Sunday, December 2, 2007

TUBULAR KNELLS: EVEL KNIEVEL

Evel Knievel was probably the Television inspiration for the type of performers you'd see on 'Jackass' and for extreme sports enthusiasts. Within the framework of the Toobworld timeline, maybe the tele-version of Evel was inspired by the Fonz when he skied over the shark!

Knievel passed away the other day at the age of 69, just days after working out a deal with Kanye West about the rapper's use of his image and style in music videos.

As a fictionalized version of himself, Evel Knievel could have fit into the format of any Glen Larson project. I could see him in some plotline for 'Knight Rider', 'The A-Team', even 'BJ And The Bear'.

But the show in which he did appear as himself was 'Bionic Woman', in which he was able to save Jamie Sommers behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. One major difference between the True Evel and the Tele-Evel: the Evel on TV could speak "fluent" German.

At least, that's what we were shown and which we are supposed to believe. But those who can actually speak German were appalled by his use of the language (probably all of it spoken phonetically) and you can find examples of his linguistic butchering at several sites around the internet.

Still, we're also supposed to accept that back in the 1970s it was possible to have a bionic arm like Jamie - Hell! We're supposed to believe it can happen now with the new version of 'The Bionic Woman'! So why not believe that Evel could successfully pull off an impersonation of a native-speaking German?

BCnU!
Toby OB

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