Hey, Ed.
What's happening?
It's a little early birthday gift for you.
Oh, wow.
Just what effort you went to.
That's from right on the lot, Pequito Mas.
[LAUGHS]
It was easy.
Thank you so much.
That's so nice of you.
You're welcome.
This is my birthday gift?
[LAUGHTER]
It is, from me.
Yeah.
I hope you get something else.
Yeah.
[LAUGHS] OK.
I couldn't give you the house.
Yeah, I'm waiting for your house.
I wanted to--
Ellen wanted to buy my house a few years ago for Porsche.
Yes.
So her birthday is next week.
So maybe--
[LAUGHTER]
My wife would kill me.
Really?
You don't even use it!
You're not even there.
I do.
I use it a little bit.
It's a tiny little house, and it's a great house.
And I'm envious.
I'm not envious that often, but I'm envious of this house.
Well, I was going through your book backstage on your homes.
Yeah.
You're doing OK.
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
That's a beautiful book.
Yes.
And that home, if I owned it, would be in that book.
Can you imagine?
[LAUGHTER]
Yes.
I would add it to my book.
So thank you for the birthday gift.
And--
I have to say, I'm a little insecure today,
because normally--
I've been on the show a number of times,
and I've always had some funny things
that happened to me that were said in a way, but funny.
Do you know-- OK.
If you didn't know this-- so Brittany Spears goes up
to him in an airport and says, "Can I get a picture?"
And he just thinks she's some girl that wants a picture.
[LAUGHTER] So he takes the picture, and this goes viral.
It goes-- and he has no idea who she is.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
I mean, look at--
he's thrilled.
Look at his face.
He is absolutely--
And so the next day, my manager sent me this and said,
"There's 53,000 likes."
I said, "Who is it?"
[LAUGHTER]
First of all, I didn't even know what likes was.
He had to tell me what it was.
He said, "That's Brittany Spears."
I said, "Oh my God."
But anyway, there was--
I have a similar story.
OK.
And that was some years ago, I went
to my favorite Italian restaurant in the evening,
and it was getting dark.
And I recognized a friend of mine
who was sitting out front with his wife,
and there was a kid sitting next to him with his wife,
I assumed.
But I couldn't see them well.
It was getting dark, and I sat down.
And the kid that I thought I knew, but wasn't sure,
it was a black kid, and he was talking on a cell phone.
So I'm now talking to my other friend, and he says, "Ed,
would you say hello to my brother?
He's a huge fan, and he wants to say--"
now I hate this, because you don't
know who you're talking to.
And I said, "Yeah, sure.
I'll say hello."
So I get the phone, I said, "Hi."
"Hi, Mr. O'Neill.
Oh my God, I love your work."
And I said, "Thank you, thank you very much."
"Yes, and I hope you're successful in everything
you try to do.
And I really watch."
I said, "Thank you very much, thank you.
Listen, I got to go now.
See you."
And I hand the phone back to the kid.
And he gives me kind of a funny look like, "That was weird."
And my friend says, "So, Randy, what are you going to do--
you're going out of town next week?"
And I go, "Randy?
Randy Jackson."
It was Michael Jackson.
[AUDIENCE GROANS]
Yeah, got to go, Michael.
Don't--
[LAUGHTER]
Not, "I love your work."
Not "Geez, haven't you had a wonderful career?"
Just, "Yeah, hey, you know, I got to go."
[LAUGHTER]
Wow.
That was--
Yeah, no, that's sad.
[LAUGHTER]
That's a sad story.
I mean, it is-- you're right.
You have sad and funny stories.
It's a mixture.
Yeah.
And then I had another one too.
Who?
I went to Sarah Hyland's birthday party,
and this beautiful young woman came up to me.
Now when I go to these things, I don't look at people closely.
It's sort of-- it's a bit overwhelming
if there's a lot of people there you don't know.
Some celebrities.
And so this woman came up to me and said, "Hi," again.
"Nice to meet you."
And I would say, "Hi, yes.
Nice to meet you."
And I know she's famous, but I can't place her.
It's "You want a selfie?
Let's do a selfie."
I said, "Sure."
