Impractical Joker Joe Gatto | This Past Weekend #234
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 29 minutes
Words per Minute
237.91408
Summary
Comedian Joe Gatto joins Jemele to discuss his new show on TBS, Misery Index, and what it's like working on the New York City Ferry. He also talks about how he got his start in comedy and how he ended up in sales at Nordstrom.
Transcript
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You know him, he's one of the impractical jokers, and this guy has probably made more people laugh than anybody.
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Maybe any, I'm trying to think of somebody that tickles people, that's real famous, I don't even know,
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but he's probably one of the top 40 or 50 funniest people that you've probably ever even heard of or not heard of.
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And he's here today, he has a new show on TBS called Misery Index.
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He has countless seasons of his hit show, The Impractical Jokers.
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He's one of the Tenderloins, and that's their original group of improvists.
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Ladies and gentlemen, my guest, my friend, Mr. Joe Gatto, or Gatto, I'm not sure I'm going to ask him right now.
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What island is that? How does that rank amongst other islands, you think?
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Oh, they call it the Caribbean of the New York Harbor.
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I don't think I've been there. I mean, I always hear you guys talk about it, you know, and you hear a lot of people talk about it.
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Most people go through it, because it's the connector between Brooklyn and Jersey or Long Island and Jersey, you know, so a lot of people go through it.
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But a lot of people, it's the free way to see the Statue of Liberty.
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Yeah, you take the Staten Island Ferry, which is free, as opposed to the Liberty Ferry, which takes you to Liberty Island, and you have to get off and look at the feet of it.
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And when you're there, there's like nothing to do, so you can drive by.
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Right, so you get the best look from the ferry.
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So you see everybody on one side of the boat on the way there, and then one side of the boat on the way back.
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Dude, you used to work on the ferry, didn't you?
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Time was tough. Yeah, I panhandled for a while.
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What was a job that you had that you actually missed that was a long time ago?
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Yeah, when I came out here to chase the dream, I was going to be a screenwriter director.
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That's where I'm hoping to end up, and I came out here to do that in 2003 to 2005, and I ended up working at Nordstrom's at the Grove.
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What was one of your go-to moves if somebody wandered in?
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I worked in the rail, which is the men's section that sell high-end jeans and t-shirts and all that stuff, right?
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It's a quality section, yeah. We actually put it on the map. I don't want to brag, but I was a platinum pace setter salesman.
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Yeah, $1 million in a year, but that's the end of here or there. I mean, who's bragging? No one.
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And you guys are selling some real wild stuff in there.
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Yeah, it was like when Von Dutch hats. I put one on everybody.
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Guys, that's it, man. You know, a dollar's a dollar, and I worked on commission.
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It was, yeah. I used to do the thing because we worked in the men's section when I had a great scheme.
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No hourly. You don't get paid if you don't sell, right? So that was it.
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You don't get paid. That's like drugs. That's almost like drug trafficking.
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The Von, past the Von Dutch. So I did the, I had like girlfriends who were coming with their boyfriends.
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And one of the boyfriends would come to shop, and I'd be like, oh, and you, I'm sure you need some jeans, too.
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Let me take you upstairs and introduce you to Chelsea.
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And I would go up there, and I would have a deal with Chelsea upstairs.
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And it was such a great scheme, because you could sell anything in the store.
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And then eventually, I became known there as like, because I was fun and funny, you know, and I didn't really, I was pretty good with people.
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Next thing you know, you got the guy on a Nordic track somewhere on the fifth floor.
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I got poached from Nordstrom to this high-end, it's called H.T. Buttercup.
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And I worked out a deal with them that, like, because they have little, their setup was called
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And they're like, oh, no, you would just work for this one company.
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I'm like, oh, that's not what I was told in the interview.
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I was like, well, I'm just going to sell everything.
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So I would just walk around and sell everything to anybody who walked in the door.
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And I actually helped Jessica Alba with, like, rugs.
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And I helped her with, like, some rugs and stuff.
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And that was, like, my claim of fame for a while.
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And there was one guy that worked at this whole deal.
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Inside, one of the Manutails was an antique guy.
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I worked out a deal where it was hourly plus commission.
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I was like, you know, whatever I sell, I'll get 5% of it.
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Like, you know what it's like when you move out of here.
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And then you squeeze the packet of jelly into your mouth.
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I would get a bite of the peanut butter sandwich.
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I don't know if you want us to get into that now.
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He's like, hey, I got to go pick up my daughter.
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I think he had to pick up his daughter from school or something.
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He's like, do you mind just watching us till we close?
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Oh, listen to all the white privilege in that guy's life, huh?
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But whatever he had to do, or he had a doctor appointment or a funeral, I can't remember.
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I was like, oh, could you help me with, she's like, I'm looking for an antique chest.
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So I walk in, and I hadn't hardly ever walked into this because I didn't know anything about it.
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And there's only so much you could fake, right?
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Right, like it's all, oh, this smells like Lincoln.
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I'm like, yeah, this has got mahogany and Lincoln.
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So she walked in, and she fell in love with this, like, armoire, this, like, big.
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She's like, oh, I think my husband will like this.
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It was like, I think it was, like, an anniversary gift or something.
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And I was like, where would you like that delivered?
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It was back in the day, so there wasn't even that.
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You had to know a couple Tongans or Hawaiians to fucking-
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But before they came here, there was this furniture that stayed where it was.
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And so whenever you moved, when you made that move back to New York,
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had you like kind of given up on some of that dream a little bit?
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Because I mean, we've all done a little bit of that move at some point, I think.
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Like, there was a point I was out here for like six years,
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and then I moved back to Louisiana for a while,
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and I was doing margaritas or something, or making margaritas.
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It was, you know, at a real halfway house of a fucking tacoteria, you know?
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It was like a taco, like this real shady cafe with tacos,
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Yeah, and they had the margarita machine, and I broke it.
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I did the settings wrong, and then I had to pretend like it wasn't broke, dude.
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Yeah, it was like Che Guevara's Margaritaville or something.
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People are like, this is, you know, this is interesting.
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Well, when I moved back, my grandma had passed away.
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My grandmother and my mother became widows together,
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So they always had each other, so my mom was like alone now.
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I was like, at my grandmother's funeral, actually,
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At my grandmother's funeral, I had come in from L.A.,
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you know what, maybe I'll move back to New York just out loud,
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I was like, oh, maybe I'll move back to New York in a little bit.
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And she started crying and hugging me, said, thank you, thank you, thank you.
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I was like, okay, I guess I'm moving back to New York.
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Like, I can't be like, back off, lady, you know?
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And you guys are pretty close, you and your mom?
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you don't really have a choice then if she's...
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If you guys are close, then she wants you back.
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Yeah, so I came back, and I moved back into her basement,
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Before I moved, it's where the Tenderloins used to rehearse.
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Before we did our shows, we used to the same basement.
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So I ended up living where I was doing improv rehearsal.
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And I ended up getting a job because of out here in retail
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Brought me into a show at the Jacob Javits Center,
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which is this big furniture show at the Javits Center,
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like where people come to meet new, you know, vendors and stuff.
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It's the big conference center there in Manhattan.
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So it's like the design center here or whatever, you know,
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like one of those where they had those big conferences, huge.
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I decided to work, help her out with this thing,
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and she was the CEO of a new store called Giggle, a baby store.
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These children act like they've been here before.
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And my two-year-old son acts completely different
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Dude, my little nephew used to hide on top of shit,
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There's no way he got up there by natural causes.