Rich Hopkins: 0:00

When the Extreme Games now X Games came the founders of the X Games go, Hey, we, want to do a commercial. You're a stunt guy. What can you do to kind of spice it up?

Joe P: 0:11

Yeah.

Rich Hopkins: 0:12

So I'm sitting there. Let's see, stunt, bungee. I'm going to light myself on fire and bungee jump.

Heather: 0:17

Evel Knievel inspired millions of us with his courage and perseverance. We're building a museum so you can relive those memories and be reinvigorated with that spirit of bravery.

Evel Knievel: 0:30

My name is Evel Knievel. I'm a professional daredevil.

Heather: 0:34

Along the way, we meet people involved in the life, the times, and the legacy of the King of daredevils. Here with their stories is your host, Joe Friday.

Joe P: 0:45

Hey, howdy. It's Joe P from the Evel Knievel Museum. I'm here today with Rich Hopkins. Yeah, the stunt, the king of stunts of Las Vegas. Yeah, maybe of Las Vegas. Okay. Yeah. Thrill seekers unlimited. How long have you been in Las Vegas?

Rich Hopkins: 0:59

I moved here in 91 New Year's Day, man. I got out of LA and my mom lived here, and a friend offered me an opportunity to come out here and, and work. And I didn't know much about Vegas then I thought, hey, everybody lived in a hotel. Mm-hmm. And then I got out here. I'm like, wow, man. They're skydiving and bungee jumping and rock climbing and the lake and

Joe P: 1:22

and Naked City.

Rich Hopkins: 1:23

Yeah. Yeah. Do you know

Joe P: 1:24

Naked City got his name? Not really. Naked City is like north of Strat, right?

Rich Hopkins: 1:29

Oh, oh, oh, yes. Okay. I know what you're talking about now. Right?

Joe P: 1:32

And so they had showgirls and yes, it was affordable housing because of the neighborhood. Mm-hmm. And that's where they could sunbathe without getting tan lines.

Rich Hopkins: 1:41

Yeah. So I have heard of Naked City. Naked City is where you don't want to go now. It's. It's not showgirls, it's not a good place. No. We actually filmed a scene for a Chinese series there and we had to have Metro there getting like riff-raff out of our shots and stuff. It was over behind the stratosphere. It's a little sketchy.

Joe P: 2:05

Did you film Chinese scenes?

Rich Hopkins: 2:07

It was a Chinese series that came here a few years ago. It was unusual. It was very unusual.

Joe P: 2:14

Before you came here, were you doing stunts?

Rich Hopkins: 2:17

I started doing acting in LA but my background is action sports. You know, I moved up from my hometown, north San Diego County, Delmar, Encinitas area. Mm-hmm. Moved up to LA, didn't really know what I wanted to do, and I ended up getting a job at a talent agency, you know, answering phones and, you know, stuff like that. And I'm like, wow. They had me submitting people to casting agents, so I'm pulling head shots after I'd look at the breakdowns and I'm like, Hey, I might as well put my own stuff in there. You know, one of the photographers that worked pretty close with the agency said, slip me a couple extra people and I'll shoot you for free. Next thing you know, I have head shots and uh, started slipping my stuff in there and yeah, that's kind of how I got got into it. Yeah.

Joe P: 3:05

Into acting.

Rich Hopkins: 3:06

Yeah. I thought I was going to be the next Tom Cruise and that didn't work out so well, and I'm like

Joe P: 3:12

yeah, Well, the similarities similarities are uncanny.

Rich Hopkins: 3:14

I would get myself on sets, whether it's music, video, commercials, you know, some shows I did background work. I was actually a featured background on The Doors movie so I did the Doors movie, but I would find myself most, you know, the background people, they kind of keep you in a tent and give you your, bottle of water in your bag of chips. And I'd meander out and I wanted to know what was going on. I was super green and I'm like, what is this guy? What's a best boy? What's a gaffer? What's this? You know? So as much as I could, I'd sidle up to somebody and kind of watch what they were doing. So I wanted to learn the business. Mm-hmm. You know, so I was kind of hard to corral. They'd be like, you better get back in the extra tent, you know? But I'd gravitate towards the stunt people.

