Trivia / Impractical Jokers

• Adored by the Network: By approximately mid-first season, they were running marathons.
  • The show has such popularity these days that every single day features it being run on truTV for between 12 to 15 hours, with other shows being saved for the early mornings or late nights (or early Saturday mornings for World's Dumbest...).
• Banned Episode: After Joe's departure from the show and his separation from his wife, five episodes were pulled from airing on truTV and streaming on HBO Max. All involved Joe being put in a sexual situation. The five banned episodes are:
  • "The Dream Crusher", where the Jokers brought in Joe's then wife during a challenge involving kissing people at the mall.
  • "Stripped of Dignity", where Joe's punishment involved stripping for strangers in a park.
  • "Bull Shiatsu", where Joe hid in a massage chair and rubbed people for a punishment.
  • "Sun-Fan Lotion", where Joe's punishment involved having a parkgoer rub suntan lotion all over him.
  • "Rock Bottom", where Joe's punishment involved standing half-naked in front of a bunch of college students giving a presentation.
• Cast the Expert: Some games involve a Joker causing a scene at a grocery store, at which point a manager will show up to assess the situation. That manager is played by John Szeluga, who actually was a grocery store manager.
• Corpsing: Naturally, the guys very often completely break down laughing at the others' antics during a challenge, at least Once an Episode by this point. Some of the challenges, like Laugh Man Standing, Now You See Me, and Cranjis McBasketball, invoke this specifically; whoever corpses the most times loses, or, in the case of Laugh Man Standing, whoever laughs is out of the game until there is only one Joker remaining. Sal is, by far, the worst offender here; it doesn't take much to have him falling to the floor doubled over laughing. This has been lampshaded In-Universe by the guys multiple times over the course of the series.
• He Also Did:
  • Murr is the co-author of the horror/thriller Awakened series.
  • Q co-wrote an Urban Fantasy graphic novel METRO.
• In Memoriam:
  • "Snow Way Out" was dedicated to location manager Michael Raptis.
  • "Vampire Weakened" ends with a memorial for Joe's dog Mishkeen, who died between the filming of the "Watch Joe's Dog" challenge and the episode's airing.
  • The Father's Day special ended with a dedication to Joe's father Joseph Gatto, Sr.
  • "OK Zoomer" ended with a memorial for Joe's dog Pignoli.
  • The episodes with John Mayer and Blake Anderson were dedicated to Murr's parents, Maryann and Jim, respectively.
• Milestone Celebration: For their 100th episode, the Jokers did a special live punishment special which aired on the evening of September 3, 2015. All four of the guys had to walk a tightrope 5 stories high. As if that wasn't enough, Joe had to do it while wearing his "Captain Fatbelly" costume.
• Missing Episode: In one unaired challenge, the Jokers took turns being cashiers while being instructed to do and say whatever they're told. Murr nonchalantly told Sal to take a picture of a shopper's credit card with his cell phone. He did, and the shopper called the police. Thankfully, the Jokers got off easy when the officers who showed up turned out to be fans of the show.
• Prop Recycling:
  • The vampire wig Murr wore for his gospel choir punishment was later used by Joe for a receptionist challenge.
  • For Q's musical punishment, a naked version of the Wheel of Doom can be seen on the Beef Gristle Mill as a water wheel.
• Throw It In!: The show is full of this. It's especially likely to happen if one of the victims reacts in a way none of the jokers expects.
  • A notable one is a man wearing a leather jacket without a shirt giving money to a fake charity and threatening to kill Q and everyone in the neighborhood if he doesn't use the money for the charity.
  • This served as the basis of one of Sal's punishments, which was originally going to be another challenge the guys were all going to do. The task was to block a shot from a water gun that was fired by a kid, followed by an embarrassing line. However, the first time this was attempted, the kid tripped, thus ruining the scene and forcing them to retry it. The second time, the kid chose a target that was about to leave, prompting Sal to do nothing as he wanted the target to stay sitting. It was at this time that the Jokers decided to change this from a challenge to a punishment for Sal, which had him do countless retakes of a scene that was set up to fail each time. This was even alluded to when Murr asked Q if the rules can let them do that.

    Q: What rules?! We make the rules!

  • Q's tooth unexpectedly falling out during a speed-dating challenge only provided fuel for him to act like a pirate.
  • Murr's tooth unexpectedly fell out right as the Jokers were beginning a challenge to get strangers to take selfies with them (Q had barely started his turn when Murr's tooth fell out). Since he didn't want his picture taken with a missing tooth, Murr took a loss for the challenge, which made him the episode's big loser. His punishment was to have his selfie taken anyway, with the gap in his teeth in full view.
  • During the Hawaii special, Murr came up with the idea to be buried up to his head in the sand for the introduction to a challenge. This (predictably) backfired when the other three decided to leave him there for the rest of the challenge, so when it was Murr's turn, the other Jokers immediately hand him a loss.
  • In one challenge, Q refuses to cross out a child's painting with a big red "X" at a mother-daughter art class. However, the Jokers point out that the loss makes him the Big Loser, so Joe tells him that his punishment is to cross out everyone's paintings. While the class is mostly good sports about the "joke" being played on them, one girl is very upset by this misdeed and makes Q feel even more miserable about the punishment.
  • While filming in the park, one of the bystanders was a chatty foreigner who didn't understand the challenge going on and proceeded to talk to Joe for so long that the background music switched to melancholy trumpets as the challenge ground to a halt.
  • In one punishment, Sal had to abandon a boat tour and go kayaking across the Hudson River. No one expected the rough waters to throw Sal off the canoe, and it was left in.
  • While the punishment where Joe played a genie had many intentional "malfunctions", a legitimate one happened when a wire holding him up malfunctioned and left him upside down for the remainder of one scene. They had to hastily fix it during the transition to the next one.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Murr revealed in this video that when they were in the midst of creating the show, the Jokers wanted Patrick Stewart to be the show's narrator. And the idea was that the narrator hated them. The narrator element didn't stick, though.
  • The original concept of the show didn’t feature any punishments. While there still would’ve been a loser(s) at the end of an episode, the winning Jokers would all receive some sort of prize while the losing Joker(s) simply would’ve gotten nothing.
  • On the same day they shot the survey challenge at Six Flags, there was going to be another challenge involving one of the roller coasters. A combination of the show's then-primitive camera technology and producer Casey Jost getting sick after taking the intended ride for test runs led to the challenge getting scrapped.
  • The Jokers contemplated doing the "Did I Deserve That?" challenge with pies. They realized it was too over the top, so they changed that to cups of water.
  • During Murr's punishment in the episode with Method Man, Sal and Q mention that long before the show was made, they originally wanted to have a show featuring Method Man instead.
• Working Title: The show’s original name was going to be Mission: Uncomfortable.

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