There's perhaps no television quartet more comedic than TruTV's Impractical Jokers. Since 2011, the four lifelong friends known on stage as The Tenderloins have engaged in continuous scenes of graphic stupidity as they compete to embarrass each other, as well as escape a particularly humiliating punishment. Though the show has pretty much been the lifeblood of TruTV, it's not the only place where the four Jokers have made their mark on the silver screen.
All four of the Impractical Jokers also appeared on the SyFy Channel hit series 12 Monkeys, with their appearances coming over several different episodes. Of course, they weren't playing themselves (or any of their similarly silly personas), which only makes these cameos even more unintentionally humorous or bizarre.
The Impractical Jokers' Appearances on 12 Monkeys
The first appearance of the Impractical Jokers on 12 Monkeys was in the Season 2 premiere "Year of the Monkey." Here, the character Jennifer Goines is at a speed dating event, where she more than rocks the world of a man named Dale. Dale is played by none other than Brian "Q" Quinn, the long-tressed former firefighter of The Tenderloins quartet. A few episodes later that season on the episode "Body of Water," James "Murr" Murray is seen as Don the desk clerk who tries, and fails, to befriend Goines.
The Season 3 episode "Causality" featured the team traveling back through time to find a document in the late 1980s. During the episode, two security guards named Larry and Sal, played by Joe Gatto and Sal Vulcano, make an appearance. This is arguably the most jarring cameo, but it's also a rather hilarious inside joke. Not only does Sal share the same name as his character, but Joe's character name of Larry is an homage to an unseen individual whose name Joe's loudly shouts out in the various challenges on Impractical Jokers.
The Tenderloins' Cameos On 12 Monkeys Were Jarringly Ironic
The fact that the Impractical Jokers were on 12 Monkeys is incredibly strange indeed, especially given how different the show is from their own material. The SyFy Channel series was a loose reimagining of the 1995 Bruce Willis vehicle of the same name, which itself was based off of the French short film La Jetée. The storyline revolved around James Cole and Cassandra Railly, who used time travel in order to stop an evil organization from decimating mankind with a deadly pandemic. Going on for 4 seasons, 12 Monkeys had 47 episodes total, though of course only a few featured the Impractical Jokers.
Given its tone and its now especially topical premise, 12 Monkeys was most certainly not a comedic or funny series. This served to only make the cameos of the Jokers even more hilarious for those who knew who they were, especially in the case of Joe Gatto's Larry. This wasn't there only big set of cameos, however, as all four of the Jokers were also on the CBS reboot of MacGyver, namely the episode "Mac + Desi + Riley + Aubrey," where their characters were part of a murder mystery storyline.
The boys' presence on these shows does make sense, however, with Murray in particular being a huge fan of MacGyver. Likewise, Q is a huge nerd, having been a fan of the 12 Monkeys series as well as comic books. In fact, he credits his comic book fandom with his grandmother supposedly having known Caesar Romero, who played The Joker on the 1960s Adam West Batman TV series. Needless to say, this has only heightened the profiles of The Tenderloins, brightening up their resumes while also keeping them off of the loser board.
12 Monkeys can currently be streamed on Hulu, while Impractical Jokers is available to watch on HBO Max.