'Impractical Jokers,'
laughing out loud
TruTV series has four likeable guys goofing on people
By Tom Conroy
Dec 14, 2011
When it comes to critics, comedies have an advantage over other genres. Critics can claim that a drama left them unmoved or that a horror movie left them unperturbed, but it isn’t a matter of opinion whether a comedy made them laugh.
By that simple standard, TruTV’s new hidden-camera series “Impractical Jokers” is a success. A self-described collection of “scenes of graphic stupidity,” it will have most viewers laughing out loud. While some of us will feel a little guilty afterward, those with a tolerance for vulgar male bonding will be in pig heaven.
The concept of the show, which premieres tomorrow, Thursday, Dec. 15, at 10 p.m., is simple and hardly novel. Four physically distinguishable but essentially similar young men — Sal Vulcano, Joe Gatto, Brian “Q” Quinn and James “Murr” Murray — whose accents and attitudes are redolent of New York City’s outer boroughs and inner suburbs, put themselves in awkward situations that involve strangers. Each one has to follow orders given to him by the other three via earplugs.
In the first segment, the stars take turns manning the counter at a White Castle. The goal is to see if they can get tips despite saying or doing the various rude things the others come up with in the basement.
Joe is told to scream a customer’s order back at him. Sal has to tell a man that he has something on his face, then says, “Oh, it’s a mustache.”
Told to flirt with a female customer, Murr places an order for “six cheeseburgers for my sugar mama.” He turns to her and says, with a wink, “I can give you an extra pickle.”
Remarkably, many of the customers throw a little something in the tip jar.
In the next segment, the guys take turns trying to get pedestrians in Manhattan’s Union Square to sign absurd petitions. The less offensive headings on the petitions include “Support Adult Virgins Not by Choice,” “Allow People to Date Their First Cousins” and “Enough With This Rain Already.”
Things continue to go downhill when they set up an information booth in Times Square and work a cash register at a Costco. Joe takes a bite from a woman’s granola bar. Q says to a reserved woman in the checkout line, "OK, Diane, I’m going to ask you to just ease up on the attitude a little bit.”
The quick editing rushes us past the jokes that don’t work and lets the accumulating idiocy achieve critical mass.
Restoring a bit of our faith in humanity, the guys occasionally refuse to take an order. Joe, for example, can’t bring himself to work the word “circumcision” into a conversation he’s having with a pretty young woman.
At the end of the episode, the cast member who had the worst results or who failed to follow the most orders has to do something disgusting as punishment. Although this would be a good time to plead for mercy, the loser mans up (or down).
The four stars, all unknowns, are charismatic and telegenic. Any one of them could have been a good fifth wheel on HBO’s “Entourage.” Their rapport feels based on genuine friendship, and the good vibe helps us excuse some of the show’s excesses.
One gets the feeling that if they didn’t have “Impractical Jokers,” they would be trying this stuff without a camera crew and getting themselves beaten up. So besides the laughs, the show even has a little redeeming social value.
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