Leftridge: TV Time: Impractical Jokers is the Funniest Show on Television

This may sound weird, but Impractical Jokers is the funniest show on television.

Now this sentence will be read and subsequently responded to in one of two ways:

1) Yeah, no shit!

or

2) What in the ever loving hell is Impractical Jokers?

Until a few weeks ago, I was in the second camp; I’d never seen, nor heard of this delightful program. But hallelujah, I saw the light.

To be honest, I don’t even remember how it happened. I think I was drunk late one night and I stumbled across it. I probably gave a polite “heh” at something funny and kept watching. By the end of the episode, I was probably wiping tears from my cheeks and giving an obnoxiously raucous standing ovation, oblivious to those asleep in my small house. I probably texted eight or ten people with the bold proclamation that “HOLY SHOT DID U WATCH SEEN IMPRACTICAL JOKES,,, BEST SHOW ONY TLEVISON.”

And while “best show ony tlevision” is probably a stretch, calling it the best FUNNY show on television maybe isn’t.

If you’ve never seen it, the premise is simple. It’s four dudes from New York (life long friends/members of the improv troupe The Tenderloins) doing ridiculous shit in front of hidden cameras. It’s a bit like Candid Camera, but way funnier and it’s a bit like Jackass (left) except the guys are actually talented.

Unlike most hidden camera style shows, however, the participant (usually just one of the dudes, sometimes two) is unaware of what sort of buffoonery he must engage in until he’s RIGHT THERE. The other members of the group are off-site feeding directives to him. He must follow their direction in order to receive “points” for the round. (Voting seems arbitrary and makes little sense, but it’s hardly important.)

It’s beautiful because the joke isn’t even necessarily on the unwitting bystander; it’s on the Impractical Joker who must give a really bizarre palm reading at a table in a New Jersey mall, or give a peculiar Power Point presentation to a group of executives without knowing what the presentation is even about.

It sounds simple and childish, and it totally is, but Christ’s nuts is it funny.

Part of the hilarity stems from the ridiculous situations in which they must impractically joke, but a good bit of it also comes from the fact that they’re clearly having a good time doing it. They’ve been friends for a million years and they love doing this and this is all very apparent. (There’s also something to be said for watching someone enjoying harmless fun, I suppose. Jackass can occasionally be kind of funny, but only if you don’t mind rectal insertions and testicular trauma.) They’re also extremely likable; these are dudes you’d totally know and hang out with which goes a long way in this modern era of mostly unlikable television personalities.

Look, I don’t get it either. I’m hard to please when it comes to comedy. Seriously, there isn’t much on television that honestly makes me laugh. I can count on both hands the number of shows I’ve found genuinely (and intentionally) funny in the last two decades: Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Arrested Development (pre-Netflix season), The Office, The Office UK, Parks and Recreation (on occasion), 30 Rock (same), King of the Hill, Freaks and Geeks, Kids in the Hall, The State… maybe a couple of more that I’m missing.

But you see the theme here—one of these shows is entering its final year (Ps&R) and another should have ended 10 years ago. (I’m a super-hardcore Simpsons nerd, but not one of the internet nutjobs who purports that it got terrible after season eight in 1998; I thought it was great long beyond that, but even I have to admit it’s almost garbage now.)

The bottom line is, there just isn’t much in the way of funny television anymore. And given the way our whole earth should probably just be blown up because it’s rapidly devolving into a god awful, floating rock of shit, that’s a shame.

So until ISIS and Boko Haram team up to kill all of us—and we’re powerless because all of the cops have been murdered for Instagram clout and all of the gun shop owners have been offed by shitbags who don’t want to work for a living—I’ll keep watching Impractical Jokers on TruTV and laughing like a raving lunatic.

I mean, what else am I supposed to do?