The 27 Best Punishments In Impractical Jokers History Ranked

Though the name of the episode might not have aged well, Joe's eventual punishment is an amazing example of how to take something unexpected and make the best of it. The Season 3 episode "Fe-Mail" has Joe as its loser, with the guys punishing him by making him dress up as a woman. Initially thinking he has been entered into a fashion show, Joe actually has to talk at a seminar for tech enthusiasts who are looking at new app ideas. After his immediate shock, Joe is surprisingly comfortable with his transformation and even more at home pitching app ideas that he's never seen before.

Joe solidifies his "Impractical Jokers" status here as the one who can do anything confidently, with fans commenting on his use of "us girls" and readiness to slay the runway. Not only has this punishment lived on via social media, but it's also the perfect balance to a comment made by Murr in a 2016 interview with the Green Bay Press Gazette. "The four of us were raised to be gentlemen," he said. Joe's later commitment to putting women first shows that he just gets it — and what better way to stick it to the other guys?

Not only has Sal's haunted corn maze been listed as one of his best punishments by certain fans, but it's also one that some viewers have said they'd have wanted to tackle themselves. The Season 3 episode "Field of Screams" shows Sal having to cross from one side of a field to another while holding a guided rope, with plenty of obstacles waiting in line to scare the life out of him. It's one of the most fun punishments featured on "Impractical Jokers," while also setting Sal up for his later punishment of moving through a haunted house.

Even though Sal isn't the only loser during this episode, his two losses to Murr and Q's one loss make him the easy target for jumping scarecrows and piles of poop. By not kissing a blond woman on the lips, Sal becomes the instant loser of the do-the-command "Devil Voices" challenge. Though it's Murr who fails to get the audience to applaud him while quitting at the zoo in "Quit Fantastically," Sal eventually loses again during his presentation about dinosaurs in "Dino-Mite."

If there's one thing about the "Impractical Jokers" team, it's that their families are always willing to be involved in their challenges and punishments. This is definitely the case in the Season 6 episode "The Walking Dread," with Sal's nieces sacrificing themselves to the zombies in order to have him save them as his punishment. Fans of the show up to this point will know that Sal's reputation for being scared of everything is almost more well-known than he is. Taking on the demeanor of a segment that might be seen on "The Ellen Show," Sal's dance with his apocalyptic destiny is up there with the show's most cringeworthy punishments.

Unluckily for Sal, he loses out on both of the challenges seen in this episode. Along with Murr, he fails to get the most dips in "Dip My Fry," and he fails to follow instructions in "Garden Tools." Though it's unknown how many nieces Sal actually has, the ones we do see are incredible sports — especially considering how easily he crumbles. According to a Reddit Q&A with Sal, the "Impractical Jokers" cast members have refused things in the past, but perhaps tussling with a pile of meat while surrounded by zombies is just on the right side of his boundaries.

Poor Murr. By Season 4 of "Impractical Jokers," he wasn't exactly a stranger to punishment. The season's second episode, "Below the Belt," sees him giving a presentation about climate change while having no control over what the others do to his lower half. Some fans believe that it's always Murr's punishments that tend to be the most fun, with Q often being dealt the more cringeworthy and embarrassing hand. Whether he's having his jeans cut away, being sprayed with water, or wearing high heels, both Murr and his audience are unable to contain their laughter.

Fans may remember that earlier in the episode, Murr loses both of the featured challenges. "Sword Losers" sees the gang having to do whatever they're told while taking a one-on-one fencing class. The catch? They each have to recruit a student to sign up for another class, which both Murr and Sal fail to do. A similar idea follows in the barber shop challenge "Caught in the Cross Hairs," where Murr refuses to act on the instruction to give a customer a wet-willie. Even if it means he loses a challenge, we've got to admit that Murr is truly one of the nice guys.

Season 3 was a bumper series for pranks and drama on "Impractical Jokers," meaning plenty of chances for Sal to scream and get the fright of his life. One memorable instance happens during the episode "Junk in the Trunk," where his punishment involves getting into the trunk of a random woman's rental car while she's driving. Hardcore fans will know that the woman's actually in on the plan, though Sal is unaware of this. Amazingly, it's not a punishment that falls into Reddit user u/CraigTMG's extremely detailed list of every time Sal falls on the show, but fans have enjoyed him being hit by a loaf of bread.

