One issue with that Impractical Jokers show is about the unconvincing way the show is introduced from the start. It is introduced as being a show about guys competing against each other. Then the guys themselves keep saying in their challenges that the challenged person should say whatever he is told to say. Unless they reveal some unknown rules controlling these challenges, they are very far from being convincing as challenges to each other at the level they are claimed to be. It is hard to think that there is a person given the power to make a second person says to other people whatever he tells him would not be able to make that second person suffer much more sever and serious consequences than what goes on on that show. It is like watching a tennis game while being told that there is no limit on the court size of each side. How then would not serving the ball much farther away make sense?
Putting each other in difficult position is not synonymous with challenges at the individual level and doesn't need to be to be appreciated. For example, although in many acrobatic activities participants increase the difficulty on each other they are presented as group not individual level challenges.