Joe P: 3:57

You know, why is that?

Rich Hopkins: 3:59

Come on. They were the coolest ones on set, man.

Joe P: 4:01

What do you do to even be interested in that? Are you a skateboard guy or a BMX guy? Uh,

Rich Hopkins: 4:06

you know, in North County surfing, skateboarding. Did a little rock climbing and we'd go out to Lake Hodges and goof around out there. Uh, just north San Diego County is the mecca for action sports. You know, I mean, everybody lives down there. Uh, so that was just part of like, and there was no term for it, you know, like surfing, BMX, all that. There was no, basically, so. Somebody had asked me early on in an interview, what do you call all these sports? Yes. It just kind of came out extreme sports, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, Then that got old real fast. People that actually did extreme sports were like, oh, I'm so sick of that word, "extreme." Oh god. So people like avoided that term like the plague. So it became action sports. Because of course Madison Avenue got a hold of the 'extreme sports.' Next thing you know, you have Schick extreme and Pepsi Extreme. Everything was extreme and we were just like, enough, you know, so

Joe P: 5:11

good. But

Rich Hopkins: 5:12

I mean, it was great for me because it was a good segue into stunts, because like it's very, very hard industry to break into. It's very fraternal. And there's good reason for that. I mean, you've got to trust and love your fellow stunt guys, because maybe I'm the monkey on the string, but there's five other guys controlling that string, so to speak. It's a team effort. So I gravitated towards those guys because I saw the comradery. I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm in acting. Okay. Mm-hmm. But there's stunt guys that actually can act. And that's valuable because if you can act, you got a small part, you're a bad guy, "Freeze or I'll blow your head off" or whatever. If you can deliver a line and then do the action, you're saving the production a lot of money because you don't have to hire an actor and then somebody to stunt double them. Yes. You know what I mean?

Joe P: 6:01

So what was your breakthrough first stunt?

Rich Hopkins: 6:05

I was intrigued by fire. Everyone knows the X Games. Okay. For the first two years it was called the Extreme Games.

Joe P: 6:12

Yes.

Rich Hopkins: 6:12

And then they finally got a clue like Ron Semio and Jack Wiener were the guys that started that. And I even had, I remember meeting with those guys and I'm like,"Dude, that's extreme is so played. We all hate it." Tony Hawk, everyone hated "extreme." And so they just changed it to the X Games. So the third year, because I was in the Extreme Games the first two years they had bungee jumping. We have a bungee tower here. It's still here, as a matter of fact, at Circus Circus. The tower is still there. AJ Hackett, he is this New Zealand guy, Uhhuh, he's got bungee places all over the world. So he was operating the tower there, which actually used to be a restaurant. Used to be able to take this elevator up and there was like this, this little, these two decks that came off of it. Well, they put tables up there and you could eat dinner up there. Okay, so Circus Circus closed that. AJ Hackett took it over and made it a bungee jumping tower. Next time you drive by Circus Circus, look, it's still there. I want to. It even still says bungee on it. It's crazy. So I got friendly with those guys. I started digging bungee jumping. I was doing like all kinds of going off on snowboards and roller, set up a little ramp I'd roller blade off the thing, and just all these crazy things. So when the Extreme Games, now X Games, came around, Jack and Ron, the founders of the X Games, go, "Hey, we want to do a commercial, we want to promote the Bungee Jumping Event. You're a stunt guy. What can you do to kind of spice it up?

Joe P: 7:44

Yeah.

Rich Hopkins: 7:45

So I'm sitting there. Let's see, stunt bungee. I'm going to light myself on fire and bungee jump. This is like in 93, I think, and the internet was so new and just like, it was like the old 14.4 modem. I

Joe P: 8:00

remember,

Rich Hopkins: 8:01

I'm looking around trying to find, has anybody ever freaking done this? you know, and I couldn't find anything on anyone ever bungee jumping on fire. So like, and We tried to get Guinness to come out, and they wanted $10,000, you know, to make it an official thing. And I'm like, Eh, I'll just claim I'm the first one that's ever done it. And I don't, I don't even know. I don't know if it, I'm sure somebody's done it since then, but that was probably my first big thing, doing something that hadn't been done.

