the pontiusaurus revisited, by dave carnie

I recognize that celebrating the penis isn’t in vogue these days, but this is an article about a very special penis. It’s about Chris Pontius’ penis and its role as the "Pontiusaurus" in Jackass Forever. About half of all humans on earth have a penis, and I would fancy a guess that about half of all animals on the planet have penises, so it’s no wonder so many people are tired of the penis—there are a lot of them out there. So I can certainly understand why someone would not be interested in reading this article. If you have an aversion to penises, please don’t read this article.

I should also add that this is just an article about a penis. There is nothing smart about it. There are no intelligent insights. There is no analysis of the penis-as-monster metaphor and no mention of how the penis is responsible for nearly every horrible thing that has ever happened in the history of humanity—for a catalog of the penis’ evils, I recommend turning on any news outlet (Fox News generally has the most pro-cock-heavy coverage) or reading any history book. No, this is a simple article about a stupid dick joke. And it’ll probably make you dumber. Enjoy.

Ed. Note: This article was originally meant to accompany the release of our Chris Pontius guest model a few months back (and by a few I mean seven), but… well… you know how things go. Or maybe you don't. I’m certainly not one to be so presumptuous. Regardless, it's here now and that's all that matters. Photo: Dave Carnie

I first met Chris Pontius in San Luis Obispo, CA, when he was about 13-years-old. I met his penis soon after. I had just started college so I was around 18-years-old. I was an adult and he was a minor. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for an adult to look at a minor’s penis. Even if the minor’s penis is much larger than the adult’s. I, of course, understand why these laws are in place, but it seems slightly unfair in our circumstance?

I’ve known Chris’ penis for a long time. He and I have done lots of things together with both of our penises outside of our pants at the same time. Mostly his penis. Here is a brief catalog of some memorable member moments that I memmer:

• Chris and I once showered together, nude, in the middle of a frat party just to see what would happen (exactly what you would expect—we were rudely evicted. Very rude).

• The first time we visited the Big Brother offices we arrived completely naked and painted orange from head to toe (I’m not sure what the point of that was).

• I’ve seen Chris ask a stranger what time it is on his “wristwatch” (his penis wrapped around his wrist with a clock drawn on it) dozens of times.

The “Jackass” was a dance way before it was a TV show. Chris and friend Tony gettin’ their asses jacked. Photo: Dave Carnie

• I have a picture of Chris and our friend Tony doing a dance they called “The Jackass” (this was pre-Jackass, btw). I will never be able to erase the memory of their dongs (Tony’s was big too) flapping around and slapping their young, sweaty bodies (!!!) as they leapt from their hands to their feet, hands to feet, over and over again in my living room. (I believe this dance was part of the “game” that Chris would refer to as “Naked Natives,” a term Chris uses to describe general, pointless nudity—as opposed to nudity with purpose).

I’m not sure what Knoxville is doing here, but Denny is trying to insert a scallop shell into Chris’ coin slot so he can get a candy bar. Maybe Knoxville wanted a scallop shell in his coin slot? Photo: Sean Cliver (2001)

• When we shot a nude pictorial of Chris for submission to Playgirl, I was “Denny, The Oil Boy” and responsible for making sure our subject was well oiled at all times in ALL places.

• I came home from school one day to find Chris and his gang of Merry Pranksters running around my house, nude, with pots and pans tied to their penises (presumably more Naked Native behavior). Imagine how I felt after a long day of study when I opened my front door only to be met with the chaos of half a dozen naked young men running in different directions with my pots and pans banging around between their legs—the pots and pans I cooked with. Naturally I found the scene very exciting.

Me and Chris’ penis are practically family. So I was rather taken aback when I recently called him to talk to him about the Pontiusaurus’ performance in the opening scene of Jackass Forever and he introduced me to his penis. If anything I thought the penis would introduce me to the Pontius.

