The odd connection between Joel Schumacher and the ‘Jackass’ movie
If you were asked to think of a filmmaker that shared a connection with Jackass, chances are you already had one in mind. Spike Jonze, the weird and wonderful creative mind behind Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are and Her, has been a long-time collaborator with the pranking crew since their very early days. In fact, he’s one of the brand’s co-creators, having served as writer and executive producer on every TV and film iteration.
But we’re not talking about Spike Jonze. There’s another director with a particularly unique association with Steve-O, Johnny Knoxville and the rest of the gang: Joel Schumacher.
If you didn’t know this, we don’t blame you – chances are, Schumacher may never have been aware of it himself. But the connection, as bizarre and convoluted as it is, nonetheless gave birth to one of the most iconic and memorable moments in the entire Jackass canon. To begin, however, we’ve got to return to Schumacher’s first-ever feature film, long before he gained recognition with The Lost Boys or took over from Tim Burton to helm Batman Forever and Batman and Robin.
In 1981, after having several screenplays of his produced, Schumacher’s first directorial effort came in the form of zany sci-fi comedy The Incredible Shrinking Woman. This debut follows Pat Kramer, played by Lily Tomlin – a classic suburban housewife and mother of two children, whose advertising executive husband has brought home some incredibly experimental cosmetic products.
After accidental exposure to some perfume, amongst other chemicals, Kramer begins to shrink. By no means a groundbreaking comedy, the film nevertheless cleverly utilised production design to allude to her rapidly decreasing stature – oversized food like bacon, kitchen tools, telephones and a shopping kart.
Decades later, Preston Lacy of the Jackass crew was ambling past the Universal Studios props department when he came across the shopping kart, more or less gathering dust. An idea suddenly came to him, an idea that would serve as the definitive opening scene in the very first Jackass movie. Jackass fans will know it well – the grandiose choir of ‘O Fortuna’ playing as the key pranksters emerge in slow-motion from a cloud of smoke, all piled into the oversized shopping kart.
It set the tone for the rest of the film; a bombastic, epic, portentous beginning to one of the most culturally significant films of the mid-2000s. And all thanks to the props department of Schumacher’s mediocre 1981 comedy, The Incredible Shrinking Woman.
