knievel jump ten school buses on a raked-out chopper.
As seen above, there was also the “Scramble Van,” which expanded the play value beyond Evel shattering his skeleton. To cash in on Evel’s now-notorious jump across the Snake River canyon via a steam-powered rocket, Ideal produced the Canyon Sky Cycle. The lead-up to this jump put Knievel mania into high gear, and it appeared the toy line had legs (bendy, rubbery legs) to sustain solid sales for years to come.
Alas, it was not meant to be, and Ideal’s long run with Evel Knievel – and Evel’s own popularity – went to pieces in 1977. Former Knievel promotor Shelly Saltman authored “Evel Knievel On Tour,” an unauthorized biography of Knievel that painted him as a hard drinker and worse – very much not the type of guy kids should look up to. Not great, but Evel supercharged the bad press by attacking Saltman with an aluminum baseball bat, sending him to the hospital. With that, support from Ideal and the other brands Knievel had deals with disappeared. Evel Knievel toys lingered on shelves for a while, but production of new toys ended. However, the concept would live on as other stunt motorcycle toys minus the Knievel connection. Today, the original Evel Knievel bike, figure, and energizer set is back, thanks to California Creations.
Did you have any Evel Knievel toys? Or maybe you have the modern version right now! I’ll see you in the comments.
Top graphic images: Ideal; Marvel Comics; California Creations
I had the motorcycle one when I was very very young. I’d forgotten about it, but seeing it now makes me remember that I LOVED it.
Had the original as a kid, and I recall it being tough to launch at max power without him doing an endo.
The Evel Kinevel documentary is worth watching. Done near what would be the end of his life, it doesn’t shy away from the controversy and the issues, but it does show the human being behind it.
Heck yeah! BEST, TOY, EVER (fight me) . I got one with the white motor probably 1974. One of the most dangerous toys after lawn darts, my fiberglass bow and arrow with the removable suction cups, and my “bag of glass” (TM). He lost a hand early on but the wire out of the stump made him more tough.
What about Johnny Switchblade (TM)?
Wuss. Evel would eat him for breakfast and ask for seconds!
Children’s breakfast back then being black coffee and cigarettes….
Been on my training table for years.