Bloopers That Make Us Love The Ellen DeGeneres Show Even More

Ellen DeGeneres' beloved daytime talk show is hilarious on a bad day, but when things go wrong, it gets even funnier.

Whether it's Jennifer Lopez wiping her bronchitis germs all over a grossed-out DeGeneres, Justin Bieber shooting a t-shirt gun directly at a camera (on purpose?), Ashton Kutcher getting naked in front of DeGeneres' mom, or one of the show's notorious "scares" going wrong, anything can, and does, happen. And when things go bad, DeGeneres and company roll with it, reminding us why we love The Ellen DeGeneres Show so much — it never takes itself seriously. Heck, if you can crash a scooter on the set, get a knee injury, and still laugh about it? That's a show we want to watch.

Check out some of the most knee-slapping mishaps that have ever happened on Ellen. They're guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Just try not to laugh — we dare you!

When DeGeneres called an accountant named Keith Dickey to get answers to audience questions about taxes, the conversation took a majorly unexpected turn.

Things didn't start out on a great note to begin with, seeing that she cold-called Dickey, an H&R Block accountant, in the final days of tax season. After a brief conversation that featured clipped replies to DeGeneres' questions, she asked him to shout in his busy office, "Keith Dickey is the greatest accountant in the world!" She repeated herself a few times but all she got in reply was dead air. 

She finally got him to say it, then moved on to her next ask. She told him to yell, "I need a hug!" It was unclear whether he understood what she said, but instead of repeating it, he yelled, "I need a ho!"

DeGeneres and the audience were dumbstruck with shock, and before hanging up, she told him, "Good luck to ya, I hope that works out!"

Well, the guy was a stressed accountant during tax season, so maybe he meant what he said?

It's fair to say that megastar beauty Jennifer Lopez doesn't gross people out very often. But Ellen DeGeneres was pretty disgusted when Lopez sprung a major health reveal on her during an interview.

In 2014 conversation about how she deals with stage fright, Lopez said she takes a deep breath before going onstage, adding, "Especially when you have bronchitis like me, right now. Sorry."

DeGeneres didn't take the news well, making it clear she thought it was pretty icky, joking, "So glad I hugged you," and later in the interview wiping her hands repeatedly with a tissue. Probably not used to repulsing people, Lopez jumped in DeGeneres' chair, snuggling up and asking, "Are you a germaphobe?" DeGeneres replied, "No, but I don't want to get sick. ... I think most people, when someone says they have bronchitis, would do the same thing." 

Lopez was completely unapologetic, telling DeGeneres, "I wouldn't. I would be like, 'Oh, I feel bad for you.'"

Well there's a first for everything, and this might be the first time someone didn't want to get close to Jennifer Lopez!

Ellen is notorious for scares and surprises, both for the guests and staff, to the point that Glee actress Lea Michele once said after a particularly gnarly surprise, "That's it! I'm not coming on your show again. I can't."

The show has pranked everyone from Justin Bieber and Kristen Wiig to Halle Berry and Jake Gyllenhaal. When DeGeneres jumped out from behind a doorway in a bathroom, Taylor Swift was so shocked she slipped and fell on the floor! 

Actor Steve Carell decided that it was time to flip the script on DeGeneres and give her a fright of her own. While she thought she was introducing him, he crawled up behind her on set, jumping up from behind her chair, and the look on her face is pure magic!

But don't worry, DeGeneres wasn't about to let Steve have the last scare. The next time he paid her a visit, she hid in a bathroom and got him good! 

When you're dressed as an elf on national TV and accompanied by a life-size dancing mug of hot cocoa, you might think that things can't get more embarrassing. You would be wrong. A production assistant named Ryan found out the hard way that things can get worse... a lot worse.

DeGeneres is known for handing out amazing prizes on her show, and for a holiday-themed episode in 2008, she gave away a new flat-screen TV. The only problem? When Ryan rolled out the TV, accompanied by his dancing hot cocoa pal, the cart he was pushing toppled over, and the TV shattered in pieces all over the ground. Appearing to not believe his eyes, the PA kind of just stopped and stared, then hauled the cart back upright (with the broken TV left on the floor) and merrily danced back offstage.

DeGeneres laughed so hard she cried, then pointed to the broken TV and told the audience, "And one of you is getting this!"

In a flashback segment many years later, she said that Ryan was "brand-new" to the job when TV-gate happened, but it sounds like things didn't work out too badly for him — he was still working at the show in 2014.

Ellen DeGeneres loves to mess with everyone on her show, but sometimes her ideas backfire. When she decided to play a pretty crazy prank on the show's executive producer Andy Lassner, things went very, very wrong.

DeGeneres had been riding an electric scooter for a previous segment, and rode it onto the set. She later explained, "I thought it would be fun to pretend to run over Andy ... in a nice, loving way."

