I consider the two of us friends at this point, so I think I'm finally ready to share one of my favorite things with you: Ellen DeGeneres scaring Eric Stonestreet. It might not sound like a big deal, but it is for me — showing you this is basically the equivalent of bringing a boyfriend home for Thanksgiving to meet my parents. And the boyfriend isn't Stonestreet or DeGeneres — it's actually the hilariousness of this bit. I guess Stonestreet, who's famous for portraying Cam on Modern Family, is easily frightened, and since DeGeneres basically subsists on a diet of jumping out at people and pranking her guests, Stonestreet is one of her favorite people to terrify, and she's been particularly relentless with him. It's the kind of thing that would make me feel bad if it wasn't so incredibly hilarious.
Because it is. I don't laugh out loud at many things, but Stonestreet's shrieks followed by his indignant anger that it happened again and DeGeneres laughing so hard that she can't even speak is one of them that gets me every time. These two just go together, like peanut butter and jelly... like, if peanut butter's favorite thing to do was to scare jelly half to death every time jelly turned its back for one second.
You might think I'm exaggerating, but there's enough footage of this phenomenon at this point that you can see for yourself: DeGeneres scaring Stonestreet is definitively the best thing ever:
The First Time
Worth the wait because of the costume and how much he's not expecting it — but we're just getting started...
The Time She Literally Warned Him First
Not only did they talk about the last time she scared him, but she said the word "scared" repeatedly right before it happened. I love it.
The Time He Came Prepared
Or so he thought! Stonestreet brought friends to clear out the backstage area and make sure no one came from there to startle him... but DeGeneres was already five steps ahead of him.
The Mother Lode
This is the most recent, and I gotta say — it's pretty spectacular. DeGeneres explains it all in the video, but to set it up a bit: every year she sends her producer Andy Lassner through a haunted house because it terrifies him and it's amazing, and this year she had Stonestreet join him. SO GOOD.
Oh man. I just love these. Particularly the haunted house ones, but really any time someone tells Ellen seriously not to scare them anymore, and she finds a way to do it anyway. What a delight.
Image: TheEllenShow/YouTube
