Joe Gatto

**Joseph Anthony Gatto Jr.** (born June 5, 1976) is an American comedian, actor, and producer from the New York City borough of Staten Island. He is a member of The Tenderloins, a comedy troupe also consisting of Sal Vulcano, James Murray, and Brian Quinn. Along with the other members of The Tenderloins, he stars in the television series *Impractical Jokers*, which first aired on December 15, 2011, on TruTV.

## Early Life

Gatto was born in Staten Island and is of Italian descent. Gatto attended Monsignor Farrell High School. Along with Murray, Vulcano, and Quinn, he was a member of his high school's Improvisation Club. He studied at LIU Post, where he received a degree in Accounting.

## Career

### Early career

After being apart for years, Murray, Gatto, Quinn, and Vulcano reunited after graduating from college and began practicing improvisation at Gatto's house, going on to tour as an improv and sketch comedy troupe in 1999, calling themselves The Tenderloins.

The Tenderloins began producing comedy sketches together, posting them on YouTube, MySpace, and Metacafe, accumulating millions of views online. In 2007, the troupe won the $100,000 grand prize in the NBC *It's Your Show* competition for the sketch "Time Thugs".

### *Impractical Jokers* and other television shows

*Impractical Jokers* premiered on December 15, 2011 on TruTV. The first season was watched by over 32 million viewers. The show quickly became the most popular series on TruTV and has boosted Gatto into the public eye.

In 2019, Gatto, along with the other members of The Tenderloins, starred in *The Misery Index*, which is hosted by Jameela Jamil and is based on Andy Breckman's card game "Shit Happens".

*Impractical Jokers: The Movie* was released on February 21, 2020.

### *The Tenderloins Podcast*

The Tenderloins began hosting a podcast in April 2012. It is available on their official website and on iTunes.

## Personal Life

Gatto is an advocate for the "Adopt, Don't Shop" movement, encouraging people to adopt pets from shelters rather than purchase them from breeders. He has six dogs: Spumoni, Biscotti, Tartufo, Napoleon, Pignoli and Cannoli. He and his wife, Bessy, have two children, daughter Milana and son Remington "Remo" Gatto.

## Trivia

* Joe and Murr are the only Jokers who are married (though Q used to be engaged).
	+ He is also the only Joker that is a father.
* As of March 2020, Joe has done the least amount of Punishments at 44.
* He and Sal are the only jokers to have been hit by a car.
* The Jokers view Joe as the hardest Joker to punish due to his ability to shamelessly perform shameful tasks.
* He was the last Joker to lose his virginity.
* Joe is an advocate for the 'Adopt, Don't Shop' movement, encouraging people to adopt pets from shelters rather than purchase them from breeders.
* He and Murr shared an apartment together when they were young.
* Joe actually left their comedy group, The Tenderloins, right before the Jokers were given their own show. He only came back once Q and Sal convinced him to re-join.
* Joe loves British singer Charli XCX, name-dropping her hit song "Boom Clap" as one of his top picks.
* Joe has been known for a prominent gut, and a "dad bod". It is used for his humiliation in several skits.
* According to the episode "Fraudway", his parents had passed away by 2013.

## Punishments for Joe

### Season One

* Boardwalk of Shame - Joe must put a woman's toe in his mouth.
* 'Out of TP - Joe has to go into a bathroom at a restaurant, pull his pants down, sit on the toilet, open the door and ask for toilet paper where everybody can see him.
* Bellydancer - Joe performs as a bellydancer.
* Theater del Absurdo - Joe has to tell the audience in a theater that he has pooped his pants.
* Supercuts - technically a tie where the Jokers had to give each other funny haircuts.

### Season Two

* Strip High Five - Joe and Murr have to strip naked unless they get a stranger passing by to give them a high five and if they don't get a high five they have to remove a piece of clothing. Joe won the punishment and Murr was left naked afterwards, at which point he ran off with his clothes.
* Do Something To My Face - Joe is forced into letting people do whatever they want to his face.
* The Love Expert - Joe has to answer questions about relationships that the Jokers wrote.
* The Alliance - Sal, Murr, and Joe all have to jump off a cliff unless they can answer questions about Q's life. He won the punishment while Sal and Murr jumped off the waterfall.
* Enter the Dragons - Sal and Joe must pretend to be part of a fake band and open for Imagine Dragons at a live concert.
* Dog Days of Bummer - Joe must take a dog for a walk while wearing crazy outfits until somebody tells him that he is cuter than the dog.

