You might guess that the creators of a popular video series that was based on the premise of paying homeless men to beat each other up might not be built of the highest moral fiber, and you’d be right. This week, Bumfights creators Ryan McPherson (31) and Daniel Tanner (33) were arrested in Thailand for trying to mail an infant’s head and other body parts from Thailand.
A parcel delivery company in Bangkok put three packages bound for the United States through a routine X-ray and made a startling discovery: preserved human parts, including an infant’s head, a baby’s foot and an adult heart.
The body parts were stolen from the medical museums of one of Bangkok’s biggest hospitals, its administrators said late Monday.
Police Col. Chumpol Poompuang said the sender was a 31-year-old American tourist, Ryan McPherson, who told them he had he found the items at a Bangkok night market. Police tracked down McPherson after being alerted by the shipper, DHL.
See, this is why I only use FedEx for my dead baby heads. Anyway, McPherson and Tanner were questioned by police for a few hours before being released, and have since traveled on to Cambodia. The dean of the medical hospital said the two had visited the medical museum, but that surveillance footage didn’t show them taking anything away.
According to DHL, the parcels were declared as “Puzzle-unlimited collectors ED”, “Steamer Cap” and “Antique Train Collector E.” [TalkingPointsMemo]
Creative. As for Bumfights, the pair made “millions” according to TMZ. TPM adds that they “claimed sales of about 300,000 copies at $20 each,” which adds up to six million, a figure that jibes with a 2005 Street Spirit piece saying “the first video, ‘Bum Fights,’ grossed over six million dollars in one month.”
The two, along with two other Bumfights producers, settled a lawsuit by some of the men depicted in their videos in 2006, and pled guilty to misdemeanor battery in 2002 and were fined $500 and sentenced to community service at a homeless shelter. In 2005, McPherson and Zachary Bubek were sentenced to 180 days in jail for failing to complete their community service.
Tanner and McPherson are not to be confused with the Bumfights producer who got kicked off Dr. Phil when he showed up dressed as Dr. Phil. That was “Ty Beeson,” an “investor” to whom McPherson and Co sold their rights, and about whom McPherson reportedly said, in an interview no longer online, “they were extorting us and doing a bunch of shady sh*t.”
You have to wonder what a guy who got his start filming homeless people smash into things considers “shady.” It’s so perfectly fitting that the Bumfights guys got arrested for essentially trying to act out a dead baby joke.