Sal Vulcano (@SalVulcano) is a comedian best known for his role on “Impractical Jokers.” He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss the success of the show and how it was pitched, how the show’s rise to fame made filming more difficult, getting to meet Steve Austin and sharing a beer with the WWE icon, why he wasn’t a part of the AEW segment with Chris Jericho, which punishment was the worst, why he doesn’t like cats, and more!
On being able to watch any episode of Impractical Jokers at any time:
“I think that’s what led to a lot of its successes. They play it all the time. But also it’s like, I think the perfect thing to just have on. So many people tell me this. I hear all the time. I hear it plays in prisons, huge in the prison population, huge in hospitals. And everyone tells me, which sounds weird, but it’s like, oh my god, I fall asleep to it every night. They can’t follow a narrative or a prison in a hosptial.”
On the pitch for the show:
“So we had gotten some pitch meetings. They call them general meetings. I’ve had many general, they feel like a waste of time. They have bullsh*t meetings, right? It’s like, go and they’ll meet you, and they’ll keep you in mind. And then you establish your connect, your relationship, get on their radar. I mean, these things are such bullsh*t meetings. You go, and it’s people that you’ll probably never talk to again, and you’re all trying to make nice and be funny for them, and show who you are in a 10-minute meeting. So we have a bunch of generals lined up, and this is after a long time, we just happened to get an agent, because we won this online sketch competition. One thing led to another, and then we got an agent, and then they’re like, alright, let’s meet some of these networks. So we decided, why don’t we go on with some ideas? Even though these aren’t necessarily pitch meetings, we have them in a few days. There are a few days away. So we met for lunch, and we thought of like three ideas over lunch. One of them was Impractical Jokers, and we called it Mission Uncomfortable originally, and it was kind of the show, an iteration of what you see right now. We went out into Times Square, two nights later, the four of us with our cell phones, and we filmed each other doing like three or four bits, just with a little lav mic and our cell phones, we cut it together, and then two days later, we had a meeting with MTV and a bunch of our networks, and a few days later, with Tru TV, and MTV offered us to buy it in the room, which for people that don’t know how this industry works, that never, ever, ever, ever, ever happened. It’s never happened before or since. I’ve pitched 500 things. I’ve only sold like a couple of other shows out of like 500 never, never in a room again. So they offered it. They wanted to make it a strip show, which is like a game show that they film every single day. They didn’t want us to be involved. They wanted to have contestants competing, different contestants, and then comedians rotating, any comedian, just telling them regular people what to do. And we were like, we kind of like, are an improv troupe, and we kind of wanted to do it ourselves, so people can, like, learn our characters and be rooting for someone, and kind that creates a stake of interest in the show, and they didn’t see that vision. Then two days later, we met with TruTV, and they offered to buy it in the room. And we’re like, we had an offer. And they were like, is it MTV? They kind of knew. We were like, Yeah. And they were like, Oh, don’t go to MTV. They don’t have any budget over there. They won’t do it the right way. And we said, well, they want to make it a ship show. They’re like, We’ll do it how you want to do it. And we said, okay, and like, it was sold, it in the room, the idea didn’t exist five days before.”
On raising the stock of TruTV:
“So when we got on TruTV, there was no comedy on there. There was three towing shows, a pawn show or two, the storage shows, the dumbest criminals, and that’s all it was. It was just trash reality TV. And we were the first show that actually had that kind of thing, and then we resonated right away. Then, lo and behold, they changed the angle and focus of the brand and the network based on that, which I never really talk about or think about, but it is mind-blowing that that happens. They then competed as one of the only other comedy-exclusive networks with Comedy Central. It’s kind of wild.”
