Johnny Knoxville
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Karlification! This article has been written, edited, double-checked or approved by Karl Koch, webmaster, historian, archivist and unofficial fifth member of Weezer. Last Karl edit: May 2024 |
| Johnny Knoxville | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Philip John Clapp | |
| Born | March 1, 1971 (age 53) | |
| Years active | 1991–present | |
| Website | ||
Philip John Clapp, known by his stage name Johnny Knoxville, is an actor, comedian and daredevil. He has been featured in a number of films, but is best known as the co-creator and principal star of the MTV series Jackass and its subsequent films.
Relationship with Weezer
In March 1992, while Rivers, Matt and Justin Fisher moved into The Amherst House, Karl, Pat Finn, and Takashi Hasegawa (plus a lot of couch surfing from Jason Cropper and Patrick Wilson) moved into an apartment at The Fuller-Martel Plaza, 1443 N. Fuller Ave, just off Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. They chose that spot because most members of Wax lived there, and in fact the bands' 2 apartments ended up being right next to each other. So there was a much increased level of friendship and mingling between the weezer and Wax camps from that point on. PJ Clapp, "The Knoxville Strongarm" as he was known then, (years before he adopted the Johnny Knoxville name) was a frequent visitor to the Wax apartment, and became involved in many Wax and weezer related activities throughout 1992 and into 1993.
PJ was a part of the frequent pick-up basketball games were played throughout the summer of 1992 at the nearby courts at the Gardner Street Elementary School. The schoolyard also had some classic "L.A. school" embankments and mini picnic tables, so skateboarding happened as well, but as during his "Jackass" years, PJ was not the most able rider to say the least.
During the summer, PJ became aware that Karl had a videocamera (as he was taping some of the weezer shows), and asked Karl to assist in a video he wanted to shoot. Levi jeans was running a promotion for their Button-Fly 501 jeans, where people could send in their video ads for the jeans. The winner's ad would be broadcast at some point, and there may have been prize money involved, but the details are lost to time. PJ was an aspiring actor in the brutal Hollywood film and TV scene, and was always looking for a break. PJ cast himself as "Blue", a little league umpire (something he actually did do at the time), and was effectively the director, calling out what should happen in the shots. Karl was the cinematographer, as well as appearing in the video as an interviewer character. Also appearing in the video were PJ's then girlfriend Deb, Jack Polick (later an occasional Jackass participant), and another friend named Simpy. The video was edited using 2 VCR's and suffers from the extremely low quality equipment that was at hand, disallowing clean edits and any pro sheen. The video was sent to Levi's but nothing came of it.
1992: PJ Clapp's "Levis Ad" shot by Karl
Over the years, Knoxville and Weezer have crossed paths several times. In 2008, Knoxville and the band drove around to their old stomping grounds and played basketball for several MTV Promotional clips that were aired when The Red Album was released. In 2010, Knoxville and the rest of the Jackass crew co-starred in the video for "Memories"
Cuomo explained Weezer's relationship with Knoxville to MTV News during the filming of "Memories": "Yeah, Weezer and 'Jackass,' in a way, we go back a long way, since before any of us were successful. [In] '91, '92, we were hanging out together in Hollywood, Johnny Knoxville was known as 'PJ' back then, and I remember playing basketball with him a lot back then. He was like this good-looking, aspiring-actor guy, but for some reason, he was super sweet and nice to me, which I thought was interesting. He had nice manners."
Pat Wilson added: "I used to play tennis with Johnny Knoxville. He nicknamed me 'the Albatross' because I had the long wingspan. I would always get to the ball. He wasn't very good."