20 Best Impractical Jokers Episodes, Ranked According To IMDb Users

The TruTV (and later TBS) reality series “Impractical Jokers” finds comedy stars Joe Gatto, James “Murr” Murray, Brian “Q” Quinn, and Sal Vulcano boldly performing a series of pranks and humiliating challenges in the presence of strangers. While they don’t do anything on the reality TV show danger level of “Jackass,” the show’s scrappy, cringe-heavy, and fundamentally good-natured sense of humor has earned it a massive fanbase across its 12 years on air.

“Impractical Jokers” is particularly beloved on IMDb, where it’s previously been ranked as one of the three best reality shows of all time. And the show’s most memorable challenges and hilarious punishments have been similarly showered with glowing ratings. Below, you’ll find a ranking of the 20 highest-rated “Impractical Jokers” episodes. (Note: IMDb’s episode rankings frequently change, so don’t be surprised if you see one of your favorites drop down a spot or two!)

Season 2’s “Down in the Dump” sits in 20th place in the ranking with a 8.7 IMDb score. On it, the guys play “Putpocketing,” a reverse pickpocketing game in which they are to slip as many pencils as possible into the pockets and carts of grocery shoppers. Q wins this challenge, which is followed by “Leading the Blind.” It’s a “Do as you’re told” game in a park, but with a twist: The players must wear blind glasses the whole time. Sal and Q end up losing.

After Sal and Joe lose the third challenge, in which the Jokers play vacation planners and team up to give bizarre presentations to clients, Sal is pronounced the week’s loser. For his punishment, the episode brings back the recurring bit in which Sal is made to undertake a disgusting search — in this case, to look for a new phone in a pile of trash aboard a barge.

“Strip High Five,” the fifth episode of Season 2, also has an IMDb score of 8.7. It begins with a mock sensitivity training exercise in which the guys split into two teams — Q and Murr on one, Sal and Joe on the other — and give presentations on workplace security to a focus group. Sal and Joe are voted the winners.

The second challenge finds the Jokers approaching strangers outside the Whitehall Terminal, telling them they look like a celebrity, and trying to get them to “guess” the celebrity in question by offering outlandish descriptions supplied by the other players. Everyone loses except Q, and then Joe suffers a second defeat in the originating game of “Bad Reception,” in which the Jokers pose as office receptionists.

Since both Joe and Murr are tied with two accumulated defeats, they receive the show’s first-ever double punishment, in which they both offer high-fives to strangers on the street and must remove an article of clothing each time they’re left hanging.

Season 9 was the last season before Joe Gatto’s exit. Its third episode, “Drive, Drive, Drive,” brings back the “Bad Reception” challenge, and this time Q emerges as the loser. Then, the Jokers give slideshow presentations on party planning to a focus group; Q loses again, alongside Joe, in the final vote tally.

This leaves Q as the episode’s loser, and his punishment is among the most severe ever dispensed in “Impractical Jokers” history. He must drive around New York City picking up and delivering food to each of the other Jokers, who live on far-apart ends of the city; while completing this multi-hour drive, Q has to endure the company of a group of animatronic puppets occupying the other seats in the car and singing the same song over and over. Although this nearly costs Q his sanity, at least “Drive, Drive, Drive” has an 8.7 IMDb rating to show for it.

Season 6’s “Rubbed the Wrong Way” features the debut of the “Stalk and Text” challenge, in which the Jokers go around a shopping mall food court trying to get people’s digits, and then send texts on each other’s behalf. Joe gets the fewest responses and is declared the loser.

In the second challenge, the Jokers once again play “Over the Shoulder,” a game introduced on Season 5’s “Virtual Insanity,” in which one player throws grocery items over his shoulder while his teammate tries to catch as many as possible without dropping anything. This time, Joe and Q tie with Sal and Murr.

The centerpiece that cinches the episode’s 8.8 IMDb rating, though, is Joe’s slapstick-heavy punishment: Playing a genie in a stage play while the other Jokers control his harness and send him flying and crashing around the scenery.

Season 6’s “X-Man” begins with the first-ever “Laugh Man Standing” challenge, in which all four Jokers sit in a waiting room and endeavor to make each other laugh while trying not to laugh themselves. It’s followed by a challenge in which Murr and Q try to make strangers agree with absurd statements, and then by a remote command game at ArteVino Studio in New Jersey.

Ultimately, Q refuses to paint a red X across a child’s painting, which results in the episode’s tie being broken against him. As the week’s loser, Q is forced to not only complete the command he previously refused, but to paint an X over the paintings of all students in the class — an extraordinarily cringeworthy finale that helped “X-Man” get an 8.8 rating on IMDb.

Season 3’s “In Poor Taste Buds” finds the Jokers posing as indoor tennis instructors; Murr loses the challenge after refusing to invite a student to play “strip tennis.” The next challenge is a round of “Now!,” in which all four Jokers succeed by performing their respective commands whenever they hear “Now!”

