This ‘Punk’d’ Producer Nearly Laughed in Ashton Kutcher’s Face When He Heard Kutcher’s Dumbest Prank Idea Ever

Ashton Kutcher’s public image has had a rough year due to his close friendships with and consistent support of convicted serial rapist Danny Masterson and alleged serial rapist P. Diddy, but not enough attention has been paid to the serious accusations against Kutcher himself — plagiarizing Wile E. Coyote’s work is no small transgression.

Guy Branum is an actor, stand-up comedian, comedy writer and producer who co-starred with Kutcher in the 2011 rom-com No Strings Attached and served as a segment producer for the ninth and final season of Punk’d. Those credits are important because, despite Branum’s hesitance to name any names in his recent viral TikTok captioned, “My Worst Hollywood Boss,” anyone with an internet connection and an IQ within 20 points of Kutcher could easily connect the dots and discover the culprit in Branum’s story about the funniest and dumbest prank idea pitched by a Diddy party co-host.

According to Branum, he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing right in Kutcher’s face and getting himself fired after the Punk'd host told Branum about the most Looney-Tunes-ass, paint-a-tunnel-on-a-brick-wall-bullshit prank plan that anyone who once begged a judge to let his rapist best friend off the hook has ever devised.

There are so many incredible and hilarious aspects of this story — like how Kutcher “already kind of didn’t like” Branum, “but he was scared of me, and I valued that” — but there’s truly nothing funnier than the subtext of the story and the mental image it creates. Seriously, imagine Kutcher seeing one of those optical illusion sidewalk art videos that were always going viral on FaceBook in 2012 and, either, A) genuinely believing for a split-second that there’s a dragon emerging from the street; or B) thinking that he’s super smart for noticing the dragon is an illusion and thinking that other celebrities might not be as bright as him.

Eventually, Kutcher’s fake earthquake idea did become a Punk'd sketch with rapper Drake as the target, but instead of using chalk art to simulate a chasm to the center of the earth, they put hydraulics in his car and filled a parking garage with a bunch of smoke and some random bullshit. Sadly, Kutcher could never quite figure out the logistics on his optical illusion idea, but, hey, at least he got to hang out with Drake!

Certified lover boy? Certified — well, you know.