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Well, here's something your children may be reading

that you should definitely know about.

It's a shocking magazine

that tells you how to commit suicide,

tells you all about drug use,

and also explicit descriptions of sex.

It may seem hard to believe,

but this magazine is really aimed at kids.

♪

When Big Brother came out,

it was like pushing the boundaries

of not only the level of skateboarding,

but it was a true window

into what these skaters were really like.

It felt so edgy and you felt cool by reading it.

Like I felt like I was in on something

that my other friends who didn't skate

were missing out on.

That shit influenced everything

to this fucking day.

It forever changed the face of pop culture.

Fuck just skateboarding.

♪

I found a whole group of guys

that I really liked and respected

and were...

like, high level functioning pieces of shit.

♪

It really opened Pandora's Box of like,

"Man, this is really entertaining

when people take it to this level."

Every aspect of what we did

was unprofessional and amateur.

Sparked so many like talented, creative people,

like Jackass came out of that.

Jackass before Jackass.

(laughs)

♪

♪ Free styler ♪

♪

♪ Rock the microphone ♪

♪ Carry on with the freestyler ♪

♪

♪ I got to throw on and go on ♪

♪ You know I got to flow on ♪

♪ Selectors on ya, radio play us ♪

♪ 'Cause we're friendly ♪

♪ You carry protection

or will your heart go on ♪

♪ Like Celine Dion, Karma Chameleon ♪

♪ Yeah, straight from the top of my dome ♪

♪ As I rock‐rock, rock‐rock,

rock the microphone ♪

♪ Yeah, straight from the top of my dome ♪

♪ As I rock‐rock, rock‐rock,

rock the microphone ♪♪

♪

(gunshot)

♪

Christian's getting ready to bring it on.

This is a big matchup, they need your support.

Let's hear it out there as they get ready.

Christian Hosoi.

(cheering)

In the late '80s, skateboarding was huge.

Christian Hosoi!

And pros were like rockstars.

Let's go, let's go.

By the time the '90s hit,

the whole thing just took a fucking nosedive

and the industry almost collapsed.

♪

Skateboards were a trend toy.

They were a yo‐yo, a hula hoop.

And all of the little kids who had been fueling

the skateboard industry

took their money to rollerblading

or whatever the next stupid trend was.

♪

Yeah, '91 was kind of rough for me.

I was still trying to make a career

as a pro skater.

I had a huge mortgage payment that I couldn't afford

and basically I was just kind of hunkering down

and eating Top Ramen and Taco Bell.

Well, at the time Big Brother launched

it was just Thrasher and Transworld.

♪

Transworld was considered

more the goody two‐shoes magazine

and very Southern California‐centric.

And then Thrasher was the hardcore or the punk,

you know, the guys that are in the van drinking

and very NorCal‐centric.

I just remember Transworld and Thrasher

were pretty boring.

Because you get sick of the same, you know,

nonsense in every skateboard magazine.

Action trick, action trick,

ad, ad, action trick.

There wasn't anything in skateboard magazines

that pertained to any of the rest of your life.

Skateboarding was struggling as a whole.

And I don't know, it seemed like

there was a need for something new.

♪

During this bleak period,

Steve Rocco and his skateboard company,

World Industries,

kind of rose out of the ashes.

♪

Skateboarding itself was changing.

And it was going less from vert

and more to street.

And the big companies were sort of oblivious of it.

It was just the beginning of the end

for those big companies

and it was the start for us.

♪

You know, Rocco's the ultimate provocateur.

The creation of World Industries

came out of wanting to, like,

spite the skateboard industry,

but in a really funny way.

♪

Steve Rocco's advertising,

his approach to advertising and marketing

and the way he, you know, promoted his company

affected the entire industry.

Either you reacted to it

or you kind of jumped on the bandwagon

and did the same type of advertising.

And if you didn't,

you were totally out of the mix,

you know?

I always looked at World Industries

as this more cutting‐edge type brand.

The graphics were just super compelling and unique

and just felt more...

♪

...sorry, edgy.

(laughs)

The thing that Rocco was smart about

was keeping his fucking finger on the pulse

of what the kids were into,

what the kids were doing,

how the kids feel about shit.

And he didn't have anything to lose.

So, I think that was it.

Everyone else had too many things

they were beholden to

or no one wanted to be that irreverent.

♪

By 1992, Steve Rocco and his companies,

they had totally taken over the industry.

They were outselling everybody else.

♪

God, it was like the Wild West, I guess.

It was pretty much the heyday

of the skater‐owned companies

and everybody was just doing what they wanted.

It's just an amazing feeling.

No one can tell you no.

So why did you decide to start the magazine?

Basically because I was told no.

♪

We wanted to run an ad.

It was one of our skaters

and he was trying to do this really hard trick

and he kept missing.

And then the next page was him

with, like, a gun to his head,

going to kill himself.

Transworld wouldn't run it

because Larry Balma had a friend

who had killed himself in high school,

which is a bummer, I mean, God.

And I think that was the problem

with the endemic mags at the time

before Big Brother is,

you had a couple of guys in control of 'em,

and they were editing what we saw and didn't see.

So Steve Rocco was like, "Fuck you.

I'm going to go make my own magazine

and I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want."

When we heard that, we just thought,

"Oh, that's funny, ha‐ha,

you're not starting anything,"

kind of thing.

But then he did.

In hindsight, obviously I overreacted a bit,

but I mean...

♪

I suppose it was fun.

I mean, we were working in that warehouse

with the skate park,

and so there was a lot of activity there.

And we just set up a desk and, you know,

our mandate was to put out a magazine of some sort.

So we just made it up.

I think the whole thing was just like,

"Okay, we've got a magazine,

we're going to fuckin' say fuck

as many fuckin' times as we want.

So the whole first page was just

an excuse to use the word fuck, so...

♪

I think Rocco thought it's...

Well, he definitely thought it should‐‐

should be more pushing outward on ideas,

and we were more, uh,

just futzing around and shoegazing.

♪

It was a disaster.

(laughs)

It was great, but it was a disaster.

I remember the first one being free

because, like,

the quality was so shitty.

And I remember the sticker on the front, like,

"The people who made this magazine

didn't know what they were doing,

so we're giving it away."

I guess the spirit of the first one

was more just, like,

just the act of it was rebellious.

But it didn't really become Big Brother

until Tremaine came on and did issue number two.

I met Spike Jonze when he was 12

and I was 15 or 14.

He moved out to California

where he got his filmmaking career started

at World Industries making videos.

So I introduced him to Rocco,

but I don't think even at the time

I fully understood how perfect

Tremaine's sensibility would be

for Big Brother.

So when I first got hired, it was a staff of one.

It's just me.

And I don't write.

But I met Marc McKee and Sean Cliver.

They were artists for World Industries,

really responsible for a lot

of the fuck you attitude that World had.

And they were able to translate that attitude

into the pages of Big Brother.

I never had any formal writing training

or aspirations, but it was fun.

It was just fun to do.

And I'd always been a skater.

Yeah!

I have like kind of an obsession

with grammar and spelling,

so, I mean, I really like writing,

and so that's something that I was stoked to do.

♪

And punctuation.

Jeff took up residence in the magazine office

at the skate park.

And probably within the first week he was there,

Earl Parker washed up on the doorstep.

He had a 'zine called Polyurethane Monthly

that he sent to me.

And it was actually pretty neat,

just kind of small adventures

that he and his crew would go on

and end up some skateboarding

and some, like, mischief.

And I thought he had a neat take

on the writing style and on skateboarding.

Before the internet, a lot of skaters

would pretty much make these homemade 'zines

on a Xerox machine.

