Everybody loves a good prank, as long as they're not
. Sometimes
, like when parents tell their kids they ate all their Halloween candy. And sometimes pranks are satisfying because they pack a political punch, like when jokesters added
to the Trump Tower gift shop. But the most impressive pranks are the ones that involve a ridiculous amount of time and effort.
Paul Rudd is famous for starring in several Judd Apatow comedies, as well as his current role as the Marvel superhero Ant-Man. But did you know the charming, handsome leading man is also a master troll? For the past fifteen years, he's been pulling off an incredible prank on Conan O'Brien's talk shows.
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When actors appear on a talk show, it's customary to show a clip from whatever movie they're plugging. However, whenever Paul appears on Conan, he does something different. He sets up the clip as if it's from one of his movies - like Role Models, Anchorman 2, or This Is 40 - but instead plays a ridiculous clip from the horrible 1988 science fiction movie (and blatant E.T. rip-off) Mac And Me.
In the clip, a little boy in a wheelchair goes careening down a grassy hill. He tries to stop the wheelchair, but the brakes snap. He screams, goes flying over the edge of a cliff, and plummets into the water below. Then the bizarre (and very cheap looking)
"Mysterious Alien Creature" (aka M.A.C.) pops up - who kind of looks like a melted Dobby The House Elf. Mac reacts, shocked, and without any context, it is absolutely hilarious.
Paul shows the same clip every time he appears on Conan. For fifteen years! He keeps tricking the incredulous host, assuring him that he's not going to show that stupid Mac And Me clip again. Sometimes he says he can't show it because the studio told him not to, and like Conan, we're all pretty convinced. And then what plays? You guessed it. The boy in the wheelchair flying over the cliff from Mac And Me.
"You're wasting everybody's time!" cries Conan, cracking up with laughter and face-palming from behind his desk.
[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9fqZlo60_8]]
The more Paul plays the clip, the funnier it gets. What makes it especially funny is how it annoys Conan. You can tell that, after fifteen years, the prank is slowly eating away at his soul. A couple years ago Paul stopped by to plug Ant-Man, and it seemed like he was really done with the Mac and Me gag. An actual clip from Ant-Man started playing. But then, all of a sudden, it cuts back to Mac and Me, except this time Ant-Man is spliced in the footage, luring the little boy in the wheelchair down that grassy hill.
[[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICdGABOiot4]]
But how did this get started? Paul recently revealed the genesis of the prank to his Marvel co-star
(aka Captain America). For the last two seasons of Friends, Paul played a recurring character. When he appeared on Conan, he told the audience he'd show them exclusive footage from the last episode of Friends, but instead played the infamous clip from Mac and Me. He hasn't stopped doing it since, and he probably never will!
Mac And Me was a critically panned box office bomb that most people would have totally forgotten. But thanks to this prank, the spectacularly bad movie lives on, and will probably be forever associated with Paul Rudd. As one person commented on YouTube, "I hope Rudd gets nominated for an Oscar and they show this clip before they announce the winner."
