Super Dave Osborne

Super Dave Osborne
First appearance	The John Byner Comedy Hour
Created by	Bob Einstein
Portrayed by	Bob Einstein
In-universe information
Nickname	Super Dave
Gender	Male
Occupation	Stunt performer
Nationality	American

Super Dave Osborne is a character created and played by comedian Bob Einstein. Einstein's comedic depiction is of a naive but optimistic stuntman who is frequently gravely injured when his stunts go spectacularly wrong.

Character sketch

Super Dave is billed as an "accomplished" stuntman, though he rarely succeeds when performing his elaborate stunts. Typically the character will perform outrageous daredevil stunts which often go disastrously awry and result in the appearance of grievous bodily injury. These include such mishaps as being knocked off the top of the CN Tower after determining it too windy to do a cabled jump or being run over by a steamroller after failing to escape from a locked trunk. After such a mishap, Super Dave would usually appear torn apart, stretched, or otherwise injured. Although Super Dave initially exhibited and was injured during wild stunts, in later appearances, he would often be injured in mishaps during much more mundane events during which danger was not anticipated.

His signature logo, a drawing of his head in a crash helmet directly atop a pair of shoes with no visible body, was from an iconic early sketch, "Balloon Ball". The "stunt" consisted of his standing in a hole in the ground reciting "balloon ball" as a mantra which was supposed to imbue him with the ability to not be harmed by anything, as a mobile pile driver rammed the top of his head. When pulled out of the hole, he was as his eventual logo depicted: his helmeted head sitting directly atop his running shoes, the whole of his body supposedly compressed between shoes and neck.

Super Dave is often accompanied on his various exploits by loyal friend, sidekick and assistant stunt coordinator Fuji Hakayito (comedian Art Irizawa), and his segments introduced and commentated on by former sportscaster/actor Mike Walden. Fuji typically initiates whatever stunt Dave is performing.

Super Dave runs 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 have been based on demonstrating various aspects of the compound. Another characteristic was the utterance of the phrase "Holy Chim" (a bowdlerized version of "holy shit"), usually when the stunt was ongoing and he realized he was in over his head, notably his barefoot fire-walker stunt. When reflecting on the failed stunt, Super Dave would, in annoyance, call Walden a putz.

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 — which are reminiscent of those worn by daredevil Evel Knievel. It was often specified that Osborne's safety harnesses or seatbelts were made of "genuine Saskatchewan sealskin bindings". Seals are not indigenous to the landlocked province 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.

Appearance history

Television

• The John Byner Comedy Hour (1972); first appearance of the character
• Van Dyke and Company (1976)
• The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour (1977)
• Bizarre (1980–1985)
• The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1980s), recurring guest
• Late Night with David Letterman (1980s), recurring guest
• Super Dave (1987–1991)
• Super Dave: Daredevil for Hire (1992)
• In Living Color (1993)
• WWE Monday Night RAW (1994–1995)
• Super Dave's Vegas Spectacular (1995)
• Super Dave's All Stars (1997)
• Hollywood Squares (1998–2004), recurring guest
• Super Dave's Spike-Tacular (2009)
• The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (November 11, 2009)
• TNA Impact! (November 12, 2009)
• Norm Macdonald Live (March 26, 2013)
• Anger Management (April 2013)

Feature film

• The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave (2000)

Commercials

• Super Dave was featured in Nike commercials in 1990, comparing his latest dunking contraptions to the Nike Air Flight basketball shoe, and appearing with such NBA stars as Reggie Miller and Gerald Wilkins (whom he called Roger and Harold, respectively, and was then corrected). When his contraption went wrong, he either went through the wall, the ceiling, or into a backboard, then he would say he hurt or broke an unusual part of his body, to which Walden would confirm, "Well, of course you did!"
• On several occasions in the late 1990s, Super Dave appeared in commercials for Haggar Clothing. Some notable stunts: going through an extreme car wash, and falling off a motor home with lots of heavy debris landing on him to show that Haggar's cotton-based clothing will never wrinkle.

Cultural references

He was referred to by Richie Rich in Tupac Shakur's song "Rather Be Ya Nigga", in the line, "Smoke blunts, but leave them stunts up to Super Dave," in the Ice Cube song "Wicked", with the line "We'll have to break his ass up like Super Dave," in the A Tribe Called Quest song "The Chase, Part II" with the lyric, "We flippin' on niggas like we Super Dave," in the Cool Calm Pete song "Lost" with the line "You(r) fake stunts that's strictly for Super Dave". On Fat Joe's song "Bet Ya Man Can't (Triz)," Cuban Link raps, "We do maneuvers like Super Dave, always with a group of babes" and as well as in the line "At the hot tubs making a gang of waves, Hoe in the cunt doing stunts like Super Dave" in the song "She's Just A Freak" by The Luniz.

Damon Wayans' character Jimmy Dix in the 1991 film The Last Boy Scout says after being thrown off a highway overpass onto a parked car below, "It's okay, folks. 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." Probably coincidentally, Wayans reccuringly portrayed a character on the comedy sketch TV show In Living Color, "The Head Detective", that was similar in appearance to the Super Dave logo.

On the ABC television show Happy Endings, Super Dave Osborne is referenced in "The Girl with the David Tattoo" (season 1, episode 8).

In the 2007 comedy film Hot Rod, Will Arnett's character at one point mockingly addresses Andy Samberg's eponymous wannabe-stuntman as "Super Dave".

External links

• Official Bob Einstein website