‘Too hot for Jackass’: Steve-O brings forbidden stunts to UF for Bucket List tour

There's something to be said about a man willing to jump out of an airplane naked while performing a sex act on himself and recording it.

Or being slingshot hundreds of feet up into the air while being strapped inside a pungent porta-potty full of feces on a hot afternoon.

Some may call that person a jackass.

Well, for Stephen "Steve-O" Glover, the unusual path to fame appears to have worked out just fine − minus the countless broken bones, surgeries and other serious injuries.

On Sept. 17, "Jackass" and "Wildboyz" star Steve-O, who is best known for his wild antics and dangerous stunts on the hit MTV shows and their cinematic releases, is coming to Gainesville for his Bucket List tour, a unique stand-up comedy experience with a multimedia component that splices in various X-rated videos that he says were too much for the big screen − and certainly too graphic to describe in a newspaper article.

"The Bucket List is a bunch of forbidden stuff that I would've never been allowed to shoot for 'Jackass,'" the 49-year-old said. "It's kind of like me hosting a premiere and presenting footage that's too hot for 'Jackass.'"

Road to Success

It may come as a surprise to some fans that Steve-O has been traveling the world since he was a toddler, well before becoming famous.

Born in Wimbledon, London, England, Steve-O grew up living in five different countries and spoke three different languages − though he later forgot two of them. His father's career as a top executive for Pepsi allowed the family the ability to move frequently.

After high school, Steve-O briefly attended the University of Miami and University of New Mexico before truly setting on his road to success.

He attended the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College where he began to sharpen his comedic skills to make people laugh.

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In 2000, an ensemble of characters − later known as the "Jackass" crew − performing various pranks and stunts in their own communities began to take shape. Producer Jeff Tremaine, then a writer/editor for the skateboard magazine Big Brother, reached out to Steve-O, a contributor to the magazine who at the time was working as a clown at a Florida flea market.

"Jeff told me to put together all the video footage I had and send it in," he told Maxim magazine in 2010. "A little while later, he told me not a single clip cleared MTV. We weren’t allowed to play with fire, and I was always on fire. We weren’t allowed to jump off stuff higher than a certain height, and I was always on fire and jumping off stuff from too high."

Most of Steve-O's clips were too much for MTV. But one day, he caught lightning in a bottle.

His introduction to the ("Jackass") world featured him swallowing a large goldfish and then forcing himself to throw it back up into the bowl alive.

A star was born, and Steve-O quickly became a fan favorite.

Finding a new path

Soon after the crew's international fame and cinematic success, members began branching back off to their own projects. Steve-O teamed up with "Jackass" co-star Chris Pontius for four seasons of "Wildboyz," where the duo would travel the world and perform even crazier stunts and pranks with animals.

But none of that could prepare Steve-O for embarking on a journey that he said, at the time, was his craziest bit yet.

"In 2006, somebody invited me to a comedy club for a stunt and I agreed to go," he told The Sun. "I showed up and determined the craziest stunt I could do would be to get on the stage and try stand-up."

The crowd was excited and welcoming, he recalled. From that point forward, Steve-O added stand-up comedy to his bucket list, a career he has now pursued for 13 years running.

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"It's been the craziest journey for me because it was so unlikely," he said. "But it made sense to me because I'm an attention whore through and through."

"When I first started doing stand-up, it was really terrifying," he added. "I would even say scarier than swimming with sharks, which is almost tough to admit."

Naturally, Steve-O could never fully escape his wild nature and stunts most people would never dare to attempt, and so his comedy shows began to incorporate a mixture of his talents.

His latest round of shows, dubbed The Bucket List tour, takes audiences through the comedic process of how and why he performed stunts that most sane people would never dare. He discusses the strain it put on his relationship with his fiance, the life-threatening feats and injuries he suffered without insurance and other complications that arose during the process.

Viewers are rewarded at the end with footage of the stunt.

"It's like a big convergence of all my different worlds," he said.

But fair warning, some have passed out during the show.

While not on tour, Steve-O stays busy showing up at local comedy clubs to practice new material, interviewing guests on his Wild Ride podcast or making videos for his YouTube channel. He's also preparing to open up an animal sanctuary in Tennessee with with wife.

As far as stunts he regrets? There aren't many. Bits that that flopped or hurt other people, he feels bad about. But others that caused him personal injury were like notches on his belt.

Logistically, the most complicated stunt he said he's ever performed will be shown to the audience at the University of Florida's Curtis M. Phillips Center on Sunday, which is also the last date of the tour. Steve-O says he just hopes his niece − a student at the UF who is expected to attend − can forgive him for the naked airplane stunt.

Tickets for the Bucket List tour start at $20 and can be purchased through www.SteveO.com or by visiting UF's Performing Arts website at www.performingarts.ufl.edu.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Jackass star Steve-O brings comedy tour to Gainesville, UF