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NARRATOR: Tonight on
"America's Dumbest Criminals," right away you know
this inmate's not
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going to get out early
on good behavior. No, this isn't Julia Child
making bouillabaisse.
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This concoction is a
recipe for disaster. And these pot smoking
workmen were in charge
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of installing a surveillance
system in a jail, and look how well it works. Oh, the crooks scheme and
scam like there's no tomorrow.
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But as you'll see, there's
always a catch here on "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
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[police radio] -Duh. NARRATOR: Now,
welcome your hosts for "ADC," Daniel
Butler and Debbie Alan.
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[applause] -Thank you. Thank you. So, what do you think about
my fancy statement, Debbie?
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[laughs] -I think it says,
help me, I've lost the other four Village People. -Oh, ho!
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That's cold, Debbie. It's really cold. No, no, see, we've
got a story tonight about a crook on a Harley.
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So I thought I'd dress
the part like Marlon Brando in "The Wild Bunch." -Yeah, but you're more
mild than wild-- of course,
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maybe if they made
Dockers in leather. -Hey, come on now. I think you're just
envious, Debbie.
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-I don't think so. -No, it's all right. You can admit it. Look, but old Dan
didn't forget you.
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I got you this
biker chick hat, OK? -I don't think so. -So you can join in
the biker chick look.
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Come on.
-No. -No, come on, come on, watch. Here we go. Huh? Huh? Hey. -OK, what do you think?
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-I don't think so, no. I just, uh, uh, I don't think
you're the biker chick type,
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you know? The best you could hope for
maybe, even with the hat, is like patrol mother
gone bad, I think.
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-Hey, maybe I like that. You, toddler! Run again and you're toast! -Oh, Debbie. Want to see my tattoo?
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-No. -No, no, no, really. -No, really. -No, here, I got it,
it was a little lick,
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lick it and stick it. I just haven't figured out where
to lick it and stick it yet.
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-While you're working on that,
I'll introduce the first story. You're about to meet a crew
of construction workers
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who were good at their jobs of
installing security cameras. In fact, they were too
good for their own good
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and that's why they
were caught on camera. -We've got a brand new jail
here in Benton County, Arkansas.
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-During the construction
of the jail facility, um, we received information
that two individuals who
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were installing the,
uh, surveillance equipment for the
jail were, were selling narcotics
and using narcotics.
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-We utilized our new
surveillance equipment that would, had been
installed in the jail.
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And you can see the two
individuals who are just pulling out of the,
the parking space.
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And there was an undercover
officer as well as a video surveillance,
which would watch them eat
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their lunch and then
they smoked a joint. -We'd go around to the
backside of the jail
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and, and, uh, kind
of surrounding them as they were starting
to leave out. -After the two were, were placed
under arrest for possession,
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the K-9 came in and
did search the vehicle. And we did find more,
um, narcotics and drug
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paraphernalia
inside the vehicle. -The dumbest part of
all this is the smoking marijuana at the new jail.
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[applause] -[inaudible]. "The Blair Witch Project" was
about a trio of young people
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who got in over their heads
in the Maryland woods, but forged on in
pursuit of answers.
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-Well, we've got a
duo of young people who get in over their heads
at a Louisiana country club,
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but commit forgery in their
pursuit of a free meal. -But their upward
mobility is about to take
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a sudden downturn. And just like the "Blair
Witch" filmmakers, they leave something
to remember me by.
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-Here in Louisiana, we
have some very nice, very exclusive country clubs. But early one morning this
year, we were called to one
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of those country clubs
after two teenage boys who were apparently
were skipping school
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had gone in, eaten a very hearty
and very expensive breakfast-- -It's the most
expensive thing on here.
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-Yeah, yeah. ---and then forged a
name on, on the account. Unbeknownst to them, the
owner of that account
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had already detected
unauthorized charges on his last statement
and had notified
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the country club to
be on the lookout. -Are you sure this is your card? -Yeah, that's mine.
That's mine.
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-Is that his account? -Yeah, that's my account. -So they simply stalled bringing
the gentleman their bill
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while we came and arrested them. The deputy was
somewhat merciful. Rather than booking them
with a felony of forgery,
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the deputy simply
issued them summonses for misdemeanor theft. Then he followed
them to high schools,
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as they were already
truant, and made sure they got where
they were going. The alternative, of course,
would have been letting them
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sample the breakfast
at the Parrish Jail. [applause] -I'll never forget that
threat-laced statement,
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you'd better not
step out of line. -Said by a teacher, biker boy? -Oh, who hasn't said
that to me, Deb?