Viewers might never be too sure what's about to follow the "What Sal doesn't know..." opening during his punishments, but it was pretty easy to tell that he would be the episode's overall loser. During the "Topical Storm" challenge, Sal and Joe get no votes for their presentation with slides that have little or nothing to do with the subject. Sal also loses out in "Stick & Spin," which has the goal of getting a certain body part to touch a stranger's body part as determined by two wheels with various choices. Though random people declining to do this is hardly surprising, the fact that there were no losers in the following crowd applause challenge was a genuine shock. Let's face it, these things don't have a great track record.

It's almost weird that the "Impractical Jokers" gang always comes back to involving presentations in their challenges and punishments, but in the Season 2 episode "Sweat the Small Things," Sal's punishing presentation is actually a cover. While he delivers a talk that's designed to be stress-relieving, the slides show the other cast members breaking into his house while Sal was on vacation, abusing everything in sight. Though the punishment makes fans like Reddit user u/MetsWillRise "Die of laughter" every time they rewatch it, it also got fans thinking about what home invasion punishments might look like for the other cast members. Turning properties into open houses and unleashing cats are popular ideas, which could be plenty of fun given how terrified Sal is of them.

Though Sal lost out while facing the dartboard of destiny in the "Do Whatever Task You Land On" challenge of the same name, it was Joe who became the loser in the earlier command task while trying to teach an art class. Joe's habit of being unfazed by anything would have made this punishment a lot more boring, as he certainly wouldn't have cared if people had taken their shoes off like Sal does.

When the "Impractical Jokers" can't get physical, they have to get psychological. Fans mainly agree that it's these unexpected inconveniences that are the best method to torture Sal, with Redditors quoting this first-ever non-punishment punishment as one of the very strongest. During the Season 8 episode "Well...," the Jokers torture Sal without him realizing it by leaning into everything he's been afraid of on the show so far. The punishment — as well as the episode title — highlights an "Impractical Jokers" running gag, in which the use of "Well..." indicates an unexpected switch or twist when a punishment first begins. It's not something that dawns on Sal until after the punishment is over, considering it's torture that's normally reserved for Murr.

Unluckily for Sal (or not, maybe he didn't notice either), he was the clear loser of the episode's two challenges. The Joker vs. Joker challenge "Pass the Message" ends with Sal being defeated by Q, while both of them lose out to Joe and Murr in the teammate "Do as You're Told" battle "Tag Team." Fans enjoyed this punishment so much that some actively want it done to them... which maybe isn't a good thing?

The best punishments come as a form of revenge, and Joe is a fantastic example of that in "Impractical Jokers". In the Season 7 episode "Turning the Tables," Joe's punishment sees him finding and breaking eight table decoys in a real-life restaurant. The punishment was actually Murr's revenge for his earlier party crasher punishment, where he had to take down a Judo Olympic medalist and failed, being thrown in a pool. Even though Murr is actively looking for revenge, Joe walks off his definite back injuries with style.

In the episode's "Impractical Insider" feature, it's revealed that the tables Joe broke through were actually made of foam, and that the people sitting at the designated decoy table were in on the joke. Everyone else was a real customer. Joe lost two of the three challenges in the episode — first refusing to ask someone to provide something to pee in during "Keeping it Wheel," and eventually being unable to blame a stranger in "Pass the Buck."

Most of the top punishments on "Impractical Jokers" involve Sal and Murr, but when Q loses, the payoff is fatal. One of his most memorable punishments is seen in Season 3's "Just Say No," where — as the title suggests — Q's punishment is to go out onto a baseball field, stand on the pitchers' mound, and say no to everything he interacts with. What he doesn't know is that a beautiful woman is waiting in the wings to publicly ask him to marry her, and she runs off in tears when he rejects her. Though she's in on the joke, she sets up a backstory of them being together for seven years, making the inevitable outcome of onlookers gasping and booing even more painful to watch.

YouTube commenter Brianna Elizabeth, who claimed to have been at the game itself, revealed that no one in the crowd there knew what was coming — or even that Q was actually a TV star. Painful, cringeworthy, and hilarious all in one go, this punishment succeeds on the stellar acting ability of Q's "girlfriend." Even though fans might feel it's impossible to decide which are the best punishments, Q often takes a top spot.

Sometimes a punishment is so bad that even the "Impractical Jokers" team acknowledges it as one of the worst. The Season 5 episode "Spider Man" puts Q's arachnophobia to the test, strapping him to a board while the others torment him with a remote-controlled spider — which is then swapped out for real-life tarantulas once he's settled in. They say that the best way to overcome something is to face it head-on, but it's only really Q (spiders) and Murr (heights) who've had to face their deepest, darkest fears. It might seem like a particularly cruel punishment, but it must be something Q was relatively up for. Fans have picked up on podcast appearances where the cast has cited an understanding of what would truly be "too far."

