Super Dave Osborne is a character created and played by comedian
Bob Einsteinthumb|Bob Einstein as Super Dave Osborne in front of his trademark bulb wallRobert Einstein, better known as Bob Einstein is an actor and comedy writer best known for his portrayal of the fictional stuntman Super Dave Osborne. His parents were Harry Parke and Thelma Leeds...
. The character is an inept, greedy and self-absorbed
stuntmanA stunt performer or stuntman or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be. There is an inherent risk in the...
who is frequently injured when his stunts go wrong.
Super Dave made his first appearance on the 1972 TV series
The John Byner Comedy Hour. Einstein then regularly played the character on the short-lived 1976
variety showA variety show or variety entertainment is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and comedy skits, and normally introduced by a compère or host. The variety format made its way from Victorian era stage to radio to television...
Van Dyke and Company starring
Dick Van DykeRichard Wayne “Dick” Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades...
.
Super Dave received his first significant exposure as a regular on the Canadian 1980s series
BizarreBizarre was a weekly Canadian TV sketch comedy series, airing from 1980 to 1985. The show was hosted by John Byner, and produced by CTV at the CFTO Glen-Warren Studios in suburban Toronto....
.
Super Dave Osborne is a character created and played by comedian
Bob Einsteinthumb|Bob Einstein as Super Dave Osborne in front of his trademark bulb wallRobert Einstein, better known as Bob Einstein is an actor and comedy writer best known for his portrayal of the fictional stuntman Super Dave Osborne. His parents were Harry Parke and Thelma Leeds...
. The character is an inept, greedy and self-absorbed
stuntmanA stunt performer or stuntman or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be. There is an inherent risk in the...
who is frequently injured when his stunts go wrong.
Appearance history
Super Dave made his first appearance on the 1972 TV series
The John Byner Comedy Hour. Einstein then regularly played the character on the short-lived 1976
variety showA variety show or variety entertainment is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and comedy skits, and normally introduced by a compère or host. The variety format made its way from Victorian era stage to radio to television...
Van Dyke and Company starring
Dick Van DykeRichard Wayne “Dick” Van Dyke is an American actor, comedian, writer, and producer with a career spanning six decades...
.
Super Dave received his first significant exposure as a regular on the Canadian 1980s series
BizarreBizarre was a weekly Canadian TV sketch comedy series, airing from 1980 to 1985. The show was hosted by John Byner, and produced by CTV at the CFTO Glen-Warren Studios in suburban Toronto....
. He was also a frequent guest on
Late Night with David LettermanLate Night with David Letterman is a nightly hour-long comedy talk show on NBC hosted by David Letterman. It premiered in 1982 and went off the air in 1993, after Letterman left NBC and moved to The Late Show on CBS. Late Night with Conan O'Brien then filled the time slot...
and
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny CarsonThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992....
.
In 1987, a variety show titled
Super DaveSuper Dave was a variety show starring and hosted by the fictional character Super Dave Osborne . It ran from 1987 to 1991 on Showtime in the US and the Global Television Network in Canada. Reruns currently air on Showcase Action and CKXT-TV in Canada...
began airing, followed in 1992 by the animated series
Super Dave: Daredevil for HireSuper Dave: Daredevil for Hire is a DiC animated television series that aired on FOX in 1992.The Saturday Morning show aired 13 twenty four minute episodes starring and based on the comedy of Bob Einstein and his Super Dave Osborne persona; the series was cancelled after its first season.Both Bob...
that aired on
FOXThe Fox Broadcasting Company , commonly referred to as Fox , is an American television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, from 2004 to 2009 Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the 18–49 demographic...
. The character was featured in the
television specialA television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a special TV telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, as opposed to the...
s
Super Dave's Vegas Spectacular in 1995 and
Super Dave's All Stars in 1997. Super Dave was also the lead character in a
movieFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
released in 2000,
The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave. Late 2008, Super Dave also released Super Dave's Super Stunt Spectacular on DVD, a collection of videos of his stunts.
Super Dave also appeared in
NikeNike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
commercials in 1990, comparing his latest dunking contraptions to the Nike Air Flight basketball shoe. One commercial had him appearing with
Reggie MillerReginald Wayne Miller is a retired American professional basketball player. Miller spent the entirety of his 18-year NBA career with the Indiana Pacers. Miller was known for his precision three-point field goal shooting, especially in clutch situations. He holds the NBA record for career...
, and another with
Gerald WilkinsGerald Bernard Wilkins is a retired American professional basketball player. A 6'6" shooting guard/small forward, who played collegiately at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and later in the NBA.Gerald is the younger brother of former Atlanta Hawks superstar Dominique Wilkins and...
(mistaking their names as Roger and Harold, respectively).
Super Dave appeared in the upcoming comedy family film
Rockers Campers.