But instead, she ended up plowing full-speed into a crowd of people, and rather than running over Andy, he jumped out of the way and she crashed the scooter into a corner of the set!

Things only went downhill after the accident. She later recalled, "My knee got caught and I was trying to get off, but I was still kind of going, when I realized, 'Oh it's still going! I'm stuck!"

The next day, she revealed that she was suffering from a "purple, swollen knee" and said that while she hadn't previously needed a scooter, she did now!

Giant prop mascara wands should come with a warning — you shouldn't really put them in your eye! But that's what DeGeneres did when she and Modern Family star Sofia Vergara filmed a fake Cover Girl ad.

"Das Bomb Shell" was a spoof avant-garde ad for German audiences, and featured Vergara and DeGeneres dancing around with pretzels and giant mascara wands. Ellen joked, "We're both easy, breezy Cover Girls. I'm breezy and she's easy."

But the real entertainment was to be found in the outtakes. Ellen pretended to use a giant mascara wand on Vergara's eye, but apparently got a little too close for comfort. The wand seemed to snag Vergara's eyelashes, causing one eye to go wackily off-kilter.

Vergara exclaimed, laughing, "Look what you did now," then asked Ellen, since she couldn't see herself, "Am I okay? It's okay?"

DeGeneres was honest, replying, "No, it's not okay."

Luckily, it sounds like Vergara didn't suffer any longterm effects, as both eyes seem perfectly fine on later seasons of her ABC sitcom Modern Family.

When DeGeneres took her show on the road to New York in 2015, Justin Bieber stopped by and the audience predictably went wild for the pop star. They decided to reward the fans with t-shirts, making it fun by blasting them into the audience with T-shirt guns.

The first few shots went fine, as they both merrily pointed the guns into the air and the T-shirt balls launched high over the cameras into the crowd. But then Bieber got a determined look in his eye, and appeared to take dead aim for a camera. He pulled the trigger and the T-shirt shot straight into the lens, apparently breaking the outer layer. A look of surprise came over Bieber's face, but he sure did seem like he knew where he was pointing... so was it really an accident? Even The Hollywood Reporter wondered about that in a 2015 write-up of the incident.

It may end up being one of the great mysteries of the universe, but it sure was funny, regardless!

Sometimes the funniest moments happen offstage. Richard Simmons, who has in recent years stayed out of the public eye, was known throughout his career for his exuberant and bubbly personality.

During one visit to Ellen in 2007, he wrapped up his segment, and while DeGeneres was still taping, he continued to dance around backstage. Wearing a holiday-themed sweater paired with short-shorts, he boogied around comically, waving a striped winter scarf in the air. 

But things went wrong when, dancing backwards, he mistook a fabric drape for a wall, and crashed suddenly to the floor. Producers rushed to his side, asking if he was okay, and he replied sheepishly, "I thought it was a wall! Oh my God." But while he seemed shaken, he took it all in fun.

Ellen gave an update on Simmons' health on her next show, reporting, "He's okay, he's alright." She added, "He thought he was going to shimmy down a wall, and it was not a wall."

Oops!

Actor Ashton Kutcher gave Ellen DeGeneres and her mom quite the surprise (peep) show during a backstage chat. 

He visited the show in 2011 for the season premiere of Ellen, wearing only a robe, showed DeGeneres a nude ad he'd shot for Two and a Half Men, then said, "It's getting a lot of attention, so I just figured, I'm going to do everything nude from now on."

DeGeneres replied, "I don't know if that's a good idea. I mean, really?"

But despite her words of caution, he suddenly dropped the robe, appearing to get fully nude with an impressive six-pack on display. The camera then panned, showing Ellen's mom Betty DeGeneres staring wide-eyed from the couch.

Ellen hustled her mom out of the room, but mama DeGeneres didn't seem too offended by the stunt. In fact, she seemed perfectly happy to stay and enjoy the view! 

While all the scares on the Ellen show are funny, they're extra hilarious when things don't go according to plan. 

Country music legend Garth Brooks pranked Ellen staffer Tracy when he appeared in a "mirror" (actually a window) she was standing right in front of. She got so freaked out that she fell on the ground, and ever the gentleman, Brooks came around and offered her a hand up.

Tracy's co-workers decided to pay Brooks back, so the next time he appeared on the show, a male staffer hid in a side table next to his chair during his interview. The plan was simple: he'd jump out during the interview and scare him. But that's not quite what happened...

Unfortunately, as he jumped out, he lost his footing and fell face-first into the floor behind Brooks. He wasn't scared at all, but instead seemed concerned for the possibly injured prankster. The fallen staffer jumped up quickly and ran offstage in apparent embarrassment, while Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres laughed. DeGeneres commented, "That was the worst scare we've ever done. It didn't work in any way."