“My penis’ name is The War Hammer,” Chris said. “I thought everyone’s penises were shaped like mine, but apparently not. When I started showing more and more friends over the years, all my bros would say the head seems bigger than everybody else’s. So, yeah, it’s The War Hammer.”

“Oh, I didn’t know it had a name,” I said. “Nice to meet you, The War Hammer.”

I was immediately reminded of a mutual friend of ours from college in San Luis Obispo. Michael (name has been changed) was a roommate and the guitar player in our band. Michael also had an unusual penis.

“I don’t remember his penis,” Chris said, dismayed. “I remember his girlfriend at the time sitting on top of him while he was naked. Maybe I saw his penis? I can’t imagine it being very big. What was it like?”

Michael was born with a condition known as hypospadias: “the opening of the urethra leading from the bladder does not extend to the tip of the penis.” In other words: he had no pee hole. So a doctor had to surgically provide him with one.

As you can imagine, trying to perform cosmetic surgery on an infant’s penis is like trying to give an earthworm a nose job. And while the surgeon’s knife did in fact provide Michael’s urethra with an exit hole, it became clearer and clearer over the years that the surgeon’s work hadn’t been very precise. As Michael’s penis grew, the doctor’s work stretched, expanded, and became more and more exaggerated until it was obvious that the organ had not been sculpted by an artist, but rather hewn by a butcher. Michael described his adolescent penis as a martini garnish: a toothpick with an olive on the end of it. By the time I met Michael, the olive had ballooned into something that looked more like a wad of bubble gum as big as a racquetball.

“I mention it,” I said, “because, like you, Michael’s penis had a head large enough to earn it a nickname. We called it: The Mallet.”

Michael suffered a lot of abuse at the expense of his deformity, and it also caused some physical issues, but, much to his credit, he was only mildly traumatized by his unusual wang. The hole that had been manufactured for his penis, for instance, was on the underside of the shaft. To pee, Michael had to stick his penis straight out, parallel to the floor, and the pee would dribble out in a stream straight down—much like a faucet in a sink. I know this because it was a recurring issue in the house I shared with him: his stupid Mallet would dribble piss all over the toilet and the bathroom floor. The crotch of his jeans was often damp because his penis hole was always agape—it was like a nostril at the end of his cock.

On top of that, we learned that intercourse was also difficult for him. His girlfriend asked us to imagine trying to cram a cue ball up our assholes—that, she said, was what it was like trying to get his cock into her vagina. It was fine once it was in, she reported, but it was very difficult to insert his large object into her much smaller opening.

But enough about Michael’s magnificent Mallet. We’re here to discuss Chris’ cock and specifically its role as the Pontiusaurus in the opening scene of Jackass Forever.

“Does your penis hold the record for most penis screen time in history?” I asked

“Yeah,” Chris began, “I’m very confident that I’ve gotten the most penis screen time in feature movies—not porn.”

“Oh, well, porn doesn’t really count,” I said. “Feature movies, that’s what I meant."

“I know I was the first 3D penis in a feature film from the last movie,” Chris said. “And by this movie, I’d say, yeah, I definitely have the most penis screen time of anyone. I’m really proud of that.”

“You should be,” I said. “How does ole Mr. and Mrs. P feel about their son’s penis’ success?” Chris’ parents are the sweetest couple in the world. His father is a retired surgeon and his mother is a kind and remarkable woman who has always been involved in his life.

“They are actually very proud of me,” Chris said. “Even when the skateboard deck came out, my mom was like, ‘Oh! That’s Chris!’”

“I heard the Pontiusaurus idea started out small, but then grew bigger?” I asked Chris. (I’m known for my hard-hitting penis journalism.)

“It started off,” Chris said, “as just a bit with my penis dressed up as a kaiju monster, like in all the Japanese monster movies, going through a miniaturized town. So they dressed up my penis to be a kaiju: the Pontiusaurus. But because of Covid all these different groups were on set who hadn’t worked together and weren’t synchronized, so it was a disaster.”

