Honorary Impractical Joker Danny Green Loves New York Sports Teams
- Jon Hart
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Danny Green has worked in journalism, with television’s Impractical Jokers, and he has co-created a short film, Thin Skinned, starring Richard Kind. Besides all that, he’s a rabid New York sports fan. He took a few moments to discuss.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
You’re a self-described fan of all the “great” New York sports teams. Please rank them in order of importance and explain why each is important to you.
DANNY GREEN:
For the record, my teams, the Mets, Jets, Islanders, and Knicks have gone a combined 156 consecutive seasons without a championship. The 1986 Mets were the last ones. How crappy is that? It’s the record for teams from one city, beating Cleveland, which went 148 seasons without a championship from 1964 to 2016. The Islanders are my favorite because I was at the Nassau Coliseum for almost all of their greatest games, including the three times they won the Stanley Cup at home. The Mets are next, because winning the 1969 World Series was probably the most unlikely thing to ever happen in professional sports. My uncle Sheldon ripped out a patch of the Shea Stadium grass after they beat the Orioles, and I planted it in my backyard. In my life, I’ve only asked one celebrity to take a photo together, and that was Tommie Agee, the team’s centerfielder. The Jets could be the worst-run team in all of sports, and I despise Charles Dolan, the Knicks owner, so those two are at the bottom of my list.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
Which venues do you get out to most? Which is your favorite? Why?
DANNY GREEN:
MetLife is awful because of all the drunk people trying to quell their sorrow. And every time I’m at Madison Square Garden I’m reminded of being a kid and asking Robert Redford for an autograph at a Knicks game and his wife yelling at me. May he rest in peace. UBS Arena is fine; I actually enjoy the seven-mile stroll from the LIRR stop. I do like Citi Field a lot, although I feel bad for the dog who has to smoke the corncob pipe. And I’m always confused as to why the #7 Express train still makes all the local stops.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
How do you pivot to comedy and get involved with Impractical Jokers?
DANNY GREEN:
Court TV bought The Smoking Gun, a website I helped start. When Court TV rebranded as truTV, they asked me to work there, and it seemed like fun. Most of the truTV shows at the time were about tow-truck drivers and pawn shops. When I saw a rough cut of “Impractical Jokers,” I said, “This show is awesome. I want to be involved.” The Jokers are great guys, and we hit it off and so I was lucky enough to be involved from the first episode forward.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
What was your favorite practical joke growing up - or even after you’ve grown
up?
DANNY GREEN:
I have three kids, and that’s at least two more than I can handle. A few years after my third was born, my wife emerged from the bathroom to show me her positive pregnancy test. I was about to jump out the window and kill myself when she let me know she was kidding, that it was the test from an earlier pregnancy. She got me good.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
What’s your favorite Impractical Jokers episode? Why?
DANNY GREEN:
It may sound a little like I’m tooting my own horn, but my appearance as the character of Vanilla the Clown might be the most important moment in TV history.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
You played lacrosse at Ithaca. What was that experience like?
DANNY GREEN:
I spent most of my time on the bench. Strangely, during my very last practice, something magical happened, and I went into a flow state and was able to see the ball and the other players move in slow motion. I had complete control of the field and the action; I was the best player out there, maybe the best player in the history of Ithaca College. Alas, that flow state never returned. I’m hoping maybe next week.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
What do you recall about the Ithaca-Cortland lacrosse games?
DANNY GREEN:
I always loved traveling to Cortland, as there was and still is an A&W drive-in restaurant on Route 13 that has some of the most delicious root beer I’ve ever tasted. And yes, addressing the quality of Cortland’s soft drinks is my way of disguising the fact that we rarely beat them in lacrosse.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
So you’ve done journalism. You’ve done comedy. Now, with the release of your short film, Thin Skinned, you’ve entered the horror-comedy arena. How does this pivot come about?
DANNY GREEN:
If I stayed in journalism, I was afraid I’d spend the rest of my life writing clickbait like, “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Gilligan’s Island.’”
STADIUM JOURNEY:
Describe the process of making the film, from the germ of an idea to the finished product. How’d you manage to get actor Richard Kind involved?
DANNY GREEN:
My partner, Joe Imburgio, and I had written a horror movie that we thought Richard would be perfect for—he had never played a psychotic killer. Richard is, it turns out, a big fan of “Impractical Jokers,” and Joe met him at Paul Rudd’s charity bowling event at Chelsea Piers, where he pitched the idea. Richard said yes, without ever seeing the script. Apparently, he says yes to almost anything. Richard is great to work with, even though he kept all his wardrobe. But that’s a small price to pay for learning from such a big talent.
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