Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil — Sal Vulcano & Brian Quinn September 4, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Wrong Turns features the iconic duo from Impractical Jokers, Sal Vulcano and Brian Quinn (“Q”). Hosted by Jameela Jamil, the three share their most mortifying and hilarious calamities, revel in stories of humiliation, and celebrate the sheer absurdity of life’s little disasters—with no moral, no lesson, and no silver lining. This is a laugh-so-hard-you-cringe, deeply relatable romp through personal disaster, from walking into glass walls to setting off fire suppression systems and phone sex billing fiascos.

Main Discussion Themes

• Embracing Calamity Without a Lesson
  Jameela sets the tone: “This is a show where we celebrate the misery of life that doesn't have to end in some great silver lining.” (00:32)
• Accents and Perceived Intelligence
  The group jokes about British and New York accents, and how perception shifts. Jameela admits, “I'm stupider than people think. But because of my accent, I get away with murder. I say really dumb shit all the time and people just go, 'Yes.' And then they doubt themselves and I gaslight them.” (02:00)
• Origins of Impractical Jokers
  Sal and Q clarify the show wasn’t born from real-life pranking but rather a spontaneous idea over lunch. “They ask, oh, when did you start, like, pranking? ...We've never done anything like this.” – Sal (04:23)
• Personal Calamity as a Way of Life
  Each host shares that disasters are a constant in their lives, especially Jameela: “No. I'm setting a world record. I created a show around this just so I feel less alone.” (05:14)

Key Stories and Insights

1. Bee-Related Trauma and Therapy (Jameela Jamil)

• Jameela recounts a harrowing incident in NYC where, thanks to an unfortunate wasp chase near the UN, she nearly gets mistaken for a security threat:
  “I'm running screaming towards the UN, and they can't see the wasps around me. And the armed guards start to raise their guns towards me... I look like a fucking terrorist.” (06:05)
• She shares her experience with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for her debilitating fear of bees, including nearly dying during exposure therapy after being stung and swelling up:

  “The irony of almost dying during cognitive behavioral therapy that's supposed to show me that nothing bad's gonna happen. Unbelievable.” (08:55)

2. Impractical Jokers: Most Humiliating Punishments

• Sex Ed with Parents
  Brian Quinn recalls the infamous episode where he had to teach sex ed to his own parents as a punishment:

  “And it's my mom and my dad, and they're sitting there and these guys built a presentation of slides to teach them sex ed... I was in there for an hour and ten.” (09:53)
  His mother’s chorus of “Oh, Brian. Oh, no, Brian,” during the class, still rings in his ears. (10:14)

• Cousin Reveal
  In a behind-the-scenes story, Quinn accidentally reveals having made out with a third cousin at a funeral—on camera, and then the team surprises him by revealing his entire family was watching the confession live.

  “So they engineered it so I had to get this information out... And they're FaceTiming with my parents and my brother and my nephew.” (11:27)
  The aftermath: his family tried to guess and find out who the cousin was, leading to extended embarrassment. “This is what we felt bad about. We guessed the cousin and put a picture up of a cousin. We put up a picture of the wrong cousin.” (13:01)

3. Micro-Humiliations: Glass Doors & Force Fields

• Sal’s Glass Door Double Whammy
  Sal shares the universal trauma of walking into an invisible glass wall—not once, but twice within minutes—at a hotel in Minnesota.

  “I walked full, I mean, full force into just a solid glass wall, right?... And then I wail into the second glass wall... One of the most embarrassing moments.” (14:35 & 16:26)
  The onlookers recognized him, chased him for pics, and laughed hysterically with him.

• Jameela’s She-Hulk Stunt Disaster
  Jameela relives a humiliating Marvel stunt scene where she ran into a glass screen, thinking it was a “force field” like a true Marvel character, all in front of the stunt crew—while holding a cake that smashed into her pink suit.

  “I run at full force and in front of 300 crew members, go splat. Right into the glass... I was like, oh my God, it was a force field. Was that a force field?” (17:21)

• Both admit the worst injuries were to their knees rather than their faces, adding insult to injury.

4. Sal’s Phone Sex Saga: The Ballad of “Al”

• As a broke 19-year-old, Sal tries phone sex for the first (and last) time, only to be mistakenly called “Al,” unimpressed by the hastily performed moans, and charged $49.50 for under two minutes.

  “She starts calling me Al. So on top of that, she's calling me Al. And then I'm like, do I tell her it's Sal?... I'll just assume Al.” (31:19)

  • He later calls the company to dispute the charges, only to relive the shame:

    “It was more embarrassing than giving my credit card to begin with or talking to the woman.” (34:03)

  • Concludes there’s “no protection for the masturbator,” riffing on the legal-sounding complaint. (35:39, 35:50)

5. Brian’s Ultimate Firehouse Fail

• Brian’s “big wrong turn” is a classic firehouse disaster. Eager to prove himself by making his grandmother’s Italian sauce for his FDNY crew, he forgets to turn off the oven before a call. The kitchen’s fire suppression system goes off in their absence, covering every inch of the firehouse in foam.

  “There is a ticket for 1400 Richmond Avenue. And we're like, what? That's our firehouse. And then it hit me, and I'm like, oh my God, the firehouse...” (43:39)

  • Brian spends seven hours alone cleaning, is mercilessly ribbed, and the clamp used to fix the system is labeled “Quinn’s Fuck-up” for two years.
  • “How many people in the history of the New York City Fire Department had a ticket, a fire ticket drawn in their own firehouse because of them?” (45:27)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Jameela on life:

  “I'm setting a world record. I created a show around this just so I feel less alone.” (05:14)

• On therapy gone wrong:

  “I think that therapist, like, quit their job that day.” – Jameela (09:05)

• Sal’s moment of defeat:

  “I'm not going to waste another $4. So I hang up. I get my credit card bill...49.50...90 seconds.” (31:52)

• Brian on social anxiety:

  “Even now saying it, feeling... I got a ticket at my own firehouse.” (45:24)

• Jameela on British people:

  “I say 90% stupid.” (01:56)

• Sal:

  “There's no protection for the masturbator.” (35:50)

• Brian:

  “If you walk into a firehouse and you're not called an asshole or some horrible thing within five minutes, something's wrong. Like you did something to piss people off.” (39:56)

Listener Disaster: “Misery Loves Company” – Lauren’s Metal Singer Mishap (47:00)

Lauren shares her “chunder thunder” story—fleeing a hungover hookup, bursting in on the entire family in only her underwear.
Jameela: “What a fucking nightmare. ...Of all of the genders of having to have been a little teenage boy who's probably never seen tits before. And now you're his first tit.”
Sal’s take: “It's the worst day of her life and the best day of his.” (48:00)

Where to Find Sal & Q

• Impractical Jokers, new season on TBS
• Sal’s stand-up tour: salvolcanocomedy.com (48:32)
• Sal’s new podcast Minouche coming soon (48:46)

Final Thoughts

This episode perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Wrong Turns: open sharing of life’s absolute most mortifying moments, group commiseration, and side-splitting laughter without any trite lessons—just the joy of being human and fucking up together.