I was in Berlin a few years ago and I stayed in an apartment on Wienerstrasse (Wiener Street).“Wienerstrasse?” I remember saying, “Why, because there are giant dicks walking around in the street?” Photo: Sean Cliver (2020)

The miniature town was constructed on a tabletop. Chris lay beneath on a platform that would press his pelvis up higher than the rest of his body “in the most uncomfortable position ever,” so that his penis could exist aboveground on the streets of the miniature city. His balls were supposed to be the monster’s feet, but the crew hadn’t worked out how to get his balls up there onto the streets. Without his testicle “feet” on the street, the Pontiusaurus essentially looked like a telescope.

Knoxville, their fearless leader, volunteered to help. “I’ll do it,” he said, and crammed himself into the tiny space under the table with his naked costar and manually held Chris’ balls up with his bare hands so they’d be in the shot. And while this first take was fraught with problems, it was immediately apparent that they had struck gold.

In a moment of crisis it's all hands on dick—I mean, deck. Photo: Sean Cliver (2020)

“After we did that first shot, everyone was just like, ‘Oh my God, this is the funniest-looking thing I’ve ever seen,’” Chris said. “That’s when we realized this idea was much bigger than we thought it was.”

No one was more excited about the test shoot than Spike Jonze, and he wanted to go big, big, big with the idea. The rumor is that anytime Spike gets an idea, the studio has to add a few hundred thousand dollars to the budget, and that was certainly true in this instance. Chris said the price tag for the opening scene alone cocked in [nice typo] at around $3 million. They hired miniature experts, demolition specialists, and puppeteers, including the puppeteer from Ghostbusters.

“Oh, and they also had to make a contraption that would make it come,” Chris said, growing excited, “because the Pontiusaurus sprays his monster juice all over everybody and then—”

“HEY! HEY!” I said. “Spoiler alert. I haven’t seen it yet.” I mean, it doesn’t matter because it’s not like I didn’t see that coming. The penis monster sprays monster juice all over everything? No. Seriously?

What I was really interested in was what went into making this scene. If you look closely, his penis is painted green. It has eyes, a mouth, arms, claws on the feet, a tail, etc. It’s a very elaborate getup. “So I assume you had all these modifications done in makeup?”

“Yeah, it was a good hour and a half of makeup,” Chris said. “I’d meet with this makeup professional and I thought it would be a pretty awkward scene because, like, this guy’s gotta hold my penis. We made small talk while he was decorating it so that everyone basically forgets it’s a penis, you know, and it’s just a prop or something that is being decorated. And you’re not supposed to get a boner—that didn’t happen. Yeah, it was a weird scene, but then everyone got used to it.”

I’ve been on porn sets before and I can attest to this. You’d think being around all that nudity and sex would make for a very erotic environment—quite the opposite. It’s no wonder they have fluffers on set because there is nothing arousing about it.

“So when you were down there on your platform,” I asked, “did they move the table around your dick, or did they move your platform under the table?”

“I would move under the table,” Chris said. “They could control my cart moving. It was really crazy.”

“And how did the feet and arms move, sorta looks like robotics were used?” I asked. “Did you have robotic testicles?”

“Yeah, it had little feet that they could make move—I don’t know how they did that, but they got it figured out. It was just crazy. So the monster moved under this table and then there were explosives going off around it—”

“Explosives?” I interrupted, laughing. “They could have blown your dick off, Chris.”

“Yeah, totally, I know,” Chris said, “but you know, one thing I’ve learned about penises is they’re one of the toughest parts of the body. You can put them through a lot. It’s just tough.”

The most sensitive part of the male body and toughest part of the male body all wrapped up in one. But there were other safety issues that were even more dangerous to Chris’ resilient rod than the explosives: getting it to stand erect, but not too erect, being the foremost.