It was really the best way

to show what's happening

in your local skate scene.

I was a subscriber,

so I sent in money in an envelope,

like cash in an envelope,

and then I would get them every month.

And it was well‐written

and it was these sketchy pictures

and it was very punk rock.

I can see based on his creativity

why they want him to be involved in Big Brother,

but I had never actually met him though,

so I didn't know how out there he was.

♪

All throughout those days in the 1990s,

I just lived at the offices.

I would just ride a bike or walk around

and crash at the offices and stuff.

Just sleep on your desk?

I would sleep under my desk, yeah.

What you doing?

Nothin'.

When Earl moved out to California,

he didn't have a home, he didn't have any money.

So when Tremaine would come into work in the morning,

he usually stopped at a gas station

and he would pick Earl up some food.

And I bought him,

you know those big, pink Sno Balls?

Like the grossest food I could find.

And to wash that down, I found this blue soda,

it was Windex blue,

it was the only blue drink at the time.

Every day I would pick 'em up, pink and blue,

and give it to him, that's his sustenance.

So I was sort of experimenting on this kid.

Because I could, like, what the fuck?

In the earliest days of the magazine,

a lot of times we'd subsist off food

from gas stations that we called Ultima.

And the guys would buy me

all this really strange stuff

and make me eat it and drink it.

And I still live‐‐

I still live that way to this day.

I shop at a gas station every day.

All right, so I had three writers,

but what I really needed was a full‐time photographer.

And that's when I met Rick Kosick.

I'd been shooting for different magazines,

and when the Big Brother guys

came and asked me to shoot for them,

I was psyched

'cause that was Rocco's magazine

and I wanted to be a part of that excitement.

I mean, almost immediately,

like the little 'zine was just like whatever,

but that second issue that came out,

like you just kind of knew like,

"Holy shit, this is a fuckin' real magazine."

I mean, it was just raw as shit out of the gate.

(scream‐singing)

I loved Transworld and Thrasher,

but, uh, there was just something about Big Brother.

Like, I liked the goofiness,

the articles in between.

♪

Big Brother was like,

like we literally don't care

about anything.

Skateboarding happens to be in here,

but we're going to show you disgusting, foul, crazy.

We're going to figure out what can we create

that'll make you cringe or blow your mind

or your parents'll hate

or you'll get in trouble

for even having this magazine.

There was always something in every issue

that was like breaking some boundary,

something that no one was supposed to do

and they were doing it.

As a young, rebellious skate kid,

like, I loved that.

They were funny, they were, like, really funny.

It was a combination of both

intelligent people with a good sense of humor,

which is a perfect marriage.

And they skate.

I read everything in those magazines,

every last word.

No other magazine of any kind

had the subversive sense of humor,

and that was what was, I think,

ultimately what I took away from it the most.

♪

Also, there was nudity in it.

Rocco really wanted tits in the magazine too.

He thought it was really important

that the skaters want boobs, you know,

they want to be able to see boobs.

And as a 10 or 11‐year‐old,

is really meaningful at that time.

'Cause we didn't look at, like,

things with hot girls, really.

Like all we did was skate

and look at skate magazines.

They were covering hardcore skating

but also guys drinking and smoking and partying.

And I guess it was more in tune

with what skating was back then.

The kids were fuckin' out in the streets

running fucking amuck.

♪

These guys were all just delinquents

and nobody ever showed that part.

They showed, like, little bits

and pieces of it,

but it was really cool to see

like all the other sides of, you know, the skaters,

I mean, no matter how rotten it was.

Big Brother came along and then it was like

all bets are off.

We'll say and do whatever the fuck we want.

And it really did fuckin' scare a lot of people.

♪

Was fuckin' rad, you know?

They didn't give a fuck.

They did fuckin' articles how to buy crack

on the fuckin' street.

It was a variety pack of fuckin' madness.

It was sick.

There was no rules.

Like, we were self‐governed.

We should have had more rules.

(laughs)

I didn't know anything about publishing

when I was making Vice

and I thought, "Well, you have to follow the rules."

And I had a sort of eureka moment

when I was looking at Big Brother

and they had How to Do Lines and stuff

and How to Party.

And it was Pixy Stix of sugar.

Totally wrong, probably completely illegal.

You're really risking getting sued.

Not only was it fucking hilarious,

but it also showed the readership

that this isn't a family magazine

and we get you guys.

(snorts)

Oh, I got some up my nose.

Did you get a rush?

Yeah.

And here I am becoming the editor of Transworld,

and seeing, you know, Big Brother

able to cuss and kind of, you know,

a little more adult humor,

stuff that we couldn't do at Transworld

because the owners just wouldn't let us do it.

It did make me, as a skateboarder,

feel a little bit like

kind of the pussy, I guess?

It had a total, like, clubhouse atmosphere.

Like you're like, "Oh, here's the characters."

And they just wrote about themselves all day.

Like half the shit is just them

talking about themselves,

and then these cool skaters

who happen to be in the area

get like kind of roped into it

here and there.

There was a soul behind the magazine.

It wasn't just this magazine

that words magically appeared in

and photos just happen to be there.

There was a face behind those words.

That's what made it interesting.

We had to fill the pages with something

and we tried to fill it

with skateboarding related stuff,

but half the time it was just Rick's antics.

It was just something we did to amuse ourselves,

and it created content for the magazine.

And that's how Rick became a character.

♪

I had more coverage in the magazine

than a lot of pros at the time.

(ringing)

Oh, sorry, hold on a second.

But the most devastating thing

that that magazine did

to its competitors is convince everybody

to do those fuckin' video grabs.

It was actually kind of a smart thing

because skateboarding was evolving very quickly

at this time, this is the early '90s,

and very technical tricks.

Back then, still cameras

could only shoot six frames per second.

And the board was flipping was so fast

that it couldn't capture the trick correctly.

So Rocco came up with the idea

that you could pull a frame grab from a video

and put it in print.

They looked ugly, but I don't think

the skaters gave a shit about it,

what it looked like.

They liked seeing the most current tricks.

It gave it the opportunity

to progress skateboarding tremendously

from the beautiful stale thing

that we're all known to expect.

Big Brother, dude.

You know, they don't take photos for that magazine,

they just film.

What's up, Rocco?

(whistles)

And then Thrasher and Transworld

thought that they had to do that too.

"Yeah, we got that!"

And then think about a fuckin' video grab

on the Thrasher paper.

Like, what, I think it's a hamster?

And you're just like, "What the fuck is that?"

Like nobody...

So that was devastating.

That was nice work, you guys.

It's not like it completely lacked‐‐

I mean, come on, some of those covers,

that cover‐‐that Rick Howard cover,

the all red concept and trick

and photo by Spike Jonze,

that's gold.

Wait, this'll be good too.

A photo of Spike.

♪

Rocco loved gimmicks.

He wanted every issue of the magazine

to come out different.

The second issue came in the super large format.

Third issue had spiral binding.

Fourth issue was square.

Fifth issue was comic book size,

came with trading cards.

Sixth issue,

which was, you know,

the ultimate in some kids' eyes,

was the cereal box issue.

Everybody was just like, "This is awesome.

Let's do it and we'll get the companies

to put prizes in it,"

and it just went from stuff like that.

It was so cool, but I couldn't show my parents,

you know what I mean?

'Cause it had wieners all over it with ants.

There were no rules and it was going to be new

every issue.

We were never going to use the same logo.

We were never going to do the same format.

It was always going to be something special.

You didn't know what you were going to get.

And everyone just got into it, whatever it was,

and we'd move on once we did it

and do something else.

It was such a creative opportunity

to do whatever we...

