The premise for Impractical Jokers could be summed up by the disclaimer that preceded every episode of the series:  "Warning: The following program contains scenes of graphic stupidity among four lifelong friends who compete to embarrass each other.” Since its debut on TruTV in December 2011, the foursome earned lifelong fans by letting viewers in on an endless string of inside jokes and those “you had to be there,” endearingly dumb antics.

The Jokers, friends since college, had formed a comedy troupe called The Tenderloins, but as the cast of Impractical Jokers — a Candid Camera-type show where they dared each other to do slightly humiliating things in front of strangers — they found an audience through an elegantly simple kind of stupidity in an era when prank shows made celebrities believe their house was on fire or had cast members repeatedly kick each other in the nuts.