About the character
Super Dave is supposedly an "accomplished" stuntman, though he rarely succeeds when performing the stunts depicted onscreen. His signature is to perform outrageous daredevil stunts which invariably go awry and result in grievous bodily injury. These include such mishaps as riding inside the hub of a giant
yo-yoThe yo-yo is a toy consisting of two equally sized but not specifically equally weighted pieces of plastic, wood, or metal, connected with an axle, with a string looped around the axle...
suspended from a crane (the yo-yo broke free of its string and rolled off a cliff into a ravine) and being flung inside a giant football (the
catapultA catapult is any one of a number of non-handheld mechanical devices used to throw or hurl a projectile a great distance without the aid of explosive substances—particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. Although the catapult has been used since ancient times, it is proven...
malfunctioned and "spiked" the football instead of throwing it). After such a mishap, Super Dave would usually appear torn apart, stretched, or otherwise injured. One of his signature logos is a drawing of his head (in a helmet or his ballcap) on top of a pair of shoes with no body. This was occasionally how he appeared after a stunt resulted in something heavy falling on top of him. Super Dave has never shed any blood on camera, even when a stunt goes unbelievably badly.
Super Dave is often accompanied on his various exploits by loyal friend, sidekick and assistant stunt coordinator Fuji Hakayito, played by comedian Art Irizawa. It is usually left to Fuji to set whatever stunt Dave is performing in motion. He is the inspiration and head of the fictional "Super Dave Compound"—a combination resort, theme park, learning center, and anything else needed for the plot-line of a particular episode. Many of his misadventures were based on demonstrating various aspects of the compound.
Trademark components of the Super Dave character include his frequent thumbs-ups, and his many uniforms - most of which include red, white and blue, yellow stars, and stripes, somewhat reminiscent of those worn by
Evel KnievelRobert Craig Knievel , better known as Evel Knievel , was an American motorcycle daredevil and entertainer famous in the United States and elsewhere between the late 1960s and early 1980s...
. He was also known for only using "Genuine
SaskatchewanSaskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of and a population of 1,023,810 , mostly living in the southern half of the province. Of these, 233,923 live in the province's largest city, Saskatoon, while 194,971 live in the provincial capital, Regina...
Sealskin bindings" in the manufacture of his safety harnesses or seatbelts (not that they ever did him any good). Seals are neither indigenous to nor range in landlocked Saskatchewan, and are therefore part of the comedic juxtaposition predicated on the eventual failure of the stunt by being both "genuine sealskin" and from Saskatchewan.
Cultural references
- He was referenced in Tupac Shakur
Tupac Amaru Shakur , also known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper. He has sold 75 million albums to date and is one of the best-selling music artists in the world. In addition to his status as a top-selling recording artist, Shakur was a promising actor and a social...
's song "Rather Be Ya", in the line, "Smoke blunts, but leave them stunts up to Super Dave," in the Ice CubeO'Shea Jackson , better known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper, actor, screenwriter, and producer.He began his career as a member of the rap group N.W.A along with group leader Eazy-E, and later launched a successful solo career in music and cinema. In 1992, he married Kimberly...
song "Wicked", with the line "We'll have to break his ass up like Super Dave," in the A Tribe Called QuestA Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985. The group is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but appears to have rejoined the group since 2006...
song "The Chase, Part II" with the lyric, "We flippin' on niggas like we Super Dave" and in the Doomsday ProductionsDoomsday Productions is a Las Vegas based rap group. They are known for their albums Pray 4 Me & Filthy. Outside of Vegas they are most known for the collaboration with Brotha Lynch Hung on the album The Plague.-Doomsday Productions:...
song "Welcome to Cin Sity" with the line, "You bitch made like Super Dave and I’m the real deal like Evel KnievelRobert Craig Knievel , better known as Evel Knievel , was an American motorcycle daredevil and entertainer famous in the United States and elsewhere between the late 1960s and early 1980s...
". Cool Calm PeteCool Calm Pete is an American rapper and producer with a sometimes hypnotically slow, lazy-sounding rapping style. Pete was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Queens, New York. Pete is one of the three members of the hip-hop group Babbletron. Cool Calm Pete's debut solo album Lost was released in...
also referenced him in the song "Lost" with the line, "Jonesing for another attack, next wave / Your fake stunts? That's strictly for Super Dave".
- Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans) in The Last Boy Scout
The Last Boy Scout is a 1991 action film starring Bruce Willis as a former Secret Service agent, now working as a private detective, and Damon Wayans as a retired professional football player. The two join forces to solve the murder of Wayans' character’s girlfriend . The movie was produced by...
(1991) (After being thrown off an overpass onto a parked car below.) "It's okay. It's okay, folks. It's okay. It's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Danger is my middle name. Don't try this at home, folks. I'm a trained professional. There's me, and there's Super Dave."
External links