I mean, if you're an artist,

that's heaven.

Once the advertisers saw,

like, the content of the magazine,

then they kind of would emulate that in their ads.

♪

There were a lot of new brands coming up

that wanted to establish themselves,

and Big Brother gave them the freedom

to do whatever they wanted.

That was when the ads became content themselves

in a way.

You know, really, Big Brother empowered

a generation of brands to express themselves

through the culture of skateboarding

versus just the sport of skateboarding.

There was one version of that ad

that was done for Big Brother

and there was a different version

that went in the other magazines.

That's what made it fun for us

because we could sort of push those boundaries

a little bit of what you could normally do.

Because there was no policy,

there was no, like, written policy.

And, of course, it was up to us

which ones can go, which ones couldn't go,

but everything went.

I think everything went.

Even ads with me getting screwed in the butt went.

Was there anything we could have sent you

that you would have said no on?

Not without looking hypocritical.

I mean...

Lots of the ads got us more in trouble

than anything we could write.

Shorty's did an ad

where there was the bearing

inside of the plastic vagina.

And we submitted that to the printer,

and they were like, "Fuck this,

we're not printing this."

And so I guess the solution was

that we had to show that it was

an artificial vagina.

So there's a little box within the ad

that shows you what it is.

♪

I don't think that showed up in Transworld.

♪

(laughs)

I think you didn't realize how conservative

the skateboard industry was

until Big Brother came out.

It represents the pure side of skateboarding

that is that sort of fuck you

and fuck everybody mentality.

Let's see if we can't cause some problems,

which they eventually did.

Sold as a teen skateboard magazine,

Big Brother has upset a number of local parents

because mixed in with skateboard articles

and stories of graphic sex

is an article that details how to kill yourself.

The first time we ever got on the news

was in Ohio somewhere, and it was basically

the How to Kill Yourself article.

And we thought that was awesome.

Along with suggestions on using guns and pills,

the magazine suggests hanging

and explains how to use a cotton cloth or tie

and a door knob.

It also recommends, "Slit your wrists,"

and explains the best way to make the cuts.

It was a reaction to all the how‐to,

How To, you know, Ollie.

How To Do a Kickflip.

How To Kill Yourself

was clearly the next place to take it.

I mean, that, to me,

was the funniest thing ever as a kid.

Now do I find that funny?

I don't know.

Like afterwards, like, when, like,

I remember, you know, like there was a big fuss over it.

I was like, "Yeah, why would we do that?

Why would we do an article on how to kill yourself?"

I don't think a lot was that thought out.

♪

As the magazine began finding its voice,

others with a similar voice would find us.

There were like Big Brother characters.

They weren't like the top pros,

but they had the right personality

and spirit that always meshed with our magazine.

If I wouldn't have got fucked up on drugs

and shooting fucking heroin in my fuckin' wiener,

I fuckin' would have been a poster child

for Big Brother.

You didn't have to be the best skater in the world,

you didn't have to be the coolest

or the best looking or, like, the most fit

or whatever it was, you know?

It was like, it was kind of a freak show.

♪

One of our contributing photographers,

Thomas Campbell,

submitted these hilarious photos

and a fucked up interview

with an unknown skater named Chris Pontius.

He would write little articles here and there.

♪

We let him answer the letters once

and it was the funniest thing, so we decided,

"Chris, you need to answer all the letters,"

'cause he takes the letter writer

on such a weird adventure.

I always liked to write and stuff,

but I never thought that I would, you know,

was going to write for Big Brother or nothing.

It just seemed like a separate world to me that‐‐

it just seemed so far away.

It was Pontius who introduced us to Dave Carnie.

Come on in, I'll show you how to make a new drink.

Dave Carnie brought a lot to the magazine.

It's a specialty of mine.

Not only was he a great writer and photographer...

Been drinking it for years.

But he was a huge personality.

He was an artist and...

(laughs)

He was a rad photographer.

And, yeah, he would use

all these crazy chemicals.

I think they made him lose his sense of smell.

Pour the excess in the toilet.

Take a big old swig.

Damn, that's good piss.

I was actually in college in San Luis Obispo.

And I met Chris Pontius

and his whole crew of merry pranksters.

There was this weird group of skaters

that were all making these

really just fuckin' stupid videos.

And so when we connected

with the Big Brother people,

it was just kind of a natural fit.

We were all doing the same stupid shit already.

♪

So, I started with Big Brother

'cause I had a fucked up story

about a friend of mine,

and I‐‐he used to sleep over all the time.

It was totally normal,

no hooking up or anything.

And I woke up and one night

he was jerking off in the bed next to me

and it was awful.

And I was only like 18

at the time and creeped out

and I didn't have the wherewithal

to be like, "Fuck you, get out of my bed!"

And so instead, I drew a picture about it.

And Steve Rocco saw it hanging up in my office.

And when he got the story, he was like,

"I think that's a Big Brother article."

Kendra was like a little sister to us,

and she also brought a female voice to the magazine.

I never felt like I was just a girl.

I didn't even really feel like I was a girl.

I probably was just one of the guys

is what I always felt like.

She actually pulled one of our first pranks

where she went on a blind date with a pro skater

and secretly recorded it.

That was fuckin' hilarious.

I mean, I think I was pissed off for a minute,

but then I was just like, "Whatever, it's hilarious."

It made me feel brave and exciting,

and I couldn't believe I pulled it off.

Big Brother used to be out of the South Bay.

You know, we were in El Segundo for a while.

♪

And Wee‐Man was sort of a local legend

and Hermosa Beach skateboarder.

You know, I thought it was rad.

Like, "Wow, there's this little midget who skates,

you know, it's awesome."

I met Rick Kosick

on a photoshoot one time.

And Rick was pretty stoked.

So he said, "Hey, you and I should,

like, start shooting some more photos this week,

let's get some stuff."

And ever since then,

the Big Brother snowball happened.

Eventually I hired Wee‐Man.

He was our subscriptions manager.

We just loved having him around.

♪

I think the magazine just kind of attracted, like,

all the misfits and the people who didn't fit in

in skateboarding.

And it was like,

it brought us all together.

♪

I'd always seen Earl Parker

as just like a resident freak

or a resident weirdo,

but really he's a good writer

and he chose awesome stuff to write about.

And the way he kind of navigated through the world

was interesting

and he really brought that

to the stories that he wrote.

♪

He would always have stories of the night before,

these weird adventures.

Like he would meet these people

and go and take pictures of them

and interview them.

♪

He would, like, write whatever he was thinking

and whatever he was feeling.

And often it was like really random

but genius connections.

♪

Earl's first big writing assignment

was to go up and cover

the Back to the City contest in San Francisco.

This was probably the biggest contest

in skateboarding at the time.

He was sent to write about the contest,

but he was wandering around San Francisco

and fell in love with this

homeless junkie punk rock girl.

♪

Hung out with her the whole weekend,

and that was his story.

My favorite part was

he took her back to his hotel room

and he ordered her room service

and then he licked her track marks.

And then he's like, "Just kidding."

(laughs)

I don't know, he was just...

He was a great writer.

And I was pumped on it.

I thought this was amazing.

It was well‐written,

it was very much Earl's psyche

and very much fit in

with what we were starting to do, you know?

Like it was just...

funny.

He was the voice of that magazine for a long time.

As much as Tremaine was, like,

the sort of force of nature behind it,

Earl was on the front lines.

Earl's approach to skateboarding

was pretty indicative

of how we were all responding to skateboarding.

♪

You can't write about skateboarding

and who gives a fuck?

Big Brother was really never about skateboarding.

