Brian "Q" Quinn from Impractical Jokers joins the After Party

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What's going on? Brian? Howare you? Brian Quinn of The Impractical

(00:02):
Jokers joins the Power Trip after partybecause Brian, you're gonna be in town.
Correct, Yeah, we're in townthis weekend. So what is a
What does an Impractical Jokers show runlike on a stage? Obviously a lot
of people that are listening to haveseen it on TV. But how does
it work as a stage show?Oh? Well, that's the biggest question,

(00:24):
always, always like, how couldyou guys even do a stage show?
It's it's we you know, wetry to do because we can't do
hitting camera stuff obviously with an audienceof people that know what's going on.
So we just try and get thislike the spirit of the show where it's
just kind of hanging out with usand just busting Murray's shops and making fun
of Murray a lot. It's trulya lot of us standing on stage just
making fun of Murray. Brian.When this show started back in two thousand

(00:47):
and eleven, did you think itwould run this many seasons? Oh?
My god. I in two thousandand eleven, I didn't even think we
get the first season. When wegot the first season, I was like,
oh, man, I gotta reallygo work now, and then it
just kept building every year. Nowit's wild. It's it's like it's to
this day. I walk around likewhat planet am I on? It's it's

(01:10):
a pretty crazy job. So andI used to I used to have another
crazy I don't know if I wasa fireman in New York City, I
don't know if you guys knew this. I was doing that while when we
first started making the show, Iwas still working in the firehouse. So
like I would work, we wouldshoot during the day. I would go
to the firehouse after set, workovernight, get up the next day,

(01:30):
go to set again, work awhole day, and go back to the
firehouse. So like, if wekept like that going, I wouldn't even
wanted the show to go much longer. Was so exhausting, And I was
like eleven years younger back then too. So so walk us through the creative
process on Impractical Jokers. When youguys have an idea, when you're sitting
around and you come up with something, how does it get on the screen?

(01:52):
How many steps, how many creativemeetings? You know, the execution
of the prank? How does thatprocess work? Idea to to finish line.
Well, that's a good question,man. Nobody ever asked that.
That's cool. Um. The uhso, what will happen is this,
Before every season starts shooting, we'llspend like at three some high school weeks

(02:13):
of for Lucky in the writer's room. Uh, and we'll just pick out
any stupid idea that comes and it'sus and a bunch of the writers on
the show are State Island guys.They went to the same high school of
the other type thing. Uh.And we'll just pitch any idea, like
any idea and whatever starts cracking upthe room. We'll be like, oh,
let's write that down. Let's seewe could do. Then somebody,

(02:35):
some idiot, sometimes me, sometimesone of the other guys, we'll get
up to go to the bathroom,and the second somebody leaves the room,
it's like everybody just starts planning,like targets on their back. We'll go
we do to him, he's gone, he's gone. So you try to,
you know, you try not togo to the bathroom a lot,
and then and then once you onceyou guys, you know, once you
settle on a bit um, wejust hand it off to our producers.

(02:55):
And we've had the same producer.Like a lot of the key positions on
our show have been the same sincethe beginning. We all kind of grew
up together and they're so good attheir job. At this point, they'll
look at the bit that we wroteout and be like, I can get
you a supermarket for this, Ican get this and then and that's that's
it. We really will pass thepoint where we have to submit ideas for
approval or anything like that. Wejust kind of make the show that we

(03:17):
want to make. Now it's prettyfun. This last season had a bunch
of celebrities on it. Have youever had celebrities on the show that didn't
want to play along? No,we've asked celebrities to be on who have
said, hey, look, youknow I love the show, but I
get too nervous watching it, oryou know, some people don't know this

(03:39):
like a lot of surprisingly, likea lot of celebrities, you know,
because we hear this that we watched. When we brought celebrities on the show,
we were like, look, itcan't be like that that live.
It can't be like who's got somethingto promote that we don't care about.
Get them on the air and let'sget the range. But we said to
the network, it's gotta be celebritiesthat like because the whole show comes from

(03:59):
us throughout filter, right, Sowe're like, it's got to be celebrities
that we care about and that we'reexcited to work, which is why you
get people like you get post Malone, you got John mcmayer, who were
the actors with Fansom. But thenyou get Kim Fields, who I don't
know if you remember Fact to Life, he's like duty on Fact of Life
all those years ago. She's ontons of television shows like since then Living

(04:20):
Single when anyway, she's amazing andyou know she wouldn't be like your thought
of a go to guestper hidden camerashow. She was amazing, like so
funny, she just knacked them outof the park. And Bruce Campbell,
I don't know if you guys areEvil Dead. So we get Bruce Campbell
on Okay, So so Bruce Campbellhas worked with him since I was a
little kid. I was like ahorror fan, Evil Dead where my movies.

