Bam Margera became a household name in the DIY stunt genre when he joined the "Jackass" team. Per the BBC, his CKY crew (Margera, Ryan Dunn, Chris Raab, and Brandon DiCamillo) joined forces with another gung-ho stunt video squad, which was loosely centered around the skateboarding magazine Big Brother. These people included future "Jackass" talent like Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, and Chris Pontius (via KQED), as well as the magazine's editor Jeff Tremaine and director Spike Jonze.
The combination of the Big Brother-affiliated crowd and the CKY team was a smash hit. "Jackass" premiered in 2000, and its reckless pranks-and-stunts approach raised a few eyebrows in its day — to the point that, by 2001, U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman campaigned to cancel the show due to its negative influence on its young viewers (via Variety). However, the show was a record-breaking hit for MTV, and history has been much kinder to the show than Lieberman was. "Jackass" can be considered a comedy pioneer and a precursor to a whole genre of prankster comedy, ranging from a cavalcade of imitators and YouTube comedians to Sacha Baron Cohen's immaculately constructed characters.
Despite its massive cultural legacy, "Jackass" itself was a relatively short-lived show, with only 25 episodes to its name, per the BBC. However, the cast members' popularity spawned multiple spin-offs and related works, and they've also rejoined for multiple movies and specials.
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