The Severed Cortex

Link: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_us/~3/193179483/index.html

When Evel Knievel tried to jump the Snake River Canyon, that was about the biggest thing to happen when I was a kid. A freakin' television event. They talked about it for months on end and when the day finally arrived and that rocket thing took off, the anticipation couldn't have been any bigger. Even though he came nowhere close to making it across the canyon, there was still some drama because you didn't know if he died or not. After that, we tried to jump everything we could with our bicycles, including the Brown Shoe Factory ditch which was huge. I didn't make it. In fact, I racked my balls pretty damn bad landing in the very bottom of the ditch. It didn't stop me from trying several more times though.

Napolean (speaking about Pedro's bike): Ever take it off any sweet jumps?

When the scene in Napoleon Dynamite where Napoleon jumps the ramp with Pedro's bike, I began laughing as Napoleon started peddling off camera. Nancy looked at me and said, "What are you laughing at?" I couldn't say anything because I knew what was going to happen. It had happened to us as kids too many times when setting up a ramp to jump. I owe that laughter to Evel Knievel, the man personally responsible for 1/3 of all twelve year old boy's broken arms from 1972 through 1977. What did you expect? His name is Evil.