I mean, it had skateboarding,

but we really hid behind skateboarding

to just make this ridiculous magazine

of just stupid shit we'd want to do.

♪

We thought it would be funny

to take Slayer to Disneyland.

And I still think it's funny.

Like Slayer doesn't belong at Disneyland.

But somehow they agreed to do that.

So we picked a group of skaters.

Danny Way, Lance Conklin.

Invited Wee‐Man, Chris Pontius.

Slayer took their sweet time

arriving at Disneyland.

So, like, some of the guys

were pretty lubricated

by the time they arrived.

(laughter, shouting)

♪

This is a family place!

Keep the foul language to a minimum!

No use of the word "cunt," all right?

No use of the word "assfucker"!

No use of the word "fuck it."

♪

Take me to the teacups!

♪

I'll take you to the teacups, pal.

We were looking for the bar in Disneyland,

like, because we heard there was a secret bar,

but we couldn't find it.

There was no booze in Disneyland.

I remember somebody going,

"Let's just go back to the bar and just go drink."

Like, "That's a great idea."

When we got back to the tram,

that's when Lance Conklin

jumped into the submarine ride.

♪

I mean, it was mayhem.

It was just a lot of bad people

at Disneyland at the same time.

But we got four pages out of it.

And at some point we realized, like,

"Fuck, what are we doing?

We should go out on the road."

♪

And so the first tour we did

was out to the Midwest.

And the content just wrote itself along the way.

♪

We realized, like, we can create whole issues

just by going on the road for two weeks.

♪

The first tour was fun,

but the tour that we planted the flag,

like this is what Big Brother is,

was the Mardi Gras tour.

♪

That tour came up at a point in my life

where I was really up

for fucking going for it.

Jeff had just broken up with a long time girlfriend

and he was ready to die

and to take everyone along with him.

Hey, kid.

♪

And that made for the most magic trip ever.

♪

Yeah!

(cheering)

(laughter)

There was always a lawlessness

to being on the road with a group of skaters

and we'd always do crazy stuff,

but I think the Big Brother Mardi Gras Tour

sort of took that little aspect

and pumped it to a thousand.

♪

You know, I think that the Mardi Gras Tour

was almost like a coming of age

for a guy like me.

Getting some beer.

The complete and total chaos...

♪

I've just‐‐I don't think I've ever experienced

anything like it, you know?

♪

When I look back, I'm like,

"Okay, when did we skate?"

Like, I can barely even think

of, like, where we even skated.

♪

Dyrdek and I really forged our relationship

on the Mardi Gras trip.

He and I got along really well on that trip.

His frenetic energy was great,

and I was pretty psyched going on that trip.

Like, I think I was entertaining him.

♪

The Mardi Gras trip

taught me the framework

of how you do a tour article.

You introduce the characters,

you take them on a little adventure,

you make fun of them along the way,

you have little sidebar boxes,

and then if you don't have a picture

you have somebody draw a picture of it.

That's the thing that affected me the most

was this is the formula.

And I've ripped it off for 15 years.

The only thing we blew on that trip,

and we blew it bad,

was we just didn't have very good coverage.

I kind of knew in the back of my mind,

at some point we're going to put out a video

that supplements the magazine.

♪

Back then, besides magazines,

the only way you saw skateboarding

was on video.

♪

And every company would put these out

to basically showcase their teams

and sell 'em in skate shops.

Kids really don't understand

the importance of a skate video

and what it meant to wait for a video to come out

and have to go buy it at the shop

or see it played at the shop.

It wasn't like today,

you can just push a button

and pretty much see anything.

Like, you had to go and, like, find it.

Dude, I'll give you a hundred bucks

and I'll take you out to Benihana's

if you slide that 75‐foot handrail.

It's like the moments in between skating

in a video, you know,

that really make you fall in love

with this culture and these people.

Rodney.

No, don't do it!

♪

Here.

So going into the East Coast Tour,

we knew we were going to make a video out of it.

Well, I was invited to go on that trip

basically to shoot all the wild and craziness

that they would get into

and then some skateboarding too.

I guess they were planning on making

a skateboard video out of it, you know?

And we're off.

On the great East Coast Tour,

so come along and enjoy.

(laughs)

The problem was we didn't have any skaters

who wanted to go with us.

The only skater who showed up

was little Bill Pepper.

♪

'Sup, Socrates?

Just filming.

‐What's in there? ‐How you doin', buddy?

Hi, dude, let me shake your hand.

We didn't have

many pro skateboarders coming with us,

but we did have an awesome set

of magazine contributors coming.

We had Dave Carnie for the first time.

We had Chris Pontius coming.

Kendra was coming with us.

And one of the things I was psyched about

is we were actually going to meet Dimitry in Boston.

He had been a contributing writer and photographer.

But this was really the first time

we were going to meet him in person.

I was living in New York at the time

and I was sending pictures to all the skate mags.

And Big Brother was going on tour

on the East Coast,

so I met up with 'em in Boston

and that was the end of my college life.

Come on, we're going to have a snowball fight.

He had been contributing photos and stories

to the magazine for a while,

but we really discovered his true talent

was behind the video camera.

Day one, he caught Carnie getting blasted in the face.

(grunting)

Did you get that?

Oh, Dimitry!

You all right?

I wanted to be part of Big Brother

more than any other skate mag

because that's the only magazine

where you could get away with whatever you want.

You know, they were just psyched to get content.

♪

Carnie was on fire.

And it was clear from sort of the jump.

Carnie went on that tour with just nothing to lose.

It was probably the closest I came

to living in the now.

Whoa!

You know, going on a skate tour

with your friends on the East Coast?

Fuck yeah, I want to come.

♪

Mom!

Mother's drinking!

Mom!

(unintelligible).

Mom, get off the stage!

"Mom, get off the stage?"

Mom, don't do this to yourself!

Get your own damn show.

Do I come and fight with you

at your job at McDonald's?

(cheering)

♪

The East Coast trip was kind of like

the point where Pontius and I were moved

from contributor to staff.

We even met Bam Margera on that trip

in Philadelphia.

We were shooting at Love Park in Philly

and there was this little 13‐year‐old kid

there with his dad.

You know, it was the first time he was in Big Brother.

We had no idea he would become

such a big part of our future.

(chatter)

♪

I don't know what to say about our group anymore.

What about you, Socrates?

I got it on video.

So we put out our first video, Shit.

And it actually did really well.

It got a really good response.

Basically, seeing all the people

that made this magazine that I liked come to life...

(cheering)

And then, like, you know, you get to follow them

on a tour was amazing.

You know, and, like, girls were there for some reason.

Like it was a complete fantasy to me,

like, what these guys were doing.

What's going on here?

We're just being a little loud.

‐This is not a party place. ‐Okay.

I think when the first Big Brother video came out,

I really liked how it wasn't a skate video

with gnar trick, gnar trick, gnar trick.

Like sometimes they went out without a plan.

All right, let's paint Wee‐Man blue

and just roll around LA

and fuck around, you know?

That was like one of the first experiences

of us doing like Jackass on the streets,

"Let's see what kind of reactions we can get."

♪

Well, I would never watch them with my mother.

There was what, shit in 'em?

Like there would actually be

people shitting and male nudity.

Which is the front and which is the back?

The idea of the Depends party was around

before the trip even began.

Just strap on a bunch of Depends adult diapers,

sit around in a hotel room,

drink beer, and piss ourselves.

It was Jeff's idea but it became my dream.

Oh yeah, this is a funky song.

I like it, I like it.

Oh, you guys, look, I'm about to pee.

I'm peeing, I'm peeing!

(laughter)

Oh my God, it works.

