Evel Knievel Museum - Topeka, KS

hey you all carpetbagger here coming to you live from topeka kansas more specifically we are in front of the evil knievel you see that through the bushes the evil knievel museum now uh evil cable probably the most famous stunt man in uh in history not necessarily actually known for movie stunts but for stunts of jumping things on motorcycles doing crazy motorcycle jumps usually when i think of evel knievel i think of motorcycle jumping jumping buses jumping other crazy things tanks full of sharks and lions but yeah they actually have a museum dedicated to evil knievel here in topeka an interesting one interesting thing i remember um hearing the name evil knievel his first name is not really evil but he was actually went to jail for doing an illegal stunt and when he was in jail he was in jail with a criminal named arthur conoffel so there was uh awful canoeful and evil knievel took that so so we have awful kanawha and evil knievel because their names were similar and he adopted his stage name from there although he did change it it's uh how's he spell it e-v-e-l he's not he's not truly evil he's not some demonic entity he is simply a talented stunt man did all these life uh life and death stunts but died i think of regular relatively natural causes in his life did not die from any sort of crazy stunt so i'm excited about checking out the evil knievel museum so please follow me [Music] see evil there on the side of the building doing motorcycle stunts strapped into some sort of insane rocket this statue of evil here was taken from a liquor store in butte montana it was actually created to celebrate a bus jump he jumped 14 buses at king's island of all places that would have been cool to see i'll tell you a cool statue and they got the uh the mack truck headed for us right there is that lists all their contributors from sponsors in the windshield a man can fall many times in life but he is never a failure until he refuses to give up evil so the topeka connection to evil apparently uh people can able not from topeka not even from kansas was actually from montana but this man joey chitwood was from topeka joey chitwood apparently was a race car driver looks like he did some stunts and a little 15 year old evil knievel saw him perform and that inspired him to become what he would become here is the young bobby knievel before he became evil knievel in butte montana and here's a letter he wrote his mom dear mommy i love you my arm is getting better apparently he broke his arm apparently he was already doing stunts when he was a young boy and look at this he drew a picture of man of war the horse now there is a big rig truck right here in the center of the museum i guess the museum kind of winds around it and uh yeah it says here is a sneak peek of the mac big red truck and trailer enjoy the entire rig further into the museum tour now here is a replica of evil knievel's first motorcycle that he would do local stunts he would promote the local motorcycle dealership by doing jumps so that he would do a jump over a box of live rattlesnakes as well as a live mountain lion the snake there that is completely ridiculous it's also really awesome this exhibit celebrates a jump he did at caesar's palace in las vegas you can see him jumping over the fountain there he's got a little ramp he would leap over the fountain and here's a replica of the motorcycle used rotating slowly the sign says this is a replica that they've tried desperately to track down the original motorcycle but unfortunately they've determined that it no longer is in existence so it went to a scrap yard or something like that and then you can see the jumpsuit back there is known for his red white and blue patriotic jumpsuits they have detailed exhibits on almost every major jump that eva went on it's talking about the cow palace in california and apparently he successfully made the jump but in his speech beforehand he uh talked about motorcycle gangs and how they were bad for the uh the motorcycle community and after he landed his jump the hell's angels severely uh beat evil knievel and caused a big riot i guess they didn't prove that uh that they they were not bad for the motorcycle community because they did uh attack physically attack someone in the middle of an arena so some images of the some video of the the riot there oh my gosh looks like they're the end of the hell's angels oh my gosh oh my god this is really violent it's like in the end the hell's angels lost out because they were outnumbered it says that this motorcycle here was involved in 13 of uh knievel's jumps there this is the motorcycle used in 1971 and 1972 at the heidel's popularity apparently he had started using and endorsing harley davidson motorcycles at that at that point there's another one of his awesome jumpsuits i did everything by the seat of my pants that's why i got hurt so much and uh this is a like a a parachute that would come out from behind his motorcycle so it says it has an olympia beer advertisement on it but just imagine going on a motorcycle so fast that you needed a parachute to slow you down i guess you could say i'm a religious man if you want to know what i did before a jump i prayed there's an international jumping against that wembley stadium in england all my life people have been waiting around to watch me die that's kind of sad let's see the custom motorcycle [Music] parts here let's see 100 bills with evil jumping over top of them there's some items from the kings island motorcycle jump some jackets and now look at that pennant right there it says kings island with a picture of evil on it i'm not sure where at king's island he did the jump where in the amusement park it was maybe it was