“Did your penis shrivel up because of all the explosives and the weird situation and everything?” I asked.

“Sometimes being in those situations gets me more excited,” Chris said with a giggle. “But, interesting fact: you want to look good, but you don’t want to look too good because if you get totally hard it changes the rating of the movie. You can have penises in movies, but once it gets hard it changes the rating to NC-17—no boners allowed. But at the same time I want the monster to look good, you know? So you kind of have to find a balance.”

I don’t have to find anything, but this is a rather peculiar problem that most of us will never have to deal with in our lives: how does one make a penis erect without it being ERECT? The solution that director Jeff Tremaine came up with was: a wire (a.k.a. a noose).

“The wire was something that was going to be really uncomfortable,” Chris said, “and kind of unsafe because of the way I was rigged in. There was a slot in the table and my balls and my penis had to fit through it. It was really easy for me to get caught and I couldn’t get out because this platform raises me into this position. So I was trapped, you know? Like if you go one way, and I go the other, you’re gonna rip my dick off.”

Chris’ dick did not get ripped off by the wire/noose, but there was, of course, one final, frightening Jackass trial the mighty Pontiusaurus would have to face: Gamera. A real Gamera. Not some little dude in a fake turtle suit.

The Pontiusaurus looks a little scared, a little apprehensive, here—I think “shriveled” is the word I’m looking for? I would be too if I were under a table with that fucking can opener breathing on my nut sack. Photo: Sean Cliver (2021)

“I had to meet with these animal handlers who brought in three different beasts for the Pontiusaurus to battle,” Chris said. “We had to choose which beast would be the best choice for him to face. But what was so funny was I’m there talking to these animal handlers, who are regular people, while I’m naked with my penis painted green, discussing the physics, or whatever, of these different animals biting it, from what angles it would look best, and how I’d want to face it—it was so ridiculous.”

The three beasts the animal handlers presented, incidentally, were: a tokay gecko (“aggressive, territorial, and can inflict a strong bite”), a Halloween crab (claws), and a snapping turtle. (Sean Cliver, on set that day, said that the gecko and the crab “were mostly there as backups in case Gamera had performance anxiety.”)

“I’m pretty sure I know why you guys chose the snapping turtle,” I said, “but tell us why you chose the snapping turtle.”

“The snapping turtle was the one I was dreading the most,” Chris said, “but we all knew it had to be the snapper because, for one thing, that was the worst one. Also there’s a monster turtle called Gamera in those Godzilla movies. So Pontiusaurus had to face Gamera.”

“How was work today, honey?” And you think your job sucks? Photo: Sean Cliver (2021)

In the world of Jackass, success is measured in failures—the greater the failure, the greater the success. So one is contractually obligated to choose the worstest, most wrongerest option in any scenario.

“Obviously it hurt, but did the turtle inflict any permanent damage. Do you have any battle scars?” I asked.

“No, it didn’t scar,” Chris said. “It put a little indentation in it, but it went away.”

“So who won,” I asked, “Pontiusaurus or the snapping turtle?”

“I’d say the snapping turtle won,” Chris said, laughing. “Pontiusaurus simply approached Gamera but didn’t really have any means of attack for it. I think he might have used all his weapons. Someone had to stop Pontiusaurus, though, and it was Gamera, friend to all children.”

“Oh, that’s right, Gamera was a nice monster, huh?” I recalled. “Speaking of, how did your wife feel about all these people and monsters touching and biting your penis—her penis?”

“She also got to touch it,” Chris said. “She actually helped remove the makeup, which was nice because removing the makeup took a little more elbow grease and I wouldn’t want those guys rubbing my penis in that way. And I wasn’t comfortable with the guys being nearby while I was getting my makeup removed because—to be honest with you, Dave, it feels pretty all right.”

To learn more about the wild Pontiusaurus, visit chrispontius.com and see Jackass Forever on whatever stream-o-vision platform you enjoy. —Dave Carnie