Joe P: 8:34

You're still lighting yourself on fire Yeah. all these years later.

Rich Hopkins: 8:36

Sure. Sure. Well, fire's a lot. There's no impact, really, in fire unless you're going to be on fire and get hit by a car, you know. I'm Well. What

Joe P: 8:46

are you doing this week or last week? Who are you catching on fire?

Rich Hopkins: 8:49

Um, no, We just did a commercial for the World Tricking League. And tricking is like a, it's part of the parkour genre. Tricking is like these athletic guys that can do these triple court flips. Did I send you the clip of it? I'll show it to you. Yeah, well they, The promo just came out for it. So basically the guys from Adrenaline Worldwide called me up and said, Hey, we want to do this promo with these tricking guys to promote the upcoming World Champions Championships. Yeah. What do you think? I'm like, they do all these crazy spins and flips and all this stuff. I go, Let's light them on fire and do it. So it'd be like a fire tornado. So they brought in the three world champions of tricking, flew them in, and of course I had a couple Zoom calls with them and I explained, Here's the deal. I wanted to make sure they were confident. I mean, these

Joe P: 9:43

guys are brave to do the parkour. Mm-hmm.

Rich Hopkins: 9:46

Mm-hmm.

Joe P: 9:47

But that's a whole new level. Were they scared?

Rich Hopkins: 9:50

Haha, one guy was super excited. One guy was, you know, Hey, this is going to be cool. And one guy was a little apprehensive. Yeah. How do you But I pulled a Tony Robbins on them, like I'm sitting there on a Zoom. I said, Listen, I need you guys. I'm going to send you guys all of my links, my website, all this stuff. I need you guys to be confident in me. If you have confidence in me and my team that we have your back, you can focus on what you're doing. Mm-hmm. You know, so they like looked at all my stuff. Oh, this guy's done like 60 fire burns and he's been doing it for a long time. He has lit CEOs on fire and all this stuff. So me and my guys really know what we're doing. It was cool, man. We started with the lower legs and they were doing their things and we painted them up here. So then their whole leg's on fire. Then one of the guys wanted to go big, so we did legs and arms. But it was pretty cool. Then we brought in Pyro George, our special effects guy, and he built a 15 foot round fire ring. So then we had a camera so you can see an overview. Yes, it's rad.

Joe P: 10:51

What's the toughest case of you inspiring someone else to do something really brave?

Rich Hopkins: 10:58

I had Lester Holt from NBC, the NBC anchor, yeah, I know him come out. He wanted to do a story on our stunt experience. We had a, I don't want to call it a vacation. We had Part of what we were doing were these experiences mostly for companies and team building. So I get a call from NBC, "Oh, hey, we want-- and he wasn't even the anchor at NBC yet. He was like the weekend guy or whatever. So he came out with his camera guys. And we put him through this experience where we were doing stunt fighting. We did a ratchet where we pulled him backwards and all that. We had my airbag out there, so we had a scissor lift, and it was only 25, maybe 30 feet. He did not want to go off that thing. And he told me, he goes,"I'm not good with heights."

Joe P: 11:47

Yeah.

Rich Hopkins: 11:48

So man, just, we locked in. I said, "Listen, what's the worst thing that could happen?""You break your neck," you know, like Yeah, right. Sure. So, I mean, I'm like doing some NLP on him and I'm like, "Listen, you got this. I have confidence in you." Well, what's

Joe P: 12:00

NLP?

Rich Hopkins: 12:00

Neurolinguistic programming. That's what Tony Robbins teaches. That's what it's called. Basically we just had a little chat. I let him envision him doing it. And next thing you know, like he wanted to go backwards and I said, that's harder than going forwards and just dipping a shoulder. So he's like, I kind of get it though. Yeah, he didn't want to see. So he is like, the airbags over here. I've got a hold of his, you know, front of his pants. I'm holding him, saying,"I got you. I got you." Uhhuh."You just tell me when.""I'm just going to let go and you're just going to fall backwards." And man, it took some time with him, but he did it. Is he

Joe P: 12:37

watching you do it?

