# Impractical Jokers: The Complete Third Season - DVD Review



## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=56594[/img] 
*Title: Impractical Jokers: The Complete Third Season* 

*Movie:* :4.5stars:
*Video:* :3.5stars:
*Audio:* :3.5stars: 
*Extras:* :3stars: 

*HTS Overall Score:*72







[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=56602[/img]*Summary*
With friends like these, who needs enemies? How many of us have heard that phrase before? Yup, that’s pretty much the description of the 4 stars of “Impractical Jokers”. 4 guys, Sal, Murray, Joe and Brian, get together and basically harass the tar out of each other on camera with hilarious results. Basically, the show revolves around a set formula. There are two “challenges” in each show, and the friends all compete in the challenges by doing inane stunts, like trying to keep a straight face while asking horrific questions to unsuspecting strangers, or acting like a complete incompetent during a music instructor class and then trying to get people to sign up for more lessons. THEN whoever loses the most out of the two challenges is made to suffer some sort of humiliation thought up by the other three friends. 

Usually I’m not a big fan of prank shows, or reality TV in general. Too many of the shows devolve into gross debasing acts that are meant to get laughs, but end up just being kind revolting. Others are funny as a onetime watch, but have a really weak rewatch value. “Impractical Jokers” is one of the FEW shows that really makes my sides split every single time I’ve watched an episode. There are a few misses in the batch, but 99.5% of the time the pranks are downright hysterical. Whether it be the group trying to hold their own in a dinosaur mating ritual dance, or trying to shock customers of a Pizza parlor with their disgusting hygiene issue. I’ve watched ever season of the show to date, and have been able to RE watch them just as many times without losing the fun. 

[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=56610[/img]
What makes “Impractical Jokers” better than their competition is the sheer amount of fun these guys have. They humiliate the SNOT out of each other, but manage to keep the pranks and the punishments as tasteful as possible. There’s no REAL humiliation, but rather the group of guys just playing around with each other in a ridiculous manner. The language is kept to a minimum, and even the language that is spoken tends to be bleeped out on the show and the disc. 

Season 3 is just as funny as the previous two seasons released on DVD so far, which really says a lot for the inventiveness of the these fellas. Usually a comedy improve show like this starts to fail around the second season, as the humor just gets regurgitated time and time again. Thankfully the humor is top notch, and the pranks are just as good as when they started four years ago. I won’t say that there isn’t a few boring challenges here and there, but a majority of them really do hit the bullseye. There’s an “I quit” prank that actually felt really stale, and one on the second disc with The Ski Lodge just felt a bit awkward, but the rest of the series is firing on all 4 cylinders with laughter. 




*Rating:* 

Rated TV-14



*Video* :3.5stars:
[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=56618[/img]The show is presented in a standard television 1.78:1 aspect ratio, but due to the hidden camera nature of the show, we’re not looking at reference quality here. The show is filmed with a myriad of cameras, from the nice hi-def cameras used to film the sequences that set up a joke, and even some decent cameras DURING the stunt, but there are also a lot of lower quality mini cameras that are spliced in to show all the different angles so that the intended victims don’t know it’s being filmed. As a result we have some mixed picture quality moments. Some can look quite good, with lots of color and pop, but then the hand held or mini camera shots will look slightly out of focus, or be rather low quality in comparison to the higher grade camera shots. This is one time where I have no qualms with the lower quality because of the nature of the show and what they are trying to accomplish here. The disc itself is actually quite impressive, albeit a little bit soft, as there seems to be very little compression issues here, with only some mild macroblocking that can be blamed on the transfer, the rest is simple source material issues. 












*Audio* :3.5stars:
[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=56626[/img]The series hasn't changed much in the equipment used, so the audio is just a simple 2.0 stereo track and really not anything to write home about. The show’s audio is mainly coming from cameras that are littered around the area and pull many different levels of quality, with random participant dialog coming through a bit soft and other times when the dialog is crystal clear due to being filmed indoors with higher quality sound recording devices. I would have liked a 5.1 audio experince, but since there’s nothing but dialogue going on I can live with the satisfactory 2.0 track. What IS there is quite well done and you can tell some nice processing was done to try and keep out as much unwanted ambient noises as possible. 







[img]http://www.hometheatershack.com/gallery/file.php?n=56634[/img]*Extras* :3stars:
• Deleted Scenes
• Digital Originals
• Episode Commentaries











*Overall:* :3.5stars:

“Impractical Jokers” is HIGHLY recommended by this humble reviewer, as I have had more hours of enjoyment than I really thought I would when I originally started the show. Laughs come a mile a minute nad the sheer fun these guys have on camera is ridiculously infectious. I don’t usually enjoy prank shows past an episode or two, but this is one of the few series that I will binge watch an entire season at a time because I can’t stop laughing. The audio and video are what you would expect from a handicam style reality show, but that has never been the appeal of the series. I do miss a Blu-ray release, because more quality is always a good thing, but the DVD is WELL worth the low asking price for hysterically funny show. 


*Additional Information:*

Starring: Joe Gatto, James Murray, Brian Quinn, Sal Vulcano
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 MPEG2
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: TV-14
Runtime: 704 Minutes
DVD Release Date: October 13th, 2015



*Buy Impractical Jokers: The Complete Third Season DVD on Amazon*



*Recommendation: Watch It​*







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