Knievel’s Wild Ride, June 7: Robbie’s Near-Death Experience… No, Really!

The show starts out with discussion of a bike rally at Bike Week that Robbie will be attending for business purposes, not merely as a spectator, as he has been doing for years. This party is said to be his “coming out party” (Gee, I didn’t even know he was gay.) Actually, the coming out is celebrating Robbie’s first association with a television show. Zuck comments that Robbie is his own man and nobody tells him what to do.

Cue the foreshadowing music.

It’s party time in Daytona Beach (when isn’t it?) and Robbie and his crew waste no time getting down to the serious business of getting wasted at a local bar. The manager of the five-star Grand Seas Resort timeshare informs us that Robbie and some crew members cut a deal with the Resort: In exchange for thousands of dollars worth of free hotel rooms, Robbie would have to make an appearance at 10 a.m. every day at the Timeshare’s sales center. Seems like a pretty sweet deal, and something that wouldn’t be that hard to do, right? Wrong.

It’s the morning after the bar binge and suddenly a certain stuntman is not feeling up to his commitment. Larry Cotelli, the Grand Seas Resort’s owner, calls CJ, who is not impressed with Robbie’s no-show. Bill Rundle mentions that Robbie is very sick. This leaves Joel Martin, the resort’s project director, with the sticky job of having to explain to a room full of people why Robbie is not showing up as scheduled. Joel estimates the value of the free rooms to be around $25,000, so it’s kind of understandable when Larry the Owner lays down the law: either Robbie fulfills his end of the bargain or he and his crew will be kicked to the curb. Dun dun dun. CJ swears up and down to Larry that this will never happen again.

Master Gates goes to Robbie’s room (3046, just in case some reader has plans of staying in the same room) to see what’s up. It turns out Robbie is hungover. After a night of drinking? No way! Things get worse when Robbie misses a scheduled radio appearance.

Back to the resort, and things are getting really hairy. Larry is thisclose to throwing Robbie and the entire crew out on the street when cavalry comes to the rescue the form of Grizzly Adams. Adams jokes with the crowd and apologizes for Robbie’s no-show. While having Adams is some consolation, Larry is not impressed. “I paid for Robbie Knievel, and Grizzle comes over, he’s a funny man, but that’s not what I paid for.” Here, Larry: have some cheese with your whine.

Back in Robbie’s room, Robbie tells Gates that he’ll fulfill his commitment every day if he can just be left alone today since he had stomach cramps all night last night. Gates says he’ll make it happen.

Later that night, Robbie is still feeling bad so he’s taken to the ER at Florida Hospital Center with complaints of abdominal pain. Robbie’s doctor, Dr. Craig Miller, recognizes Robbie’s symptoms as a case of pancreatitis brought on my heavy drinking over time. Meanwhile, Bill is in touch with Evel who wants to be kept up to date on his son’s situation. The final diagnosis is pancreatitis with liver damage. In short, Robbie is told that he needs to quit drinking or it will kill him, either in three years or in five, depending on how much he drinks in the next year. “Right there, I woke up,” Robbie says.

Larry finds out that Robbie is in the hospital and, like the Grinch, his heart grows three sizes and he decides that Robbie and the crew can stay.

It’s Day 3 of Bike Week and Darci expresses concern for Robbie, which he just laughs off. Stacy from A&E is at the Bike Week Knievel Booth and tells us that today she plans to have Robbie plug this very show. He’ll do some press, ride his bike at the premiere, and attend a VIP party – or at least that’s what he’s scheduled to do…

Sean Downes, who’s working the party, mentions that Robbie had a bad night the previous night and needed some assistance during the night.

Zuck gets a call from Gates, a rarity if everything is going fine. Gates says that she told Stacy the Network Exec that Robbie is feeling under the weather, but she still wants him there. We see some fans out there waiting to get his autograph. They’ve been waiting an hour and fifteen minutes and are not impressed. Meanwhile, Zuck goes into full damage control mode, because he’s afraid Stacy from A&E is not exactly going to be understanding and forgiving about Robbie’s punctuality problems.

Robbie says he’ll show up “later.” Gee, that’s nice and vague. Gates doesn’t think he’ll show up at call. People at the Bike Week Knievel booth are getting restless. Zuck tells Gates to tell Stacy that Robbie wants to push his PR commitment back half an hour. Meanwhile, what Robbie really wants to do is relax with a stiff drink or ten, but ends up taking some new medication to relax. In the end, he agrees to come over, even though he’s not feeling so well. Gates hooks Robbie and his team up with a police escort and they ride their bikes to the Knievel booth.

Robbie makes a grand entrance and wastes no time going into the booth to sign autographs. And he’s not the only one. Roman gets in on the action too!

Another problem crops up in that none of the Knievelettes in Daytona Beach showed up, and Barry, whose task it was to organize this, is upset. Beyond that, Robbie is disappointed in Barry. Even the make-up artist for the Knievelettes is upset that she’s got all this make-up and nobody on whom to use it.