Paul Rudd crashed Bill Hader’s final Conan performance. And you already know what he did. I mean, c’mon, Paul Rudd has been showing the same clip from Mac and Me on Conan O’Brien’s show (whatever network it may be on) since 2004. You didn’t think he’d let O’Brien leave without saying goodbye to Mac, did you?
The bit started with Hader recounting a sketch that he and Rudd had done at a dress rehearsal at SNL, called “Ed Burns’ Grill Boys.” The sketch was just Hader and Rudd pretending to grill food while talking in the cadence of an Ed Burns movie, and it bombed spectacularly. Hader asserted that it bombed because Rudd refused to do the high-pitched voice needed for the bit. Which is what prompted a tuxedo’d Rudd to cross the stage and register his disagreement with Hader’s recollection. Luckily, SNL tapes dress rehearsal, so Rudd asked if Conan wanted to judge the sketch for himself. But, of course, he was never going to see that sketch. He was going to see a kid in a wheelchair fall off a cliff yet again.
“It’s been like 25 years of you coming on the show,” O’Brien said. “You’d always say ‘I’ve got a clip,’ and every time, for years, I would be convinced that I would see the real clip, because you’re such a genuinely nice person. […] And then you pull that shit every time!” Rudd even brought his own Team Coco mug so that when the camera cut back to him, he’d be taking a big swig just like always. Now that’s commitment to the bit.