Peeing yourself is every bit as weird

as you imagine it would be.

Oh, I just did it, I just peed.

It's that feeling like when you're in a dream of,

"Wake up, wake up, it's time to wake up.

Something really wrong is happening,"

except for it's real.

I just peed again.

You guys, that's three times now.

What are you doing?

I'm taking a poo.

‐‐in his wardrobe to confirm that.

How you feelin' in that poo diaper?

(group responds with disgust)

They're a really good product,

like they hold your pee,

they hold the shit,

and they held the stink in.

He pooed his Depends.

Look at that.

'Cause when I took 'em off

to show everybody what I had made,

Rick puked.

He couldn't handle it.

It was that bad.

Video Rick, video Rick, he's puking!

Are you puking, Rick?

(laughter)

I'm going to be fucking sick, man.

That's fucking gross.

My parents somehow,

they somehow saw Shit,

I don't know how,

and they were very, very, very disappointed.

And that's what they said, that was three verys.

13‐year‐old Chris Kearns and his buddies

have just taken up skateboarding.

Chris decided to go to this Barnes & Noble store

in Roseville to pick up a skateboarding magazine.

I thought that there'd be, like, tricks and stuff in it.

But what Chris found inside Big Brother magazine

was an eye‐opening look into the world of adult material.

Frontal nudity,

picture of people masturbating,

and even a Pink Panther with an erection

are found on the pages of the magazine.

Right around this time,

we got into some real trouble with the city of El Segundo.

Big Brother is aimed at little brother,

and that's what we're against.

I don't care if 18 years and above

read this garbage,

do whatever they want with it,

but not at my children, not at any child.

Thank you.

(applause)

I think it's up to this city council

to do legally what we can do to shut this down.

Every legal way possible, because it's time.

Right now, we're going to say "no more"

to the Roccos

and to everybody else out there

that has this kind of garbage

and that are playing against the young people.

No more.

I really don't think taking away one little magazine

‐is going to solve your problem. ‐It's a start.

A marathon race is started with a first step.

You bet we‐‐

(applause)

The news got hot on that.

We were on the news pretty quickly after that.

Sylvia Lopez has the story behind Big Brother magazine.

KCAL9 News shows up.

I'm going to be interviewing him.

What are you going to do with all this tape?

And we knew they were coming,

so we all made hats that said "Channel 13 News."

‐Is that going to be... ‐This is already up.

Why don't you film it, you should film it.

This is going to be in the magazine?

It's already out, we've already published this.

‐Which one is it? ‐Number nine.

We just tried to sabotage their interview of us,

and then they interviewed me

and just caught me out there.

Then they cropped out the funny,

so we thought we had them,

but they just had me cropped in tight.

Basically, it's just all in the name of humor,

that's what we're doing, and I think it's very obvious.

But Tremaine couldn't defend the publication

of sexually explicit materials

in a magazine whose readers are kids.

There is some very sexually explicit stuff in there.

Yeah, there is.

Pornographic, I mean,

I think you'd have to label it that way.

Well...

you can label it, you know‐‐like I said,

I didn't really want to even go on camera, so.

A Barnes & Noble spokeswoman issued this statement, saying:

♪

I guess that freaked everybody out and, like,

a lot of, like, the advertisers pulled out.

That seemed like the magazine could end at any time.

Big Brother never made money.

(laughs)

We, in fact, lost; we were a losing venture.

We didn't sell enough ads to generate enough

to really even pay the print bill.

My CFO, Scott, came to me.

He goes, "Every time you put out an issue of Big Brother,

you guys lose, like, $50,000."

We knew Big Brother never made money,

but we didn't know it lost that much money.

And so it kind of became clear that, you know...

we might be on thin ice.

♪

People were protesting World Industries.

City of El Segundo wanted to kick us out.

I was thinking, "God, should we just, like,

fold it" or this and that, and Scott goes,

"Don't‐‐don't, don't, don't, don't.

We can‐‐we can sell it."

And I'm just, like, "Who in the fuck

would buy, like‐‐ are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me?"

And he goes, "Trust me."

And then, I was in Hawaii at the time,

and he called me up and goes,

"Larry Flynt wants to buy it."

♪

I showed up for work one day

and Rocco pulled me in and told me that

Larry Flynt's buying the magazine.

I don't remember exactly how I felt about it.

I‐‐I know, I think I was a little nervous

because we'd had our own little kingdom.

There was no one to answer to, absolutely no one.

We were doing our own thing.

Get that out of here!

But it's Larry Flynt, right, so it's going to be cool,

it's going be awesome.

Larry Flynt was a pornographer.

He was the publisher of Hustler magazine

and he was a champion of First Amendment rights.

But I was most excited about working for him

because it was an actual publishing company

and the magazine would have actual distribution

and be on real newsstands.

I wasn't excited about it.

Larry Flynt had a lot of rules that we had to follow

and one of them was a strict dress code.

LFP was a corporate environment.

And so, yeah, they wanted us to wear, like,

collar shirts and khaki pants and business casual or some shit

and we were, like, "We're a skateboard magazine,

we can't dress like we're fucking Best Buy employees."

They turned a blind eye to us,

but the rest of the building, you know,

had to dress up like

these half‐assed corporate employees.

♪

And I just remember being really struck by

the fact that this magazine

was a totally different product each time,

and I realized, these are guys

who don't want to get bored.

Like, literally, they reinvented it every month.

It was like, uh...

you just knew that there was a lot

of creativity and talent and energy there,

and that they were going to go places.

♪

I remember when Flynt Publications

bought Big Brother, and I just thought that...

well, it's a relatively good fit,

because they are shocking, but then I thought,

"Well, does that mean it's going to go to porn?"

And the irony was that once Flynt took it over,

it got mellower.

I mean, it wasn't, like, conservative,

but, like, Larry Flynt wasn't, like, you know...

he wasn't out to, like‐‐

he didn't buy Big Brother for, like, the tits.

We were publishing a number of porn magazines.

It didn't make any sense to do any more of them.

So we were going after the mainstream media,

trying to find niche areas

that we could be successful in,

whether it be skateboarding or whatever.

So immediately after we started at Flynt,

there was no more boobs, no more dicks.

Any genitalia had to be covered.

We were always trying to get away with shit,

and so we thought it'd be really funny,

what if we hid a really naughty picture

and a bad word right on the cover?

But we got caught, like, right here.

These are called cover blurbs,

and if you look here,

P‐U‐S‐S‐Y.

Like, you know,

sometimes, we would get away with it

and sometimes we wouldn't.

Tonight, a local El Cajon couple

is outraged by a national magazine

aimed at kids who like skateboarding.

Yeah, the Kids Issue we got in trouble for.

With big block lettering,

bright colors,

bold print,

and the words "Kids Issue" in one corner,

Sheryl Templeton thought she knew what she was buying.

Parents looked at the cover and they saw "Kids Issue."

But you'll notice there's no apostrophe there.

This isn't an issue for kids,

this is an issue about kids.

But I was just livid.

Colton's dad found references to bestiality,

nudity, suicide, and more,

all mixed in with kids' interviews.

One of the questions I think every kid got asked was,

"Would you f‐‐‐ your mom

to be as good as the Muska?"

Because Muska was the best skater at the time.

You know, thank God my questions weren't as bad as some

of these other kids that I saw, you know?

I remember watching the news a little bit later,

and then I saw the cover on the news

and I was like, "Mom, that's me!"

And then they were talking about all the controversy,

and then she had to kick me out of the room.

I'm outraged at this.

Read on and it gets worse.

This section titled "How to Make a Kid"

describes sexual intercourse

in the form of a baking recipe.

