Jackass was famously the subject of a bidding war before the show even aired a single episode. MTV, Comedy Central and FX all liked the pitch enough to make offers, and at one point, Saturday Night Live even got involved. Star Johnny Knoxville and his producing partners Spike Jonze and Jeff Tremaine of course went with MTV, but that hasn’t stopped fans from playing the what-if game for the last quarter century, especially about SNL.
Well, it turns out the sketch comedy offer was a little different than at least I had realized. Ahead of Jackass: Best And Last, an old Howard Stern interview with Knoxville has gone viral in which the subject of Saturday Night Live came up. The actor said he met with showrunner Lorne Michaels, who offered him three to five minutes of airtime each episode, but he ultimately turned it down because apparently it wasn’t for Jackass. It was for him and wouldn’t have included the rest of the crew.
