Name: Impractical Joker Joe Gatto | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #234
Uploaded: 2019-10-01T06:41:15.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Impractical Joker Joe Gatto | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #234' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-10-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Impractical Joker Joe Gatto | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #234' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-10-01. Transcript available.

Impractical Joker Joe Gatto | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #234

You know him, he's one of the impractical jokers, and this guy has probably
made more people laugh than anybody.
Maybe any, I'm trying to think of somebody that tickles people, that's real
famous, I don't even know,
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.
And he's here today, he has a new show on TBS called Misery Index.
He has countless seasons of his hit show, The Impractical Jokers.
He's one of the Tenderloins, and that's their original group of improvists.
Ladies and gentlemen, my guest, my friend, Mr. Joe Gatto, or Gatto, I'm not
sure I'm going to ask him right now.
Shine that light on me
I'll sit and tell you our stories
Shine that light on me
I'll sit and tell you our stories
What island is that? How does that rank amongst other islands, you think?
Oh, they call it the Caribbean of the New York Harbor.
Oh, wow. That's cool, man. I didn't know that.
Yeah, I gotta go to Staten Island, man.
You've never been to Staten Island?
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, you know, like
Most people go through it because like it's the connector between Brooklyn and
Jersey or Long Island and Jersey, you know, so people a lot of people go
through it.
But a lot of people
It's the free way to see the Statue of Liberty.
Oh, really?
Yeah, you take the Staten Island Ferry, which is free.
Yeah.
As opposed to the Liberty Ferry, which takes you to Liberty Island, and you
have to get off and look at the like the feet of it.
And when you're there, there's like nothing to do, so you can drive by.
You can't get a good look at it.
Right, so you get the best look from the ferry.
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.
Dude, you used to work on the ferry, didn't you?
No.
Did you?
Work on a ferry.
Yeah, did you ever?
Time was tough. Yeah, I panhandled for a while.
No, did you a long time ago or no?
No, no. I didn't work on the ferry.
Yeah, I thought somebody told me that.
What was a job that you had that you actually missed that was a long time ago?
I love sales.
I was in sales all the time.
Yeah, when I came out here to chase the dream, I was going to be a screenwriter
director.
That's where I'm hoping to end up.
And I came out here to do that in 2003 to 05, and I ended up working at Nordstrom's
at the Grove.
Oh, wow.
And I crushed the retail game for a while.
Did you really?
Yeah, crushed it.
What was like one of your go-to moves if somebody wandered in?
I'd always, I worked in the rail, which is the men's section that sell like
high-end jeans and like t-shirts and all that stuff, right?
Oh, wow, that's a quality section.
It's a quality section, yeah.
We actually put it on the map.
I don't even know, I don't want to brag, but I was a platinum pay setter, salesman.
Number five across the country.
Were you really?
Yeah, $1 million in a year, but that's neither here or there.
I mean, who's bragging?
No one.
And you guys are selling some real wild stuff in there.
Yeah.
It was like when Von Dutch hats, I was every, I put one on everybody.
I didn't care about it.
Even newborns, huh?
That was it.
Even stillborns.
Guys, that's it, man.
You know, $1 is $1.
I worked on commission.
I feel you.
Damn.
Dude, that was a $60 hat.
It was.
Yeah.
I used to do the thing because we worked in the men's section when I had a
great scheme.
It's all commission.
Really?
No hourly.
You don't get paid.
You don't get paid if you don't sell, right?
So that was it.
Which seems illegal.
Yeah.
I think it is.
I think it is.
Wow.
So I did-
You don't get paid.
That's like drugs.
That's almost like drug trafficking.
But it's Vest.
Yes, it is.
But it's Vest.
The Von, past the Von Dutch.
So I did the, I had like girlfriends who were coming with their boyfriends.
And when the boyfriends would come to shop and I'd be like, oh, and you, I'm
sure
you need some jeans too.
Let me take you upstairs and introduce you to Chelsea.
And I would go up there and I would have a deal with Chelsea upstairs.
Like whatever you sell them, I get 50% of.
Damn.
And it was such a great scheme because you could sell anything in the store.
And then eventually I became known there as like, cause I was fun and funny,
you know,
and I didn't really, I was pretty good with people and I could sell anything.
So somebody would be like, oh, I need a watch.
I'm like, yeah, I know, I know watches.
Yeah.
I don't, I walk over, I get a key from some guy.
I got you over here.
That's it.
Next thing you know, you got the guy on a Nordic track somewhere on the fifth
floor.
They sell like Teslas at the Grove now.
Yeah.
There's a Tesla inside the Nordstrom.
There's a Tesla.
I was like, do you guys, can we sell Teslas?
Cause I'll go back.
Forget TV, man.
I'm coming back to sell Teslas.
You start wandering.
You make deals all across the Grove.
So you're wandering out of Nordstrom.
You're just a personal shopper.
Then I got, I got recruited.
I got poached from Nordstrom to this high end.
It's called HT Buttercup.
It's a furniture.
I opened that store.
Did you really?
I did.
I was their first personal shopper.
Dude, it's pricey over there.
It's crazy.
And I worked out a deal with them that like, cause they have little, their
setup was called
Manu Tailors, right?
So they have little stores within a big store.
So it's a huge bakery.
Kind of like that, um, Fred Siegel.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
So they had that whole setup and I was like, oh, okay.
So I want to sell the whole store.
And they're like, oh no, you would just work for this one company.
I'm like, oh, that's not what I was told in the interview.
And they're like, what?
I was like, well, I'm just going to sell everything.
So I would just walk around and sell everything to anybody who walked in the
door.
