Christopher-Michael Snyder
Greetings and SALutations! First up in this A Deeper Look series is Impractical Jokers. For an unscripted series it actually features many “callbacks” like a scripted series may employ. But not in a traditional sense. These call backs, or in this series generally referred to as “revenge”, act as a treat or reward for those that have followed the series from the beginning. Because of the nature of this show, you can still enjoy the humor of instances of callbacks without actually understanding the full nature of earlier references. However, I believe that full enjoyment is achieved when you are aware of such intricacies of the series.
We will consider two types of instances: revenge and double downs. A revenge scenario is one where a Joker forces another Joker into a situation because of a similar situation that they had endured themselves. A double down scenario is one where a Joker calls back to past challenge or punishment featuring another Joker to get the effect of putting them through it.
Yes, this article will technically include spoilers if you have not seen the referenced episodes. But personally I find that I can watch an episode multiple times and still get a kick out of it even when I know everything that will be said and done. I will minimize this impact as much as possible but it would be impossible to make my points without some form of spoilers.
An early example of this type of callback/revenge starts within the very first episode of the show. The scenario begins when acting as a cashier at Costco “Q” has to do and say what he is told and Sal forces him to say “Hey, what’s up mustache?” to the next customer. This was actually not difficult for Q as he has a tendency to refer to people by a specific thing like when, in a later episode, he says “What’s up skates?” to a random person skating near him completely unprompted by the other Jokers. But the interaction between Q and the man with the mustache goes awry in the most humorous way due to the other man’s reaction.
In the sixth episode of the second season Q brings it back when Sal is working the drive through of a White Castle and notices that the next customer is a man with a mustache. He forces Sal to repeat the same line and then goes one further in challenging Sal to ask the man if he can pet his mustache…and then do actually do so.
This interaction draws an arc between episodes in two different seasons. While the gentleman in Sal’s turn is far more laid back, Q turns up the heat a bit by not only extending the same challenge but also taking it one step further.
In episode 27 of the third season Joe wins the episode while Sal, Q and Murr have equal number of thumbs down which made all three of them the losers of the episode. In the first ever “permanent punishment” Joe takes the other three Jokers to a tattoo parlor. He has a tattoo designed specifically for each Joker and they have to get their tattoo in the location of Joe’s choosing without ever seeing the tattoo itself until all three are unveiled at the end of the punishment. This scenario concerns Murr and his tattoo specifically.
In episode 1 of the third season Murr loses the episode and his punishment is to go tandem skydiving. Jumping out of a place is one of his biggest fears and this appeared to be the most difficult time they had getting a Joker to accept his punishment. They affix a camera in front of Murr pointed at him and as they freefall Murr cries and screams the entire way down to the ground.
The tattoo Joe had designed for Murr was of a screaming ferret skydiving which also pokes fun of the fact that many people believe that he resembles an anthropomorphic ferret. Sort of a two-for-one deal. This will act as a permanent reminder of his terrible time with the skydiving punishment which doubles down on the fact that he has a weird tattoo on his thigh.
In episode 23 of the fifth season Q is punished by being strapped down in a warehouse and having tarantulas placed on his immobile body as they know of his fear of spiders (arachnophobia) After the punishment he vows revenge on the other three jokers.
In episode 4 of the sixth season Q exacts his revenge on Sal as he is strapped down in the same manner in the same warehouse but he opts for a bigger phobia of Sal’s….cats. Cats are applied atop Sal as the tarantulas had been to Q. I believe that this has the added embarrassment factor of the rationality of the phobia. While most viewers could relate to Q’s fear of the spiders, most would laugh at the irrational nature of Sal’s fear of cats.
This example also takes place during the permanent punishment where Joe doubles down on a Murr but this time refers to Q’s tattoo and something he was forced to do in a previous challenge. In episode 7 of the Second season there is a challenge where the Joker has to get a shopper to not purchase an item that they were going to. The other Jokers give them the reason to give to the shopper to make them change their mind about the product and have to explain how it is relevant.
Murr forces Q to tell a young lady that his 36, lives alone and has two cats. Judging by the way that Q relays this information to her, he clearly had a difficult time telling her.
So Joe cashes in on that with Q’s tattoo. While he updates it with Q’s age at the time of the punishment and the number of cats he currently had, Q points out that the age will shortly be incorrect and will be forever after. So not only does Joe give him a tattoo that will be incorrect shortly but also reminds Q of the discomfort in sharing that information in the challenge from the previous season.
Now for the segment that manages to tie together most of these scenarios! Q was the mastermind behind the punishment for episode 25 of the fifth season which overall is a punishment/punishment revenge for when the other jokers force him to participate in a musical about being on television and not being a firefighter…in front of the firefighters from his former Fire Department. (In callback not relating to these types of situations this punishment includes a prop building labeled as the Beef Gristle Mill which was part of Sal’s punishment in episode 28 of the third season). In order to exact revenge for the musical making fun of him no longer being a firefighter, he made the three losing Jokers go to the very same firefighter training grounds where he became a firefighter. To show them how tough it was he sets a specific task involving a piece of training equipment for each Joker. The awesomeness occurs during Murr’s portion of the punishment.
Murr starts at the top of the four story building on the training grounds and needs to repel all the way to the bottom. There are three open ‘windows’, one on each of the top three levels, and Q has a special guest in each one which will fit one or multiple scenarios discussed above.
In the first (top) window we see the character referred to as Sloppy Joe who covers Murr in gallons of milk. This actually fits two scenarios. It is a punishment/punishment revenge for when they punished Q by having him eat and drink in the back of his immaculate and beloved jeep while a stuntman drove through an obstacle course and speed bumps to make him spill food all over the back seat in episode 12 of the fourth season. They had Sloppy Joe get in and horribly attempt to drink from a gallon jug of milk. This is also a punishment/punishment double down as Sloppy Joe was used when Murr was chained to a park bench for the punishment in episode 19 of the fourth season where he then spilled milk all over Murr.
In the next window down we see the character affectionately referred to as Fat Crow. This is a punishment/punishment revenge scenario as Fat Crow was used in Q’s punishment in episode 13 of the second season where the Jokers dressed models up in ridiculous ‘fashion’ to walk the catwalk and Q had to accept responsibility as if he had actually designed the ‘fashion’. In this punishment he simply hands Murr a roll of paper towels as if to help him clean up the milk he is still drenched with.
In the last window we see the Doctor from Murr’s punishment in episode 10 of the fifth season where Murr was forced to get a public prostate exam only to have another doctor also give him one for a second opinion. In this punishment/punishment double down the doctor attempts to grab Murr and seemingly perform yet another prostate exam on him.
All of this was in an attempt to get Murr to fall from the wall and drop into the net below to show that he could not complete the task of repelling all the way to the bottom. Murr makes it down to the net however Sloppy Joe pours even more milk on Murr from a few stories up.
Conclusion
Due to the mostly self-contained nature of the episodes and the face value hilarity this show is highly enjoyable even if you did not catch on scenarios such as these. And perhaps you noticed it to some level but perhaps not as fully as I’ve described. Just know that whenever you watch a new episode that everything you see or hear just may come back later and if you notice it, then you should achieve the highest level of enjoyment when such events occur.
I’ve discussed this show with so many people that were already in love with the series but by seeing random episodes in a random order they were unaware of much of what I’ve discussed. So I felt it was important to put this out there. If you were fully aware of all of this then congratulations…you are getting the maximum amount of enjoyment from it! If you weren’t already aware…then you are welcome!