### Season Three

* The Great Escape - Joe has to perform as a magician and escape a tank of water, chained in a straitjacket.
* Nationals Disaster - Joe pretends to be a gymnast in a roomful of actual gymnasts and must, among other things, perform his "routine" in front of everyone.
* Takes the Cake - Joe thinks he's going to pop out of a cake and perform for a bunch of bachelorettes, but it's not a group of bachelorettes. It is instead a group of war veterans.
* Baggage Shame - Joe does a series of embarrassing tasks at an airport including stealing people's luggage and putting it back on the carousel, frisking people down, and announcing to strangers that he is picking up his naked blow-up doll.
* Quantum Mock-anics - Joe poses as a science expert at a panel. Of course he knows nothing about science, so he does his best to answer questions as the other Jokers and the audience watch.
* Fe-Mail - Joe is dressed in drag, thinking he’s a model at a fashion show. Instead he has to explain new app ideas to a group of tech experts.

### Season Four

* Uncool and the Gang - Joe lost and has to use flash cards with wacky questions and ask them to a group of bikers. The questions are written by the other guys and many refer to the bikers as a "gang", much to their anger. Eventually, his last question is they would give him a wedgie and two of the bikers give him a wedgie. This is one of the few episodes with Joe showing some form of fear.
* Pseudo-Sumo - For Joe's punishment he has to wear a baby costume and is mislead that he must perform in a baby commercial although his real punishment is revealed to be fighting the 2009 US Champion sumo wrestler, Ulambayar Byambajav (referred to as Byamba). This punishment is similar to the that of the episode The Lost Boy.
* Cruisin' For A Brusin' - Joe must interrupt a cannon balling competition, and must repeatedly belly-flop into the pool, until the others allow him to stop.

### Season Five

* Stare Master - Joe is forced to head into a gym, and constantly stare at people working out, until the others allow him to stop.
* Putting the P in Pool - Joe is forced announce to everybody at a public swimming pool, that he is currently urinating in the pool.
* Laundry Day - Joe is forced to be the one-man pep rally squad shooting t-shirts from a shirt canon at the Philadelphia Soul arena football game. Unbeknownst to him, the prizes are outfits straight from his own wardrobe.
* Hitting the Wrong Note - Joe is tricked into dishonoring a fake deceased boy's family at a (fake) funeral held in Columbus Park, New York.
* Wrapper's Delight - After going on treasure hunt, Joe comes to his house to see that everything has been wrapped with wrapping paper, and all of his pictures were replaced with embarrassing photos of him.
* Training Day - Joe, Murr and Sal all had to go through a fire academy. Joe had to take an axe through 1 of 2 roof windows that were either pictures of his wife and dogs or his baby daughter.

### Season Six

* The Parent Trap - Being the only parent out of the quartet, Joe is forced to enter an indoor playground for children, and instruct other parents on how to better parent their children.
* Drum and Drummer - As revenge for the punishment that Murr and Sal went through in "HellCopter", Q and Joe are forced participate in a drumline marching band, followed by dancing.
* Rubbed The Wrong Way - Joe portrays as a genie in a play, but the other jokers control the harness that has been attached to him.
* Take Me Out At The Ballgame - Joe is forced to steal baseballs that were autographed by New York Mets player Noah Syndergaard.

### Season Seven

* No Good Deed - Joe and Sal must present to a bunch of charity donors at a fundraising event how they spent the money on ridiculous things in a slideshow made by Murr and Q.
* Turning the Tables - 8 breakaway tables were placed around a restaurant, and Joe must find all 8 of them and destroy them.
* Bull Shiatsu - Joe is inside a massage chair and must give massages to people. Soon enough, Byamba comes and strains Joe as he's giving him a massage.
* Washed Up - Joe is forced to wash other people's cars without their permission. The punishment doesn't end until he breaks into someone's car and vacuums the interior.
* Out of Left Field - Joe, being the most out of shape between the quartet, gets humiliated at MLB Studios when he is forced to interrupt the televised performances of Carlos Pena and Mark DeRosa, by doing exercises at home plate, with Sal's father as his coach. He can’t stop until he reaches 100 push-ups. Eventually an annoyed Pena and DeRosa join in to help Joe complete the punishment just to get him to leave.

### Season Eight

* Full Mental Jacket - Joe goes to a fashion show, where he takes the jackets of people to hang up. The guys, however, order him to take all of the jackets given to him and pose with them very rudely during the entire fashion show.
* The Eggman - Joe is forced to enter a meeting as a janitor, finding and eating various hard-boiled eggs hidden throughout the room, much to the dismay of the other patrons.
* Sun-Fan Lotion - Originally, Joe has to ask strangers to apply sunscreen all over his body on a nice sunny day at the park; however, the plans change when a fan recognizes Joe, and is shanghaied into the punishment, in which Joe must ask the fan to apply sunscreen on him instead.
* The Paternity Test - Joe is in a focus group about how parents treat their kids with said kids in the room with them with Joe's "child actor"—actually Joe's real daughter Milana playing along. When the focus group moderator (comedy producer John Szeluga) asks a question about how each parent treats their kid, Joe reads the rather awkward/bad answer given to him on the piece of paper.
* Rock Bottom - Joe is painted like a cement wall, and is put up against a wall to scare people, but he must give a speech to college students instead as a surprise.