(04:42):
We got Bruce on the network waslike, oh yeah, you think
people know really they'll get the gag, And I was like you idiots have
an Evil Dead movie coming out thisyear. I'm like, what are you
talking about? So it's like alot of that stuff, but mostly like
celebrity like Jack mcbrer who was onthirty Rock and he's being a super sweet
guy. We were talking to himabout it and he was like, ah,

(05:02):
you know this might be You know, I'm Jack McBrayer. Everybody loves
me. I don't know if Iwant to mess with people. So you
do run into it, which isfine. It's tough for everybody, you
know what I mean, it's barelyfor me sometimes. How often does your
now fame in the last decade actuallyscrew up the show? Right? Because
I assume like Sasha Baron Cohen can'tjust walk around doing Borat everywhere because people

(05:24):
recognize them. How often have youbeen in a supermarket where a whole bunch
of fans end up kind of screwingup the bit because they know who you
are and they know what you're doing. Yeah, we have, first of
all, like there's like we've beenon the air now for twelve years,
right, and we're still not aspopular as Borat. Boorat can't go anywhere.
He's like, it's like Jesus goinginto a crowd. You just can't

(05:46):
do it right. We like somany people they less than borat know who
we are that we're able to.Plus we shoot in Manhattan, so there's
like eight million people on it slowyou know, it's a pretty small island
in reality, and there's so many, like so many people that you eventually
get people who don't know the show. And then we have secret methods,
Like I said, we've been doingthis a long time. We have like

(06:06):
secret methods that will weed out peoplewho know the show before they even get
to us. So it's it's it'sa combination of like, you know,
people don't know who the hell weare, and we're able to trick the
people that do know, so itworks out. It happens. Sometimes you
will be in the middle of areally good bit and then some somebody will
run up all inside and be like, oh my god, dude, how

(06:28):
are you doing. And you justtold this person that you talk to me
that you dame's ted and screws itup and stuff like that. But we're
even good at recovering from that.It happens all the time. But you
know, I always say, we'reon set I'm like, guys, it's
just a TV show. If somebodycomes up and ruins a bit, we
just wait two minutes and shoot someoneelse. That's all. It's fine.
But it does happen, but notas much as you think. I'm not
sure if you guys are involved inthe editing process of the show as well.

(06:50):
I assume that you are, Andso the question would be what's harder
actually filming the episodes or doing theediting of the episodes? Oh yeah,
So I think the editing is somethingthat I'd try to stay away. We
all watch every every every cut andgive notes on it. Some of us
go a little bit crazier. ThenI get crazier, I mean like professional

(07:12):
like Murray and sat Like when Joewas on the shelf, he was involved
with the edit every step of theway. After Joe departed to spend more
time with his family, we gotinvolved in the editing more. Salin Murray
will give pages of notes, andI mean good notes, like like three
or four pages of notes on everyepisode. I'll watch an episode and then
I'll call up Megan Mantu, who'swho's our supervisor, the handler, and

(07:36):
just go over with it. I'llbe like I thought this was funny,
or what about this did I didwith this woman instead of what I did
with this guy? And she'll swapthem around so we all do the edit.
I'm a little more lucy goosey thanthe other guys, but that's because
I'm lazy. So I like shootingmore like I love it because like we're
hanging out with our friends on set, we're having fun, we're meeting people.

