If those classmates of yours voted “Most Likely to Never Grow Up” followed through on that superlative, they’d probably look something like these guys.
Four real-life best friends and New York residents Joe Gatto, Sal Vulcano, Brian “Q” Quinn and James “Murr” Murray star in truTV’s “Impractical Jokers,” challenging each other to embarrassing dares caught on hidden camera — and all to just crack each other up.
The foursome met while attending Monsignor Farrell High School in Staten Island, where they developed a penchant for practical joking and later formed comedy troupe The Tenderloins in 1999. Now they pull hijinks for a living on “Jokers,” which returns for its third season Jan. 2 at 10 p.m.
Each episode features a series of challenges where one friend is fed instructions by the other three to see how ridiculously far each will go to punk total strangers. Whoever comes out the loser has to face a punishment designed by the other three — and the abuse has been stepped up for Season Three.
“It’s like a compounding thing because we mount two seasons of grudges and pent-up frustration with each other,” says Quinn. “We all really focus on the punishment as ways to get back at each other in a way that we haven’t really done. I think it gets a lot more personal and we dig in a little deeper in a way that only friends can.”
Like when the pals take Murray — who is afraid of heights — to skydiving school on the premise that they’re teaching classes, only to tell him there that he’ll be jumping out of a plane himself. Another punishment sends Vulcano to a haunted cornfield populated with creepy child actors.
“Jokers” films in and around New York, and this season sees the crew taking on many city attractions like manning a hot dog cart in Columbus Circle, waiting tables at Carnegie Deli and working as bellhops at The Borgata in Atlantic City — where they give an awkward welcome to several couples on a weekend getaway.
Though the foursome shot a number of pilots over the years with networks like Spike TV, A&E, TBS, CMT and VH1, “Jokers” was their first TV success. The show averaged 2.7 million viewers this year, a response that Quinn credits to its authenticity.
“Everything else was a scripted thing where we were trying to craft stories [but] this show [is] just our friendship on display,” he says. “You can’t fake that.”
The foursome is currently on tour doing a live stage show version of “Jokers” (they visited New York Dec. 5 and 6), in which they talk about the TV show as well as riff with the audience and feature challenges shot especially for the act. But despite all that togetherness for the TV show and tour, the four spend just as much time hanging out off the clock.
“We’re together seven days a week and after we’re done shooting or doing the show we’ll turn to each other and say, all right, you guys want to go get something to eat or see a movie,?” Quinn says.
“For some way and somehow [we’re still friends] and I try not to look at it too closely so it doesn’t run away.”