Rich Hopkins: 12:39

Oh, I did it a few times. Yeah. Yeah, me and I think one of my guys went up and we did a few demos for him, but it's technique too. I said, Look, I need you to go in there and land it nice and flat. If you have an airbag, I mean, imagine you had a balloon and you took a sharp pencil and dropped it point first it's going to pop. If you take a pencil, that same pencil, and drop it sideways on a balloon, it's not going to pop it. And I said, that's the concept. You need to go down. You're going to land in an X position, so you're distributing the air out the side breathers. And when he did it, oh my God, I could just, I'm up in the lift and I see him. He is screaming. When he was done, he got up and he was fist pumping. He was so stoked,

Joe P: 13:21

dude. He changed somebody's life, really. It,

Rich Hopkins: 13:24

it was cool. I can see the metamorphos has taken place. He felt he had a sense of accomplishment. Absolutely.

Joe P: 13:32

Well, it's got to be a sense of accomplishment for you too, because you were the mastermind, the puppet master pulling the strings. Yeah. Right. It's got to be harder than doing it yourself.

Rich Hopkins: 13:43

Yeah, well, being a stunt coordinator, I'm responsible for everybody, not just the stunt people, but also the actors, the crew, and everybody. Stunt coordinators have a lot of weight on their shoulders, and that's when you have to be, like me, like OCD and very detail oriented. I tell directors or producers when I'm, being interviewed for a job, I say, listen, my job is to be the world's biggest pessimist. I want to think about every single thing that can go wrong with this stunt. Have a plan A and B and C contingency plans. So I'm always thinking of worst case scenario so I can cover my bases and make sure that doesn't happen.

Joe P: 14:26

Yeah, that does seem ironic. I would think that you would go in there focused only on success and positivity.

Rich Hopkins: 14:33

Well, but you have to. It comes down to a team. Yeah. Team effort.

Joe P: 14:38

I read that there's going to start giving Academy Awards now for stunts.

Rich Hopkins: 14:43

A Academy award.

Joe P: 14:45

A academy award, an

Rich Hopkins: 14:46

One. Stunt design.

Joe P: 14:49

Okay. Not Better than nothing. Yeah. Not

Rich Hopkins: 14:51

stunt man. Not stunt ensemble. Well, you know, have you heard of the Taurus Awards? That's been going for 20 plus years. That is basically, it was started by the guy that owns Red Bull. He's a big lover of stunts, action, obviously, Red Bull sponsors everything that's adrenaline, you know. So he and a handful of stunt guys, one guy that actually lives here now, Carl Ciarfalio, started the Taurus Awards and that is, that has

everything: 15:22

best stunt, the hardest hit, best female stunt, stunt ensemble. It's like the stunt awards. As a matter of fact, it's coming up in, like, three weeks.

Joe P: 15:32

You going to win something?

Rich Hopkins: 15:33

No, no, no. I'm not nominated. No. I saw

Joe P: 15:37

your incredible work at the Super Bowl.

Rich Hopkins: 15:40

Yeah. That was fun. It was for Lilo and Stitch, the Disney film coming out. No, you know what was cool about that? I'm sitting there going, wow. Let's see. I've stunt doubled a lot of people and done a lot of stunts. It was the first time I stunt doubled a cartoon character.

Joe P: 15:55

Yeah, I didn't see you.

Rich Hopkins: 15:56

Well, the, no. Yeah, I was in a blue suit. I was in the whole like skin tight blue suit driving the golf cart into the, goal post. And it was done in three shots. When I saw it, it was right after they did the coin toss for the Super Bowl. They said, all right, we'll be right back. That was the very first commercial they showed. Yeah, I was sitting there going, oh, there it is. You know?

