Impractical Jokers' Murr Risks His Life, Roasts Tonic & Gets Banned From Cheesecake Factory

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

Hey, this is Barley Dance from Letter Counties and you're listening to The Rizzuto Show.

Rafe Williams (0:09)

Happy Birthday Stairs Rizz.

Rizz (0:11)

All right, welcome back to the program, Big Friday program. Not only is Cam Janssen here, former blue Cam Janssen, but our guest, the guy sitting across from me, has survived getting his eyebrows shaved off right before a 10-year DMV photo.

James Murray (0:56)

It airs in January. It's the mid-season premiere.

I stepped foot off the 104th story of The Empire State Building dressed as a human mop. My whole body was a mop and I hanged by a rope and I rappelled down 25 stories and I swung from side to side of the edges of The Empire State Building using my own body to clean the outside glass.

SPEAKER_6 (1:15)

Holy shit.

James Murray (1:16)

This is what my friends do to me.

Moon Valjean (1:19)

Is this your attempt to perhaps put your name in the running for Tom Cruise's stunt double?

SPEAKER_6 (1:27)

You know what?

James Murray (1:27)

Tom Cruise has never done this. No one's done this, man. It's crazy. It's bat, you know what, crazy.

Rizz (1:33)

Well, how did you guys think of doing this? Whose idea was it?

James Murray (1:36)

So the guys had this idea for like 10 years, right? And they've been trying to get the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building has said no for years. And then this season, they said yes.

I'm like, who do you email to get permission to do that? Is it like info at empiresate.com?

And they finally said yes, but they said yes. And they gave the TV show a number that I think they assumed we would never pay. And the network said no, because it was too much money. And so then the guys looped me in like four months in advance like, Murr, we need your help to talk the network into doing this. And they told me the idea. So I knew about it in advance. And so I then went to the president of the network and pitched him the idea for my own punishment and told him that we could sell it. And sell me to Mr. Clean, things like that. And then they said yes, and we did it.

Rizz (2:24)

Okay, so let me ask about the insurance on this thing. Because I know they take insurance out on all employees. What was the insurance like to get an employee to swing?

James Murray (2:36)

Ready for this? We had to shoot it the last day of shooting the season. Because that way if I died doing it, they could still release the season of the TV show. That's real. It was a $20 million life insurance policy to get an employee to do it. The worst part was, the guys are inside the glass on the 103rd floor. I'm rappelling outside the glass. I'm out there for like an hour. I come back up to the building. On the 103rd floor, they have my wife inside the glass waiting. She holds up a sign. One side of the sign said, please stop doing things like this. I said, yes I will. She turns the sign over and says, I'm late. It was a joke.

Sal's joke is that I immediately start cutting my own rope.

I just got dogs, man. I don't have kids.

Rizz (3:23)

You know what's crazy about the whole insurance thing is here, we're owned by a company called Hubbard and we wanted to do an original cruise. And we had it all planned out.

It was a 90s themed cruise and it was like Blues Traveler was playing. Who else was like Tonic, Collective Soul?

James Murray (3:40)

Oh my god, Tonic. I haven't thought of Tonic in a long time.

Rizz (3:43)

I know, it was like the Goo Goo Doll, I'm sorry, Gin Blossoms, it was like a 90s cruise.

James Murray (3:48)

Yeah.

Rizz (3:48)

It was all ready to go. It was going to be, they were going to call it the SS Rizz.

James Murray (3:52)

Yeah.

Rizz (3:54)

The company couldn't get the insurance because they were afraid that if a listener got too drunk and fell overboard, they didn't want to cover it.

James Murray (4:01)

What?

Rizz (4:02)

Yeah.

Moon Valjean (4:02)

Which happens fewer than, you know, people doing falling off a building.

James Murray (4:08)

It was like a real cruise ship, right?

Cam Janssen (4:10)

Yeah.

James Murray (4:10)

Oh yeah. I mean, you should have rented out like the Staten Island Ferry or something, man.

Cam Janssen (4:16)

Yeah.

Moon Valjean (4:16)

Well, you assume they have their own insurance. I mean, I played concerts on that Staten Island thing.