Eric Stonestreet has a history of falling victim to Ellen DeGeneres' scare pranks on her talk show, but during his last appearance on Wednesday, he attempted to one-up his pranking nemesis by letting his two friends tag along to have his back. Unfortunately, things did not turn out as he had hoped.

The Modern Family star has guested on the Ellen show ten times, and three times in the past has fallen prey to Ellen's scare clown on Sept. 20, 2013, a scare dog on May 12, 2014, and even a scare mummy in a walk through a haunted hallway on Oct. 10, 2012 (he was asking for that one).

On his latest appearance on Sept. 24, determined not to ruin another pair of underwear, he brought along two of his friend's to escort him to the show. Paul and Stacy were to be his bodyguards for the day and were instructed by Stonestreet to create a perimeter backstage, and warn him should anything come along with intent to scare.

"We need a code word. If you see anything, you say, Eric, somebody's about to scare you!" he told his best friends before they left the stage.

Although Ellen promised her guest that nothing was going to come out to scare him, she certainly had other tricks up her sleeve.

Indeed, mid-way through the interview, sure enough, an evil, bright red-haired clown popped out of nowhere (well, actually, from inside a hiding place on a desk behind the on-set couches) to once again, cause the Modern Family star to squeal.

Backstage, his friends seems equally shocked, looking towards the cameras to show there was nothing they could to do. 

The moral of the story is, never attempt to circumvent Ellen's nefarious scare prank plans.

Other stars who have fallen victim to Ellen's scare pranks are Taylor Swift, Julia Roberts, Stacey Morgan, Josh Duhamel, and even her own resident DJ, Tony Okungbowa.