Punk Rock vs. Liability Strategy in Corporate Media

My inner 15-year-old has some notes about Prank Panel

Note: This was written back in February 2024 to articulate and confront the root causes of the anxiety blowback I've struggled with since working on Prank Panel. 

In late summer of 2022, ABC’s new show Prank Panel approached me about a creative consultant/content producer gig. Executive Produced by Jimmy Kimmel through the production company ITV, Prank Panel was pitched to me as “Shark Tank with pranks.” Because the initial offer seemed low for network television — and I was unsure about the wisdom of taking time away from two other projects with approaching deadlines — I respectfully declined both first and second offers. They eventually came back with a third offer. At this point, my long time writing partner Eric André had officially signed on to be a judge/mentor on the show alongside Johnny Knoxville and Gabourey Sidibe. My pragmatic wife encouraged me to reconsider the short six-week position. After all, with less money comes less responsibility and it should not be as heavy a workload as the Executive Producer/Head Writer gig I worked up to with The Eric André Show over six seasons. Plus, I’d get a chance to work with Jimmy Kimmel’s team for the first time on a big budget show, which on paper seemed like a no-brainer good opportunity, and at the very least a learning experience.

That optimism died a quick death on the morning of my third day on set, when Johnny Knoxville chased me down backstage with a stun-gun. Without provocation from me, the attack was a complete surprise and not consensual. This happened in front of the entire crew, before I even had my second cup of coffee. The camera following Knoxville’s movements also provided a live feed for the numerous ABC and ITV executives watching from the second floor control room. I was not scheduled to be on camera, let alone prepped to be on the business end of an assault weapon. 

The agony of the initial sting was nothing compared to what happened when I fell down after taking the hit, breaking my leg and severely spraining my ankle. Two tendons snapped causing permanent damage. A year and a half later, the pain in my ankle still flares up whenever it rains, if the temperature dips below 50 degrees, or whenever I think about it, like literally right now as I write this sentence. A year ago I’d probably tell you the hardest part about the assault was the assorted nuisances; three months confined to a cast and boot, schlepping around on a knee scooter, uncompensated time spent at the X-ray, MRI clinics, doctors offices, as well as six months of tedious physical therapy. Not only was I unable to operate at full capacity for my two energetic young sons, wife, and regular rotation of rescue puppies, I also lost the bandwidth to effectively hit deadlines as a working writer. The psychological duress was further exacerbated by the lived-in set culture that fostered an overtly hostile, violent work environment. Discouraged from speaking up for myself, agitated by additional threats of violence from Knoxville, I spent the remainder of my time on Prank Panel ruled by anxiety. 

Recently, a friend pointed me towards an Eric André appearance from the May 17th 2023 episode of The Howard Stern Show. In a well crafted anecdote, Eric opened up about his own trauma working on Prank Panel, detailing the circumstances that led to him quitting, albeit briefly. The substance of what Eric said had elements of truth — Knoxville indeed brought a stun-gun to set. Eric, who enthusiastically rationalized that “he [Knoxville] was only going to hit me” retaliated by bringing in his own stun-gun. After Eric shocked him in the chest, Knoxville was able to wrestle the device away, turning it back on Eric. On a later day, Knoxville scored a coup de grace, tasing him in the neck, which led to Eric quitting the show. Fortunately, Jimmy Kimmel got directly involved and everybody agreed to not bring weapons onto set any more. All’s well that ends well for the Prank Panel gang.

Eric repeated this carefully redacted version on Steve-O’s podcast and again on Jimmy Kimmel Live! while promoting our book Dumb Ideas. Despite the fact that I was on the cover and wrote half the book, I was not invited to the couch, or even to the studio audience. Granted, it could be because the gatekeepers do not consider me famous, handsome, or compelling enough (sad face), but I suspect it might also be because I directly challenged Kimmel’s Prank Panel production partner ITV about the accident report, which stated “Object causing injury: self.” Either way, it was a bold choice to subtract the stun-gun from the equation. The production did not engage when I took issue with it, so I lawyered up. There was not much more to that decision. What broke my heart about Eric’s romanticized retelling is that he knew I was dealing with a trauma that had significant consequences to my physical and mental health. To be the hero of the story, Eric had to erase mine.

