‘Impractical Jokers’ Season 11 Premiere Was Almost Its Series Finale, Brian ‘Q’ Quinn Reveals

Warning: The following story contains spoilers for the “Impractical Jokers” Season 11 premiere.

“Impractical Jokers” kicked off Season 11 with Joey Fatone joining Sal Vulcano, James “Murr” Murray and Brian “Q” Quinn as a special guest.

The hidden camera series, which follows the three lifelong friends as they compete to embarrass each other in a variety of challenges, saw the NSYNC member end up as the big loser in a first for the show, which concludes every episode with a cringe-worthy punishment. But Quinn revealed in an interview with TheWrap that it was almost going to be the show’s series finale.

“I don’t know why this worked out the way it did, but the last two episodes of Season 10 have been folded into Season 11. So you start the season with two guest episodes. You have Roy Wood Jr. and Joey Fatone,” Quinn explained. “The Fatone episode was the last thing we shot for that season, and we didn’t know we were getting renewed yet. It was the first time we ever ended a season really without knowing that we were getting more. So we crafted the Fatone episode to be a possible series finale.”

In the episode, Fatone fails to avoid laughing while pretending to be a waiting room receptionist calling out names of people who don’t exist, including Choke Norris and Joey Fartone. While he succeeds to get a woman to accept a phone call while pretending to be a waiter at a restaurant in another challenge, he ends up the big loser with the most fails by the end of the episode after Sal and Q make it through unscathed. Q decides to go drink at the restaurant’s bar and forego the second challenge and take a loss.

“We had to do an edit after we got the renewal order because there was a bit where I just shank a challenge. I go to the bar and just start drinking. And they’re like, ‘What are you doing?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I can’t lose the episode and this might be the last episode of “Impractical Jokers.”‘ So I’m just drinking, and the cast and crew came out and we all started drinking. And then when we found out it wasn’t the last episode, we just took that second part out.”

As a result, Fatone’s punishment is that he will be the host of a new show called “Joey Fatone’s Dance Partaay.” During the fake broadcast, Fatone is forced to relive several notorious punishments from various seasons of the show, including getting a novocaine injection in his mouth, wetting his pants and singing a song with lyrics made up by the Jokers. The episode ends with him getting a permanent tattoo — another classic punishment from the show — that reads “Joey Fartone’s Dance Partaay.”

“We pulled out all the stops,” Murray added. “We played all our favorite classic games and used all of our favorite punishments against Joey Fatone.”

In addition to Fatone, other guest appearances in Season 11 include Brooke Shields, Roy Wood Jr., Richard Kind, Joe DeRosa and pro wrestler John Silver.

Read on for more about what to expect, the Jokers’ thoughts on moving the show to TBS for the first time, continuing on after Joe Gatto’s departure and why they don’t plan to stop doing the show anytime soon.

What can you tease about Season 11?
James “Murr” Murray: We’re about five months into filming. We have another two months to go. It’s as funny as ever. We’ve been having a blast. We’ve shot some absolutely horrifying, amazing, hysterical punishments. One of my favorites coming up is we had Q at the Liberty Science Center at the planetarium. So it’s pitch black in there, 80 people in the room looking up at the stars, and Q had to sneak up behind them with a bright flashlight and shine it in their eyes in pitch blackness because he was looking for his weed dealer.

Brian “Q” Quinn: People started swinging at me. It was pretty bad.

J.M. : It went from zero to 100 in four minutes. I couldn’t believe it.

B.Q. : I think we were all surprised. Most of the time with punishments, you show up and you don’t know what’s going to happen, we find out on camera. My first thought was, I don’t know this sounds like it’s going to go really bad … Yeah, so it’s funny. We’ve been having a lot of fun. We kind of dropped this celebrity guest at every punishment this season. So it felt a little bit more back to basics. It was good. It felt like a different enough swing, where everything feels fresh and new.

Are there any other punishments that are your favorite this season?
J.M. : We had Sal go before a room for senior citizens, teaching his fitness routine and showing them how he went from 1000 pounds to 700 pounds, as if he now weighs 700 pounds. He lost all this weight and his routine when he walks in the room is just a stripper pole in the middle. So basically, he had to teach strip dancing to senior citizens. And as a little twist, we brought his father in as one of the folks in the group. And so Sal is doing this striptease while his father’s in the room just shooting one liner after one liner zinger at his own son.

