Impractical Jokers stars Joe Gatto and James "Murr" Murray talk with Kyle McMahon on Paula Abdul, The Misery Index, Dinner Party and Season 9 of Impractical Jokers for Pop Culture Weekly.
The boys of Impractical Jokers have come a long way since 2011. Their show, Impractical Jokers debuted on TruTV in December of that year to big ratings. Over the years since, they've released numerous spin-offs including Impractical Jokers: Inside Jokes, Jokers Wild, Impractical Jokers: The Movie and numerous tours.
On the latest episode of Pop Culture Weekly, we covered the new season of their TBS game show The Misery Index, their recent box office hit Impractical Jokers: The Movie and Impractical Jokers: Dinner Party, which came about in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As conversations usually do, the discussion turned to the iconic Paula Abdul who is a central part of Impractical Jokers: The Movie. The film, which had an unfortunate release date just two weeks before states began closing down, had a great few week run in theaters, before theaters shut down and it was made available on demand.
The movie finds the guys back in 1994 sneaking into a Paula Abdul concert, angering the pop star when Joe accidentally ruins her performance. Naturally, Abdul vows to get her revenge.
Joe tells me, "She's fantastic. She's one of the coolest human beings in the world...The idea is that we have this 90's flashback that launches the movie. Who's more quintessential 90's then Paula Abdul....We reached out to Paula... and it came back immediately (that) she's a fan of the show and (she said) 'I'm in!'. "
He continues, "The first day on set....the first day that we met her...that day we were like an hour and a half off schedule because we all just sat down and started talking. And Chris Henchy, the director, was trying to get us back on time but we were just having such a love fest. She's just an awesome human being...She's just a genuinely amazing person."
I speak with Joe and Murr about the brand new season of The Misery Index, as well as what's going on with Season 9 of Impractical Jokers. We also discuss Impractical Jokers: Dinner Party, which has the guys doing the show through Zoom, eating dinner and talking, since they had to pause production of Impractical Jokers due to the pandemic. Listen to this weeks episode of Pop Culture Weekly for the full interview with Impractical Jokers.
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