(07:58):
Editing's a little bit like what I'mand like when I'm home, like
I just want to play Legs intoZelma, you know what I mean.
I just want to play whatever videogames come out this week. So so
I'm not as focused on that asdaily guys are. Have you ever had
a bit that you thought was gonnago over weld and it just absolutely bombed?
Or did you have any bits thatnever made it to air that you

(08:20):
thought were well done? Yeah,there was There were two. There was
two bits. One that we shotand then we gave up in the middle
of shooting. It's really the onlytime it's ever happened on the show.
And the one that we gave upshooting is we went to this park in
Manhattan and it was it's where allthese rich people send their nannies with their
kids to play in the park.So you go to the park and it's

(08:43):
like all these little kids running aroundand then all these nannies standing around talking
to each other watching them. Sowe were like, all right, so
here's a bit. We'll go intothe park. We'll start baby talking one
of the kids, and then we'lltransition to start baby talking with nannies and
see if we have a conversation inbaby talk with a nanny. And what
we didn't realize at the time waslike four childless, single men wandering a

(09:07):
children's park baby talking to random babiesis not is not something that's gonna fly.
So the cops were called and whenthey got there, we were here
to be like, oh no,we shooting impractical jokers, and the cop
is like, look, we lovethe show, but you can't do you
gotta get out of it there.So that one was that one didn't go
and the other one and I haveto take responsibility because it was my idea
was I thought, if we dressedlike mins and then we held up a

(09:31):
sign and whoever was the mine hadto act out whatever was on the sign.
And if the person saw you know, you were doing it to guess
it you want, And of courseeverything on the sign was kind of wacky
and over the top, and westarted to shoot it at one hundred one
degree one hundred and sal will everforgive me for this. He still breaking
it up one hundred one degrees inCentral Park. We had this makeup on

(09:52):
an all black long sleeve because wewanted to look like mine. We didn't
look like we're on the way out. We looked like we were about to
the sweat. And everybody was justcomplaining and miserable. Nobody gave a crap
about the minds in the park.We filmed the whole thing. We watched
the footage and we're like, there'snot a single funny joke aside from South
whining and complaining on this and thatwas it. So so yeah, we've

(10:15):
had some duds, but I'll tellyou a surprisingly amount of success over failure.
The ratio is pretty good. Practicaljokers at Target Center this Thursday,
and for our friends in Iowa.By the way, you're at the Wells
Fargo Arena in Des Moines on Friday. So Target Center Thursday, Des Moines
on Friday and we're talking to Qfrom The Impractical Jokers. So how often

(10:35):
I get everybody on your shows inon the bit right? Everybody knows it's
gonna be lighthearted and fun, Buthow often our feelings actually hurt? Has
it ever been over the line whereit got awkward with another cast member?
No, not really, like whatyou're talking about between the four of us.
Yeah, where somebody actually was like, wow, that you put me
in a really bad spot. Thatwas that was somehow over the line.

(10:56):
Not really. No. Now we'vebeen friends thirty something years, you know
what I mean, we kind ofI know where kind of the line is
for each of them, Like justjust because they're my best friends, you
know what I mean. So Iknow where that personal line is. And
honestly, after all these years,that line doesn't really this anymore. We
kind of go after I mean,that's the thing, you guys know,
you guys know the way you tellyour friends that you love them is to

(11:18):
bust their chop and to make funof them and to that's just what guys
do. And if I'm wrong,well that I'm wrong, but it doesn't
seem like I'm wrong, and soit's just like you just go to work
and you plush the friends, andif they get you really good, you
don't have to wait long before it'syour chance to get revenge, you know
what I mean, Like you justwait five minutes and suddenly they got the
earpiece in and you're telling them whatto do, and then you just you

(11:39):
know, you're really really, youknow, treat them rough. So it's
fine, it's all loving to revenge. It's there's there's nobody even even the
people that we do the bits too, almost never get angry. And I'm
talking like, because at the endof the day, we're making ourselves look
stupid, you know what I mean, we don't make them look stupid.
Some people so rarely or oh I'mso angry about this, they're usually like,

(12:01):
what did I just witness? Thisis crazy and they find it funny.
So you know, it's just whenyou're making funny yourselves, it just
kind of makes everything a little biteasier. I think, just for a
second, getting away from the actualshow and had the show coming to Fargus
Center on Thursday, New York CityFire Department from two thousand and five to
twenty thirteen, it seems from theoutside looking in, but that's the kind
of thing that you know, familiesare a part of Are you from a