So I do, and then I text my daughter Sophia,
because she tells me--
Who that was.
--who that was.
And I said, "I desperately need to know a name,
so that when I leave and say the name."
Yeah.
"Wonderful to meet you."
And so I don't know if you have the picture.
[LAUGHTER]
And she said, "I'm having you committed."
[LAUGHTER]
So you really didn't recognize Taylor Swift?
No.
I mean, again, I only see them when they're performing,
you know?
Yes.
So when you see them in the backyard--
Yeah.
I wasn't-- I thought it's a pretty girl, but I--
Yeah.
You see, I'm-- and again, it's old.
I'm getting old.
No, it's not old.
I do-- no.
And I think it's just we meet a lot of people,
and I'm sure you get the same thing.
Like people go, "Ellen!"
And I don't know if they're, "Ellen!" because they know me,
or "Ellen!" because they're fans.
And so I go, "Oh, hey!"
And I don't know that balance of how to say, "Hey, I know you,"
or "I don't."
Well, I did say "Nice to meet you, Taylor," when I--
Yes.
--left the party.
Well, that's-- so you knew the name?
That's good.
[APPLAUSE]
All right.
You've celebrated your 200th show of "Modern Family."
It's a consistently great show.
[APPLAUSE]
Is this-- I hear that this is going
to be-- next year is going to be the last season.
We're contracted through 10, and then it's open ended,
but the feeling is that's probably going to be it.
Really?
Yeah.
From everybody?
Does anybody want to keep going?
No, no.
I mean, I don't know how they feel about going on, if we--
I just-- you know?
We're contracted through 10, and then we'll see.
But I don't know.
Through 10 this year, or 10 next year?
No, this is our ninth year.
We're finishing our ninth--
Right, right.
--in March.
And then I think--
and then we're going one more.
Right.
So that would be 10.
Yes.
I see what you mean.
I thought you meant 10 episodes.
And I did 11 on "Married With Children."
Yes.
That's a lot of--
You've picked a lot of good shows.
Well, I mean, it was complete luck.
And then what will you do next?
Will you keep working?
This is the question I've been getting.
And I tell people I've never made a plan in my life.
I've never-- I just don't make plans. .
You know?
It's like we'll see what happens.
Yeah.
Wow.
I mean, plans don't usually--
my plans don't usually work out.
Well, the plans that did work out were good.
I mean, like the fact that you didn't have plans,
and you did "Married With Children" for 11 seasons,
and now you're doing this for 10 seasons.
Yeah.
That's-- we should follow your path of no plans.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, when I read this--
when I went and met the producers, I said--
Lloyd and Levitan.
I said, "Look.
You know, guys, this is a courtesy meeting."
Now you know, you're not supposed to say that.
But I didn't know that.
And I said, "Because I did the sitcom already, I did 11 years,
I don't want to do another one."
Yeah.
And they just laughed.
And they said, "Well, would you read it when we write it?
It'll be about a year from now."
And I said, "Of course, I'll read it."
Because their reputations were great.
"Frasier" and "Golden Girls," just shoot me.
And so a year later, I get this script,
and I thought, "Oh, this is that show."
So I read it, and I said, "I got to do it!"
This is why they have courtesy meetings.
Yes.
So anyway, I called my manager, and I said, "I
think I have to do this show."
He said, "Too late!
They're after Craig T Nelson."
Oh, no.
And I said, "OK, well, you know, that's OK."
And then a week later, they came back to me.
And they said that Craig couldn't make the deal,
and they're back to you.
I said "Do it."
So he said, "They're not paying you your quote."
I said, "Do the show.
It's a hit show.
We'll get even later."
Yeah.
I said, "Just do it.
It's a hit.
You can't miss."
And I had no clue who was in it, didn't know anybody
in it, nothing.
I just showed up and said, "It's a hit show."
You were right.
I was.
I haven't always been right, but I was right with that one.
Yeah, no, that's good.
And you were right with our little movie
that we did with "Finding Dory."
I mean, he was great as--
[APPLAUSE]
--Hank.
That guy.
"Modern Family" airs Wednesdays at 9:00 on ABC.