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-It's probably true. Right now, let's look
at a bank robber who claimed he was armed,
but he definitely
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wasn't calling the shots. See what we mean. This bank robber seems
like he's in a hurry,
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but inside he'd been
ridiculously patient. He entered this
South Florida bank and announced that he
would detonate a pipe bomb
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unless the tellers
handed over their money. They responded that he would
have to get back in line if he
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wanted cash-- amazingly, he did. While the robber
waited, they slyly called police who had
time to get into position
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before the man made his exit. And his pipe bomb? Well, it turned out to be just
a cardboard toilet paper roll.
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Although he gets points
for being patient, he proves that a fool and
his money are soon parted.
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[applause] NARRATOR: In Houston, beer may
not be purchased after midnight on a Sunday, but it may
be purchased on a Monday.
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-So I'm not sure when
Monday begins in Houston, but I know when trouble
began for a guy who
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was about a half dozen
beers shy of a six pack. Watch as this gambling gourmet
gambles that police will
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swallow one of America's
dumbest excuses. -I was on patrol. I stopped at a red
light and casually
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glanced over at
the car next to me. There was a man driving. And he purposely looked over
at me, picked up a cooking pot
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and drank out of it,
looked over at me again and set the pot down. The light turned green.
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[squealing tires] I pulled him over, asked
for his driver's license, et cetera, asked
what was in the pot.
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And he very happily,
graciously complied and showed me what
was in the pot. It was full of beer.
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Apparently, he thought he'd
found a loophole in the system whereas he could pour a
six pack into the pot,
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and drink out of
the pot thinking that wasn't an open container. It, it's still an
open container.
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-No, no, that's supposed
to be in a bottle. That means open bottle. -Yeah, it's still
an open container.
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I think there was a
loophole in his thinking. [applause] -People who live in glass
houses shouldn't throw bricks.
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It's not a
particularly good idea for guys who think they can get
away with robbing convenience
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stores, either-- especially
on the kind of schedule this guy established. Here's tonight's
blue light special.
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-About 2:30 in the morning,
I'd been driving around, uh, the neighborhood on
our east side of town.
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Uh, and there's a Circle K
store in that neighborhood, and I'd seen somebody hanging
out by the phones at about 2:30
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that morning. And he was
distinctive, because he had a white hardhat, a
black leather jacket.
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Looked like he probably just
came off, uh, his night shift. About an hour
later, I got a, uh,
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an alarm that, uh, there had
been a glass break at 38th and Harlan, which is
the Circle K store.
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And went back over
there, but that gentleman was not there anymore. Um, so checked the door-- it
looked like somebody had taken
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a cinder block and
smashed it repeatedly. So I called for a
manager to come. And, um, talking with
her a little bit and here
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comes this character
back in the white hardhat and black leather jacket. I asked him if
there was anything
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I could do to help him. He said no, he just wanted
to see the excitement. And then he went over
and made a phone call.
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Said he needed to get a ride
home from work which I thought was unusual, since he
was there an hour before.
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But I went inside with
the clerk and, uh, and we looked at the
surveillance tape.
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She gets it backed
up to the, the place that we want to watch. As we get it to that
spot, there's my, uh,
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my character with
the white hardhat and the black leather jacket. You'll see here that
he, uh, is walking
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toward the, the doors
with a cinder block. And here he's throwing the
cinder block at the front door
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and it just
disintegrates, but he can't seem to get
that glass to break. So here you see he's
picking up the smaller
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pieces of cinder block. He's going to throw
that back at the door and, and that still
doesn't do it--
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they just disintegrate
on the door as well. So he gets frustrated,
and you can see here
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he walks up to the door and
he just starts kicking it with his boots and
that finally does it.
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So I got on the radio
right away and said, oh, this guy was just outside. Let me see if I can go get him.
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When I ran out the
front doors, he was just standing on the phone. I said, uh, get,
turn around and put
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your hands behind your back. So, uh, his night just
got progressively worse. [applause]
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-P.T. Barnum said that there
was a sucker born every minute, and those who run carnival
midways count on it.
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The people who operate
the games count on your money running out
before their luck does.