(12:22):
firefighter family? No, oddly enough, I'm not. I Uh my dad
did work for the city in NewYork. He drove subways, he was
he was a motorman for the subwaycars in Manhattan for years and years.
But no, I have no familythat, which is odd because on Staten
Island it's like works is where Istill live. It's like growing up,

(12:43):
everybody's father is a cop, afireman, or in the mafia, Like
those are the three jobs that youhave on stat Island. Uh. And
I just didn't know any fireman atall. I just I don't know.
I kind of always wanted to bea fireman. Then after nine to eleven
it was like, you know,I really want to be a fireman.
And when I was a kid,you know, a Ghostbuster this was my
favorite movie. And they lived ina firehouse. So I was like,

(13:03):
oh man, I gotta get ina firehouse, maybe the busting ghost So
it was like it was the wholething. But it was really just following
my own, my own kind ofheart on that one. And as much
as obviously I'm sure you love beingon the television show and hanging with your
buddies and doing the show. Wasit hard to give up that career?
It was impossible, brother, wouldhave you got to ask your questions.
It was like it was heartbreaking.It was like, I mean, I

(13:24):
loved it so much. And there'snothing like a fire, Like if you're
a fireman and you get to goto a fire and like use your skills
and help people, like there's nothinglike it in the world. And I
don't know, I just loved itso much. And and and the guys
in the firehouse, I'm so closewith them, but I'm still close with
them. We go out for drinksall the time, you know what I
mean, And and uh, andI'm there. But yeah, I did
miss it quite a bit. Imean, you know, I'm forty seven

(13:46):
now, so you know, nowI go to the firehouse and then the
new recruits they all look like children, you know what I mean, They're
like twenty two, twenty three,and there they got abs and shoulders and
pecks, and like I look atmyself and I'm like, all right,
they don't even need me here anymore. Like you know what I'm saying,
I'm obsolete with the Flight Department.So I feel okay about it now,
but there are a few rough,rough moments in the beginning. Yeah,

(14:09):
you said you were a big videogame fan. What are a few of
your favorite video games? Oh?Man, well, dead Space. I
don't know if you guys ever playedDead Space. It's like a horror thing
said on a spaceship. Okay,so when they first came out there,
I mean, they just got aremake that was pretty good too. But
I love Dead Space, the Delvaseries a huge Uh you know, I
played red I play it. Look, I'm always playing a video game.

(14:30):
The second one end, another onetakes its place and stuff like that.
So like I played, I playedpretty much like a little bit of everything.
You were about to say, what'sup? Were you about to say?
Red Dead Redemption I loved. Yeah. Yeah, we're all obsessed with
that game. We have been sinceit came out. Oh man, what's
spending It? Just like that's agame where I'm just like, you know

(14:52):
what, I'm just gonna fish.Yeah, I'll just get into the world
of fish. Yeah. I loveRed Dead Man It's sain John Marston is
one of my favorite. The charactersome people like to fish in the game.
These two guys over here would liketo go to Valentine and basically get
I get a tug job in thebathtub. I just did it the other
day. I actually I had abouta half power to myself. I booted

(15:13):
up Red Dead Redemption too, onlyto go to Valentine because I knew he
was dirty and arty somewhere out therein the world. You paid the twenty
five cents and you get your crank. Pretty good deal. Pretty good deal.
A quarter for a tug job.Yep. If I had a time
machine, I'd go back in timejust for that. Not a bad deal
at all. Here's a shiny nickelboy, Go get a job. Yeah,

(15:35):
thanks for your time, man.Good luck at Target Center on Thursday,
and good luck and well, bythe way, congrats on all the
success in the last decade plus,but good luck the rest of the way
out however, long and practical jokersgo. So congrats, dude, thank
you, Yeah, and everybody,yes, come out to look these are
I only have two more tour dates, the tour weekends the rest of this
year, so this is literally likemy my my year retirement party. These