Joe P: 16:18

Yeah. You were all secret about it, you know? Well, I couldn't say anything about it until Watch the Super Bowl. I'm going to be in a commercial. Yeah. And as soon as I saw that Stitch crashed into the goalpost, yeah, I knew exactly it was you. I was like, awesome. Well,

Rich Hopkins: 16:33

You know, NDAs are nothing you want to mess with, especially with Disney. They can't wait to sue you.

Joe P: 16:41

Yeah, right. I'm kidding. I'm not crocheting any mouse ears, man. They drag you into court. Yeah. Yeah. So that was so fun and so exciting.

Rich Hopkins: 16:49

It was cool.

Joe P: 16:50

Hey, just wanted to take a moment to thank The Space. You know, we started this podcast to keep people interested in what's going on with the museum while we build out our actual museum. In that museum will be a podcast space, but in the interim, we didn't really have a place where we could go. The Space has volunteered for us to record our podcast here, and this is a place that you could support by coming to their secret party on Mondays. They raise $10,000 for local charities. It's a pretty cool program because like Broadway or the West End, things are closed down on the Strip on Mondays. This gives the chance for the headliners on the Strip to come down, kind of cut loose. Like the guy that plays Cher all week doesn't have to do that. He can come sing Verdi's operas. So it's a lot of fun. It costs like 20 bucks, 30 bucks to get in and it's a total blast. So we do want to extend our gratitude to The Space for what you're hearing right now. And the film industry in Las Vegas is booming, right?

Rich Hopkins: 18:00

Uh, no. It's the same as it ever was. As the Talking Heads say. We are hoping yes it starts booming, but there's so many barriers and obstacles. It was probably 15 years ago, I got together with JR Reed that owns JR Lighting and Marilee Lear, who is more or less retired. She was the biggest casting director out here. And I said, listen, I was talking to my friend in Louisiana. They had just created their tax incentive and it was booming there. He's like, Man. He goes, there's so many film sets, whether it's commercial, TV show, a feature film, whatever. He goes, there's so much filming going on, I literally show up on the wrong set. And I'm like, well, that's a good problem to have, you know? And so we had talked 15 years ago, like, Hey, let's plagiarize, whatever you want to call it. Let's take their tax incentive and use it as an outline and come up with one for ourselves. Mm-hmm. And then, JR and this other guy kind of took the reins on their own and created what we have now, which is kind of a tiered system, but the baseline is like 15%. So when you've got cities, Atlanta, New Orleans, they pulled theirs back a lot. The big boom for the last probably five to ten years has been Atlanta. Yeah. They came up with one. I want to say it's 35 to maybe even 40% tax incentive. So if you're a producer, your job is this, the money. Where am I going to make the most money or get the most credit, you know, tax incentive credits back? Actors, celebrities, whatever you want to call them, that I interact with that live in LA, they're like, Hey, I love to come to Vegas. We'll shoot for the week, go out to nice, incredible restaurants, go see beautiful shows. You know, even in summer when it's hot, well, you're not sitting watching a Cirque du Soliel show outside. You're in a nice air conditioned theater. They would rather come here, film, do their job, fly home in 45 minutes and be home for dinner with their family instead of flying to the sweat box of Atlanta. The proof's in the pudding. I mean, look who lives here now. You have Mark Wahlberg, you got Nick Cage, you got I think Mel bought a place here, you know, and these are all people I've worked with in the last couple years. They're living here now.

Joe P: 20:27

Those are the good guys too, man. Yeah, those are the good guys. They are

Rich Hopkins: 20:29

the good guys. Yeah. Haven't met or interacted with Mark yet. I'm assuming our paths will cross at some time. But I actually was in a film with Nicholas Cage called Sympathy for the Devil. I was interviewed to be the stunt coordinator. The director is pretty funny. He's from Israel, so he has got this accent."Richie, you know I like your work and I appreciate the fact you want to stunt coordinate, but I'm going to bring in this other guy I just worked with." And he goes, "The good news is I want you to play the truck driver." And I'm like, whoa, okay. That's even better. I'm in the movie.

Joe P: 21:05

Do you think it will be Hollywood 2.0, as Mark Wahlberg calls it?

