Joe Gatto joined The Bobby Bones Show to talk about leaving Impractical Jokers, his new comedy special and more.
Joe Gatto, Brian "Q" Quinn, James "Murr" Murray and Sal Vulcano, all went to High School together and had been a comedy group for 18 years before they got their show, Impractical Jokers. Before that, they tried a bunch of TV shows that all failed, so they started their comedy troupe in 1999. They then had the idea to make a show about making each other laugh and came up with the formula for a prank show. It was based on messing with friends, and they had no plans to make anyone feel bad, just wanted to have fun and laugh. It ended up becoming a huge success that still runs over a decade later!
The first time Gatto felt like he made it was when he and “Q” went to a wrestling event, and someone asked for a picture and then the whole room turned and cornered them, then they ran to their car and people chased them. It was the defining moment when they knew they were on to something. When he met the other members of Impractical Jokers while in High School together, they would just do bits to make each other laugh. Gatto admitted he was shy and didn’t come out of his shell until Junior year. Sal invited him to join the Improv Club they were in, but he was nervous about it. He knew he could make his three friends laugh, but did not feel comfortable getting in front of 80 plus people to do comedy. He ended up going and loving it and fully immersed himself in it. He decided to do comedy full time in 2011. Before that, he was working as a salesman at a baby store selling high end baby gear and was doing a typical 9-5 schedule. After work and on the weekends is when he would do his comedy. He took his two week's vacation to film the pilot for the show and when it got picked up, he went to the CEO’s office and told her he needed to take a six-month hiatus. She told him to leave the job and become a TV star and if it didn’t work out, he could come back. At the time, he didn’t want to fully quit his job because the thought of being a comedy TV star full time seemed impossible to him.
His new comedy special 'Messing with People,’ is available now on YouTube and he hopes people can see his comedy in a new light. You can watch the special for free which he loves because everyone can access it without a subscription. It also allows fans to comment on it, and he responds to every comment good or bad. If someone comments something bad or says they don’t like it, he doesn’t take it personally because he knows comedy is subjective and instead thanks them for giving it a shot. One of his favorite stories he tells in his comedy special is about when he took his son to Disney Land for the first time, and they went on the Star Wars ride. His son had never seen the movies, so he thought he got abducted by aliens and started screaming, “I want to go back to Earth!”
Gatto left Impractical Jokers to focus on his own stand-up comedy, and he still remains good friends with everyone on the show. He shared a time they ran into some legal trouble from a bit they filmed. They received a letter from the city after they did a bit by an official building that had huge statues outside of it. They were playing “Got your noise,” and did it on a baby and then an adult and admitted it got weirded as it went on and then Sal did it to the statue. In the letter from the city, they fined them for trespassing because it was a landmark building. Sal was out when the rest of them were notified that they got it sorted and did not need to worry about it, but since Sal did not know that, they continued to pretend that he was in legal trouble and they did a whole campaign to make it looks like he was being fined $500K and needed to go to court. They posed a fake courthouse scene, hired a fake counsel and extras and used a bunch of hidden cameras and made Sal sit through his fake trial. Then a few months after that they had their set raided by Homeland security and went up to Sal and he broke down and then found out it was all a joke, but it took over a year for it to fully playout! Gatto also shared that since their show was on basic cable, they did not get rich from it.
Gatto’s special ‘Messing With People’ is available on YouTube now!