(16:00):
are gonna be crazy shows because I'mgonna make them crazy. So anybody that
wants sal Murray and Joe they toreall the time. You gotta catch me.
I'm like vintage wine. Man,you gotta catch you when I can
do it. So that's this weekendif you're in town. But yeah,
we're gonna have a blast. Thankyou guys for your time and thanks for
helping me. Appreciate it for theword. I really appreciate it. You
take care, see you valid time, all right, best Brian Quinn Q

(16:26):
from Impractical Jokers. So they startedas an improv troop in high school.
Yeah, it's pretty cool. Howabout that? Man, it's it's we
are definitely seeing a shift. Whilewe were doing the show this morning,
I saw, you know, DudePerfect is coming to the XO Energy Center.
Right, these YouTube sensations are notthat The Impractical Jokers is YouTube.
They like hit crazy trick shots.But am I going, how can you

(16:48):
bring dude Perfect to an arena?Like what are they gonna do? Just
set up trick shots for three hours? So right, and there's no way
they hit them on the first try. Like, I'm just very curious what
that show looks like. And that'swhy I'm like, how does impractical jokers
work on stage, but clearly itworks. They're big enough to do arenas
across the country, which is fantastic. So man, this the the YouTube,

(17:12):
TikTok Instagram people of the world aregoing to figure out a way to
go on tour and make money toa rain and uh, why not if
you have a huge fan base.Yeah, that's where the money is.
Get in front of them, sawyour t shirts, entertain them, and
go home. So good for fora Q and the rest of the crew.
You know, it's it's you saythat, that's an interesting point because

(17:33):
I honestly I haven't seen that show, and I'll watch it now because I
like that guy seems very very cool. Um, but there's the other day
listen to the TikTok stuff, andI know it's a little bit different.
But after having our meeting and youknow you need to do this and do
that and do this, at somepoint it's like, Okay, I really
am fifty two. I don't thinkI'm gonna be able to pretend I'm not
correct, you know what I mean? Well, and these guys aren't,

(17:55):
you know, aren't necessarily the umillustrative of what I'm saying. But there's
a whole lot going on in theworld that I am just too goddamn old
for it. I just gotta admitit. That's just how it is,
sure, man, even though they'reon True TV. But I'm still the
point I'm making is they are theequivalent though of this. You could do
what they do just on social mediaand you go on tour. They just
happen to start on more traditional TVand True TV on a cable station.

(18:19):
But yeah, I'm with you,dude. I feel the same way.
Every time we're told you gotta dothis, you gotta do that, I'm
like, I don't want to donine second TikTok videos. And if that's
what makes our radio show good,then I think we're gonna slowly start fading
away, and I'm fine with that. I'll find something else to do.
I don't I would rather not befake, and you can do that kind
of shit. Yeah, So Idon't know. That's why I just f

(18:41):
around on Twitter and call it aday. I just gotta hope that what
we do it continues to stay popularenough for us to have a gig for
another ten years or so, maybeif we're lucky. But but I'm with
you, man, You know,nothing sounds more ridiculous to me, and
to be honest with you, moretiring than me. Then try to reinvent
myself as a young person at fiftytwo years I can't imagine doing a morning
show where you had to do that, where you had to like stay on

(19:03):
top of the TikTok generation as afifty two year old, I can't imagine
having to do that. That woulddrive me crazy. Yeah, and I
don't know if you can possibly doit every day, you know. You
know the weird thing about some socialmedia for me, and this is a
little hypocritical, but I'll watch alot of the big time poker players,
especially this last couple of weeks sincethe World Series of Poker has started,
and they're walking around filming themselves,walking through the hallways. Yeah, giving

(19:27):
like break updates. Right, Hey, you know, here's my stack,
Here's what I just did. Andthen they have either an editor or somebody
put together kind of a daily vlog. Nigrano's got a big one, but
a lot of the other guys doit just for Instagram quick hitters. Right,
Here's what my how my day's going. And it sucks because as a
viewer. I'm like, I'm allin. I watch all of them,
I follow all of them. Butbut to your point, Chris about getting

(19:49):
older, I can't get myself tobe that guy. I feel foolish.
I feel fake if I'm like,I can't imagine this weekend turning my camera
like this and walking down the hallwaytalking to myself and to see if people
yeah, so I'll watch it.I don't want to do it. That
just isn't me. And I seewhat's popular on social media and what works