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But sometimes a game operator
doesn't leave things to chance. Ah, a new category
of crime for us.
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For the pros and cons
of carnival life, we go to Corporal Glenn Hester
in Glynn County, Georgia.
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-I was inspecting carnival
games at one of the local fairs that we had here. And one of the
operators had what
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they call a peach or
a bushel basket game. The object is to throw
a ball into the basket
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and if it stays, and you
can do it twice, you win. Well, I asked the
operator to go ahead
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and show me how it was done. Well, he's inside the booth
area so he tosses one in.
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I ask him, are players
allowed to be in the booth? He said, no, they
are where you are.
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I said, then come on out here. He came out to the
point of the player, threw one to the side
which was a cross throw.
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I showed him the
rules he had hanging. I said, remember, the rules
say no cross throwing.
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So he tried to throw one into
it without a ball already in it, and he couldn't do it.
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And I told him, I said, you
want to try another basket? He went to the other basket
that had the ball already in it,
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which will deaden the basket
so that it won't bounce out. Well, he got that one in.
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But then I showed
him the rule, you must throw into an empty basket. He tried again into
an empty basket.
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Finally, the only way he could
get it in was to hit the rim. But he had a rule which
says rim shots don't count.
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So I gave him a choice--
either shut it down and get it out or count the
rim shots, and he
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decided to go for the rim shots. [applause] -And now with the news. From the man who puts
the anchor in anchorman,
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here's Daniel with
the ADC headlines. [applause] -Two bogus businessmen
in Tennessee
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convinced dozens of people to
invest in a high tech diesel truck they claimed that they
were going to manufacture.
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The first sign of trouble? They periodically
siphoned assets off by simply making
large checks out to cash.
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More questionable was
that the hucksters claimed to be the half brother
of Sylvester Stallone
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and the cousin of Elvis
Presley-- two names not immediately associated
with advanced technology.
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Six lessons from a
genius in Amity, Oregon. Lesson number one,
don't drive drunk.
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Lesson number two, don't drive
off after officers stop you. Lesson number three, don't
fire upon the officers
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following you. Lesson number four,
don't abandon your truck and continue running on
foot through a muddy field
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on a cold night. Keep up with me now. Lesson number five, don't leave
your mucked up boots in the mud
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and keep running. Lesson number six, don't
further humiliate yourself by being caught sitting in
a freezing cold outhouse
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with toilet paper
wrapped around your feet. [laughter] Please. Your dignity takes a dive, OK?
00:12:53
All right, hunger put the bite
on a bank robber who made off with his haul, but decided to
stop for pizza-- a mere four
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blocks from the
scene of the crime. When police entered the
pizzeria as part of an area
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wide canvass, the crook got
nervous and tried to bolt. He was quickly nabbed
by the policeman,
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and by the 50 corrections
officers who had gathered there following a
golf tournament.
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And that closes the
file on ADC headlines, news ripped from
somewhere near the back
00:13:21
of your local newspaper. Debbie? [applause] -Remember Daniel's
motorcycle attire
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at the beginning of the show? Well, here's the story
we were talking about. Clearly, the guy on the
hog had been wearing
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his helmet too tight
to try what he tried. He wheeled his way right
into our special delivery.
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-Years before in
our old station, uh, during the summers, we used
to prop the front door open.
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There was this gentleman who
had an active warrant for him and he knew it. And he, we used to see him
drive around on his Harley
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all the time. Well, this, this, this
guy, he was just so attached to his
motorcycle that he, he
00:14:03
couldn't leave his motorcycle. So when he knew he was going
to get caught sooner or later,
00:14:07
and since he was so
attached to his motorcycle, he just decided to bring
his motorcycle with him,
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um, drive it
through a front door and took it in
the cell with him. Backed himself in the
cell with his motorcycle.
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This guy couldn't live
without his motorcycle, so he had to take it with him. But, um, we finally had
to take it away from him.
00:14:24
[applause] -When you think of a
masked crime fighter, who comes to mind-- Batman,
The Lone Ranger, Chicken Man?
00:14:36
Well, watch as we unveil
a new hero who's come out of the woods to
join their ranks.
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-Uh, My Partner Kim
and I were on, uh, bike patrol along
the Truckee River. Uh, we smelled the
burning odor of marijuana
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coming from along the river. When we rode down
there, we found two guys standing
along the river.