It's so bad, we can't even show it to you.

Who publishes this?

Actually, that's the only part about all of this

that isn't shocking,

because the publisher of Big Brother Skateboarding

is self‐proclaimed pornographer Larry Flynt.

Some of the things in here just seem like

they're trying to break down children's inhibitions

by asking children, for example,

"Do you know what a scrotum is?"

"Do you have pubic hair yet?"

"Would you have sex with your mother?"

Well, that's kind of kinky, you know?

We got in the news for that,

but it never caused any problems.

The one issue that I thought‐‐

I was like, "This is the demise of us.

Larry Flynt's going down, we're going down,

everybody's going down."

Because the Big Brother subscribers got sent

an issue of Taboo magazine,

the lists got switched.

So Flynt had this porn magazine called Taboo.

It was their naughtiest magazine,

it was the one that had girls peeing on people.

Like, just their most radical title was Taboo.

And not only is it Taboo magazine,

but it's the fisting issue of Taboo magazine.

On the cover,

there's a black fist covered in K‐Y

in front of a girl,

and I'm thinking,

"This magazine is going unsolicited

into people's homes

to probably a lot of underage kids."

♪

"And that's got to be illegal."

Here's an odd story.

There's this magazine for skateboarders

called Big Brother Skateboard magazine.

Larry Flynt puts it out.

Well, somehow, all the subscribers‐‐

Larry Flynt said last night on the news,

they got the mailings mixed up.

Somehow, subscribers to the skateboard magazine

actually got copies of the adult magazine Taboo instead.

(laughter)

You know who I feel sorry for?

The guys who subscribe to Taboo.

They wound up getting the skateboard magazine.

Those are the ones that I feel, I feel...

Kev, what is this?

(audience hoots, applauds)

And that was it, then that was done.

And anytime you get on the television,

advertisers who were maybe on the fence are like,

"Well, more people are picking up this magazine now,

so I'm going to advertise in it."

Some stupid skateboarding magazine.

(audience laughter)

So it wasn't a bad thing for us.

Anytime anything like that happened, you know,

boom, we would just sell magazines.

It was great.

Aside from losing the gratuitous nudity,

the most troubling thing

was that Flynt wanted us to go monthly.

That scared the shit out of me.

Look, we were barely keeping our head above water

and keeping enough content

for a bi‐monthly magazine.

But we got a bunch of new contributors.

I came across a copy of Big Brother

and I fell in love with it instantly.

Chris Nieratko started writing for us.

He would mainly do music interviews,

and he would ask the artist the craziest questions.

Like, he asked Big Pun,

"What's the most expensive pair of sneakers you own?"

and followed it up with,

"Don't you think that's kind of a waste of money,

since you'll never be able to see them?"

No wonder Big Pun pulled a gun on him.

I almost didn't believe him

until I went with him to interview Ronnie James Dio,

the legendary singer of Black Sabbath.

Yo, we're here to see Dio.

♪

We go into the interview,

and there's like these metalheads

in the waiting area, and they're like,

"Hey, don't ask him about Ozzy."

Don't ask him about this‐‐

they're giving me these pointers.

Don't piss him off.

He might kick your ass.

I took notes on everything they told me not to ask about,

and that's everything that I asked about.

‐How you doing? ‐Hey, Big Bro.

‐How you doing? ‐How you guys doing?

Good, good, how are you?

He's a short little fucker,

and when I got in there,

it was the first thing I said.

How tall are you‐‐ you're pretty short, huh?

No, I'm actually 7‐foot‐9.

You look so short.

I can't believe that you didn't realize that.

The word is "small," not "short,"

so don't piss me off or you won't get a good interview.

No, I'm not saying that it's a bad thing.

You said I was short, that pisses me off right away.

Out of the gates,

he just starts pushing his buttons hard,

and Dio's getting pissed.

How old are you anyway, Rodney?

‐Ronnie. ‐Ronnie?

Yeah.

You're really fucking stepping your foot

in this one, aren't you, man?

I think I asked him

how they made him look so tall on the album covers

when he's such a short little fucker.

If you want me to beat the fuck out of you,

I'll be more than happy to.

‐No, I don't want you to. ‐Let's just clear

the fucking room and I'll kick your fucking ass for you;

if that's what you want, no problem from me.

‐No, I don't‐‐ ‐I'm good at that.

I don't want that, I'm just asking.

Fine, let's go, come on, out.

Thank you very much.

And all hell broke loose.

He called for security.

I don't appreciate this fucking shit either!

Just get out right now, out.

I mean out!

Out!

It turned into complete chaos.

And after that, I never doubted Nieratko again.

Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you.

You should be fucking sorry, mate.

(crowd chatter)

I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico,

and when Big Brother came through town

with a skate tour for a shoe company called Duffs,

I just tracked those guys down.

Yeah, he found us.

We were on tour with Duffs,

and when he caught wind of that,

like, he just went off.

I wanted to be a skateboarder

and in skateboard media.

But I just wasn't that good at skateboarding.

So I just said, "Okay, screw the skateboarding.

I'm going to provide the comic relief."

♪

And Steve‐O had the idea to light his hair on fire

and have Markovich blow a fireball off his head.

What is that?

Hairspray.

Extremely flammable.

Which all sounds nifty and cool,

but what made it a hit was that the fireball

didn't get blown off of my head,

it got blown point‐blank directly into my face.

(crowd chatter)

(flame roars)

(screaming)

Markovich ended up blowing all the alcohol

in Steve‐O's face.

So when he lit it,

his whole head lit up.

Still did a back flip, and...

that was in the article.

♪

That's when Steve‐O first was in the pages of Big Brother.

His dream,

but he burnt his face off to do it.

That's how we got introduced to Steve‐O.

♪

But the first time I met Steve‐O in person,

we did our Florida tour.

Steve‐O was red hot.

He wanted to be in front of the cameras so bad.

But he was also super annoying

the whole time.

(projectile whines)

I kind of had the same effect on everybody.

I was, like, super annoying.

I should say, they were annoyed.

(chortles)

I wasn't annoying, they were annoyed.

But goddamn, did he deliver.

Like, he did this front flip‐and‐a‐half

off this bridge and just ate shit.

♪

I think we tried to ditch him then.

He was in the water,

and I'm pretty sure we were going to

load up the car and ditch him there.

But motherfucker, he just somehow

scurried back in, saw us,

and just got on the case.

And...could not ditch him.

I did everything I could

to force my way into the scene.

I practiced my autograph for years

before anybody ever wanted it.

I just wanted to be famous so fucking bad

that the first time I got recognized

for being in a Big Brother video,

like, it was...

you know, like, "Ahhh!"

Well, I'm Johnny Knoxville,

United States of America,

and I'll be doing a little article

on self‐defense equipment.

I'd met Knoxville through Spike,

and he was a writer at the time,

he was writing for another magazine.

I didn't write for Big Brother for a long time because

I didn't‐‐I didn't skate,

and I don't know what I'm going to write about

if I don't skate.

But it wasn't just skating,

it was a lot of bad behavior,

which I could do.

He came to us with the idea to do a product review

on various self‐defense items.

I'm going to start off

by spraying myself with SABRE Red Pepper Spray.

It's the highest concentration you can get.

He was going to pepper spray himself,

stun gun himself,

shoot taser darts into himself,

and then eventually,

putting on a bulletproof vest

and shooting himself.

Well, you know, I'd moved out to Los Angeles

to become an actor

five or six or seven years prior,

and I'd really not done anything about it.

And then my girlfriend at the time got pregnant,

and that was a huge wake‐up call in my life,

that I have to do something quick.

