Television series
Wildboyz
Two Jackass alumni fly around the world provoking wildlife, eating whatever's put in front of them, and getting bitten, stung, and mauled for MTV's cameras. It's Wild Kingdom crossed with a frat house dare, gleefully juvenile and shockingly stupid, with real affection for the animals underneath the chaos. For fans of gross-out stunt comedy who don't mind nudity, bodily fluids, or genuine peril.
If you liked this
Jackass2000
This is the mothership - the crew, the anarchic house style, the genuine camaraderie under all the bruises. If Wildboyz was your gateway drug, this is where the addiction actually started.
But More parking-lot stunts than exotic wildlife, so if animals were the draw here, you might miss the travel angle.
Jackass Number Two2006no page yet
The stunts get bigger, meaner, and somehow funnier, with Steve-O and Chris Pontius still very much present and still very much unbothered by dignity or safety.
But It's concentrated gross-out rather than travel adventure - no distant countries, no animal encounters, just pure pain.
Jackass Forever2022no page yet
Two decades on, the crew is older, slower to heal, and somehow still doing this to themselves - there's something oddly moving about the loyalty of it all.
But The nostalgia lands hardest if you already know the original cast; newcomers might find it thin without that history.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Mondo Cane1962no page yet
Wildboyz's globe-trotting stunts with wildlife and 'native peoples' descend directly from this film's template of traveling to the exotic to film the shock. Mondo Cane invented the queasy pleasure decades before MTV cashed in on it, and watching it makes plain exactly what's uncomfortable in the show you loved.
The original shockumentary - an Italian film touring the world's strangest rituals and cruelties for a paying audience, decades before anyone thought to do it with a camera crew and a death wish.
But It's genuinely uncomfortable rather than funny, staged in places, and its gaze at other cultures reads worse today than it did then.
More like this (6)
Viva La Bam2003no page yet
Same MTV chaos energy, different ringleader - Bam Margera turns his own house and hometown into a stunt playground with the same crew of lunatics along for the ride.
But More prank and property destruction than wildlife encounter, so the nature half of Wildboyz's appeal is mostly absent.
Dirty Sanchez2003no page yet
The UK's answer to Jackass, with a Welsh accent and an even higher tolerance for pain - somehow both funnier and more alarming than the American original.
But Rougher production values and a smaller cult following mean it can feel scrappier and harder to track down.
Fear Factor2001
Contestants eat bugs, wrestle fear, and dangle over heights for cash prizes - a slicker, network-safe cousin to Wildboyz's animal-adjacent dares and disgusting challenges.
But It's a competition show with strangers, not a buddy comedy, so the loose, improvised friendship at Wildboyz's core is missing.
Ridiculousness2011no page yet
Rob Dyrdek and friends riff on viral stunt clips from around the internet - basically Wildboyz's spiritual descendant, minus the actual travel and real danger.
But It's commentary on other people's stunts rather than the crew doing their own, so the hands-on chaos is one step removed.
Grizzly Man2005
Same basic dare as Wildboyz - a person deliberately closing the distance with a dangerous wild animal - but Herzog treats it as tragedy rather than punchline, asking the question the show never bothers to.
Werner Herzog's devastating documentary about a man who loved grizzly bears so much he moved in among them - funny, tragic, and unbearably moving all at once.
But There's no comedy relief here; the ending is real and it lands hard, so it's not a light watch by any measure.
The Amazing Race2001
Strip out the stunts and animal encounters and what's left is the travel-show skeleton Wildboyz was built on - real places, real disorientation, strangers reacting to Americans abroad. Same engine, family-network costume.
Teams race around the globe through the same kind of chaotic, unpredictable locations Wildboyz visited, minus the nudity and animal wrestling - pure fish-out-of-water travel adrenaline for the whole family.
But It's squeaky clean and competition-driven, so anyone missing the gross-out anarchy and animal stunts will find this tame by comparison.
