When Evel Knievel Jumped the Shark(s)

Scott Simon, Evel Knievel, sharks, and ALL THE DEMONS ARE HERE

I stopped by NPR to chat with the legendary Scott Simon for Weekend Edition Saturday, which you can listen to by clicking here. We talked about my new novel, politics, and news media.

Fun story — one of the scenes in the book features one of my two main protagonists Ike, who works on Evel Knievel’s pit crew, helping the legendary stuntman in a very real and totally bizarre event — when in January 1977 he prepared to jump over a tank of sharks.

The event was to be aired on CBS and proved something of a disaster — which I explore for fun and narrative profit in the novel

I should note that this was eight months before the infamous episode of Happy Days in which Fonz “jumped the shark.” (I should also note, as Henry Winkler did with NPR’s Terry Gross, that Happy Days remained in first place in the ratings for years after this episode.)

ANYWAY, Scott Simon, who is a favorite son of Chicago, told me before the interview that he had actually been at Evel’s shark-jumping event! Scott says for his reporting at the time “Shedd Aquarium shark experts told me the sharks over which he’d try to jump were so traumatized by transport they would swim away and cling to the sides of the tank if he fell in. He would have been in more danger falling into a tank of Chicago aldermen.”

Scott of course did not meet Ike at the time.

-Jake