With Murr as the loser, a particularly elaborate punishment takes place: He is to pose as a culinary expert and teach a class on unique foods from around the world at New York City’s Downtown Conference Center. The kicker is that, just prior to the class, Murr gets Novocain shot into his gums — such that, halfway through tasting the foods in front of the attendees, his mouth muscles begin to go dormant and he temporarily loses his sense of taste. This noble sacrifice in the name of cringe comedy netted the episode an 8.8 IMDb rating.

For Season 3’s “Make Womb for Daddy,” which has an 8.8 on IMDb, the Jokers split into teams and work in a sandwich shop; if either teammate refuses a command, the whole team loses, which is exactly what happens to Sal and Q when Q refuses to call a woman a “beef stick.”

This game is followed by two others. In the first, titled “Guess What?,” the Jokers form duos, with one giving hints about a secret task while the other has to guess it and perform it; Joe and Q lose. Then, Sal and Q play against each other in a game of “From the Top,” in which they must perform a series of tasks in the correct order, with a new one being added on each round. Q is the loser, and his punishment involves giving a Lamaze lesson to a class of pregnant women — which seems lightweight enough, until he’s hooked to a machine that simulates the pain of labor.

Imagine Dragons guest star on Season 2’s “Enter the Dragons,” which has an 8.8 on IMDb. Prior to their climactic appearance, the Jokers have to perform tasks assigned to them on the spot while climbing to the top of a mall escalator; Joe loses. Then, they go around a grocery store whispering to strangers and trying to get someone to whisper back; Q wins. Then, at New Jersey’s Turtle Back Zoo, Sal and Joe have a one-on-one battle in which they must ask a series of questions to passersby.

Joe wins the latter challenge, tying with Sal as the week’s loser, and the two are forced to perform as a fake band named Señora Lanza in the opening slot to Imagine Dragons’ Jones Beach Theater concert, without knowing how to play the instruments, while Imagine Dragons members Dan Reynolds and Wayne Sermon join in telling them what to say and do.

The entry right above “Enter the Dragons” in the ranking also features a special celebrity guest that gives the episode its name. Before getting to that point, however, “Everything’s Just Rosie,” which has an 8.8 IMDb score, pits the Jokers in duos against each other for a round of “Do and say what you’re told” played on a bowling alley.

The duo of Q and Sal loses, and Q counts another loss in the following challenge, which asks the Jokers to drop scoops of mashed potatoes onto the plates of diners at a restaurant; because he believes points are determined by volume of mashed potatoes rather than number of scoops, Q dumps his whole bowl onto a plate and loses by default. In the last challenge, the Jokers go cloud-watching in a park, and try to get strangers to agree with them about outlandish cloud shape descriptions. As the cumulative loser, Q gives a presentation about a brand-new cloning machine … only for the “clone” emerging from the machine to be Rosie O’Donnell.

Season 9’s “Smashing Success,” has a score of 8.8 on IMDb. It features only two challenges; in the first, the Jokers interview a series of candidates for a fake security job and show them around a kooky office building. As every player succeeds in getting their candidate to accept the job, no loser is declared.

The second challenge, meanwhile, is built right into the episode punishment: Joe and Sal pose as artists-in-residence giving furniture design instructions to volunteer builders at ArteVino. Sal loses, and has to destroy the furniture the volunteers had been making for him during the challenge.

The Jokers once again play “Bad Reception” on Season 8’s “Tipping Point,” and only Sal ultimately fails to do everything that he’s told. The next challenge has the guys trying, one at a time, to convince strangers not to use a bar bathroom based on reasons supplied by the other Jokers — and, though some controversy breaks out when Sal’s “I wouldn’t go in there” is so convincing that he doesn’t have time to deliver his reason, all four players are able to complete the challenge.

This leaves Sal as the loser, whose punishment is to act as a food delivery man and keep complaining about his tips until he gets people to give him a bigger one. IMDb users, for their part, tipped the episode with a score of 8.8.

“Impractical Jokers” relocated to TBS on Season 11, and the season in question went out with a bang. For the first challenge of “Trolling for Friends,” the Jokers put on a double-layered performance: They are to obey commands while posing as actors in a fake home security commercial shoot.

Murr loses; for his punishment, he gets an elaborate costuming and makeup treatment to look like a troll, and then is placed inside the Liberty Science Center’s Touch Tunnel, where he is to talk to visitors (with a sulfur hexafluoride-deepened voice) and break through their initial fright to try to make a new friend — all while once again obeying the other Jokers’ commands. This go-for-broke season finale was given an 8.9 rating by IMDb users.

Following a remote command game titled “Con Artists” (because the Jokers are pretending to be art teachers at ArteVino Studio) and lost by Joe, Season 2’s  “Sweat the Small Things” introduces a new game called “Dartboard of Destiny.” The guys throw darts, and must perform the challenge that the dart lands on; Sal loses, and, because it’s a double-down challenge, he is declared the week’s loser.

