You Might Think Jackass Is Dumb, But Its Soundtracks Gave Us Solid Punk

The Jackass franchise, which includes the TV show, movies and even a video game, introduced us to a brave brand of comedy that is the definition of what it means to be punk rock. The crew created a camaraderie among themselves that let the audience feel included.

Other movies could try that, but we just can't picture Dame Judi Dench locking her friends in a limo with a hive full of bees or trying to do a magic trick for a charging, 2,000-pound bull.

One key ingredient to the energy behind the Jackass franchise often gets overlooked even after a breakout TV series, four hit movies and several spinoffs: the music. The soundtracks to the slapstick stunt shitshow help drive the comedy, action and even horror of its scenes to its maximum potential of emotion.

The songs picked for the show's episodes and movies also go much deeper into the cannon of rock and punk than even MTV dared to go when the "M" in its name actually stood for something. Many of us would not have become punk rock fans if we hadn't watch Jackass.

When I was growing up, any music that scared my parents would simply not be allowed to come through the door. I was a timid kid who wanted to please his family so I acquiesced. It was the closest I'll ever come to being Amish.

It also didn't help that I grew up in the 1980s, a time when musicians that grownups didn't like were portrayed as gateways to juvenile delinquency and Satanic sacrifice thanks to self-appointed "heroes" like the clergy, crusading figureheads like the anti-hip-hop attorney Jack Thompson and especially Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center. The latter two are responsible for those dumb, now-defunct "Warning: Explicit Lyrics" stickers that record stores and producers had to put on album covers in order to sell them, which might as well have said, "Hey! There's some really cool shit on this CD! (Unless this is KISS' Hot in the Shade album.)"

Eventually, the hyped-up fear seemed to cool off. It was impossible to trick my generation into believing that watching Breaking Bad would turn you into a meth manufacturer. But first we'd get the chance to develop a sense of musical taste when Jackass made its way to MTV. The cast was like a modernized Three Stooges, a group of misfits wreaking havoc while unconcerned with anyone else's judgment. Jackass has a lot more poo and dick bits, but it's still a perfect example of punk values.
The show's opening theme song "Corona" by The Minutemen is one of the greatest music pairings in TV history. It somehow combines elements of polka, punk and a hint of blues to create a twangy, rich expression of reckless abandon that encapsulates the Jackass spirit. The lyrics tell a sad but touching story about the tail end of a drunken party and they hardly ever get played on screen but the juxtaposing sounds of a high-energy jaunt with a sullen, serious story make a great example of pure punk.

"Corona" is the perfect song to introduce punk to someone who harbors preconceived notions of its sense and style — you know, images of shaved, tattered-clad suburban teens cutting themselves to feel alive. It became the first of many punk songs uploaded to my iPod shuffle.

Some pioneering punk bands received airplay more than once throughout the Jackass incarnations, including The Datsuns, The Misfits and The Smut Peddlers. Some songs are purposely placed to match the theme of the stunt or skit. Turbonegro's "Prince of the Rodeo" appears on a Season 2 sketch when Bam Margera and Ryan Dunn crashed into each other dressed as cowboys and Native Americans on wheeled hobby horses in a skatepark. Of course, it doesn't hurt if a song has a raucous sound to match the recklessness on the screen.

The producers clearly dig deep into the music archives to find tunes that can punctuate the emotion of a stunt that's usually played for big, dumb laughs. They occasionally use more popular songs that probably cost more for licensing, such as Sir-Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" or Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation." However, the best bits are ones where the song helps push the Jackass over a cliff by not diverting your attention from it with a sound blatantly familiar, while actually introducing audiences to great songs without getting in our faces.

I found one of my favorite British punk bands, Cock Sparrer, through Jackass Number Two. In the film, the boys somehow get access to an Aero L-39 jet trainer and come up with the genius idea of standing behind the engine as it reaches its top power, starting with Dunn recreating the famous Memorex commercial of a living room stereo creating hurricane grade winds. The Cock Sparrer song "I've Got Your Number" picks up after Dunn's literal downfall and makes the perfect soundtrack for this bit as they attempt to catch footballs, get pelted with flying produce and pull off a scene as Mary Poppins with an open umbrella.

"I've Got Your Number" is a song of political defiance, but its pounding guitar sounds make a great song with which to get punched because it punctuates the visual chaos. It even crescendos and dies down in sync with the skit as Bam pisses into the wind of the jet engine.
I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't hold The Ramones dear earlier in my life, but Jackass made sure I'd get into them before my death. The group doesn't get much play in the franchise and should've had more of a presence outside of the times Johnny Knoxville wears the Ramones on a T-shirt.

The Ramones pioneered the art of the punk cover long before the incessant [BLANK] Goes Punk compilation albums of bubblegum punksters ruined the genre (except for Swindle's cover of Skid Row's "Youth Gone Wild"). The Ramones' only connection to Jackass I could recall and confirm is their cover of blues legend Joe Jones' "California Sun" in the first Jackass film when Steve-o goes around Miami doing some "tropical pole vaulting" over beach volleyball nets while people are still playing and onto an (ouch) uncarved pineapple feast.

The pairing happened because of the song's "fun in the sun" lyrics. The Ramones made wrecking yourself look cool long before Jackass took up the challenge. So the soundtrack makes perfect sense on both fronts and it introduced us to a classic, killer band that defines its genre's central philosophy and even helped me develop an unhealthy, guilty pleasure for punk covers.

I wish The Ramones and all those other bands could've been on my cassette mixtapes sooner when I was too impressionable and timid to buy anything harder than a Weird Al album from Blockbuster Music. Now I probably listen to at least two of their songs a day and a whole world of others inspired by them that I never would've found if it weren't for Jackass.