The lesson, Vulcano explains, is that “the more awkward or uncomfortable you can make something,” the more comic dividends it pays - and peak discomfort comes not in the park or supermarket but “when you’re one on one with no distractions and there’s no escaping the conversation or the line you have to say, with no one to defer to, no way to change the subject.” “The further and higher up we were, the funnier it was,” Murray adds. “It was a really odd dynamic because we were 50 feet away from them,” Vulcano says. The work was done out in the yard and the joker-as-artist suddenly appeared on a balcony to interact with their new employee. For one challenge they “hired” unsuspecting people to assemble furniture for an eccentric artist. “Not only did these ideas work really well, they brought new life too,” Quinn says.īeyond the outdoor photo shoot, they’ve also played producers in a music studio, where the other person is behind glass and have gone on job interviews via video call.
#IMPRACTICAL JOKERS MURR LOSES HIS MOM SERIES#
“We wanted to give them a creative home,” Weitz says.)Īs improvisers, the hosts found the rules imposed by the pandemic an opportunity to keep the series from becoming stale. (In addition to ordering a 10th season, WarnerMedia has locked a first-look deal with the Tenderloins to develop and produce original unscripted and scripted programming for truTV, TNT, TBS and HBO Max. “These situations inspire you to innovate, and the restraints added to their brilliance,” says Brett Weitz, general manager of truTV, TNT and TBS. Years of experience helped the foursome find the funny in social distancing. Gatto says certain bits, like mock focus group presentations, could be done “without a stutter step” by using fewer participants spaced further apart, “but we had to replace half the show.” “We had to rethink everything,” Vulcano says. Many of the series’ challenges have involved intimate interactions with strangers - leaning in to get a bizarre petition signed or discuss surreal sightings in cloud formations - which obviously would not work in this strange new world. “We want to maintain what we call quality.” “We’re all very concerned about putting out a subpar show,” Quinn adds. They were more worried about meeting their own expectations. Having already returned to shooting their second series, “The Misery Index,” the four hosts fully trusted the network’s and production team’s COVID-19 protocols. Quinn was told to break a record for smashing eggs on his head before a crowd of horrified children who thought he was there to teach them about the eggs of endangered turtles.)
(Murray once had to grab cigarettes from smokers on the street and throw them out. Shot largely in and around New York, “Jokers” inverts the typical prank show since they - not the civilians - are the butts of the jokes, with each scene a competition, and each episode culminating in the loser (or losers) being punished. “It’s the silly stuff.”īut there was one crucial difference between that photo shoot and the truTV series’ previous eight seasons: This time around, it was filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, it’s vintage “Jokers,” with the foursome relying on their improv skills and willingness to be publicly humiliated to generate laughs (often accompanied by a cringe). Per the show’s rules - which comes with a viewer warning about ensuing “graphic stupidity” - they must do and say whatever their costars order them to do: It can be something goofy, like Joe Gatto declaring, “my glasses are fake - they’re for the look - but the hat’s prescription” embarrassing, like Brian Quinn saying he was infamous in Hollywood, but “you’re here, which means you haven’t Googled me,” or Sal Vulcano describing himself as “fat and jazzy” or downright absurd, like James Murray hiding in bushes to capture candid shots of his model. In an upcoming scene from “Impractical Jokers,” each of the hidden camera show’s four stars pretends to be a photographer taking pictures of aspiring models.