Johnny Knoxville Takes Jackass to PlayStation® Consoles

Now anyone can be a Jackass, courtesy of Red Mile Entertainment. Following the success of the MTV television show and the Paramount Pictures movies, the game publisher has teamed up with Johnny Knoxville and his crew to bring Jackass: The Game to PlayStation®2 and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system.

"We're excited about it," said Johnny Knoxville. "It is kind of odd that people will take on our personas and depressing that they're going to have to do that. We've never really worked on anything like this before. This is our first videogame. We just hope that our videogame is fun."

The premise for both the PSP® and PlayStation®2 games allows the player to create their own Jackass episode. The game comes packed with 35 stunts, which range from bumper car races across New York City rooftops to riding a unicycle though a construction site to rolling down San Francisco streets in a trashcan.

Knoxville worked with the developer on the stunts and managed to pack a lot of new things into the game that the gang has not tried in real life--like jumping off the roof of a 50-story building into a pile of elephant dung. While there are a couple of stunts that came from the TV show, the majority of in-game stunts are completely new and are based on things that even the Jackass crew couldn't pull off in real life.

"These kids playing the videogame, they can hit refresh. With us, it takes a little while. There's a lot of times where I'd like to have hit the refresh button after one of these stunts." said Knoxville.

The game's many stunts are set up like mini-games, which offers plenty of variations every time a game is played. There's also two-player support that allows players to compete in these outrageous stunts. For once, thanks to the game, Knoxville doesn't have to warn kids away from taking part in these exploits.

"Luckily, it's just a videogame," said Knoxville. "With the videogame, we're saying please try it at home. That's a decent ad campaign. I know we always said don't do this at home, but with the videogame, please do it at home�a lot."

Knoxville and the gang recorded dialogue for the games. It was the first time he'd worked in interactive entertainment, which is a lot safer than any work he'd previously done with the Jackass franchise.

"They had a bunch of things that they wanted me to say, and some of it just didn't sound right," said Knoxville. "It's weird, when you have to think about what you say to egg someone on and how pathetic it sounds. You know, just questioning their manhood and threatening them and being threatened back. It's all of the playground nature and I guess we never matured past that level."

The Jackass gang has certainly cashed in with this playground mentality. The first film made over $79.5 million globally and Jackass: Number Two took in another $85 million worldwide. Not bad for low budget movies featuring a group of guys doing outrageous stunts.

"Man, we didn't know what we were doing then and we still don't," said Knoxville. "We're as confused as everyone else about all of this. We're happy, but we're confused. We were just making stupid videos to make ourselves laugh and at the end, that's what we're still doing. For all of this to come out of something that you and your friends did, it's amazing."

Knoxville said the gang just wants the new game to reflect Jackass and their tone and point-of-view.

"I know we're a little off key, but we want the game to be a reflection of our empire of stuff," said Knoxville. "We would love for it to become a game franchise. There's a never-ending amount of stupid things you can do, so the content will be there."

Since stunts don't always go right in real life, the game reflects that for players. There's a Bail-Out option for any stunt which shifts the points total from performing the stunt correctly to seeing how many injuries you can incur.

Knoxville is an old school gamer. He has an arcade in his home that includes stand-up arcade machines Track & Field, Journey Escape, Tron, Hyper Sports, and Donkey Kong. He also has an all-in-one arcade machine with 30 classic games like Pac-Man, Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man. Working on the new PlayStation®2 and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) game, Knoxville was amazed at how far games have come.

"They've come a long way since the days of Pong and Combat," said Knoxville. "I used to kill on Combat. I used to play Atari 2600 all the time. I also loved Zaxxon. Those were the days. I love the old videogames and now when this Jackass game comes out it will be an excuse to learn how to play the new ones. It looks fun."

Knoxville likes the fact that more games are incorporating Hollywood actors and new games are even digging into the archives with classic films.

"I think it's cool what they've done with Scarface," said Knoxville. "And they got Marlon Brando to do voices in The Godfather game, so obviously, the gaming industry is huge."

Knoxville will continue his acting career, which has included movies like The Dukes of Hazzard, The Ringer and Walking Tall.

"For a guy with my education, I'm very lucky to be where I am," said Knoxville. "You know, I've churned out a couple of turkeys here and there, but I'll keep on plugging away."

He's also already thinking up scenes for the third Jackass movie.

"I haven't really stopped writing," said Knoxville. "We wrote a ton for Jackass Number Two and there's a ton of stuff that we didn't get to shoot. Stuff that I think of like every few days. We have a lot of ideas."

And now with the games, there are more places to put those new ideas... and a way for the Jackass crew to live on n infamy without nearly killing themselves in real life.