Back in February, NCIS actors Michael Weatherly and Sean Murray briefly reunited for the episode on the 2024 TV schedule honoring the late David McCallum. This marked the first time these two have shared screen time on the popular CBS show since Weatherly exited in 2016. When they were both NCIS series regulars (revisit their episodes together with a Paramount+ subscription), the men who respectively play Tony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee had fun times both on and off camera. As an example of the latter, Weatherly shared how he and Murray used to prank each other on set using different foods, and I’m left feeling both disgusted and delighted hearing about this.
How Michael Weatherly Pranked Sean Murray
The latest episode of Off Duty: AN NCIS Rewatch, which Weatherly hosts with Ziva David actress Cote de Pablo, had Brian Dietzen, who plays Dr. Jimmy Palmer, on as its guest. During the trio’s chat, Weatherly recalled how he used Clif Bars to make it seem as though someone had paid an unfortunate visit to the bathroom in Murray’s trailer, explaining:
So Clif Bars are these granola, oatmeal-y kind of things, and if you get them warm you can really shape them into anything you want, very poo-like. So I would go up and I would take two of them and sort of flatten them out, and then I'd pop them into Sean Murray's toilet in his trailer. And then I'd go out and Sean would come in running from the car, like, ‘I got to go to the bathroom!’ And yet I knew that he was going to open his trailer and take a pee and pee on these two Cliff bars in the toilet. And then I would wait outside, and I would hear ‘Oh!” And then that meant that somebody went into your trailer and dropped a deuce. So Sean is coming out and I would just walk by.
It’s safe to say that the ability for them to be molded to look like boldly waste will never be used as a selling point for Clif Bars. Still, I admire Michael Weatherly’s prank game here, both for execution and timing. After all, if Sean Murray was needing to use the bathroom pretty urgently after shooting some scenes, that’s especially not a great time to be greeted with such a sight.
How Sean Murray Got Back At Michael Weatherly
If you thought that Michael Weatherly’s prank on the NCIS prank from way back when was gross, Sean Murray kicked things up a notch by mixing a Clif Bar with other foods to form his own concoction. As Weatherly recalled:
Then like a week later, I would go to my trailer and I'd open the thing. I’d sit down and I'd go [sniffs], and I'd be like, ‘What is that smell?’ And then I'd pull my pants up a little and look in the toilet and there was like a mess, like a hot mess. And I was like, ‘What? Somebody had diarrhea just in my trailer! Like left it didn't even flush it!’ So I went outside and I started calling for an AD. I'm like, ‘Somebody’s…’ And then I went back in and I looked around, and somebody had taken a boiled egg yolk and that sulfur smell, which had filled the hole. And then I looked around, like, that's chili and that's a little Cliff bar, and somebody had made a mess. And then I left my trailer and I walked into the squad room, and Sean was like, ‘How you doing, bud?’ And I was like, ‘How you doing, bud? And he's like, ‘Good, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning [looking over papers].’
Ok, now I’m properly grossed out! , I’m pleased that Sean Murray retaliated with something that both looked absolutely disgusting, but also smelled that way too. I wonder if this was just a one-time affair or if they went back and forth with this prank way until mutually agreeing to stop or because one of the executive producers told them to cut it out.
While Sean Murray continues to star in NCIS with Brian Dietzen, Gary Cole, Wilmer Valderrama, Katrina Law, Diona Reasonover and Rocky Carroll, Michael Weatherly is preparing to team back up with Cote de Pablo for the spinoff NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which will be released exclusively on Paramount+. It will follow its title characters going on the run in Europe after Tony’s security company is attacked. Their daughter Tali will play an important role in the series, and a few new characters have been teased, though no castings have been announced yet.
NCIS: Tony & Ziva will begin production later this summer, meaning it likely won’t debut until sometime in 2025. NCIS Season 22 will arrive on CBS this fall alongside NCIS: Origins, the prequel about Leroy Jethro Gibbs.
