Thanks Evel Knievel For The Greatest Toy!

The world owes a debt of gratitude to the late Evel Knievel, not only for his daring deeds but also for lending his name to the greatest toy of all time - the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle.

Knievel died at the age of 69 after years of deteriorating health brought on by hard living and even harder impacts with the pavement. He left behind awesome jumpsuits, entertaining footage of motorcycle jumps gone awry, a guy he beat senseless with a baseball bat, and the Stunt Cycle, the aforementioned greatest toy of all time.

You are free to argue with me, insisting that Mr. Potato Head was the spud stud or Operation was a cut above, but you would be wrong. In the 1970s, I fought hundreds of battles in the red clay mud with plastic Army men. I built - and set fire to - countless model cars. I drag raced Hot Wheels with my brothers, and we settled photo finishes by beating each other with pieces of orange plastic track until someone was declared the winner or our mother cut a switch.

The Stunt Cycle was better than any toy we ever had or any friend's toy we ever broke.

Flashback to 1970-something.

I can't remember the exact year thanks to neurological damage sustained from a later mini-bike/pine tree collision, but I do know it was the height of Evel Knievel mania. I treasured a well-worn copy of

"The Cycle Jumpers," a Scholastic Book Club purchase that profiled all the well-known motorcycle daredevils of the time: Evel Knievel and ...uh ... hmm.

I schemed to be at a friend's house each time Evel jumped Mack trucks on the Wide World of Sports because a hill blocked the local ABC signal from our rooftop antenna.

We turned it in every direction and never got a shadow of Evel or the Fonz or Charlie's Angels.

I could do without "Happy Days," but I did not want to go to school on Monday and be the only kid who missed Evel break the Mack truck jump record or burst into flames trying.

Then came the Christmas of the Stunt Cycle. Saturday morning TV had shown me that Evel could go "up and over that four-foot ditch" on his gyro-powered bike.

I prayed that I could witness the miracle for myself, promising the Baby Jesus and Santa Claus that I would never hit anyone ever again with a piece of Hot Wheels track if I could only get my jelly-smeared hands on that Stunt Cycle.

And they delivered. It was there in all its glory under the tree. I ripped open the box and pulled out the bike and its accessories:

The rubber Evel action figure that could bend in any direction, much like the real Evel; the wind-up energizer; the red, white and blue helmet; and the jewel-tipped cane, which everyone knew doubled as Evel's flask. It was a good lesson for a child - always camouflage your liquor in public.

The first high-pitched whirring of the energizer winding up the gyro bike sounded like the glorious song of angels - '70s angels in cutoff, denim shorts and "Keep on Truckin'" halter tops singing "Sweet Home Alabama."

Evel shot out of the energizer and streaked toward a ramp made from three volumes of our grocery store encyclopedia set - probably the first time the books had been unshelved - and soared through the air.

And then we did it again. And again. And again. The Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle delivered on all its promises.

So, thanks Evel, for the stunts and the crashes and the liquor lesson. But thanks most of all for the Stunt Cycle, the greatest toy of all time.