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Um, they obviously had
been smoking the marijuana, and they had the
smell all about them.
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We questioned them about
it and they denied it. Uh, we got a permission
to search from them.
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Uh, didn't find
anything on them. And during the search I
looked down along the river,
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and there was a raccoon sitting
along the bank with his hand in the water,
reaching in the water.
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I didn't know what he was doing. I went over there and looked,
and there was a marijuana pipe
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and a baggie of marijuana down
on the bottom of the river about a foot below the surface
that he was trying to get.
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Well I, uh, looked
over at the guys, and I said, hey,
the raccoon found your stuff that you
threw in the river.
00:15:30
And they just kind
of looked at me. I said, well, the raccoon
just got you arrested.
00:15:34
[applause] NARRATOR: Now, let's look back
at one of "ADC's" greatest hits. -Look at me.
00:15:44
I've stolen a car. Hey, and I'm a bad dancer, too. [police sirens] I'm on the run.
00:16:01
Hey, I don't know what
you're all mad about. I'm going to jail. Poor me. [applause]
00:16:17
NARRATOR: In Pennsylvania,
it's illegal to use dynamite to catch fish. -I was working off-duty security
at an arcade for young folks.
00:16:26
And part of my duties was
to stay inside, of course, and keep order. But another part was to
occasionally patrol the parking
00:16:33
lot and make sure the kids
weren't congregating out there, vandalizing
cars, or whatever.
00:16:39
As soon as I stepped
out the door, I could smell very
strong odor of marijuana. And about 20 or 30 yards
away, across the driveway,
00:16:49
there was one car
with one person in it. They was the only
people out there, it had to be where
it was coming from.
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There was no way
to sneak up on him. All I could do was walk in
plain view across the parking
00:17:04
lot to his vehicle,
so this is what I did. And I'm standing there, and
I observe that he's bent over
00:17:12
and he's rolling a marijuana
cigarette very, very carefully and very methodically.
00:17:18
And he's, he's like rolling
it two or three times. It was probably not
his first one today.
00:17:24
And he finally, he gets
it where he wants it, and he goes to
lick it to seal it.
00:17:29
He goes, oh, no! He just finished it and
hands me the cigarette, and that's another reason
they call me "Doob."
00:17:40
-Our final story takes us to
Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, where a cave holds
a dark secret.
00:17:46
-Aw, I love caves, don't you? All the cool formations. Did you know that
stalactites are
00:17:51
just drips that wouldn't quit? -Sounds like the
story of your life. -I learned that.
00:17:56
Now, ouch! Come on, you're picking on me. -No, you're always
picking on me. -Now, well, I like
that arrangement.
00:18:01
But look, all right, while I
recover from Debbie getting mean spirited on me,
let's take a look at we're
00:18:07
not making this up. -Several years ago, we
had a couple of guys that, that showed
up here and thought
00:18:15
they were going to
hijack this place. Um, I'm not really
sure where they thought
00:18:18
they were going to
take it, but, uh, they had some place in mind. So they came on down,
had a couple of shotguns,
00:18:23
blew a couple rounds off,
uh, demanded a, an airplane and, uh, a trip to Cuba
or Chile or someplace.
00:18:30
What we did for them was
we turned the lights out. They didn't think
that was too much fun
00:18:35
and, uh, ended up
giving themselves up. And what we gave them was a
free trip to town into jail.
00:18:40
To catch them, all we did was
turn the lights off on them. -What would you do? I mean, I wonder where you
hide a hijacked cave, huh?
00:18:48
Maybe you bury it. -Well, you work on that. Meanwhile, I'll say
our good nights, OK?
00:18:52
-Well, I'd like to personally
say many thanks to the bikers who may have been
offended by my attire
00:18:57
at the beginning of the show. I really, really don't
want you folks mad at me. Just a little joke.
00:19:03
-And we'd like to
thank the police officers who helped us tonight. Law enforcement is
a tough job, and we
00:19:08
appreciate your hard work. -Yep. And we'll be back next week with
a gang of new crook stories.
00:19:13
But if you can't wait until
then for more state of the art stupidity, visit our website.
00:19:18
You'll find us at
www.dumbcrimes.com. -As always, we
hope that we've all learned from others' mistakes.
00:19:24
-But if you haven't, we
just might see you next week on "America's
Dumbest Criminals."
00:19:29
-Bye bye. [applause]