About

I Can Break These Cuffs is a catchphrase associated with an episode of Cops where a man with dwarfism attempted to break out of his handcuffs. It has inspired several video remixes, and YTMND pages.

Origin

The American television show "Cops" follows police officers during their daily patrols. On February 17th, 2007 an episode entitled "Tough Takedowns Special Edition", a man with dwarfism who had been previously arrested for solicting money. Officer Evan Rosenthal saw him waving down cars and wanted to see if he was asking for money. The man fled, climbed a pole, and performed a backflip. Eventually the man was put in handcuffs, resulting in the now famous line.

The video on Milk and Cookies also shows the police officer trying to help the man find a job.

Y T M N D fad

The line really took off on YTMND. The first site was called I CAN BREAK THESE CUFFS and it was created by user Nitros14 on the 1st of May 2007. Alas, the fad didn't catch on until mcroix created You can't break those cuffs in June of the year after the first site. The first parody was you CAN break those cuffs by sghawkeyes.

Notable sites

https://thismanisamidgetifyoudidntknow.ytmnd.com/

http://cuffs.ytmnd.com/

http://icanbreakethisstockade.ytmnd.com/

http://ibrokethesecuffs.ytmnd.com/

http://thesecuffs.ytmnd.com/

http://crustmnd.ytmnd.com/

Or watch many of them one after another here. (Embedding disabled)

Media