Then we're going to drive out to the desert

and I have a .38 hammerless

nice and light Smith & Wesson

that's got all the stopping power of a 9mm,

and I'll be getting shot in the chest

with this 911 Level IIA Kevlar vest.

He doesn't have a pot to piss in at this time,

so the bulletproof vest he got

was the cheapest one on the market.

I wish I had enough money

for the most expensive vest, but I didn't.

Those were like $700 or a grand,

and there is no way I had that kind of scratch.

I thought that was a great idea for an article

and thought, man, we should film this,

this is going to be great.

But we should film it too.

‐You just tell me when to go. ‐Okay.

We filmed the first three things

at Beautiful Jason's house.

And it seemed to go‐‐

I mean, we couldn't see from the footage,

but it felt like we were getting something.

Hit me!

(grunts)

(exclaims)

Mm!

Oh my God!

And when he came back with these tapes,

it was so compelling.

(yells)

Because Knoxville could talk to the camera,

he was the first guy that we had

that could actually talk on camera.

How you feeling, PJ?

Oh, I feel like my eyes have gonorrhea.

(exclaims)

He walked you through all these tests.

First it's the pepper spray.

You saw how bad that sucked.

Then it was the stun gun.

Charge!

(gun zapping)

(painful exclamation)

Fuck!

Third was the taser darts.

Weren't you on 90210 not too long ago?

(shouts of pain)

Oh, fucking hell!

And he's making it funny.

No, quit‐‐

Ahh, fuck!

And then we had to decide where I was going to get shot.

Because we had no location,

and we just got on the freeway

and started driving.

During the whole car ride out there,

the anxiety in the car was just getting higher and higher.

And then when we got to the fire road

and I pulled out the gun,

everyone started freaking out.

My friend Beautiful Jason who was supposed to shoot me

said, "I'm not shooting you."

He goes, "You got a kid, I'm friends with your wife.

I can't shoot you."

Like that, Jason?

How's that?

Hm?

‐Huh? ‐How's that?

♪

Looks pretty good.

And then my friend Jeff Bender,

who's taking the still shots,

told me at that moment

that he'd watched a friend of his

die from doing a stunt.

Not great news.

So he was no longer taking still shots,

and then Loomis, my friend Loomis,

stepped up and said, "I'll film you,"

but he'd never worked a camera before‐‐

or since, probably.

And he was just all over the place.

This is like a bad fucking scene right now.

I don't want anything to do with this crap.

I wish somebody'd shoot me.

I'm not...

Say a prayer, dude.

PJ, we don't even know where there's a hospital.

You rolling?

Let's go.

♪

Let's fucking go, PJ.

This is beyond dumb.

PJ, let's fucking go.

(trigger clicks)

Let's go.

Now you've got to go the whole way around.

‐Sure? ‐I can't handle this.

PJ, let's fucking‐‐

Find out where the bullet went.

‐PJ. ‐(trigger clicks)

Come on, man!

PJ, let's fucking go!

(trigger clicks)

I'm about to throw a fucking rock at you.

Let's go!

(trigger clicks)

‐It's the next one. ‐PJ, come on!

I can't handle this.

PJ!

It's so fucking lame,

I can't even tell you right now.

Forget it.

(gunshot)

Let's go!

When the bullet finally went off,

it just threw me back.

Let's go, dude, just go.

Put it in that thing and go.

Just leave it in.

Like someone hit you in the chest with a shovel.

Just leave it on.

And this crazy rush of adrenaline shot through me

and I just remembered, like,

"Let's get the fuck out of here."

Jeff, will you drive?

And just so relieved that

I just didn't die.

You know?

Because...

PJ, how'd it feel?

It was cool.

Didn't hurt?

No, I was kind of scared, though.

I feel like Johnny Ace.

Playing Russian roulette.

It was cool like it took five times to do.

Yeah, that was marvelous.

See, it didn't even leave a fucking‐‐

I told you guys.

I know when I went in the office that Monday,

everyone had seen the footage

and they were really excited,

so I was thrilled, because I‐‐you know,

I looked up to the Big Brother guys,

and that they liked the footage,

I remember being really proud of that.

Burritos on me.

Once Knoxville started getting involved with the magazine

and writing more,

and he was becoming a significant personality.

He's never even ridden a skateboard.

He has nothing to do with skateboarding, but...

here he is in this skateboard magazine.

He fit in perfect.

I felt like I finally found, like a home,

and this could be something,

and I think...

and I know Jeff felt that way too.

He‐‐he recognized that it was a special group.

♪

If there was any article that I remember vividly,

it was the self‐defense article

that Johnny Knoxville did, because...

he shot himself!

And then, we knew you guys had it on video

and just figured, "Well, it'll be in

the next Big Brother video,"

which was, you know, scattered skate stuff

and other highjinks, and then, all of a sudden,

it was like, "No, this is‐‐ this is a whole new thing."

I'm sure there's a fucking shit‐ton of people

that will get down on me for this right now,

but I don't remember the skating.

I remember going,

"You have to see the video,

because this fucking weird dude from Tennessee

shoots himself."

(gunshot echoes)

I don't even know if it's a standout,

but for some reason, etched in my mind permanently

is the Poocano.

In the past thousand years,

volcanoes have claimed more than 300,000 lives.

Which is just such a shocking image.

No beauty more deadly

than the fire within.

♪

Pontius stole Carnie's thunder on the Poocano.

Like, the Poocano is Carnie's idea.

Carnie went to do his

and it didn't fly the way he imagined.

So I ended up doing the Poocano,

and I don't want to say I got credit for it,

but, like I never wanted this kind of credit.

He just had a better shit at the time.

He also‐‐Chris has a bubblier butt,

so it looked better for the fake volcano,

that it was Chris's butt, you know?

I've made a career off of Chris's butt.

♪

In the second Big Brother video,

they filmed me rollerblading in, like, a jockstrap.

And people were yelling at me, like, "Put some pants on!"

and, like, these volleyball players threw a ball at me,

wanting to fight, you know.

It sounds ridiculous now too.

Because now, like, if I did the same thing,

people would just be cheering, you know?

The world was not as good of a place then.

Holy...

There was nothing like Big Brother videos out there.

As simple as it seems now

looking back on this stuff...

Hi, Mom!

...I think it was definitely, like,

very pioneering for its time.

(flare whistles)

Nowadays, you could search on YouTube

and find crazy stuff,

but Big Brother had that all in their videos,

you know what I mean?

So it was like‐‐ it was just crazy,

I mean, it was just good times.

I mean, you always looked forward

to a Big Brother video because you never knew

what the hell was going to be in it.

The next video was Boob?

Boob.

I was like, okay, I got another video,

I have to think of some things to do.

Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville,

and I'm going to get hit by a car real soon.

(engine revs)

(sharp thud)

I was like just such a fan right away,

and also, of course, threatened,

because I'm like, "Fuck, this guy might

be gnarlier than me," you know, like... oh!

♪

Well, Steve‐O, he actually got me into...

jumping off random bridges into water, you know.

When I saw him do a front flip

blowing a fireball out, you know, like,

I'm like, "Shit!"

So, yeah, I started getting into that too.

So Bam came out with a video called CKY,

which was really similar in spirit

to what we were doing.

It was just him and his friends

fucking around in Pennsylvania.

♪

To Bam's credit, like, when I started,

it was all, like, stunts.

(thud)

And then, I saw a CKY video,

and they were doing pranks.

I'm like, "Oh, I should start doing pranks."

Excuse me, ma'am?

Ma'am...I'm sorry.

This sausage doesn't look right.

It looks a little like poo.

This sausage looks like poo.