Rich Hopkins: 21:11

It has the potential. You know, I'm extremely disappointed with the political landscape and I've sent letters and I've volunteered, Hey, you know, if you want to pick my brain, like I've been here working in the industry for three decades. I know that and I think the producers go,"Well, he's just a stunt guy." Well, here's the funny part about being a stunt coordinator. I work with every single department. I work with the director. Why? It's my job to create his vision. Mm-hmm. I work with the producers. Why? Money. I work with grip and lighting. Hey, you know we can't have video village over here because we're sliding a car around here. Hair and makeup. People go, Why would a stunt guy work with hair and makeup? Well, what if I'm going to light you on fire and I go on the hair and makeup trailer and they're loading you up with Aqua Net? Right. How about when we got a big fight scene? I got to go deal with wardrobe. Why? Because we need room for pads. Oh yeah. Okay. So I know the business inside and out. And the thing, too, is because we are a small market, there's certain nuances. It's way different than Hollywood. I think that the politicians really think they know what they're doing when it comes to this, and I think we talked about it earlier, these political people creating tax incentive bills or studio bills or whatever, they're creating laws and procedures and policies about an industry they know nothing about. That's like me creating a bill about coal mining. Mm-hmm. I mean, come on. If I was in a political position, I would say I want the best hair and makeup person, I want the best grip and lighting guy, stuntman. I want some of the best from each department to give us feedback. It's Stonewall. All they want to do is hang out with Mark Wahlberg. So it's not cool. Yeah, I don't want to go down the negative road, but I, you know, and then of course there was two bills presented recently for the same thing. And of course the assembly and legislation said, aren't these about the same thing? Why is there this one and there's this one? Can't you guys get it together mm-hmm. and make one big, beautiful bill, as they say.

Joe P: 23:41

We're bringing the Evel Knievel Museum to Las Vegas.

Rich Hopkins: 23:44

Bravo.

Joe P: 23:45

Thank you very much. Love. Thank you. Love him. Thank you. It's been fun. We've been open for eight years In Kansas. Mm-hmm. We have about a dozen motorcycles and half dozen vehicles. Wow. The Big Red Circus wagon that he hauled around the world to London and Caesars and Snake River Canyon. How did you

Rich Hopkins: 24:03

acquire that? Is it all about this or do people contribute stuff to it? It,

Joe P: 24:08

yeah. There's a really great collector named Lathan McKay.

Rich Hopkins: 24:13

Okay.

Joe P: 24:13

Who just had a real passion for Evel Knievel and got a set of leathers. It was over from there. Yeah. I got to boom, boom. I got to find this guy's museum. Wait, there's not one?

Rich Hopkins: 24:25

Yeah. What about in Butte?

Joe P: 24:28

There's nothing. I mean, there's probably things in people's basements in Butte because that's where he's from. I know

Rich Hopkins: 24:32

they do Evel Knievel Days. I had been approached several times to do some kind of stunt show there and it just kind of never happened. We had the Globe of Death there and motorcycle riders. It is over now, yeah, in Butte. Let's do it here. Let's do it here.

Joe P: 24:53

Yeah. So yeah, we've got all this stuff, tapes and casts, and. Stories and photos and just wonderful things. Wow. But it's been there in Topeka, Kansas, which is not a, you know, it's not a tourist magnet. I was going to say, Las Vegas gets say 45 million visitors a year. Yeah.

Rich Hopkins: 25:11

I mean, you'd have to really either be there for something else to go, wow, this is here. I'll check it out.

Joe P: 25:16

Yeah, that's right.

Rich Hopkins: 25:17

Yeah. Like,

Joe P: 25:18

or being super dedicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We did have visitors from 63 different countries. Which is rare, odd, and probably a first, yeah, for Topeka, Kansas, for people to fly in mm-hmm to look at Evel Knievel's stuff and be inspired by the stories.

