Sal Vulcano on rejuvenating Impractical Jokers season 9 and solo touring

For the many trials and tribulations everyone experienced at the height of the pandemic, the stars of Impractical Jokers found ways to make the most of unfortunate circumstances and continue producing entertaining content.

Of course, audience interaction is the epitome of their act, and missing that crucial element for over a year was what forced Sal Vulcano, Brian “Q” Quinn, James “Murr” Murray and Joe Gatto to get creative.

In addition to touring and filming being put on hold in 2020, Joe announced his departure from Impractical Jokers for personal reasons at the end of 2021.

Despite these various setbacks, the lifelong friends (who famously compete to embarrass each other) have used each one to rejuvenate the show and come back better than ever.

Sal Vulcano on Impractical Jokers season 9 and solo touring

Season 9 resumes with new episodes on June 16 on truTV and will run through mid-August. They’ll then enter pre-production for Season 10 and begin working on their next tour, currently set to kick off in February 2023.

In the midst of all of this, each Joker is working on their own solo comedy career among other projects. Vulcano in particular will be continuing his tour of the country on April 15 in Louisville, April 23 in Tulsa, and April 24 in Oklahoma City.

He’s always throwing in local and college gigs to ensure he “stays sharp in every single situation,” having most recently appeared at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT for the school’s annual Wake the Giant event.

“There’s always pretty much a difference,” Vulcano said when comparing college crowds and the audience for his usual shows. “I say the same jokes in every single scenario to see how they play and how I can adjust them. Like with anything else, you just don’t know if you’re going to get a really hot and excited crowd that night or a crowd that’s more reserved.”

He noted that every university he performs at is different than the next and that a raucous audience is always appreciated. It’s especially mind-blowing for him to realize that a lot of the young adults at these schools grew up watching Impractical Jokers on TV.

“It’s crazy to be on television [for 10 years] and it is crazy to think these kids are 17, 18-years-old and if they started watching with their families at the age of 8, it’s wild, especially since our show gives a little bit to everyone,” he said. “We have a pretty broad demographic.”

All of the Jokers have been involved with comedy and doing individual side projects for 20-plus years. With filming for the show taking up a lion’s share of Vulcano’s schedule, his “off season” is the only time he’s had to do his own stand-up comedy.

When the pandemic hit, it was a slow realization for the guys that touring would be done for quite some time, followed by filming for the show. It then became a question of when they’d ever be back to their normal routine of playing pranks on each other in packed crowds and interacting with the public on a regular basis.

That was where the idea of their Dinner Party show stemmed from, where they talk, share stories and crack jokes over Zoom and have dinner while the rest of the world watches.

“It was cool because it forced us to reevaluate the show and challenge us to make something that was still funny, still creative and still felt fresh in the wake of that and sometimes that’s a really good thing,” Vulcano said. “Necessity is born out of that. We pushed ourselves and it really rejuvenated us, too. We had to think outside of the box and think in different ways and there’s something satisfying about figuring that out.”

As far as not getting noticed whenever they’re in public after being on TV for over a decade, Vulcano admits that it’s become a fun challenge for them and that they have their ways of working around it.

“It’s gotten exponentially harder each and every year but in success,” he said. “We do have our practices in place to kind of limit it, but it has gotten tougher and tougher and this year has been no different. It’s probably been the toughest that we’ve had. It can be tricky if we don’t realize that someone knows until after the fact because we’ll never use those people, but for the most part, we film in densely populated areas and we overbook people that are coming into these focus groups and things like that. We weed them out. It’s harder to make the show, but we’re still able to.”

The Impractical Jokers switch things up in season 9 with celebrity guests

Getting back into the swing of things with the remainder of Season 9 has been a blast for the Jokers, specifically with the added element of there being a celebrity guest at the end of each episode.

They were of the mindset that no one person would replace the departing Joe, so bringing in friends of theirs to help out with the always-hilarious punishment stage of the show was their ultimate solution.

“We’ve been no strangers to having on guests here and there when it was organic and when it fit, but we didn’t think we could fill Joe’s shoes,” he said. “We didn’t want to put someone in that position, not right out of the gate. Those are tough shoes to fill. At first, we tried to solve for x and thought, ‘Should we have on a guest throughout the whole episode?’

“Due to the scheduling and everything and how we compete, since the guests couldn’t be there to play, they couldn’t be punished,” he continued. “We ended up landing on them being integral parts in the punishments and using them to be cornerstones to be creative in the punishments.”

Celebrities coming up this season on Impractical Jokers include Jillian Bell, Rob Riggle, Brooke Shields, and more. They already had relationships with most of their guests, all of whom they were interested in working with and knew they’d have fun with.

Vulcano was proud of the guest list they put together and revealed that no one was booked up until a few months ago. It was all dependent on everyone’s availability and interest, but each of them were able to make it work and were super enthused to contribute.

“They all injected the show with a new energy we didn’t have prior because it’s just a new situation,” he said. “And to have a new situation after so many seasons, it’s rejuvenating for us and our crew and staff who were also down for those long moments. It added to our own energy and excitement of coming back and this new element brought in their energy and I’m really happy with the punishments and how they went.”

Among those set to star on the show this summer is Chris Jericho of All Elite Wrestling Dynamite, which is also a part of the WarnerMedia umbrella on TBS. The Jokers have been friends with the wrestling superstar for several years and Vulcano promises that his episode will be one of the funniest of the season.

He also teased that the Jokers could be working with AEW on some sort of storyline in the near future after talks fell through with WWE.

“We’re in talks with AEW right now to see how we can work with them, fingers crossed, on a storyline or something of that nature,” he said. “We have a long-standing relationship with WWE. The people that work there are really terrific. They’ve always taken care of us. We’re huge fans, we push them all the time. We tried to do something with them in the way of a storyline for a few years, and for one reason or another, it kept falling through. Half of that roster are friends of ours now, which is wild to say as a wrestling fan growing up to think that you’d be on that side of it and that those people would be your friends.”

Vulcano plans on doing more solo dates through January 2023 in addition to working on the next Impractical Jokers tour tentatively set for February 2023. Season 9 only recently wrapped filming after starting in 2019, making it their longest season to date.

“There’s no shortage of us,” he said. “I’m psyched to be back doing all the work and doing what we love.”

New episodes of Impractical Jokers return Thursday, June 16 on truTV.