B.Q. : Murray was kind of the MVP of last season. Even knowing him since he was 14, working with him this long, maybe Joe was holding you back. I don’t know. But last season he blew me away and I was hoping this season he would come down a little bit and I get a little bit more room to shine. But so far he’s taken a childlike glee to doing things without telling me or Sal … He derailed this thing the other day, in a good way. We’re going on job interviews, Murray sneaks into the room beforehand and cuts Sal’s chair cushion out so that when Sal sits, his ass went all the way down and was at the desk looking up. And we had a whole bit planned for Sal, we beat out all these ideas and it was all gone because Murray just went in there and went rogue. And it was the funniest choice. So Murray’s been on fire.

Does Sal still hold the record as the Joker whose been punished the most or has that changed with Season 11?
J.M. : I think Sal holds the record, followed by me, then Q.

B.Q. : We try to generally balance it out equally so that we all are equal losers. It’s just Sal’s so easy to mess with. He just fails a lot, so he’s easy to punish.

“Impractical Jokers” obviously has gone through changes with the departure of Joe Gatto, but how do you feel the show has changed overall since it started?
J.M. : I think the show has always changed. That’s our job as comedians, as friends, to make sure the show is constantly evolving and the format is changing. So if you look season after season, we keep tweaking and changing the format and the types of games we do and the goals of each game, and that’s our responsibility. That’s our job, literally, is to keep the audience engaged and keep moving the show forward.

I think the show has changed dramatically over 14 years. If you go back and watch Season 1, it’s literally a different show than it is now, or than it was five years ago, or then it was eight years ago. I think it’s very much a reflection on changing times, on how culture changes, how we change as we get older, our personalities change. I think one day, psychologists will look at “Impractical Jokers” as a reflection of culture and teach in classes as a study on human behavior and how it’s evolved over almost a decade and a half now. So I would argue that the show has always changed, always evolved.

While you’ve previously had guest hosts to fill in the gap, have you had conversations about him ever returning, even for just one episode?
J.M. : I would love for Joe to come back. I mean, that’s up to him, isn’t it?

B.Q. : We talk to Joe almost daily. There’s no bad feelings at all. We understood his reasons. So there’s no doubt we’ll work with Joe again one day. It was his decision to leave. We haven’t talked about it at all, because I think we are also just getting over the impact. The last thing you want to do is be like, “Hey, let’s get back into that and those choppy waters again.” You know what I mean? But we love Joe, and if Joe came to us and wants to do something, nobody would be happier than me.

Have you had any conversations about how long the show will go on for?
J.M. : I remember at the end of Season 1, we were like, “We did everything you could do. We played dentists, doctors, optometrists, cashiers. There’s nothing left to do, we played every profession.” And then here we are 13 years later. So I think our plan is to wrap up the show around 2041.

B.Q. : We disagree. I say 45, Murray likes 41, Sal likes 38. So it’s always up for discussion. We never really think about it. We’ve always said the show will end when we’re not having fun, and we’re still having fun. We’re also extremely blessed given what’s going on in Hollywood. It’s a bloodbath out there, it’s a nightmare out there. So to be able to continue to be employed and our crew is employed at a job that we love, at a show that people love is great. There are people out there that don’t like “Impractical Jokers.” I’ve never met them because nobody ever comes up to us and says, “Hey, man, I hate your show.” It’s always like, “Dude, I love your show. The show got me through the pandemic.” We hear that all the time now. I have people coming up to me at bars who are like 22 and they’re like, “I’ve been watching you since I was nine.” We just swim in this sea of goodwill that I don’t really think of getting out of too much — but time will take one of us down eventually.

Speaking of changes, what are your thoughts on moving “Impractical Jokers” to TBS?
J.M. : It’s the same company. We’ve worked closely with TBS for a long time. We had a game show on TBS for a few years called “The Misery Index.” So all the folks that run TBS have been in our lives for many, many years. It’s a bigger network, bigger exposure, more viewers, more hotel rooms, more prisons we’re in. It’s been great. We’ve worked with these people for a long, long time. It’s just a good switch. And all the reruns will still air later on TruTV. So no matter where you want to watch it, you’ll find it.

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