In the process of making A Tribute to Ryan Dunn, boxes of archived tapes were dusted off and cracked open so hours and hours and hours of raw footage could be pored over to find elusive, rare, and never-before-seen moments with Dunn. Anything and everything from a casual look and an easy smile to full-fledged bits that never made a final cut—or, in some cases, not even bonus material.
So much has been filmed over the years though, that even seasoned vets such as myself can't always recall what did or didn't make the grade, like Dunn's ill-fated run-in with an eyeful of bear spray. I mean, I definitely know it didn't make the theatrical release of jackass the movie in 2002, but I could've sworn it was at least thrown into the bucket of added value slop that accompanied the subsequent DVD release. However, others claim otherwise, the sum total of which equates to a modern day definition of "fact" by commonly accepted Wikipedia standards. Hey, if grammar can go the way of the dodo, why not everything else once held near, dear and aspired to? LOL! FML! OMG! ROTFPMASDOMA! Yep, that's right, I'm rolling on the floor peeing myself and shitting dicks out my ass—thank god I can now cram all that wordy crap into a handy-dandy acronym.

Anyway, while scouring my own archives and flipping through binders of 35mm slides from jackass the movie, I assembled a little photo blow-by-blow of Dunn's "Bear Spray" bit. This was the very first thing we'd filmed on arrival in West Chester, PA—on a butt cold, blustery late afternoon in February 2002—and it couldn't have gone worse for poor Ryan. He went from cute and cuddly bear...

...to irritated and tearing mess in just seconds flat.

Johnny Knoxville equated his red pepper spray incident from 1997's "Self-Defense Test" to having gonorrhea of the eyes, but it's safe to say Ryan's grizzled optic nerves were similarly swimming in an STD simile of backstreet San Francisco bathhouse proportions. He eventually regained his vision though, just in time to hit the bowling alley and strike out big-time.
A Tribute to Ryan Dunn premieres on MTV Monday, November 28, at 10:30pm ET/PT.
(Photos* by Sean Cliver; West Chester, Pennsylvania 2002)
* Except for the photo of bear-masked Dunn in shades—that was taken by Benzo.