Short interview transcript in which a speaker (Johnny Knoxville) says he grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, describes his father’s tire sales-and-repair business, and recounts elaborate prank stories his father played on employees (including fake VD-clinic letters) that sometimes caused marital trouble. The piece highlights a family tendency toward pranking and comedic showmanship.
Where did you grow up?
Knoxville, Tennessee.
What did your dad do?
He owned a tire company.
Like a tire shop or manufactured them or something?
No, no, he. He sold them and repaired them. And he definitely should have been in show business. He would just take over a room when he walked in and was really funny. And he was always pranking his employees, making them Ex Lax milkshakes and sending them letters from. Not from the health department, but from the VD clinic saying they had contracted a venereal disease and they have to come in and list their last ten partners. Signed Dr. Harlan C. Titmore. And some people would get this. The wives. That's the problem. The wives would get the letter and open it, and it was just like a crude rubber stamp. VD clinic. But it caused a lot of trouble for some certain marriages.
So the pranking is genetic, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The apple doesn't far fall too far from the tree, as they say it was.
Yeah, I just looked up to him and all the characters he had working for him.