just in the in the parking lot looks like a lot of people turned out yeah it looks like this is actually done at maybe a stadium inside of kings island i don't think there's a stadium there now does anyone know if there's a stadium or was a stadium at kings island in ohio here's the motorcycle and outfits used for that famous kings island bus jump here's fan mail that uh evil got while he was in the hospital apparently he was practicing to try to jump over a tank of sharks in chicago and crash and broke both his arms and uh got over uh 300 letters she said that these were the museum actually found these unopened i guess he couldn't open them up because he had broken both of his arms but uh yeah you can see a kid drew a picture there of evil using a rocket car so yeah under each jump they give the outcome success seven greyhound buses uh but he did dislocate his shoulder and uh jumped with a dislocated shoulder the next day and the chicago shark jump was uh was the outcome was a crash it says 13 live managing sharks and 90 foot tank crashed into cameraman during rehearsal announced his retirement and he broke two arms on that occasion so here is the other side of the mack truck i guess this is what he used to travel with i think he lived in here as well as maybe stored some motorcycles and whatnot and see of course the the american flag theme a constant uh constant site when dealing with evil okay but yes the entire inside is just uh covered in red white and blue stars and stripes let's see oh they have on the world record bus jump october 25th at kings island things written on the side oh you can look in the window there you can see some trophies a little miniature evil in there so in the back here there's a compartment where he would keep his ramps for ramps that he would use for jumping spinning oh look at this i didn't realize i would actually get to take a peek inside and go up these steps and look at uh evil's oh look at this this is his little hangout area his this flag quilt there and a bar where he has his his own brand of beer as well as bottles of wild turkey let's maybe sit here drink a few bottles of uh liquid courage before his jumps so over here he would have his motorcycle stored and locked in place in the back trailer it's the evil knievel hot seat it is a three seater motorcycle that'd be pretty cool i always thought it'd be good better to have three wheels on a motorcycle it seems the two-wheel design gives you more more uh chances to fall over i would stick with three wheels this hallway here covered in news articles it says i created evil knievel and then he sort of got away from me evil evil this talks about evil kneel being a bad influence in the 1970s so the kids were prone to dress up like evil knievel and try to perform sweet jumps on their bikes and actually it asks here on the sign to send pictures of yourself from the 1970s uh doing doing uh evil knievel-like stunts you can see these young kids pulling off bike jumps now it does say it does specify we only accept pictures from the 70s so don't try to uh recreate anything in modern times and hurt yourself but yeah kids in the 70s they loved sweet jumps to those youngsters evel knievel was batman superman and captain america rolled into one evil headed up to the second story here we go halfway up the stairs you can see evil there doing a jump deploying his motorcycle parachute and the sign says there's only two motorcycle parachutes in existence the they're both here at this museum i guess this was not a common practice for motorcycle drivers they have a vr simulator where you actually climb on a motorcycle and see what it's like to jump over police cars as evil knievel here we have a wax figure of evil knievel wearing the actual suit that he wore at the snake river canyon jump he says this wax figure is modeled after the sports illustrated cover he was on and that is the same suit in the picture that he's wearing there on the wax figure different outfits he'd wear on different tv shows he was on donny and marie for some reason he was dressed like a a hockey player there's a hockey uniform in his ice skates there is a hee-haw outfit course no celebrity was anything in the 70s unless they appeared on hee haw this is the suit worn by evil knievel in the movie viva knievel which is about his life i guess he was played by george hamilton but i think they actually used some of uh of his own footage as well here's evil's trademark kane that he would walk with the cane after he crashed at caesar's palace but it does say that the cane secretly contained wild turkey you can screw the top off and take a slug of wild turkey boxing gloves signed by muhammad ali evil and evil's bad to the bones injury explorer let's explore the injuries of evil knievel okay drag the circle around oh his leg has two injuries no stop us and then it'll pop up okay and then you can play the video oh you can actually play the video of him getting the injuries oh there's a caesars palace jump oh oh yeah that's [Music] he made the jump but he broke broke his leg any other injuries to evil let's check out his head injuries here wembley stadium you can play the video of him injuring his head i'll go down a big slide and and oh that's a lot of buses oh and here's the actual helmet that was covering his head during that crash at the wembley willy stadium and then the other video we watched uh the uh caesars palace jump that was the helmet that he smashed his head on that jump as well yeah i guess a man who jumps three rib injuries six back injuries because a man that two pelvic injuries yeah a man that jumps over things of the motorcycle for a living is gonna have his share of injuries here's some uh items from his various injuries medications