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By: Allison Ebner
If you haven't seen the show for yourself (yet), you've
likely still heard mumblings about Impractical Jokers,
a comedy show featuring four real-life best friends from
Staten Island - Sal Vulcano, James "Murr" Murray,
Brian "Q" Quinn and Joe Gatto - who
dare one another to do the most outrageous things they can
think up. It's an undeniably funny show (and if you'd like
to hear my continued ravings on the series, check out my
full review here)
that is already becoming a favorite to many.
And as if December 15th wasn't exciting enough, seeing
as it was the premiere day for Impractical Jokers,
the day got even better when I began the morning speaking
with Sal and James, two of the Jokers. With
a call that began with Sal warning, "I'm even funnier
in the 9:00 hour," it was definitely going to be a
good day and a good chat.
So if you're looking to learn more about the best friends,
the show, the lengths people will go to in order to defend
their eggrolls (you'll understand once you read through
this interview) or just to find out what sort of crazy things
these guys come up with off the top of their heads, read
below to be entertained and informed by two of the funniest
people who are now, thankfully and finally, on TV!
Impractical Jokers airs Thursdays
at 10 PM on truTV.
Learn more about the show at their official site.
How are you guys feeling right now [on premiere day],
having everything come together as it has for the show?
James: It's - it's incredible. We came up with the
idea for the TV show in my living room, uh, almost two years
ago, right Sal?
Sal: Seems like it, yeah.
James: Yeah, a year and a half, two years ago. And
we've been filming the first season of the show over the
past year, 'cause it's 16 episodes, so it takes us a while
to film. And it's just been an incredible, incredible journey,
but also I can't believe that today is finally... we get
to see it launched on TV - it's just amazing.
Sal: Seems a bit surreal, right? The day has finally
come? It's like Christmas times ten.
James: It really is.
Part of what makes the show so enjoyable and magnetic
is that you can tell you're really friends. Since high school,
right?
Sal: Yup, we all met freshman year of high school
and been best friends ever since.
So, you know, what's your origin story? Was it comedy
gold from the get go?
Sal: I'll be the first to say, it's taken James
many, many, many, many years and we're still working on
him till this day. [laughs]
James: I'll be the second to say, it's taken me
many, many, many years.
No, you know, I remember since high school, the only goal
in our lives was to make each other laugh. I mean, that's
been the goal since day one in freshman year religion class...
screw with each other, make each other laugh, you know.
And then after college, we started doing comedy together
because we just wanted to keep making each other laugh.
So we've been working on it a long, long time, but it finally
all just came together.
 Sal:
Actually, James, in high school I don't think you were
really known as any type of class clown. I mean, I think
Joe and I were really known as class clowns and you were
more known for your... I mean, academics, right? [laughs]
James was the salutatorian of our graduating high school
class, so James failed because he came in second.
James: But, I only failed once, as opposed to Sal
who failed 342 times. [laughs] Yeah, I guess Joe
and Sal were more of the class clowns, but Brian and I did
comedy - improv - in high school -
Sal: Wait, wait, wait, wait. You guys did musicals.
James: We did musicals.
Sal: Which was a comedy to me.
James: Q and I were the stars in West Side Story...
and Bye Bye Birdie... [laughs] Those tapes will never
see the light of day by the way.
Sal: I've been sitting on those tapes, buddy. I
got a surprise for ya.
James: Wait, how do you have those - why do you
have those tapes?
Sal: This has been a plan for 20 years. [laughs]
You've been doing dares like these for years, so do
they still seem outrageous to you? You know, things like
Joe's nose-ing, is it just as funny for you guys as the
first time he did it?
James: Yeah. [laughs] I mean, it's funny
because all the things that we normally do, which is, you
know, screw with each other and dare each other to do these
crazy things in public, it's just amplified now. It's higher
stakes.
There's a million people watching, we know there are cameras
on us and it's in bigger settings too. So, Joe dropping
his nose on people in Costco or Q freezing while giving
the customer his money back in White Castle... it's just
bigger and bigger and more terrifying to do.