On pranks being more difficult now that the crew are more recognisable:
“On a bad production day, that delays stuff. So if we’re on the streets, it’s anybody’s call. We’ve learned what neighborhoods to avoid. People know us everywhere, but there are certain areas that are hot spots. Like, if you go to Times Square, like a tourist neighborhood like that, we can’t film there anymore. It’s hard to film in Central Park anymore. Those were [possible] in the beginning seasons. But now it’s really tough. But if someone knows us, the next person doesn’t, or if the first three people know us, the next three don’t. If we infiltrate an office, or do a focus group or something like that, we have so much in place to avoid people knowing us. We wrote the book on this now. So we have a Bible, we have innovation in hidden camera between audio and video. Our crew has been pushed to innovate because of the creative that we’ve done and hiding stuff. We have other hidden camera shows come to our people now to try to hire them or to ask how to do things, because our crew have set the bar on how to do this stuff, which is wild, but we also have all these techniques on how to vet and weed out people that might know us. They get questionnaires a month ahead of time, saying everything. It’s like a book this big, where they talk about what foods they eat, what entertainment they like, what stations they watch. And we weed it out. Somewhere deep in that thing is like, do you watch TruTV? Do you watch this? If they check that, they’re gone. When they come, we have way more people than we need because of this. There’s a burn rate. So if we have to have, let’s say we want 10 people in there. We’ll book 25 and then they’re in a holding room, and then we take them one by one to seat them. And then as they come down the hall, individually, one of us is in that hallway. And when they turn the corner, they’ll see us. And if they have zero recognition, you know? But you’d be like, No one can hide when they know us and they and they just turn the corner and they’re like, Ah! They’re gone. We pay them. Because when you pay someone for focus group, they don’t come in vain, we just cut them and we say, yeah, sorry, here’s the pay you would have got today.”
On meeting Steve Austin:
“Yeah, that was wild, too. So he had a show a couple of years ago where you spent the day with him, so I got a call saying he heard I was a fan, I wanted to be on the show, and I was like, Yes! I flew out to LA just to do it, just for a night, just for a day, just to do it. I was like, I don’t care, I’m doing it. They wanted us to meet for the very first time on camera. So he picked me up at my hotel in a Jeep that had cameras on it, so it’s just him. It was all outfitted already, so there’s nobody there. I met with the crew ahead of time. They followed us in another car. But he picked me up and I met him on camera. So on the show is when I actually met him, and it was surreal. I’m like, this is insane. This is Stone Cold. I can’t believe [it], because I mark out. [He seems like the coolest guy ever] That’s what makes it so great. Some of the guys, yeah, little hesitant to meet. Now that I am in the public and I’m a known wrestling fan, go all the time, and I go backstage, and I met all these wrestlers, and so many wrestlers are my friends now, which young me would never believe, it would be mind-blowing. Even now, when I’m backstage, you never lose that. You still feel like a kid back there. It’s like, when you watch sports now, every single athlete is half my age, but I still look at them like, Oh, I was such a big [fan], it’s just that whole dynamic. So he picked me up. He’s a lunatic. He picks me up, and we were in this Jeep, and we just started. He goes, I’ll just cruise around and we’ll talk. So I’m like, Alright, so we’re driving around and and we’re just BS-ing and stuff, and talking about stuff, having some laughs. Out of nowhere, we’re on a road, and the beach is to our left. He cuts the wheel, tops the curb, goes onto the beach, he’s driving toward the ocean, and he steps on the gas. I’m just thinking, Oh! I’m holding on to the bar, the tops open and everything so and then he just starts driving toward the water, and he just steps on the gas. I’m like, what? This is crazy. But I thought he’d just hit the brakes and like he was messing with me. He didn’t. He drives straight into the ocean, and the Jeep turns into a boat. They didn’t tell me that. So I literally was like, what the f*ck is going on? And then we just slam into the water. The wheels go up, and it turns into a speed boat, and he just starts driving around, and we just start driving around in the water on a speed boat. And I was like, this is already exceeding expectations. And then we went to a gym, and I took bumps from the ring, I held the Intercontinental belt. He just showed me how to do the stunner and everything. And then after that, we went to his actual brewery, and we sat down and had flights of all of his different beers, and literally got drunk together, he literally got tipsy. He was so nice. It was his first time filming in like a year or something, and it was his first episode filming this series. He was like, I’m a little rusty, and I was like, No, I love this! He’s like, you were a perfect first guest, because you were so easy to talk to, and you really helped keep it light and stuff. And I was like, please. I love you so much.”