It smells.

This is not a sausage.

That opened up a whole new thing for me.

I can't eat it, I can't eat it!

I thought I could make a TV show out of it.

I don't even know what the TV show would be.

But we had an exceptional arsenal of shitbags,

so I called Knoxville.

"Hey, let's partner up

and try to make a TV show out of this."

I said, "Okay."

And Spike got us his agent, his attorney,

and credibility...

And after that, I just cut together

basically the best of our videos

mixed with Bam's stuff for CKY.

And MTV just loved it.

They ordered a series.

You know, MTV had been into scripted shows

for quite some time at that point,

and Jackass sort of felt like a polar opposite.

The feeling was this spoke

so authentically to the audience

that we had to let it go.

No intelligent, thoughtful adult

would make a show like this.

And‐‐and so, it's perfect.

It's perfect for the teenagers who watch MTV.

♪

You know, I remember the day that Jeff told me at lunch

that he was leaving the magazine.

And I just remember being devastated,

I was like, "Oh my God, you're leaving the magazine?"

And he was like, "Yeah, I'm going to go on

to make Jackass, you know?

MTV picked it up,

and I'm going to go do this full time."

♪

So I kind of felt like

it was the end of an era

and the beginning of a new one.

It was‐‐it was a scary decision.

Jackass was not the sure thing

that it seems like it would be, you know?

It was going into the unknown.

But it really was‐‐

you know, leaving Big Brother was‐‐

you know, it was leaving a family behind, you know?

♪

Once Jackass happened

and part of the staff left,

Dave Carnie became editor of the magazine,

and that's when we brought on Chris Nieratko

as managing editor.

To me, Jackass was great, cool.

But I get to have a skateboard magazine?

This is actually mine now,

I can do whatever the fuck I want in this?

Way cooler.

♪

When they all left, it was like...

someone had come in and sterilized the office

with a hose

connected to the Fountain of Youth.

♪

And so, it was me,

Dimitry, who was maybe 21.

Big Brother let me do what I love,

which is shoot skating and travel the world and...

write about it.

I was going to all these places

I'd never dreamt I'd go to, you know?

All for skateboarding.

♪

And then, we had a bunch of young interns.

♪

And Carnie was, like, the leftover old guy,

and Kosick, who was like‐‐

I think he was the oldest of anyone ever.

It was going good.

You know, the magazine was the biggest it's ever been.

We had some great moments,

we've put out another really good video...

‐Get 'em, Caddy! ‐(exclaims)

Which was Crap.

Crap, Crap, Crap, Crap.

♪

I think that's the main thing that I got out of working there

is it was like a big family,

a big, dysfunctional family that was fun,

and everybody would hang out together

and drink together and do stupid stuff,

and even when you were working in the office,

it never really felt like work.

(shouting)

The skateboarding industry,

it's notoriously up‐and‐down.

I think right when Jackass was starting too,

the skateboarding industry was up.

Skateboarding's getting bigger,

it's on national television.

But those are the big‐money guys,

and they don't like Big Brother.

Watch out!

(exclaiming)

And Flynt's like, "Where's all the money?"

And it wasn't coming to us.

(beeps)

♪

Right around 2004,

skateboarding was seeing this influx of money

from outside corporations.

The "core brands"

started taking themselves too serious,

and they just didn't want their "athletes"

portrayed in a negative light.

The risks never stopped.

The magazine seemed like it took risks

up until there wasn't enough interaction or advertisers

that wanted to participate in the risk.

The editorial staff,

maybe they'd change what they're writing

in order to please an advertiser,

and I think that was one of the things

that was different about us.

You know, there was sort of a punk rock ethos

in the magazine, where, like,

"We're not changing; we do what we want."

And in the end, it hurt the magazine.

Because you'd piss off a lot of people

and they just wouldn't advertise.

But you gain all this notoriety with your readership,

because you go, "Holy shit,

no one else has the balls to do that.

Thank you for losing a major advertiser

to amuse me."

It sucks; it sucks because...

at the end of the day, Larry Flynt is a publisher,

and if we're not making money,

there's no reason to keep us around.

And it was just this fucking sinking ship,

which it didn't feel like a sinking ship.

I was completely shocked and surprised

when I got called up and fired.

This one day, the VP of Flynt

called Dave and I up to her offices

and said they were pulling the plug,

that it wasn't making enough money.

♪

And that was really what it was all about.

So when all these motherfuckers in the industry

come up to me and they're like,

"Hey, you guys should bring Big Brother back,"

I'm like, "Fuck you.

Shouldn't have pulled your advertising.

I didn't kill it, you killed it."

Maybe it was the change of an era,

you know what I mean?

I think that was a transition stage

of skateboarding in general,

and with that transformation into the mainstream,

I think people were a little bit more scared

to associate themselves with things that were

a little bit, uh, riskier.

I think there were points skaters who were like,

"Dude, I don't want to hear you ask questions about my dick,

I don't want to hear you ask questions about my mom,"

you know, and turds, you know?

They didn't want to hear that.

Dicks and shit,

definitely probably, you know, hung them.

♪

I personally mourned the loss of Big Brother

maybe more than anybody.

I love that shit.

You know, I always loved that shit.

It's one of those things I get nostalgic for,

because it was one of the funnest times in my life

in that it was all I lived for.

It was all any of us lived for, I think.

We had nothing else in our lives.

It was just Big Brother.

And everything that happened in our lives

happened in Big Brother.

♪

We were these characters.

And in a real office setting,

you're just an employee.

You go to work, you do your job,

and then you punch out.

But for us,

work was an adventure.

When I get recognized for Jackass,

I don't care.

It really matters most when people go,

"Man, I loved Big Brother magazine."

That's when I'm feeling, like, yeah, that's cool, you know?

Those are the real fans.

I know for myself,

like, that was my biggest influence,

at least comedically.

Humor didn't feel dangerous

until I picked up a Big Brother,

and then, I felt that humor could be cool

because it could be dangerous

and make people uncomfortable.

Clearly, commercials and TV shows,

they all sort of went

for that low‐tech, low‐vibe‐y look

right after Jackass came out,

because it sort of swept up culture.

Everyone talked about it,

it was on the news shows,

they were guests on the nightly shows.

Yeah, I remember when the first Jackass came out,

everybody's going, "Did you see that?

Did you see this?"

Like they're all blown away by it,

I'm going, "It's just the magazine.

It's just the fucking magazine on video."

Big Brother's influence

told everyone else that

you should get fired, you should make mistakes,

you should get in trouble,

you should lose advertisers,

you shouldn't play the game.

And that is a more important lesson

than it's ever been.

♪

To this day,

I still work with Cliver every day.

Rick Kosick every day.

Rob Dyrdek.

Johnny Knoxville.

I mean, we're all still together

in many ways.

♪

Big Brother was like

a really important thing in my life.

I felt that it was important at the time,

I just didn't know how important it was

or it was going to be to me.

I mean...

those guys are all,

they're all my fucking friends, you know?

They've seen me, like‐‐ fucking shit my pants, and...

Hold on, hold on a second.

(laughter)

Now go fuck yourself.

♪

♪ Let's get fucked up ♪

♪

♪ Let's get fucked up ♪

♪

♪ Let's get fucked up ♪

♪

Jesus!

♪

♪ Let's get fucked up ♪

♪

♪ Let's get fucked up ♪

♪

♪ Let's get fucked up ♪

Like, these are hard questions,

and they're, like, boring.

♪

‐There it is. ‐♪ Let's get fucked up ♪♪

(laughing)

Formed up.

I think Big Brother sucks!

(cackling)

(simian‐like screech)

♪