The Ridiculous Paul Rudd Mac And Me Prank On ⁦Conan O’Brien⁩ Explained

Beginning in 2004, Paul Rudd started trolling Conan O’Brien with a clip from a 1988 box office disaster called Mac and Me. Rudd was a frequent guest on Conan’s late-night talk shows and like many talk show guests, he always brought a clip from his latest film or project to share with the audience.

Rudd would tease the audience with something like an exclusive scene from the final episode of Friends or a clip from one of his movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Anchorman. But instead of showing his “exclusive” clip, Rudd would instead play a ridiculous scene from the movie Mac And Me of a boy in a wheelchair falling off a cliff. It was the same Paul Rudd Mac And Me joke every time he was on Conan. Rudd would set up a clip for Conan and the audience, but instead, he’d play the scene from Mac And Me.

Conan’s audience always delighted at seeing the scene. And Conan’s fake frustration just added to the moment. The long-running joke was the equivalent of a “Rick Roll”, but Rudd started doing the joke long before Rickrolling was a thing. Maybe we should call it a Paul Rudd Roll Mac And Me Roll?

The First Paul Rudd Mac And Me Prank

The “Paul Rudd Mac And Me” joke first began when Rudd was promoting the final episode of the hit NBC TV show Friends. Rudd played the love interest of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) in the series and was bragging to Conan that he had an exclusive clip from the final episode.

Everyone, including Conan, was very excited. Here’s a segment from Rudd’s February 6, 2004, appearance on NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”. Skip to 3:20 to see the Mac And Me clip.

Paul Rudd Mac And Me Compilation From His Conan Appearances

Over the years, Paul Rudd has played the same exact joke on Conan. He always sets up a clip but instead plays the scene from Mac And Me. Here’s a Paul Rudd Mac And Me compilation of most of his appearances on Conan’s various late-night shows.

The Paul Rudd Mac And Me Joke Being Explained To Chris Evans

What does Rudd’s costars in the Marvel films think of the joke? Here’s a clip of Rudd explaining the joke to Chris Evans, the actor who plays Captain America.

Paul Rudd’s EXCLUSIVE “Ant-Man” Clip

While other movie studios looked the other way and let the long-running “Mac And Me” joke play out, Disney was different. Rudd and Conan talked about the Marvel movie machine and how Disney wouldn’t allow him to show the same scene from Mac And Me. So while promoting the Marvel film Ant-Man, Rudd finally played a different clip after all these years.

Paul Rudd Pulls His Mac And Me Prank One Last Time On Conan’s Last Week As A Late Night Talk Show Host

In November 2020, Conan O’Brien announced that he was ending his TBS late night talk show. After 28 years, he was finally calling it quits. Although Rudd wasn’t booked as an official guest on Conan’s last week, he crashed Bill Hader‘s interview. The three of them reminisced about an SNL sketch that bombed when Rudd was a guest host. Rudd offered to play the clip of the sketch, but of course it was the Mac And Me clip. He did it again!

We are so happy that Paul Rudd got to do his Mac And Me prank one last time to Conan.

RIP Paul Rudd Mac And Me prank (2004-2021). It was a great piece of performance art that we got to enjoy for 17 years. Thank you, Paul Rudd!

The Official Mac And Me Trailer

We’re not sure what the creators of the film Mac And Me think about all of this. The mostly forgotten film from 1988 certainly keeps getting an extra boost of publicity from Rudd’s appearances on Conan. If you haven’t seen Mac And Me before, it’s basically a bad ripoff of Steven Spielberg‘s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). How bad? It has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

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