YMMV / Viva La Bam

• Condemned by History: The whole CKY Crew since about 2012. The Jackass antics keeping them relevant dried up after Ryan died, and Bam's Creator Breakdown caused him to fall out with everyone else.
• Funny Moments: Deserves its own page, but whenever Vito gets into his unintelligible mode is a good start, especially since even the subtitles can't keep up with his mumbling.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • One frequent source of comedy on the show and the commentaries was Ryan's driving abilities, or rather lack thereof. In June 2011, Ryan crashed his Porsche after a night of drinking, killing himself and a passenger.
    • When the crew steal April's car to get it pimped out, they tell her that Ryan has borrowed it. Her reaction is, "Ryan Dunn?! Who has flipped more cars than Evel Knievel." Previously, he had flipped a car with himself, Bam & Chris Raab inside in which they could have died (in the exact same location he DID die), as well as wrecking a motorcycle, then an expensive custom motorcycle.
  • Late in the series (thanks entirely to the "Mexico" episode), one of Don Vito's catchphrases became 'Molesta la breastas!' A couple years later, at an autograph signing, he did. Then he got arrested.
  • Basically every joke regarding Don Vito is this (morbidly obese, mentally disabled, perverted, drunk), as he was later arrested for sexually assaulting little girls, spent the rest of his life depressed, and then died an early death from massive organ failure (downing 50 shots of peach schnapps on-camera and being extremely overweight will do that to you).
  • There's an episode of Viva la Bam called "Don't Feed Phil!", where Bam goes out of his way to not have Phil over eat. During a segment with April as she's with friends, she mentions several reasons why Bam is doing this, one of them being that "He's afraid he'll look like his father". Years later, Bam would gain immese weight and look exactly like Phil. It could add to Fridge Horror considering Bam has spiraled down over the years following his fallout with the CKY members, his collapsed marriage and Dunn's passing. Thankfully in 2017 he healed the painful joint injuries that kept him from being active. He's even started skating again just for fun.
  • In the last episode of Unholy Union Novak breaks both ankles doing a skate stunt, which was played for laughs at the time, but the strong painkillers he was given restarted his heroin addiction so badly he didn't properly kick it again until 8 years later. And by an extent, Novak's relationship with Bam in general became this when the two had a very nasty falling out due to (allegedly argued by fans) Novak finally becoming sober from his heroin addiction while Bam has continued to spiral down into his own meltdowns.
  • The spinoff show "Bam's Unholy Union" is this: A show about Bam's upcoming wedding with his childhood sweetheart Missy Rothstein becomes depressing when they would later on get a divorce due to Bam's multiple girlfriends.
  • Even more harsher is in the last episode where he tells Joe Franz (a close friend of his) where he had a dream "about a spaceshuttle disaster", which Franz theorized is about Bam's fears of his marriage collapsing. This show came out in 2007, and only five years later...
  • Even worse, Steve O basically Lampshaded the fact that almost every Marriage associated with MTV were doomed to fail, and basically urged Bam not to go down that route, sure enough...^note For added irony, Steve-O's engagement with fellow MTV personality Kat Von D went equally badly
  • The entire show can be seen as this now considering that Bam fell out hard with most of the CKY Crew, Castle Bam being semi-left to April, Brandon Novak and Bam having a dark fall out after Novak finally was able to get clean off of heroin, and Bam himself undergoing what people call a Creator Breakdown after years of injuries, excessive drinking, and other factors. That's not even getting with Dunn's death in 2011.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Brandon Novak has always been seen as the residential addict, but in 2015, Novak decided to get clean from his addictions, and as of this writing, stuck true to it.
  • For all the insanity that he puts them through, Bam does loves his parents though he sometimes shows it in odd ways.
    • After discovering that his dad's favorite color is blue, he had the entire kitchen painted that color including dyeing all the food in the fridge.
    • After Successfully getting Phil to be upset about something (by destroying his beloved old car), Bam made up for it immediately afterwards by presenting him a new car, which all but made Phil forgive his son by kissing him on the cheek.
    • Him forcing Phil to go a day without eating seemed harsh, but April gets the sense that this is Bam's way of helping Phil, because Phil is such a big guy with an appetite, he's afraid of losing him because of it.
    • He made a bet with his mom that if she went a whole day without complaining, he'd subject himself to a fancy dinner with her. While the group did dial up their antics for the day, and April did snap and completely lose her temper, Bam made it so that April still won the bet in the end (by changing the clocks so she flipped out after already winning the bet).
    • The effort he went through to redo their anniversary after it was ruined. He takes them to Monaco, sets up a fancy dinner complete with wine from Romania that he drove there and back during a snow storm to obtain, and made sure to keep Don Vito from ruining it again by handcuffing him to a pier. Not to mention April standing up for Bam and everyone after Don Vito ruined the first dinner because, despite the antics, she knew Bam legitimately tried his best to put the dinner together.
  • While Don Vito was handcuffed to pier to prevent him from ruining April and Phil's anniversary dinner again, Bam made sure to have someone bring the guy dinner and beer to keep him occupied and that the pier could be seen by the group, both so they could keep an eye on him and to amuse April who doesn't like him.
  • And again when he sets up a host of crazy surprises for her birthday, all based on special moments from every decade of her life. At first they're all pretty much the usual absurd and even insulting prank, such as hiring Don Vito to be a nude model for her art class, and taking away her PT Cruiser and giving her a crappy Volkswagen Beetle like her first car. But at the end, they get her booked into a VIP room in Atlantic City, where her all-time favorite rockstar, Billy Idol, is playing, complete with him bringing her on stage and getting the crowd to wish her Happy Birthday. And like with their anniversary, he made sure Vito couldn't ruin the rest of her night by tricking him into popping out of a cake at the right time (Bam had left him in the parking lot of his favorite bar, so at least Vito could get some drinks for his trouble).
  • When Johnny Knoxville comes for a visit, and after trashing Bam's Hummer, Phil and, especially April, go from mild annoyance to immediate joy at Knoxville's visit.
• Ho Yay: Continued on from their time on Jackass, the guys frequently put themselves and each other in situations where they're in close proximity to one another with little or no clothing on.
• Memetic Mutation: During the show's heyday, it seemed like every other skater kid in America had a "Don't Feed Phil" shirt in their closet.
• Tear Jerker: Both on screen and off screen moments, but their are nothing short of sad and/or tragic.
  • Novak mentioning on his AMA about how he was stuck in jail when Ryan died and he had to basically watch as Bam broke down without his friends there to comfort him. (By this point Bam had fallen out with most of the CKY crew). The Margeras were also interviewed, and both April and Phil were absolutely devastated. April said as much saying "He was one of our kids."
  • April completely snapping before the Pirate Cruise episode after coming home to Castle Bam to find that Bam and the CKY Crew once again causing mayhem and being sick and tired of Bam's lack of empathy over what she does. The camera even cuts to her crying in her car and proclaiming that she quits.
  • Raab Himself fell on hard times after everything was over, he spent all the money he had earned and was reduced to being a waiter, not to mention battling some drug addictions. Like Novak, he managed to clean himself up and find a steady life for himself eventually.