On how that led to sharing a beer with Stone Cold at Raw:
“We kept in touch, and I’m at a Raw and I texted him, I’m here tonight, and he was coming out. No one knew he was there. So it was like the last match of Raw, his music hit. He comes out. It’s a crazy match and everything. And of course, at the end, he’s up there slamming beers, whatever. And unfortunately, it just went off air. I think it was at, he was either at MSG, or is at a Barclays. He grabs the mic, and he goes, ‘My buddy Sal Vulcano from Impractical Jokers is here. Wherever you are, come to the ring right now!’ And I was like, Oh my god. So I walk to the ring, and he takes me, and I go right up to the gate, and he’s like, takes two beers. He throws me two. We slam them in front of everyone and just drink them. They put it up online on socials after, but I did also slam beers with them on the show too. So of course, I kept those cans. I have four cans at home on my shelf, just, you know, like, I got to get a lot of this in my mouth, you know, but it’s just all over me and everything. It’s like, it’s like Make-A-Wish come true. If I had a genie lamp, that’s what I would wish for.”
On missing an AEW opportunity:
“I unfortunately got ill and wasn’t able to do a spot that the guys did, where they got jumped on AEW by Jericho and his crew with a bat and everything. It’s so funny, because Murray’s not a wrestling fan, Q is, but I got really sick, and this is a dream of mine, and I couldn’t go, and I had to watch them do it. But Murray was no selling getting hit with a bat. He didn’t know, but they were hitting him, and he didn’t realize that. He was no-selling it, which is so funny to me.”
On MJF being on the show:
“MJF, I think, is a throwback for me. He’s one of the most exciting things that happened in wrestling in quite some time. He’s such a big wrestling fan. I mean, really, every wrestler is a big wrestling fan. You just don’t become a wrestler unless you’re in love with wrestling. That’s how it works. But I have friends like Bayley or MJF, who just really respect the passion, they’re marks for themselves. And he just was, was so cool. I met him through somebody, and got on a text chain with him, and we joked around and really liked each other. Then I met him at a show and stuff, and we invited him on. He’s great. He just stays him. He was really, really good, and he really played off us well. And he was definitely like, heeling it up. I don’t know what happened, but it just happened that he was gonna chop all of us. And he did. I took a real chop from him, it’s not good. It really hurts. One is like, Oh, man. But like, you know, you see them do it to a job, 5, 10, 15 times in a match, like, you know, you’ll see Bryan Danielson get the palm of blood on their chest.”
On the worst Impractical Jokers punishments:
“I would say in recent memory, there were two. One was Murray. We had this idea to punish Murray. He writes books and he does his own audiobooks. So I was like, why don’t we strap him to the roof of a race car that’s going around a race track, tie him to the hood of it, and make him do his audiobook on the hood. So everyone loved that idea, so we did it. We got this racetrack, we got a stunt driver, we got a race car driver. We tied him down to the hood, put a helmet on him with a GoPro, and he had the book, the car is doing donuts, racing on track, and he’s reading the chapter of his book, and that’s going to be his real audiobook. We’re filming this thing for like, 15 minutes. It’s amazing. It’s fun. It’s exactly like we planned, this guy’s doing hairpin turns, the tires are smoking, Murray’s screaming, and he’s reading his novel. And then the car is going down a stretch, doing 90 miles an hour, and makes a turn, and Murray flies off the hood and just goes rolling into the grass. We’re like, 300 yards away, and the whole crew just stops and like, Oh my God. Everyone just freezes. And then it’s like get a medic, get an ambulance right now, and everyone just stops the cameras and starts running toward him. And I was like, oh my God. So we start just running toward him. And dude, I’m running as fast as I possibly can. It was so far away. Halfway through a car pulled up like, ‘Get in, get in!’ We all jump in this car, and we’re flooring it to him. We jump out right before it, and we’re running up to him, he’s surrounded by the ambulance and the medics, and I hear someone say, ‘Get a bird.’ I use that to mean a helicopter, thinking he’s about to get airlifted out of here. Someone yells out, ‘He’s not responding. He’s not moving.’ The feeling that I felt in my stomach was I didn’t know if he was gonna be paralyzed, I didn’t know if he died. I didn’t know how severe this was. I had such a knot and pit in my stomach, and I charged up to him, and he’s not saying anything. I thought my friend died. I thought he was paralyzed. And then one of the medics turns around, pulls off a wig, and it’s Murray. The person that was dressed as Murray on the floor was just a stunt person. When they took a turn around the stretch, they went past a bunch of trees. The car stopped really quick, he jumped out, and the stunt car came. A guy jumped on the hood, then the car kept going. He jumped in an ambulance put a wig on. He had the clothes underneath. That guy rolled off the thing, and then Murray pulled up, and was one of the medics. It was my punishment all along. Honestly, when he turned around, I actually had to take a knee because I literally felt like I was gonna vomit, because my stomach was in knots. I was like, How is this funny? I thought you were paralyzed? It turns out that that was the lesser of the two evils, because he was going to pretend to die in another punishment, and that got waved off. There was an idea, he’s afraid of heights, so we were going to put him in a room like this, but smaller. He was supposed to do zoom interviews over zoom in an office, and what he didn’t know was it was going to be one of those storage containers made to look like an office, and the bottom floor was going to be Plexiglas. And the idea was it was going to be attached to a crane. And when he got in and sat at the desk and the Zoom started, the crane was gonna lift him in the air, and he was gonna see underneath him was just clear, and then he was gonna have to do these Zoom interviews, hoisted in the air. He found out that that was the idea, and then pitched to double-cross me. He wanted, at one point, the crane to drop the box, and the box to come down and just smash onto the ground. And me think that he got crushed and died. And that was in play for a year and a half because he kept pushing it until they kiboshed it. And then this was the settle for that. So he was going to make me believe he died. That was very this was a traumatic one to go through.”
What was the other one?
“Another one was they locked me in a room with a 600-pound Bengal Tiger. They locked me in a motel room, I didn’t even know we were filming. I thought we were taking a break at a roadside stop, and Joe went to speak to me about something, and we were outside of a door of a motel room, and it’s actually on camera. We’re just BS-ing, I didn’t know what camera was on me, and he shoved me and slammed the door closed, and I turned around, and there was no handle on the door to get back out. And I was like, what? I didn’t even know we were filming. And I just heard a growl, and I just turned around. I was like, I could not move an inch. And then a tiger walked out of the bathroom and it was on a chain, but that chain was tied to the bar of the shower, so it was just tile and sheetrock. I mean, if the tiger wanted to rip out of that thing, I believe that it could, and then the chain was long enough so the tiger couldn’t get to me, but it was only six feet short of me. And I honestly didn’t think it was funny then, and I don’t think it’s funny now. The first thing I say on camera is, I understand what it means to be frozen in fear. I don’t know if you’ve ever had where your body won’t move and you can’t speak. I was frozen, and I just the first thing I said was, ‘How did we get insurance?’ And then I don’t know how they got it. And I just was like, this isn’t going to be airable. I was so angry and couldn’t express it because I didn’t want to show any emotion whatsoever. I was so scared, and I felt that the tiger could sense my fear from their instincts or whatever, it’s a sense how scared I was, because then I thought it would try to attack me, and so I was in disbelief that they did this. I was as angry as could possibly be. They put me in this position, and I was as scared as possible, and all three of those things were bottled up because I couldn’t move or speak. I didn’t think we would be able to use it, because I didn’t think it’d be funny. It turned out, people thought it was funny.”
On not wanting to do malicious pranks:
“No, that’s not what we’re really going for. My favorite sentiment in the show like to evoke from someone is confusion. Confusion, bewilderment, mildly entertained, wary. When we are interacting with someone, they don’t know what to make of it. I think is the funniest thing for me. I love to live in that space where I’m towing the line of is this guy kidding me or not?”
What is Sal Vulcano grateful for?
“My family, that I am a comedian, and that I have people I love.”
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