(20:12):
on social media, and I go, I get it. I understand why
people like this. I just amnot that. I can't do it.
I can't pull the trigger. Ican't be that person. I can't talk
to the camera sixteen times a dayand then edit the best ones. Can't
do it. Yeah, it's likepeople want access twenty four seven to the
people that they love, even ifthey're just doing nothing. They want to
just see them sitting there, youknow, watch you can watch movies with

(20:34):
your favorite celebrity in an hour,or your favorite YouTube or whatever you can.
They just want to see you andlike you're almost like a pseudo friend.
Yeah, it was a problem.Is the Max. And maybe I'm
wrong about this because I don't knowanything about this stuff, but from what
I can see, the reason thatyour career is so much smaller and shorter
these days is because you have accessall the time. And if you give

(20:56):
people that kind of access, they'regonna get sick of you sooner. Yeah,
that's just the bottom line. Oryou're gonna run. You're gonna run
out stories, You're gonna give awayeverything you got and it's not gonna be
interesting. And we talked to thecomedians all the time. You can't put
your best bits online because your bestbits are gonna be blown as soon as
you do. So how do youcontinue to keep up with that? It
just wears me the hell out,even thinking about it wears me out.
Well, think yeah, And there'ssome people that have found success just absolutely

(21:18):
going left. Like for example,like as an artist, Frank Ocean,
he has no social media, neverpost, rarely comes out out, but
people are constantly wears Frank Ocean becausebecause the mystery factor, it's the right
Prince would have done. Prince wouldn'thave been on Instagram, Oh absolutely not.
And somebody's gonna tweet me an hourand say he was, but he

(21:41):
is. So I don't know ifPrince is a good example of robot example,
but the huge rock stars of theeighties and nineties, you saw him
on music videos and then when theywere on the Tonight Show, it's like,
fuck, I gotta I have totune in. I'm gonna see it.
Cool of them half so you didn'tknow what he was gonna say or
what he was gonna do because youdidn't have access to him twenty four hours

(22:02):
a day. It was so muchmore special to see the people you cared
about and you could actually like,yeah, you could kind of input what
you think they would be like.Because sometimes I follow people on social media
and I'm like, oh, youactually suck? You know, I actually
I think I do. That's theother problem right there, exactly. You
know, I've even seen it.If we're pulling back the curtain a little
bit here. I'm always worried aboutus being too accessible to the listeners because

(22:29):
I love the State Fair and howenormous it is when we show up once
or maybe twice as state Fair.I wanted to stay that enormous. But
if you can see us at PecanSam's on a Tuesday, night. You're
gonna it's not that big a dealif you can come down the road and
see us, you know, Ibut what the hell do I know?
Right? Well, maybe less ismore. Maybe we should just charge more
for less of people that didn't worktwenty years ago, that didn't I don't

(22:52):
even son of a bitch, David, he'll tell us, tell us sound
sure did It's all sounds good onpaper to me. Yeah, but execution
right, yeah, in favor ofit? Yeah? Alright, that was
cool, man. I like tofeel like that was super good, dude.
Yeah, all right, sweet,all right, that's the after Party
Podcast. Thanks for tuning in.Go see Q and his friends the Impractical

(23:15):
Jokers at the Target Center this Thursday, starting at seven thirty. Tickets available
now. I don't know if theyhave an opener? Should ask him that,
would they have an opener? Wouldthey be music sauce? Why don't
you open for Impractical Jokers? Anddo you're a bit do your Target?
Yeah? I wonder I bet theyjust walk out of probably just walk out
on stage. Openers aren't like there'svery few acts that have openers anymore.
Yeah, it's come out on stageand do it, breaking a wall Nation.

(23:37):
Isn't the opener for three eleven anymore? Son of a? But happen
scheduling conflicts? Oh no, ship. So they're on the whole tour,
just not the minablished show. Yep, that's who ain't that's some shit,
some band I've never heard of.It's obviously. I was super pumped Sunk
Sucky, and I'm still going.It's still for eleven, but I wanted
to see about Sucky Sucky. Alright, alright, by everybody middle Sucky Sucky.

(24:02):
You heard me,