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Stranger Things star to host a hidden-camera prank show on Netflix

On Prank Encounters, Gaten Matarazzo, aka Dustin, will be tricking people who think they've started new jobs.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Cooper
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Gaten Matarazzo, left, seen here on Stranger Things with Joe Keery, will be hosting a prank show.

Netflix

Really, if one of the Stranger Things kids was more likely than the others to play tricks on his friends, it would have to be Dustin, right? So it's fitting that Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin, will be hosting a hidden-camera prank show on Netflix later this year.

The show is called Prank Encounters, Deadline reports, and Matarazzo, 16, will host and executive produce the show. Netflix has ordered eight episodes, Deadline says.

The show sounds like Candid Camera meets Punk'd meets Undercover Boss, as it's set in the workplace. Each episode focuses on two strangers who each think they're starting their first day at a new job, and then the pranking starts.

But first, Matarazzo will return to Netflix on Stranger Things when the third season premieres July 4.

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Watch this: Stranger Things season 3: Everything to know