Rich Hopkins: 25:33

Are they bummed you're leaving? They must be. Well,

Joe P: 25:37

yeah. And it's hard for us too, like we grew up Sure. Bess and I grew up there and Mike and I grew up there and yeah. Mike had a dealership there for Harley Davidson for 75 years in his family. Yeah. His specialty is restoring vintage motorcycles. Most Harley shops will work on Oh, the last 10 years' models mm-hmm. or so, because they can get parts. Sure. But Mike would go, you know, to flea markets. He'd go to the ends of the earth to get a part or whatever it takes. Right. Or hire my fabrication shop and we'll make a gear. Yeah. Whatever it takes. I think that's really why the Evel Knievel Museum started in Topeka was because we could restore those bikes.

Rich Hopkins: 26:18

Okay. Makes sense. You're going to love it anyway. Oh, I can't wait, man. Do I get to go when you open?

Joe P: 26:24

Yeah, it'd be awesome. It would be awesome. I'll bring

Rich Hopkins: 26:26

my own scissors. No, that'll be so cool because there's also ties to Vegas. Come on. I mean, the fountain jump. I remember being, I am old enough, watching Wide World Sports, man. And Howard Cosell, is like, you know, yes. I never missed an Evel Knievel jump.

Joe P: 26:43

Wasn't that odd, too? because those were Sundays at 2:30 in the afternoon, I think.

Rich Hopkins: 26:47

ABC's wide world sports, man. You have to

Joe P: 26:49

come inside on a beautiful day to watch TV. Oh yeah. You're not going to miss Evel Knievel. Well,

Rich Hopkins: 26:54

no, there were no VCRs. You couldn't tape it. You had to be there sitting in front of the tv waiting. Yeah. You know,

Joe P: 27:01

so it's great. Yeah, it's great for people our age. They walk into the museum and they've got a secret handshake. They'll go like this, as if they're reeling in a fish or something. I'm like, yeah, I know. I know you had the toy, right? Yeah.

Rich Hopkins: 27:16

Oh, love that thing. Oh my, I don't know how long it lasted, man. I'm probably broke the crank off of it, but I wanted to get one. I've seen him floating around like eBay and stuff, but yeah, they're kind of pricey and hard to get.

Joe P: 27:30

They are. They are.

Rich Hopkins: 27:31

But like every action sports guy, especially that are motorcyclists, I mean Pastrana, all those guys, and he's younger than me, but he still knows and knew, like they all know Evel knievel man. You got Metzger and those guys jumping 200 or 300 feet. It's some crazy stuff, but their bikes are light, they're made out of titanium and they're like plastic and then there's Evel jumping, just like fairly stock.

Joe P: 28:02

Yeah. Almost a bagger.

Rich Hopkins: 28:04

I know. Wow. Yeah, some of

Joe P: 28:06

them weighed 500 pounds of his motorcycles that he was jumping.

Rich Hopkins: 28:08

It would be so rad to flashback have Evel on a modern bike. Like that would be insane.

Joe P: 28:19

Those kids that you were talking about today, they're inspired by Evel Knievel whether they even heard of him or not, yeah, because there's just a mystique

Rich Hopkins: 28:26

around him too. You know, it's weird. Okay. A friend of mine I don't know if you've heard of La Costa. It's in an area of Carlsbad, California. So my buddy Mike Johnson, that was my age, his parents were friends with Evel and they lived at the top of like La Costa Hills where there were big estates and all that. So Evel would roll in in his bus, because, you know, it wasn't like a track house where you pull a bus in. There was plenty of parking. And so I remember my buddy's like, Hey, do you want to meet Evel? My parents are friends with him and he's at anytime he was in Southern California, he wouldn't get a hotel, he'd stay on his bus because it was all tricked out. He just needed a place to park it. So he was friends with my buddy Mike Johnson's parents, parked the bus right there. And I met him briefly, whatever. They were on their way out to go somewhere. You know, it was weird because it was, he was pretty nice. It was early eighties. Yeah. Um, so he was probably partying pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. because I think they would go down, I think Mike's parents were members of the La Costa Country Club. Big hoity toity, whatever. So yes, they would go down and

Joe P: 29:36

golf.

Rich Hopkins: 29:37

I don't know.

Joe P: 29:38

He's a huge golfer.

