Ho, ho, ho or ha, ha, ha?
John Krasinski and Jimmy Kimmel's Christmas prank war escalated Tuesday when the actor appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to recount some of the tricks he played on the host this year. In a tradition that began four years ago, the former neighbors have turned each other's homes into winter wonderlands, faked crashing a car and more, forcing them to up the ante in 2015. "I was under the impression it was, like, my turn this year to do something to you," Kimmel said. The Hollars director laughed and told his friend, "My greatest joy about this year's prank is that we alternate, and I robbed you of the joy. And when I did the prank to you I remember seeing your eyes like, 'That's really funny. I hate you.'"
Kimmel had planned to make the first move. "Because I knew you were coming I was like, 'Oh, we gotta do something to John when he's here,' and I was concocting a thing," he explained.
Krasinski beat him to the punch Tuesday afternoon. As Kimmel worked in his office, a harness lifted a half-naked Santa Claus into the air and dangled him—and his holly berries, if you will—in front of a window. "What the f--k is going on here?" Kimmel asked before shutting his blinds.
"That was much more graphic than it appeared on television," he said.
Krasinski clarified, "That wasn't me."
The pranks had actually begun several days before. In the next clip, Kimmel returned to his dressing room after Monday's taping and was getting ready to change. Hearing a clamor coming from behind a closed door, Kimmel became wary. "I am not going in this room. I don't know what's in here," he said. "It smells weird, though." He opened the door and saw a reindeer with a tag that read, "Ho, Ho, Ho! From, Your Secret Santa." The comedian laughed, pleading, "Enough already!" He later told Krasinski, "That thing crapped all over my bathroom."
In the third clip, a crew transformed Kimmel's office into the North Pole, complete with statues of poinsettias, polar bears statues and presents. When he arrived, Kimmel laughed at the scene. "Oh, my God! Foiled again" he joked. "Oh, my God. Oh, boy." He then opened a present with a tag that read "Open Me" as Krasinski, who was dressed in a nutcracker costume, popped out to scare his pal and cover him in fake snow. "What the hell?" Kimmel asked. "This was my office."
Kimmel wanted payback, and boy, did he get it.
The late-night host created a sign for a "celebrity yard sale" at Krasinski's home, with promises that there would be memorabilia, sex toys, appliances and autographed items for sale. "See if you recognize that address," Kimmel told his guest in studio. "That is your home address, John. And what we did is we put that on the Xerox machine—good ol' Xerox machine—and we printed out a couple hundred copies of this yard sale sign…and we posted them all over town."
Kimmel's crew spent Thursday distributing the signs everywhere from the La Brea Tar Pits to Pink's, from UCLA to Santa Monica Yacht Harbor. "I don't know if you need to sell anything, but we got a lot of them out there," Kimmel said. "The good news is, you're going to have an early morning tomorrow morning, John, at 6 a.m. tomorrow—and sometimes they show up early."
Krasinski, who pulled off his pranks without the assistance of wife Emily Blunt, said, "You know when you forget to laugh because all you're thinking about is, 'This is going to be so awful?'"
"Oh, and I have one other thing for you," Kimmel said. "One other surprise."
Cue the eggnog shower.
No harm, no foul. After all, the segment ended in a soggy embrace.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 on ABC.