How ‘Impractical Jokers’ Rallied To Deliver A Decade Of Laughs

The Impractical Jokers, truTV’s longstanding and famed hidden camera ensemble, are celebrating quite the milestone as new Season 9 episodes continue to roll out on Thursdays. The Jokers, who also hosted their own Shark Week special on the Discovery channel Wednesday night, have been working on the comedy series for a decade.

“Just from a basic standpoint, I guess, as the show is growing in popularity and we’ve expanded our careers, we’ve grown, it’s a little more difficult to make the show now because people recognize us. And it’s just crazy,” Joker Sal Vulcano stated during a Zoom video interview earlier this week with the three current cast members. “I mean, the show has become— with the amount they play it and in different countries and the age-range appeal, it’s become like a ubiquitous thing, which I don’t think we ever kind of thought would happen.

“And for the most part, it’s really pleasant because people are coming up to you telling us they brought their family together, it helped them through depression, it’s what they fall asleep to every night, it always puts a smile on their face, whatever. All the nice things they have to say about it will never get old, and nor did we ever anticipate for those things.”

James Murray also put the duration of the show and the people’s lives that it’s affected into perspective.

“I think going back to the early seasons, it was so different. Right? I think the older we get, the longer the show runs, the more episodes we make, we have a greater appreciation for the legacy and the impact of the show on several generations of people: parents, grandparents, kids,” “Murr” said.

“Those kids are now parents themselves, they’re married, out of school. And there’s not many shows that have gone that long. And I don’t know, it doesn’t— we don’t want to take [it] for granted; it makes us that much more invested in the show and still keeping it great, as great as it’s always been.”

Marking the end of the first half of Season 9, longtime friend and Joker Joe Gatto abruptly announced his departure from the show on New Year’s Eve of 2021, citing a family matter as the reason for leaving.

The remaining Jokers banded together and after taking time to evaluate the situation, decided to continue on with the show for their fans and the crew of around 75 people they employ. Vulcano, Murray, and Brian “Q” Quinn still maintain a close friendship with Gatto despite what fans of the show might maintain on social media.

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“I mean, our relationship with Joe has not changed an iota, we’re just not making the show together,” Quinn said. “I talk to him almost every day; we’re popping up at his shows, doing surprises, like pop-ins and stuff.

“And he started a podcast called “Two Cool Moms”, with Steve Byrne, and I was on it this week. Personal-wise, there’s not a single change, really; he’s still our best friend, we still love him, we rely on him for so much.”

“I talked to him last night,” Vulcano responded, in regard to Gatto. “So yeah, I don’t know why the perception is… I guess because there is no perception for people online, right, they just see us on the show together; they have no idea what’s going on. But yeah, I mean, for us, it’s like, unfortunately, he’s not on set, but everything is still the same in our lives.”

“I have dinner with him on Monday, so I hope we’re communicating,” added Murray with a laugh.

Despite the trio’s lifelong friendship with Joe remaining, continuing on with the show minus Gatto was initially tough.

“Obviously, in front of the screen, he’s not participating, so you lose whatever Joe brought to the table, which was a ton. We’re looking for creative ways to kind of move past that and offer something new, but still give people what they love,” Sal said. “And I think that, if I can say so myself, I’m proud of it and I think we’ve achieved it, we’ve got some great feedback. Behind the scenes, Joe did a lot, too, and we just all have had to pick up that slack.

“We have a really solid, great team working with us. We have some new hires we promoted from within. And it’s just kind of, it’s 25% less people contributing to the production, so we had to find that time and that energy as well. So, yeah, it’s a tough loss, but we’re doing what we need to keep everything going smoothly.”

“We always said from the beginning, if we’re still having fun making the show, we would still do it. And we were filming now for seven months and having a blast,” Murr added. “The show is still hysterically funny, and we still cry laughing almost every day. So as long as we feel like we’re still doing good work, we’ll keep doing the work.

“And it is a double benefit that, like Sal mentioned, our crew is very much family for [over 10 years] so we feel a responsibility to them and to our fans to keep people laughing and employed.”

The remaining Jokers knew they wouldn’t be able to replace a fan favorite who did a lot behind the scenes in Gatto, so they created a new format for the rest of Season 9 which brought in celebrities like Eric Andre, David Cross, Colin Jost, Rob Riggle, Jillian Bell, and Chris Jericho to bookend the new installments, help balance things out and give the show a bit of a new feel. Having the celebs on for an entire episode proved to be a no-go as they would be needed on set for several days.