pain medications that he would have been on casts foot cast that's a hand cast right there ouch what a painful life there's the skeleton here i'm assuming this is not the real evil knievel skeleton but it's a legend here fractured broken broken and replaced broken at multiple times so yeah everywhere there's a dot he at least fractured it oh my gosh it's a miracle that uh that he's alive evil merchandise looks like chuckles candy was always a sponsor i've not had chuckles candy has anyone they even make that anymore is that a is that a popular candy has anyone had that and i just rabbit foots carry her lucky rabbit foot there's some uh some other evil themed candy yeah ebook enable a very popular figure had a lot of merchandise a lot of products you know if you don't want your kid to jump over something with a bike don't get them an evil knievel bike and uh yeah that's awesome like what's that uh spark plug cleaner a little bobble head there it's an evil knievel halloween mask love those old-school plastic halloween masks and uh evil knives pinball machine all the coolest stuff in the 70s was themed after evil canelo these are curtains people can able curtains says i was the first person to be the subject of a successful action figure and toy line is that true is that a true statement a little ramp there where you can take your action figure on some sweet jumps watch some evil toy commercials on this old school tv and underneath i wait it's evil evil hanging out with a yeti for the adults you have some evil knievel beer evil knievel cigars and uh some evil and evil cigarettes [Music] there's evil appearing on the johnny carson show wearing a fur coat look at this it's like a championship belt it's a boxing title did he did he box somebody remember back in the day it was considered the height of success for an athlete to appear in a wheaties box i have some evil knievel slot machines up here in casinos this is the sky cycle the actual rocket that evil placed himself in to launch himself tried to launch over the snake river but it failed and actually crashed nose first into the water you can see the how smashed up it is right there evil never dies yeah this is completely insane that he would just try to literally put himself in a rocket and shoot himself over a canyon he's an evil knievel themed guitar wonder if he uh ever shredded the guitar while doing a jump all right here's the jump planner let's uh plan a jump select your outfit see go with the kings island kings island outfit next ramp angle 20 degrees 25 degrees 30 degrees 35 40 45 okay 45 is the highest just go with the highest and distance we'll do the the largest distance possible which is who he is that two 200 feet okay next suck your bike uh i don't know a lot about motorcycles that one looks cool and obstacle semi truck dodgeball i think i have the sharks on here greyhound bus mon sharks fountain police car yes they have the shark definitely doing the shark tank all right ready to select your speed let's go 200 miles an hour oh there he goes sorry you'll get him next time oh so we'll go oh oh oh there we go so apparently you have to like i don't know maybe i made oh did i make too much distance did i make the ramp too steep i guess that's the thing here you got see i guess this isn't about just making the biggest jump it's about making a jump that is impressive but completable so let's do a super easy jump okay we'll make it do the 20 degrees we'll do the shortest distance they'll allow us to right we set up an easier jump here let's see if we can complete it let's see oh we gotta choose our speed uh i'll say go fast as possible oh no i only sent him i only sent him 20 miles an hour on accident oh that didn't work try again this is harder and i guess it's probably even harder doing 60 miles an hour oh right into the sharks yeah i i guess i'm just my career as a jump planner is is over in addition to motorcycles he also like to drive some fancy cars there's his custom cadillac pickup and then we have a uh evil themed race car we actually exit through a harley davidson dealership just you know after seeing all that exciting stuff with evil then maybe we would want to buy our own motorcycle and do some crazy jobs so thank you for joining me here in topeka kansas for the evil knievel museum and no i did not decide to buy a motorcycle at the end i figured after failing all those simulated stunt jumps that i would probably fail a sort of stunt jump that i tried to accomplish in real life very cool to look at a cultural icon a figure who rose to popularity because of his insane ridiculous stunts he crashed constantly i'm trying to think maybe he wasn't as skilled as he was deadly determined but anyways thank you for for uh joining us if you want to check out uh some of the older videos on this channel i've been to the 48 continental united states filming roadside attractions music parks haunted houses museums in all of them as well as other random fun stuff consider subscribing i know when a new video comes out uh if you'd like to help support the channel in other ways consider donating to patreon three dollars or more we'll get you a postcard once a month also selling enamel pins in the etsy shop all that just helps keep this train on the tracks this boat in the water and the storageable in the air and all that information is in the description of this video until next time my friends this one's in the bag

Channel: The Carpetbagger

Views: 27,460

Rating: 4.9353638 out of 5

Keywords: the, carpetbagger, evel knieval, museum, topeka, ks, kansas, jumps, motorcycles, snake river, roadside attraction, roadside america

Id: qQsGegP2RZE

Length: 24min 20sec (1460 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021