Joe Gatto Is Not Returning to Impractical Jokers, But He Is Bringing His Show to Dallas

The premise for Impractical Jokers could be summed up by the disclaimer that preceded every episode of the series:  "Warning: The following program contains scenes of graphic stupidity among four lifelong friends who compete to embarrass each other.”

Since its debut on TruTV in December 2011, the foursome earned lifelong fans by letting viewers in on an endless string of inside jokes and those “you had to be there,” endearingly dumb antics. The Jokers, friends since college, had formed a comedy troupe called The Tenderloins, but as the cast of Impractical Jokers — a Candid Camera-type show where they dared each other to do slightly humiliating things in front of strangers — they found an audience through an elegantly simple kind of stupidity in an era when prank shows made celebrities believe their house was on fire or had cast members repeatedly kick each other in the nuts.

Instead, the Jokers went to public places, and did things that were so ridiculous only your little brother could’ve thought them up — often on the spot — such as challenging one of the other guys to sniff a seat as soon as its (civilian) occupant walked off, or seeing how many times they could “nose” someone at the supermarket — tapping their nose on someone — without them noticing. If the guys declined the dares or failed to deliver on a challenge, they accumulated negative points that ultimately made them each episode’s loser, thereby incurring elaborate, contractually obligated punishments (such as having to get an inexplicable, very real, moderately-sized tattoo of Jaden Smith’s face).

This sorta-harmless humor is much more prevalent online these days, but no TikToker has the chemistry and spontaneity of Jokers stars James “Murr” Murray, Brian “Q” Quinn, Sal Vulcano and Joe Gatto, who turned the show into a cult hit, even earning its own movie in February 2020. Its release, however, was slightly overshadowed by worldwide events.

Gatto, the show’s wild-eyed, fast-talking, proudly voracious Italian-American, became known for his shameless bravado and for turning the name Larry into a catchphrase — when the guys dared each other to cut through a line of dedicated Broadway ticket-buyers, Gatto got through the queue by yelling “Larry!" repeatedly to an imaginary cohort further up the line. But even for four regular Joes from Long island, with fame came inevitable scandal, and Gatto quit the show on New year’s Eve 2021 among rumors of infidelity and a divorce announcement — though Gatto and his wife recently announced they had reconciled.

Since then, he’s focused on his podcast with Steve Byrne, Two Cool Moms, where the comedians spew earnest advice and delve into random topics with the glee of Seinfeld, deep-diving into their life memories.

Gatto, who is also touring solo with his stand-up show, spoke to us ahead of his Nov. 10 date at the Majestic Theatre.

(The following has been edited for length and clarity.)

Tell us first about your solo show.

“It’s an hour [where] I tell stories of my life, from my time on Jokers and my friendships with those guys both on and off camera and then basically other things that go on that make me me, you know, messing with people in real life. My being a father of the two awesome kids and trying to figure that out, my adopted dogs, which I have a whole army of, and growing up with a crazy Italian mother here on Staten Island. So it basically encompasses the whole gamut of what makes me me.”

In your previous life you planned to be an accountant, and that seems the exact opposite of comedy. Do you think about the alternative life you might have led without the other three guys?

“Oh, my, so boring. I mean, the multi-person madness is real, y'all [laughs]. I can imagine me just being an accountant sitting in a cubicle, like I knew that when I was graduating, I was like, this is not the life for me. I'm not gonna be able to just be you know, a number cruncher, I'm too much of a people person. I like being in front of people interacting. So that was a big difference for me."

What did you think was more realistic for you?

Sales, I was a sales person. I did a lot of sales. I was, you know, this people person [with] people skills. So I worked as my life before ...  you know, comedy was always a hobby. And my life before Jokers was, I was a baby store salesman. I sold high-end furniture and baby gear and across the country for this company called Giggle. And that was the life I left to pursue the comedy career.”