It's still funny. I mean Joe's been nose-ing people for
20 years. But we've always done it secretly, so like we'll
be riding on the subway together and he'll start dropping
his nose on passengers on the subway without them realizing
it [laughs]
Sal: Yeah, to this point, the way we do it, no one
really ever knew that they were getting nosed. Now it's
kind of having its own unveiling. [laughs] It's very
funny.
James: [laughs] Joe's nose is having its
day.
 So
do guys have your own trademark moves or signature styles,
too?
James & Sal: Uh, I think...
Sal: You take it.
James: No, you go ahead.
Sal: No, Murray, you take it, Murray.
James: I think we all have our particular things
that we do. [laughs] Joe is really good with - Joe
makes us laugh by doing outrageous physical things. He moves
funny. His body is funny to look at.
Sal: That's actually pretty accurate, yeah. [laughs]
James: Let's see, Sal's trademark - Sal is the most
sensitive out of the four of us to public embarrassment
and I think you can tell that in the show. He's embarrassed
and mortified so easily [laughs] and he wears that
embarrassment on his face much more so than any of us do,
so for me what I love most - his signature quality is when
he cringes and you can tell he's pained by what he has to
do.
Q's signature, I guess, is that Q doesn't give a damn about
anything, you know? [laughs] His move is: what's
the path of least resistance? You know, how can I get through
this challenge as quickly and easily as possible, even if
I have to cheat or fake or - or no matter what I have to
do, I just want out of this. So he'll go out and just say
and do anything. He doesn't care.
And I don't know, Sal, how would you describe what my signature
MO is?
Sal: You did such a good job on those three descriptions.
I'd say James, a combination of - you have a moral compass
that drops in and out...
James: [laughs]
Sal: You know, most of the time, James, I feel like
you can do things because you don't really see an issue
with what we're doing. [laughs] I also think that
you have the oddest personality of us, so...
James: [laughs]
Sal: I think your approach to a lot of the stuff
we do is usually a little different, too.
James: Yeah, I think I'm a thinker. You know, I
think through strategy and things. And, yes, I agree, I
do lack what other people call morals or ethics. [laughs]
But it flares up at odd points. I don't know why certain
things trigger my morality, but they do. [laughs]
Just from the pilot, we can see that there could be
certain weak spots for each of you based on what you were
and were not willing to do and say. Do you end up preying
on those aspects of one another? You know, not sabotage,
but you know what's going to challenge each other?
Sal: I would actually specifically use the word
sabotage. [laughs]
James: Yeah, that is exactly what we do for every
challenge. [laughs] The three of us who are in the
control room telling the other guy what to say or do are
strategizing - we know each other so well, it's not even
actually something we plan on, it's just we know each other
so well it's second nature to us to dare Sal to do something
we know is going to freak him out because we know all his
quirks, all his eccentricities, everything that drives him
crazy.
We know it just from being best friends for 20 years, so
it's just second nature that we would, of course, dare our
best friend to do something that he's going to hate to do.
It's definitely priceless to watch the reaction of all
four of you guys when you either hear what you have to do
or when you watch what the other one is doing, but what
is also so funny is to watch the people on the end of these
dares get to watch you make fools of yourselves. Do you
tell them afterwards what's going on?
James: Yeah, after we do something crazy to a person,
we'll usually tell them and 99% of the time, they crack
up laughing because they don't understand what happened.
They know that we made a fool of ourselves, [laughs]
because the show is all about us being fools and embarrassing
ourselves without us embarrassing the public in any way...
Sal: That happens, too, but really, really it's
about us throwing each other under the bus.
James: So I'd say 99% of the time, they crack up laughing
when they realize they were just on a TV show and they find
out what we had to do because we were told we had to do
it.
Sal: And the other 1% we can't talk about.
Do they not make the show?
James: Some of them make the show. [laughs]
Sal: The other 1%, as far as they're concerned,
we're in the witness protection program right now. [laughs]
We don't want them to find us.
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