British version of Jackass is way more brutal than American series
Over the years the Jackass crew carried out some absolutely crazy stunts, with Johnny Knoxville even nearly dying after his lung was punctured in a stunt in Jackass Forever.
That said, with a new Jackass movie set to released this week Jackass: Best and Last, many will not realise that Steve-O, Knoxville, Margera, and Wee Man’s crew are not even close to the most brutal stunt show to have ever been produced.
The actual title probably goes to a British TV show which many might not know, or simply may have blocked from their memories due to how extreme some of the stunts were.
As a wannabe edgy young teenager, I explicitly remember googling: “Jackass but more crazy”. The answer to this? Dirty Sanchez.
Advert
Dirty Sanchez, called 'Team Sanchez' in the US, originated as an MTV: UK prank show, featuring three Welshmen Lee Dainton, Pancho Locke, Matthew Pritchard, and one Englishmen Dan Joyce.
The show went on to become one of MTV: UK’s most successful ever, leading to a movie and several spin-offs.
The stunts carried out by the four lads were far and away worse even than Jackass’ papercut, bull, or pogo stick challenges.
Dirty Sanchez: The Movie was the site of the two worst stunts the British men ever did.
One of these involved Pancho getting liposuction without any anaesthesia, with the other guys drinking the fat from this out of a jar.
Another saw Pritchard cut the tip of his pinkie off with a mini guillotine to ‘regain his pride’ at the end of the film. The original plan had supposedly been to cut off half his pinky before the studio stepped in, negotiating with the crew to allow them to cut off ‘just’ the tip of his finger.
In an ‘oral history of Dirty Sanchez’ by WalesOnline, Dainton specifically namedrops Jackass as a reason they knew the show could work, saying: “The Jackass guys had been doing exactly the same things in America at the same time as us, so after they jumped to MTV we knew there was scope for us to do something too.”
Dainton explained how the show came about in an interview with Vice, saying: “I’d taken redundancy from my job as a carpenter for the local council, and I’d always wanted to make a proper skating video, so I used that money to buy a camera and my friend filmed us.
“We were bored in the evening so we got pissed and did stupid shit like smashing bottles over our heads, and basically filmed the whole night of messing about.
“We looked back at the footage and were laughing so much that we decided to make a skateboarding video with some stunts included in there.”
This video went viral in the days before viral internet fame was common, selling 3,500 copies before the BBFC banned the video.
Pritchard also explained that arguably the most gruesome stunt they ever did landed him in hospital, saying: “We were playing Trivial Pursuit.
“Basically, whoever lost had to have a drill through the skin between their thumb and index finger – it was too graphic to show on TV. [I lost and] it gave me septicaemia, and I was in the hospital for a week.”
In a recent podcast appearance on the Dodge Woodall podcast, Dainton actually confirmed that a second Dirty Sanchez movie was in the works for next year, but with a slightly more ‘wholesome’ tone as most of the cast are now fully sober.
Topics: Jackass, MTV, TV and Film, TV, Film
Michael Slavin