But I’m already over that. What I found most egregious about the Stern interview was that Eric, paraphrasing Knoxville, said, “...we get to be punk rock on ABC’s airwaves… let’s do our punk rock thing.” I was triggered by the wording choice, having grown up on American punk and hardcore, vitally important music and cultural movements that shaped my worldview. Punk rock, as an abstract, certainly informed my extensive contributions to The Eric Andre Show. I can’t help but wonder what 15-year-old me would say about two multi-millionaires playing grab ass with stun-guns, ducking behind LITERAL Disney lawyers (ABC is a subsidiary of Disney) when collateral damage occurred, then calling it punk rock. In peak form, punk rock speaks truth to power. At minimum, punk rock is a middle finger to the mainstream. Prank Panel was hopelessly mainstream and certainly not in the business of speaking truth to power. The only thing it can lift from punk is its most reductive elements. I’m not the punk rock police and don’t endorse violence — especially in a lopsided power dynamic. But hypothetically, if Knoxville and Eric had turned their weapons on the dozens of ABC executives in the control room, you could convince me that such an action might at least be interpreted as “punk rock.” Worry not execs — that would never happen. These are not the men to complicate a paycheck delivering electric shocks to television executives.

I cannot speak on Prank Panel’s behind-the-scenes strategic decisions in dealing with my assault, I only know that consent can never be retroactive, and assault is not a “prank” — a narrative floated around by certain producers. ITV eventually evolved on whether there was a weapon involved at all, recently admitting that the stun-gun that hit me might not have been Knoxville’s, rather the one he stole away from Eric. As I have not been given access to this footage, and I did not see what happened between them on the day, I have no idea which stun-gun hit me, nor do I care. I am not an expert on the array of stun-gun variants on the market. Whether or not Knoxville completed his ironic revenge nailing me with Eric’s device is immaterial. I am not the physical extension of Eric, nor automatically complicit in the poor decisions he makes in a vacuum.

As far as Knoxville is concerned, he doesn’t know me and I don’t know him, so I can’t take it personally. I’m not getting into the speculative weeds about motive, it is what it is. Regardless, Jackass will always have a special place in my heart, largely because my all-time favorite punk band since I was a teenager are The Minutemen, whose 1984 song “Corona” is the licensed Jackass theme. Written by the late, great D. Boon, casual Jackass fans might assume the tune is about how much hot sauce a man can pour into a fully dilated asshole. In actuality, the lyrics are about the blowback of poverty Mexico faces due to “the injustice of our [American] greed.” It’s about empathy, or maybe the inadequacy of empathy, but certainly guilt about complicity in exploitation. It’s poetic, self-reflective, evidence to me that at least the four chords best known for triggering visualizations of Jackass stunts are punk rock on their own merit.

So Prank Panel was a learning experience, though not in the way I expected. Foremost, I learned that self respect has more weight to me than liability strategies of celebrity brands and multinational production companies. The irony is not lost on me that a gig I passed on twice would end up having such a profound negative impact on my health and career. I hope it is understood that all I wanted was the initial incident to be treated with integrity and compassion, as opposed to the overtly cynical fiction that humiliated and retraumatized me over and over again. I appreciate the kindness from the select few creatives, crew members and segment directors who tried to look out for me in the aftermath of the assault, even when set culture made it awkward to align with me. I write this only on behalf of myself — I believe that if I let this aggression stand, I’m opening the door for others to do the same to me in the future, not to mention send the wrong message to my kids about capitulating to bully power moves. As far as Eric is concerned, I’m not sure what to make of it. In the 2014 film Force Majeure — about the husband who instinctively abandons his family during an avalanche, does the wife eventually leave him after the conclusion of the film? Probably, but who knows (I am the wife in this analogy). All I know is I’ll never apologize for breaking the toxic code of bromertà that tried to coerce me into accepting the unacceptable. I’m a writer, a human being — not a sack of potatoes you can break with electricity and toss under the bus the moment I assert agency about bodily integrity. I’ve struggled with articulating my feelings long enough, but in the words of legendary post-hardcore band Fugazi, I can no longer “suffer your interpretation of what it is to be a man” when the collective behavior of the powerful folks behind Prank Panel never bothered to meet mine.