Rich Hopkins: 29:39

I'm sure he probably did. Oh. You know, we were like, Hey, good to meet you. Oh, we take off and go party ourselves. You know? So, but that was a weird encounter. Yeah.

Joe P: 29:50

One thing we're going to do at the New Museum, which is in the Arts District right where, if you go to First Fridays, it's where the food trucks park now. That's the new location. To engage with the younger generation, we're also going to establish an Action Sports Hall of Fame. Who should be the first inductee?

Rich Hopkins: 30:09

Mm God. That's a tough question. I mean, it depends on if you're going to do it by genre or just overall. I would say it's got to be the top three in my book, which would be Pastrana, Tony Hawk, and maybe Matt Hoffman.

Joe P: 30:22

Yeah, Matt

Rich Hopkins: 30:22

Hoffman, BMX. All perfect. They all like, those guys are like, they were, they were the goats, you know.

Joe P: 30:33

I love that

Rich Hopkins: 30:33

you got Travis on the bikes. You got, uh, motorcycle Hoffman on BMX. Uh, there's a local here, TJ Lavin. He was pretty, he's pretty epic in dirt BMX, I'm sure he's a big Knievel fan for sure. And then Matt Hoffman's primarily known for halfpipe. They call him the condor. He was like, just skying it out. And then Travis has done everything you can on a motocross bike.

Joe P: 31:00

He's amazing.

Rich Hopkins: 31:01

Good guy. Yeah. Hopefully they'll be at the grand opening.

Joe P: 31:06

Will you be?

Rich Hopkins: 31:07

Absolutely. Well, I can put you in touch with those guys. We'll sidebar that.

Joe P: 31:11

What's happening for you in the future? What do you see?

Rich Hopkins: 31:14

I'm ready to get to work. I mean, this year, let's see. I did the adrenaline, the tricking thing, we talked about, lighting them on fire. I did a Star Wars fan film for YouTube, YouTube TV or whatever. And then I, you know, it's weird. I'm always like, the thing about working in the film industry, no matter what department you're in, as soon as they're like, okay, we're on the martini shot, right? Which means it's like your very last shot of the production. As soon as they say that's a wrap, you're basically unemployed. You know, so that's when you get back on the computer, you know, I'm always like, keeping the irons in the fire kind of thing. And I've talked to several friends of mine that are producers in LA. Two or three of them are like, I've got a script sitting right here. It's already broken down and budgeted for Las Vegas. As soon as they get together with the tax incentive and like nobody knows what's going on. If they pull the trigger now, are you under the old tax incentive? If the new tax incentive passes, when does it go into effect? So we're in this freaking no man's land right now of not knowing what to do. Like I said, I know three people that are ready to come here and film right now. And there's already people moving here because the word's out. Oh, the studio. Oh, Warner Brothers. Oh, Sony Summerland. Oh, you know, so I mean, there's probably 10 stunt people that have moved here that I know of. Tons of other crew people, they're kind of trying to get ahead of the game. That's so cool. It is, but there's nothing going on right now. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and I'm offering up my assistance to make things happen, and that's all I can do.

Joe P: 32:56

Alright, I'm going to be rooting for you at the Academy Awards. Well

Rich Hopkins: 33:02

Maybe after I kick the bucket, I'll get an honorable mention. You know how they run the obituaries at the end. I might get one of those. Yeah. You know, that's so

Joe P: 33:12

great to meet you and I really appreciate you hanging out. Can't wait to see you at

Rich Hopkins: 33:16

grand opening. Oh, I can't wait. That'll be cool. I'll even help move stuff in. Come on, let's go.

Joe P: 33:21

Okay, let's go. Okay. Until then, happy landings

Heather: 33:26

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. It's our mission to preserve and present the legacy of Evel Knievel. If you have an idea for an episode or a guest, or have a suggestion to improve our show, just drop us a line at Joe@Thrill.Show.

Evel Knievel: 33:46

I just think the Evel Knievel way.

Heather: 33:52

We leave you with the encouraging words from the book of Deuteronomy. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, for the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you or forsake you. Until next time, happy landings! You like to fly to the seat of your pants? This is where you belong.