Did you get a lot of comments from customers to the management? Praising you or ...?

[Laughs] No, I got to work talking to strangers, though, that came in handy later in life. And I ended up having to strike up strangers for the TV show, so that worked out well.

You went through a lot of [comedy] iterations with the guys before finding success on the show. Was there one of you who rallied morale or one of you who was ever more on the fence?

I was on the fence. I almost left because we were going to … we were pursuing more of a scripted format and I'm not, I don't consider myself a very good actor— or that's not how I am most successful making people laugh, I don't think, or at least at that time. So I was not feeling the scripted sketch comedy show format we were going down and, in a last-ditch effort, we were like, why don't we just do what we do to make each other laugh and show it to people? And that's how we basically came up with the format of Jokers, where it was more of like a show about, think about it, about friendship on display more than anything else. So we ended up coming up with the format of Jokers and then hitting lightning in a bottle and just riding it out.

Do you think that the widespread popularity of prank culture helped or were you worried that too many people were doing similar pranks online?

I mean, it was kind of before any of that, really. It wasn't really a prank show. You know, we never considered [it] as a straight-up prank show because we were our own marks, right? We weren't getting people. We were getting each other. So it's kind of our take on that format. So I don't think we had seen much of that before where it was kind of that kind of feel. I mean, there's been a lot of shows after that tried it. I think, and people do like that. I mean, of course, the success of Punked and, even back in the day, more than that, like Candid Camera, these types of shows have been popular throughout time. So I think there was an air to that, but I think the extra element that made it succeed was the friendship and that we weren't a cast of comics put together, you know, we are genuine friends that knew each other on a different level.

Actually, let me tell you that when the movie came out, I was supposed to interview Murr and he didn't show up. So I consider myself pranked by an Impractical Joker.

What do you mean? He didn't show up? He didn't show up for the interview?

No, he just ghosted me. [...] I was gonna ask him at the time, and I'm sure this comes up a lot, but I was gonna ask him to play "F, Marry, Kill" with his co-stars.

Oh, yeah, that comes up all the time.

What do you think he would have said, or what would you say?

He would marry me for sure. We've lived together for a long time so we know each other on that level. I mean, definitely we would kill Sal. So, I mean, that's a no brainer. I mean, that's not even a question

For any particular reason?

You know, oil and vinegar those two? They have a lovable rivalry which is so great. They love each other dearly. But, they bump heads often on things, and it's just very funny. They're just very opposite souls. But, kindred spirits. [Laughs]

What was the transition like as a solo comedian after playing off the other three people for so long?

I mean, that was one of the biggest adjustments that had to be made. It wasn't necessarily performing because I've been doing that a real long time and, you know, getting used to stand-up. I've been on stage a lot. So, you know, getting used to the stand-up format was a little different, but the biggest thing was having to be up there for myself for a full hour and be responsible for 100% of the funny, you know, instead of 25% with the guys. So it was like, that was probably one of the biggest things and to find my voice and my format and it took me a minute, but I found it pretty quickly and I'm very happy with this hour of comedy I put together, I think it's a great hour. People have enjoyed it coming out and laughing across the country. So I'm really excited to [work in] this new type of format to entertain.

Did it ever happen at any point during the show that any of you were offered to branch out on your own? Was this something that would come up?

Mmm. No.

While you were on Impractical Jokers, as the show went on and you got more successful, did it get a lot harder to do the job as you got more recognizable?

Well, New York City was an ally in that sense because there's just so many people here, you know, it's 8 million people. If half of them don't recognize us, that's 4 million. So it was kind of like when we were in New York, it was pretty good and we had tips and tricks to like, get around certain things that we used. But when we got outside, when we got to more remote places, it was a little trickier. I remember one time we were filming [at] a gas station in New Jersey, and, like, there wasn't a lot of people coming through and word got out that we were in town. So everybody that showed up tried to pretend they didn't know us. But we could tell pretty quickly. And I think the four people that are used in that challenge are the four people that didn't recognize us all day. I think everybody else we couldn't use them because we knew they knew us.

