Handfuls of franchises have existed my entire life, yet none have struck quite the emotions brought forth by Jackass. It’s safe to say that I love The Simpsons or Toy Story more, but there is something different about them. They are ageless. Even if they adapt to the times, they are characters who ultimately exist within their own limitations. Hollywood, after all, is an industry founded on the ideas of eternal youth and beauty, where there’s a need to reach perfection. In a time when art and commerce aren’t totally seeing eye to eye, it makes sense for them to “take it easy” and use safe bets to cover their losses.
Something I am curious to learn is whether Jackass will be capable of appealing to audiences two decades from now. It’s not because their material will be out of date, but more that its current appeal is that it’s one of the few lucrative franchises highlighting the passage of time. It’s inevitable that it does, especially given that their merry prankster, Johnny Knoxville, has white hair and everybody else features a few wrinkles. Even a few stunts that appear in Jackass: Best and Last (2026) reflect a cast who have reached middle age and share the ailments of their demographic.
In my mind, this was not how it was supposed to happen. Back when it was simply an MTV series, they lived by the punk ethos “live fast die young” a bit too shamelessly, and you were always surprised that they made it to New Year’s. That isn’t to discredit the entertainment value, but prior to the internet making any klutz a viral star, Jackass was the dangerous threat poisoning the morals of my generation. I was 11 when the show first premiered, so a lot of the secondhand knowledge (not having cable sure did suck) made it sound intense. A group of students two grades up from me once did a science test where they did a mock Jackass (Catholic school friendly) and asked whether people found it funny. One night I even watched an entire hour on Fox exploring how dumb teenagers were imitating the show and almost dying. Between shopping carts and Party Boy dances, Jackass was one of those first preteen tastes of a world beyond wholesome sanctity.
It’s hard to express the power of impressionable minds discovering avant-garde art for the first time. Jackass was a controlled chaos that managed to push the boundaries of common decency without being mean-spirited. Sure, they were laughing at each other failing, but there was always concern when something went too awry and left somebody with a noticeable injury. Part of the spectacle is in the grotesque, but as I’ve gotten older, there’s something more endearing in accepting pain as a part of life, where you can get up and laugh about your own clumsiness. Sure, I’m the type who would be knocked out if my sciatica acted up, but these were men who somehow started this endeavor in their 30s and decided to dedicate over a quarter-century to testing the limits of medical recovery.
Like everything that came before, Jackass: Best and Last promises to be the final go-around. They’ll ride into the sunset as battered old men, having suffered endless concussions and broken bones. The difference this time is that it feels genuine. Whereas Jackass Forever (2022) felt like the creative zenith, this was always designed like an epilogue: a mix of memory lane type highlights and a few new gags that, if nothing else, prove these old guys still have a fondness for juvenilia. It’s a chance for them to create this final narrative about a controversial career that started with Congress denouncing them as a bane on American culture and ends with a group of men embracing each other with laughter and appreciation.
Because it feels so intertwined with my own life, it’s surreal to think of buying a ticket in 2026 and being my parents' age when this whole journey started. They are, objectively, not fans. I’m not shaming them for holding those views, as I’m sure looking at a lot of the stunts makes you fear for your dumb child’s safety. To extrapolate a bit, it’s like watching TikTok challenges, notably the milk crate challenge, and getting the heebie jeebies at inexperienced kids assembling their own demise. As much as I’ve never personally known someone who tried to lie on an active barbecue, we still had that shopping cart fantasy. All we had to do was walk up the street to the grocery store and find enough of an empty lot. Planting these ideas in a developing brain is dangerous and, without good mentorship, could end tragically. I’m not wishing to say that 11-year-olds shouldn’t be watching Jackass, but self-awareness is key.
It’s strange to think of the show as having any commentary on mortality, but it has by virtue of persistence. Every few years, we gathered in a theater and laughed at the Dickhouse rooster yell. The opening gag was an art form all its own, and we chuckled as the pratfalls were accompanied by casual remarks. By the time The Minutemen theme song kicked in, you knew where you were. Compared to most franchises, there are way too many cues to salivate over. Even as the recent films have relied more on retreading old bits, it’s still a testament to endurance that anyone would be foolish enough to participate in such madness.
To watch this series, especially in any pattern of real time, is to have your own subliminal relationship with the idea of Jackass. On the surface, you could be absolutely surprised that anyone over 50 would find this sensible behavior, as if they should’ve given up the shenanigans at least 15, if not 20, years ago. You’re amazed that they survived the injuries and allow themselves to be routinely embarrassed in such extreme manners that a sensible person would not deem it worthwhile. That may be why calling it quits at every turn always sounded reasonable and why, despite now being 16 years in the rearview, Jackass 3D (2010) made sense as a goodbye to their youth as Weezer performed over the closing credits.
On a more personal level, you begin to notice how the world has changed. Even if these stunts are going for the exact same effect that they did in 2001, there’s no denying that there are some bittersweet tones to the production. Longtime fans may shed a tear not only for them growing older, but also for losing figures like Ryan Dunn, or the fabled conflict with Bam Margera that has created a continual rift on what constitutes a Jackass film. A lot of this is extratextual, but it speaks to the parasocial, the feeling that these guys are your friends and that they would do anything to see you smile. The fact that reality has finally caught up with them would make it haunting if it wasn’t drop-down, drag-out levels of hilarious.
At least for me, that is why Jackass: Best and Last will always be a hard film to write about. It’s not a letdown nor is it revolutionizing the series. What it’s doing is something much simpler. It’s saying goodbye with its own perverted form of sentimentality. Whereas Toy Story 3 (2010) allowed for saccharine strings to play as we watched a child grow up and go to college, this sunset is brought to you by an embarrassing level of lip filler and poorly made tattoos. This is a world where the mistakes make the memories and remind audiences that it’s okay to be imperfect. Sometimes there’s joy in the unified experience of overcoming disaster. For as much as we’d like to imagine that our lives are altruistic, they may have more in common with Jackass than we’d like. They may not all involve an oversized hand to the face, but at some point you will get hurt, and maybe you will cope by laughing about it later.
For me, Jackass was less about loving every idea they came up with and more about the community. On film, it was about seeing these guys push the limits of degeneracy without losing trust in their team. There is an art form that I’d argue far exceeded imitators. Most of all, this was a story about friendship. It was about being able to sit in a theater and have a crowd know exactly what they were in for. There is an atmosphere that I doubt will ever be replicated, like when I saw Jackass Number Two (2016) as a newly minted 17-year-old. Everything came together to have one of the best nights of my life. I’d love for it to happen again, but much like believing that the MTV show was the worst it would get as a preteen, you can only have so many highs before it stops feeling special. Maybe tempering expectations improves things sometimes.
This is all to say that the emotions I feel for Jackass: Best and Last are genuine. I didn’t cry, but the joy of seeing those bits all over again (some even for the first time on the big screen) with a crowd reminded me why this gang was special. Sometimes there’s alchemy that could never be fully understood, and this is one of those cases. I’m still not sure if this one works because it’s a well-crafted acknowledgement of its legacy, or if I’m merely old and seeing a warped mirror looking back at me. It’s the type of recognition of mortality that few would be willing to make. Then again, it reminds you that it’s okay to try and push past your limitations. They may not always work, but sometimes you’ll find something innovative. For over 25 years, Johnny Knoxville has done that for all of us. If the warning that opens every film is taken too literally, he may also be among the last.
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