Sal’s punishment involves giving a presentation on stress relief; as he’s presenting the audience with slides, however, it turns out that one of the videos within the presentation depicts the other three Jokers breaking into Sal’s home while he’s away on vacation, and wreaking absolute havoc. With that twist ending as punctuation, the episode scored an 8.9 on IMDb.

Season 8’s “The Shame of Water” carries an 8.9 IMDb score. It brings back “Risky Readers,” the challenge from previous Season 8 episode “The Dumbbell” in which the Jokers must convince strangers in a park to let them read three diary entries supposedly written by their daughters, but actually written by the other Jokers to be as outrageous as possible. Sal fails and loses the challenge.

Next up is “Should We Break Up?,” in which the Jokers try to get people in a coffee shop to agree with them that they should break up with their girlfriends, while the others supply absurd reasons. All four Jokers fail the challenge, which means that Sal is the episode’s loser. For his punishment, he is to wait tables at the Times Square Dallas BBQ while wearing drunk goggles, and then after getting spun around in a chair. The challenge is terminated for safety when he starts bumping into walls helplessly.

The “Laugh Man Standing” challenge makes a comeback on Season 8’s “Fraudway,” which got a rating of 8.9 on IMDb. Once again, all four Jokers sit together in a waiting room full of strangers and try to make each other laugh, with whoever breaks having to leave the room; only Q and Joe manage to resist laughing for a long time, and are deemed joint winners as a result.

Then, the guys split into duos and visit a chicken shop where they must behave as the other duo tells them; Murr and Q lose the challenge, but, because Q had the win from the previous game, Murr lands in the bottom for the episode. He is thus given the hyper-personal punishment of acting as a cameraman for Yanni, his musical idol, and obeying the crew’s orders while on the job.

Season 3’s “B-I-N-G-NO” features two successive rounds of “Do and say what you’re told.” In the first, the Jokers pose as workers at a deli, and no losers emerge; in the second, they play ice cream vendors at Union Square, and Sal loses.

For Sal’s punishment, he is entered into a bingo tournament, and has to yell “Bingo!” intermittently without having actually scored a bingo; he eventually gets escorted out by security after getting on the nerves of every player in attendance. The episode has an impressive 9.0 on IMDb, making it the 5th-highest-rated “Impractical Jokers” installment of all time.

The Season 3 premiere, titled “Look Out Below,” combines the classic “Impractical Jokers” setups of remote command-giving and chaotic lecturing; first, the Jokers do as they’re told while working as bellhops at The Borgata in Atlantic City, with Joe losing, and then they switch to working a hot dog stand, and both Murr and Joe end up as the losers.

Then, Murr and Sal face off presenting ridiculous fake inventions — Sal’s a pair of tin cans with antennas, and Murr’s a gigantic energy bar. Sal’s invention outvotes Murr’s, leading to the episode’s centerpiece, in which Murr is made to skydive without warning. This memorable punishment largely accounts for the episode’s mighty 9.0 IMDb rating.

The finale of Season 3 features an unwitting payoff to “Look Out Below” that IMDb users rewarded with a whopping 9.1 score. Titled “Brother-in-Loss,” the episode appears to be business as usual at first, with a “Do what you’re told” challenge set against the guys’ efforts to land a job (at which only Q succeeds), and then a mimicking challenge set outside the Whitehall Terminal (at which both Sal and Q fail).

The twist comes in the episode’s finale, which finds Murr not only punishing Sal, but going the extra mile to get long-awaited revenge for his own skydiving punishment. Sal is driven blindfolded to a church, where he has to watch Murr marry his sister Jenna, complete with all wedding ceremonials.

At 9.2, the second-highest-rated “Impractical Jokers” episode on IMDb is Season 5’s “Whose Phone Is Ringing?,” which begins with a game in which the Jokers spin a wheel with pictures of their faces and throw darts to determine who has to pull a challenge out of a bag. Joe loses a challenge, as does Sal after the wheel is rigged to have only his face on it.

This is followed by a game of “Sabotage the Seller,” in which a player creates a product and then tries to sabotage his opponent’s sales pitch of that product; both Q and Joe succeed in ruining Sal and Murr’s respective pitches. For his punishment, Sal poses as an author at a literary event, and his phone goes off, repeatedly and excruciatingly, with an annoying ringtone containing the titular lyrics.

The best “Impractical Jokers” episode of all time according to IMDb is Season 3’s “The Permanent Punishment.” The Jokers begin by doing as they’re told while pretending to be convenience store security guards; this is followed by a return of the “Fly Me to Balloon” challenge, in which players must attach balloons to strangers without being noticed.

Q, Sal, and Murr all lose the latter challenge, and, since there were no losers in the first, they’re all left to face the single best punishment in “Impractical Jokers” history: Getting embarrassing tattoos, as selected by Joe. Murr gets a skydiving ferret, Q gets a cat with humiliating text, Sal is randomly given a tattoo of Jaden Smith, and this crowning achievement in “Impractical Jokers” history gets a gobsmacking 9.4 from IMDb voters.