“When we told the network we were thinking about doing this idea, we were adamant that it cannot be anything besides people that we love,” Q said. “It can’t be like what Saturday Night Live does, where it’s like they have something to promote, so they’re on our show. Everybody that comes to set is someone that we’re already friends with, have met in some form, or are just so excited to work with.”

The Jokers went big in their first episode without Joe, Season 9 Episode 18 (April 2, 2022), booking Andre. The move wasn’t just an event for the large crossover of the Jokers’ and Andre’s fanbases, but also for the trio themselves.

“Eric Andre, he’s Eric Andre. What could not be cool about working with him?” Q said. “So we’re looking at it through that lens of like, ‘This is just exciting, man.’ It’s like everything on the show, like, if we’re having fun, if we’re excited, that comes through.

“So you’re going to see some guests coming up that you’re going to be like, ‘Well, the network would not have approved that one,’ but we’re like, ‘No, we needed that person in there.’ It’s great.”

“That being said, Eric Andre was an absolute nightmare to work with,” Murr joked.

“Horrible, horrible man,” Q added.

Let’s just say the punishment at the end of the Andre episode was very Eric Andre. [*SPOILER ALERT*] To Sal — the Joker getting punished, and likely a lot of fans — it appeared his dictated antics were bringing a woman to tears. It was soon revealed that the woman was a plant, and an incredible actor.

Vulcano states he had no inkling that he was working opposite a professional.

“Sometimes you think back and you’re like, there’s been moments where if I was on the other end of that, I might have thought of that, but a lot of times when you’re in the moment, you’re not really thinking of those things,” Sal said. “And it was so delicate— it was really difficult to do that punishment.

“We had to really present that one in the right way, which we did in the edit, but it was excruciatingly hard to do because you never want to really speak to anyone like that if you’re a normal human being. So I was so hyper sensitive to that that as soon as she showed any signs of emotion, I kind of was at a loss for words.

“I was stammering because I’ll sacrifice the moment to make sure that I’m not insulting someone like that in reality. So I was close to letting her know right before she let me know. Yeah, they got me good then. They got me good.”

The punishment with Andre was the first celebrity one filmed for Season 9. The comic’s scorched-earth comedy stylings left at least one joker both enthused and terrified while filming the episode’s conclusion.

“That was the rawest, ‘Oh, my God, what are we doing here? This is crazy.’ But it was just exciting and fun, and we were really happy with the way it came out,” Q said.

“As soon as we got him, we knew, oh, whatever we’re doing, he’s probably going to be the first episode because he’s tailor-made to slide in,” Sal added. “And also, I don’t mind saying this because he says it all the time, and I’m so proud of it, but we are his favorite show and so it was also one of the, like, put him in a good position and then really have fun.

“So it was an undertaking. There’s a lot of moving parts there.”

The trial and errors of a fluid and fast-paced second half to Season 9 seemed to have helped the guys arrive at what should be a more structured Season 10.

“We had a very short amount of time to put together a new version of the show without Joe and get it edited, get it on air,” said Q of making the rest of Season 9. “You’re talking, like, from the time that we decided we were going to do it to shooting was three weeks, four weeks. It’s impossible. It was crazy what we pulled off.

“So in doing it that way, looking at it, the decisions made under pressure and little things here and there, little tweaks to the graphics here and there, stuff people might not even overly notice.

“Like, some of the skits that we had in it were pulled out, we found we didn’t need as much. We’re just watching it and seeing what works and doesn’t work, on the fly. I don’t know if it’s ever been done this way before. I don’t know. But it’s been a learning experience. We got better at it. We’re more confident in it now.”

“I would argue that our show has always been that. Right?” Murr responded. “Remember Season 1, I don’t think when we sold the show, we really knew what the show was. Right?

“And we were on set for the early days of filming; we filmed at Costco, and it was the first time we did the if you refuse you lose, where you’re being told what to say and you have to do it, and the four of us looked at each other and were like, ‘Holy s***, that’s the show. We got it.’

“But it took us [a while]. And I think the show continues to evolve in the same way of discovery and pushing itself to new boundaries and learning more and more about what makes it work.”

Season 10, which doesn’t have an air date yet, is also set to sport some big celebs including John Mayer and Post Malone.

“It’s fantastic. These are people that we love, and some of them are known for comedy, others aren’t, but they’ve all exceeded the expectations,” Murr said of next season.