Right. Or even if the subject didn't, somebody might often come up and ruin the take, I imagine.

Yeah, that was a bigger problem. The bigger problem was if we were talking to somebody in this, in the park, and we were getting them and we were doing well and they didn't know who we were, somebody would come over and be like, ‘Oh, my God. I love you. Can I take a picture?' and they would be like ruining people, [who'd be] like 'who are you?' And that would take a minute. So that was more of a more difficult part to police than trying to get people who didn't know us.

So, were there conversations at that time about how long are we gonna be able to pull this off?

No, I mean, I think we were always able to. And we just kept reinventing ways to do it. You know, that was part of the challenge of the show. Besides the comedy with the logistics. I think we leveraged that pretty well.

Did the idea for Two Cool Moms come pretty naturally or did you brainstorm a whole bunch of things before finding out what worked?

Yeah, I've known Steve Burn for a while, like 10 years at this point — I guess he opened for us on the Jokers tour overseas — and we've met each other through ... his television show and ours were on the same networks. So he was a friend and when I had an opportunity, we'd always talked about doing something together when I had time and an opportunity to do something. We talked about podcasting. So we tried a couple different formats. Our first one was Ying Yang Parmesan, which is just a melting of our two worlds, which is fun. But then we found quickly, we are each other's confidants. We always take advice from each other pretty well. And are there for each other in a good way and we both had mothers who give great advice, and we found ourselves talking about our moms a lot. So we decided to call our podcast Two Cool Moms as an homage to our mothers who, you know, the first half of the episodes, we talked to each other about anything and everything, being comedians, you know, life, parenting, whatnot. And then the second half of it is more of a ... how we help fan-submitted dilemmas, we help people, they send in their questions and problems, we try to solve them as best we can for them. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not, but it's always funny. [Laughs.] So that's been our thing

What are some things you're most serious about?

We get serious on that, too. You know, it's not all fun and games. We try to give advice as best we can as people are dealing with real problems, you know, loss, going through divorces, going through loss of friends or family, death, breakups. We touch on all of it. So we try to ... there's definitely heart to it as well and I find that's true in life, too. A big motto of mine is to be kind, and I think kindness goes a long way. So it's not all fun and jokes, but you have to try to approach everything with humor. I found that's always worked for me, as I've gone through everything I've gone through in life. I think there's definitely some things you do take serious. I'm serious about my work with dog adoption, but I do it in a fun way. My Gatto Pups and Friends nonprofit I run here in New York is finding homes for lots of senior and unwanted dogs. But on the fun side of it, they're all named after Italian desserts and pasta dishes because that's on brand for me. [Laughs.] So, you know, it's a balance for sure.

Looking back on the show, is there anything that makes you really cringe?

I mean, the whole show is based on cringing. [Laughs.] I mean, there's definitely moments, The worst thing for me for sure that ever happened on that show is me having to steal the baseballs from children and then tell them they could buy them on eBay from the signed pitchers in Citi Field when Noah Syndergaard [threw signed balls for the kids]. That was probably, it was a terrible moment in life, but it all panned out to be fun and funny and entertaining. So you get through it and do what you can to bring laughter to the people.

Now a lot of people were obviously shocked when you left the show and it came at the same time with news of your separation; now that you've reconciled, is there any chance of you returning? Is this a conversation that's happening?

No, there's not a conversation happening. You know, you go through life and you make adjustments to it. I've been very fortunate to do that show for a decade of my life and have a great legacy there. And now it's a different thing. I'm still friends with the guys, we're just not friends from work anymore. And, I'll never say never, but there's no plan of it in the immediate future.

Well, I look forward to your show. I watched [Jokers] from the first episode.

Oh, yeah, so you've seen me fall apart in high definition throughout the years.