And I actually helped Jessica Alba with like rugs.
Like that was my big thing for a while.
I like helped her.
Like I helped, she was there with her brother and I helped her with like some rugs
and stuff.
And I was like my claim of fame for a while.
And I went around and I was like, yeah, I sold rugs to Jessica.
Like, you know, I just jumped it up.
Oh, magic carpets, we call them.
But there was a, they had an antique section and there was one guy that worked
at this.
This is at HG Buttercup.
At HG Buttercup.
Inside one of the Manu Tails was an antique guy.
Okay.
And it's all commission there too.
I worked at a deal where it was hourly plus commission.
So I got like 3% or 5%.
I think I got 5% there.
And I said, okay, I was like, you know, whatever I sell, I'll get 5% of it.
And this guy, and I was like eating tuna fish.
Like, you know what it's like when you move out of here.
Like I was like a peanut butter.
I couldn't afford the jelly.
It was like peanut butter sandwiches.
Yeah.
You know, so.
And then you squeeze the packet of jelly into your mouth.
I would get a bite of the peanut butter sandwich and then squeeze a little bit
of the jelly.
Yeah.
Just fill your pockets at any context.
Dude, Popeye's had great jelly too.
Some places have shady jelly, I thought.
But that's a different chat.
I don't know if you want us to get into that now.
Let's come back.
We'll circle back.
Yeah, let's see.
So we're at HG Buttercup.
You got the antiques section.
So what happened?
What was that?
So I don't know.
I don't know shit about antiques.
The guy goes on break.
He's like, hey, I got to go pick up my daughter.
I think I had to pick up his daughter from school or something.
He's like, do you mind just watching us till we close?
Nobody ever went in there.
Oh, listen to all the white privilege in that guy's life, huh?
His daughter's at school.
Yeah, he's like, I got to go pick her up.
But whatever he had to do or a doctor appointment or a funeral, I can't
remember.
If he's antiquing, it's probably a funeral.
Probably going to do a little repossession.
He's probably going to do some research.
He's like, let me go get a bureau, right?
So he goes on break and a woman walks in.
I was like, oh, could you help me with – she's like, I'm looking for an
antique chest.
And I'm like, sure.
So I walk in and I hadn't hardly ever walked into this because I didn't know
anything about it.
And there's only so much you could fake, right?
So I get in and she's like –
Yeah, this is from a battleship.
Yeah, right.
Like it's all – this smells like Lincoln.
I'm like, yeah, this has got mahogany and Lincoln.
That's what this is right here.
I'm just throwing out terms.
So she walked in and she fell in love with this like armoire, this like big –
Oh, yeah, those are real nice.
And I was like, oh, this is real nice.
She's like, oh, I think my husband will like this.
It was like – I think it was like an anniversary gift or something.
I was like, oh, okay.
I was like, I could get you the information.
She's like, oh, no, I'll take it.
And this guy's on lunch.
And I work on commission, 5%.
And I'm like, all right.
And I look at the price.
It was $40,000.
And I was like, where would you like that delivered?
And that was like –
And you put it on your back right there.
And I was like, I got an Uber for it.
It was back in the day, so there wasn't even that.
Like, I'll carry this.
I will walk all of Culver City for you.
Oh, you had to know, yeah.
You had to know a couple Tongans or Hawaiians to fucking –
You know what I'm saying?
Now it's furniture.
It was a big talk.
But before they came here, there was this furniture that stayed where it was.
All over.
It's like you moved to the furniture.
You're like, this isn't my dresser.
I live here now.
Yeah, but that was my big thing.
And then I moved back to New York.
And so whenever you moved –
When you made that move back to New York,
had you like kind of given up on some of that dream a little bit?
Like was it a little bit of that move?
Yeah.
Because, I mean, we've all done a little bit of that move at some point, I
think.
Like there was a point I was out here for like six years,
and then I moved back to Louisiana for a while,
and I was doing margaritas or something, or making margaritas.
You know, at a real halfway house of a fucking tacoteria.
You know?
It was like a tacos, like this real shady cafe with tacos,
and then they had a bar like hooked to it.
Really?
Yeah, and they had the margarita machine,
and I broke it.
I did the settings wrong,
and then I had to pretend like it wasn't broke, dude.
It was like Johnny Buffett's Margaritaville.
Yeah, it was real shady.
Shady, yeah.
What all?
Yeah.
It was like Che Guevara's Margaritaville or something.
People are like, this is, you know, this is interesting.
Yeah.
So when you moved back, was it because of...
Well, when I moved back, my grandma had passed away.
My grandmother and my mother became widows together,
like within like five days of each other.
So they always had each other.
So my mom was like alone now.
So I felt like, you know what?
I was like, at my grandmother's funeral, actually,
my hand was kind of forced.
At my grandmother's funeral, I had come in from LA,
and I said to my mom, I was like,
you know what, maybe I'll move back to New York,
just out loud, like just streaming.
I was like, oh, maybe I'll move back to New York
in a little bit.
And she started crying and hugging me and said,
thank you, thank you, thank you.
I was like, okay, I guess I'm moving back to New York.
Like, I can't be like, back off, lady, you know?
So I was like, all right, I'll move back.
So I decided I'd...
And you guys were pretty close, you and your mom?
Yeah, we were, yeah.
Yeah, super.
And so, yeah, so at that point,
you don't really have a choice then if she's...
No.
If you guys are close and she wants you back.
Yeah, so I came back and I moved back into her basement
as all, you know, good 30-year-old sons do.
Yeah, bro.
Don't say it, fire up the record player, dude.
Yeah, we...
It's the same basement, actually, where...
Before I moved, this is where the Tender