breaking: a world without ridiculousness is near

Welcome to Jackass News, a subsidiary of Jackass World here to bring you all the latest and greatest updates from all Jackass-related fields. 

Happy Halloween, I am sitting in line for Dunkin, and Ridiculousness just got canceled after 46 seasons. Apparently, Paramount is really overhauling things over at MTV and they axed what I assumed couldn’t be axed.

Ridiculousness is probably the most evil Jackass spinoff, like more evil than Dude Perfect, which is saying something. It’s not a formal spinoff, not like Wildboyz or Viva La Bam, but it thrives on what Variety called “‘Jackass’-style buffoonery.”

Ridiculousness represents what happens if Jackass is broken into pieces, stripped of all character, and left with just the parts that the analytics team reported as funny. It’s what happens if Jackass is left up to the most boring people in the world. For years and years, this clip farm, bottom-of-the-barrel content machine has filled up all of MTV’s airwaves, just broadcasting what you already saw on YouTube and then Twitter and later Vine and then later TikTok and now Reels. It was always behind yet somehow affiliated with one of this century’s most inventive projects. 

Earlier, I was waiting in line for a $15 sandwich, and I started to wonder how the brainiacs who paid a certain host $32.5 million per year initially pitched the show that “has taken up as much as 113 hours (or more) a week out of the network’s 168-hour lineup. To many, the show became a symbol of the zombie-fication of MTV and its lack of original programming.” I imagine the pitch went like this:

MTV Suit #1, slamming the conference room door: Jackass 3D just went a billion platinum in the box office. What do we do now?

MTV Suit #2, looking up from his Blackberry: Huh? I thought those guys were washed-up has-beens.

MTV Suit #1: That’s the problem. They are. 

Assistant Who Has Been Passed Over For A Promotion For 10 Years: Guys, I would like to bring up my pitch from 2006 again. 

MTV Suit #1: Shut up. No one wants to hear about your “if we can’t do Jackass here, what if we bring Jackass to us and just make a show where people watch clips of people falling or barfing or whatever” pitch.

MTV Suit #2: I got it! If we can’t do Jackass here, what if we bring Jackass to us and just make a show where people watch clips of people falling or barfing or whatever?

MTV Suit #1: You’re a genius. It’ll be like America’s Funniest Home Videos but gross. 

MTV Suit #2: Exactly, Boss. Let’s take a lunch break and circle back later to talk about hosts. How do you feel about skateboarders who aren’t cool?

MTV Suit 1: Yes, that was the problem with Bam. He’s too cool. Assistant Who Has Been Passed Over For A Promotion For 10 Years, get us $7 burritos from Chipotle and the new Skrillex album. 2010 is awesome!

The worst part of this to me is that, according to some reports, the whole show won’t even be saved for streaming. They’re just putting up selected episodes and seasons. That’s how meaningless this show was. 

However, in Variety’s report that I keep referencing, they mentioned that MTV is interested in “a more curated slate of content,” “embrac[ing] its experimental DNA,” and “refreshed programming.” I’m keeping my expectations low, but if MTV was going to do anything cool again, it would start with stopping Ridiculousness.

This news follows last week’s teaser that Fox is bringing back Fear Factor with the one and only Johnny Knoxville taking up the hosting slot. I have really no opinion on this here at Jackass News. Like sure. Maybe Steve-O would be a better pick? But he’s busy with his grindset these days. I guess I just don’t really want to watch Fear Factor, you know?

Thank you, loyal readers for tuning into Jackass News! I will be back soon because I promise I will actually publish that Bam Margera essay.