Here's the long-running Paul Rudd Mac And Me gag explained, where the actor always trolls Conan O'Brien with the same clip from the infamous 1988 kids movie. In the summer of 1982, audiences were given the choice between two very different tales of alien visitation. The first was John Carpenter's The Thing, a remake of The Thing From Another World. The movie received weak reviews at the time and was a box-office disappointment, but is now rightfully regarded as a horror masterpiece.
The other movie was E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, where a stranded alien befriends a young boy (Henry Thomas). The movie was directed by Steven Spielberg and the concept actually evolved from an unmade horror movie featuring aliens called Night Skies. The movie is considered one of Spielberg's best and is a heart-warming adventure story. It was also released a couple of weeks prior to The Thing, and its positive reception is considered by some to be a reason the latter horror epic didn't go over very well with audiences.
The movie's success later inspired the truly insipid Mac And Me, where an alien befriends Eric (Jade Calegory), a young, wheelchair-bound boy in L.A. It received terrible reviews for blatantly ripping off E.T., its poor script and blatant product placement - especially for McDonald's. It's got a cult following now, with Paul Rudd being particularly fond of one scene. In fact, during his very first appearance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, he's always shown this scene - which sees Eric rolling down a hill in his wheelchair before flying off the edge and landing in water - instead of the project he should be promoting.
The Paul Rudd Mac And Me bit is now a beloved recurring gag and is only funnier for just how pointless it is. During a conversation with the host on podcast Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, Rudd went into his initial reasoning for using the clip. He felt there was something naturally insincere and silly about the idea of showing up and selling his latest project on a TV show, and he got the idea of playing a clip from something else for fun, which is where he thought of Mac And Me.
Paul Rudd and Conan are equally surprised by how long their Mac And Me gag has been running, but there's no sign of its stopping. The movie also achieved another level of infamy in 2018 where an alternate ending was unearthed on Japanese VHS, which depicted Eric accidentally being shot dead by a cop. This clip soon went viral, but - perhaps understandably - it hasn't replaced the typical Mac And Me clip whenever Paul Rudd appears on Conan.