Not only does the punishment set the other jokers up to later have Q take his revenge on them, but the episode itself puts Q through the wringer too. Unable to eat sushi during the command task "Fishy Business," Q loses out and gets pretty irate with his friends, flipping them off mid-task. Though he doesn't participate in the final challenge, Q also fails to get the most hands raised while teaching a hardware workshop in Brooklyn in the episode's second standoff, "Power Tools."

"I need three new best friends" might be one of the most repeated phrases on the show, and Murr's sky-diving punishment takes that sentiment to the next level. Tricked into thinking the gang was teaching others how to jump out of planes, the reveal that sky-diving is in fact Murr's punishment is almost as satisfying as watching the distress on his face during the flight. The Season 3 premiere episode "Look Out Below" is where the punishment comes from, with Murr losing two out of three challenges. The "We Let the Dogs Out" challenge sees the boys working a hot dog cart while being told what to do, leading to Murr refusing to take a little boy's hat and throw it. Straight after, "Invention Intervention" shows teams pitching their fake inventions, with Murr bringing in the lowest show of hands.

It's no secret on "Impractical Jokers" that Murr is absolutely terrified of heights. In a 2016 interview with Sling Television, he described how pushing each other to the limit is exactly what solidifies their friendship. "A few seasons ago they threw me out of an airplane – and I'm terrified of heights – for a punishment and it was hysterical because I cried like a very young school child; it was so funny and terrifying," Murr said. "We're always pushing boundaries, but we know, generally, we're not going to kill anybody or rob a bank. Other than that, I think anything's game."

Though piercings technically aren't as permanent as tattoos, Murr's time in the piercing chair on "Impractical Jokers" is enough to deem it as one of the best punishments of all time. Thanks to the so-called "Wheel of Piercings," Murr's final tally ends up being two nipple piercings and a belly button piercing. Though some fans think that Murr can actually pull the body jewelry off, many agree that this is in line with some of the show's best old-school punishments, such as the lie detector test Murr took at his former high school.

The punishment also cements a running joke through the show when viewers see something resembling a ferret getting a piercing. After Murr's sky-diving punishment, he becomes synonymous with the squealing animal, actually having a sky-diving ferret tattooed on himself in a later episode. Though fans have speculated that the segment might have been retaped if things actually went too far, Murr later brushed off the apparent pain in a tweet, saying, "I was born with abnormally hard nipples." Could Murr's piercings have made him the most unlikely sex symbol of 2015? Very possibly.

Considering how many public speeches the "Impractical Jokers" guys have given, they're probably on track to deliver a stellar TED talk. In the Season 3 episode "In Poor Taste Buds," the team ups the ante on a tried-and-tested punishment by introducing an anesthetic. Murr must pretend to be a culinary expert while presenting foods from around the world, yet he cannot taste or hold in the goods after being injected with Novocaine. Some viewers have cited it as one of the most reliable punishments to belly-laugh along to, chalking it up to how brazen the Jokers have managed to get by their third season.

According to a 2014 interview with the Miami New Times, fellow prankster Joe credits the series as a chance to "Basically take turns to embarrass each other." This is one that leaves Murr particularly red-faced. He'd already been humiliated by being made to ask clients to participate in "strip tennis" in the "Tennis Chumps" challenge while posing as an instructor on the court. Murr's path to Loserville was briefly interrupted by successfully executing his command of shouting "Right here, Peter!" during "Now! Again!" But as none of the cast lost, Murr was the only one heading for the doctor's chair.

Are the permanent punishments in "Impractical Jokers" the scariest? According to Q — and anyone else in that situation — the answer is a definite yes. In the Season 3 episode "The Permanent Punishment," Q, Murr, and Sal all have a three-way punishment after losing a challenge attaching balloons to customers without getting caught. It's revealed that Joe gets to choose an embarrassing tattoo for each, with Q's involving a cat, Murr's a ferret, and Sal's a portrait of Jaden Smith. It might be the most ridiculous concept featured on "Impractical Jokers" to date, playing into each of their insecurities already explored throughout the series.

While answering fan questions in a behind-the-scenes interview, Q confirmed that his "38. Lives alone. Has three cats." tattoo was the scariest punishment he ever took part in. It's something he's been able to take in his stride as the years have passed, tweeting something similar for his 46th birthday back in 2022. Fans of the show look back at it as one of the funniest punishments of all time, even considering how betrayed the friends seem. At the end of the day, it's best summed up by Joe's initial reasoning for picking something permanent: "It's just funny."