‘Impractical joker’ visits Ogden Elementary School

The red carpet was laid down outside Ogden Elementary School, students held their handmade welcoming signs and inside the building the children shouted “James Murray,” “James Murray” and then he arrived “Murr” from the “Impractical Jokers” television show.

Murray got out of the car and began videotaping the scene with his phone as the students and adults waved and cheered hello on March 16.

“We need something like this,” Ogden Principal Dina Anzalone said, not only about having a famous TV star and author visit the school but that the event created a sense of normalcy after two years of the coronavirus pandemic.

Murray and his co-author Carsen Smith are promoting the first of what will be at least three books geared for kids. The first one released on March 15 is “Area 51 Interns: Alien Summer.” Murray also made appearances at Hewlett Elementary School, Woodmere Middle School and Hewlett High School last week.

“Carsen and I have worked together for many, many years creating TV shows, so we both love sci-fi and adventure so we created ‘Area 51 Interns’ and Penguin has been amazing to work with and now it’s a three-book series,” Murray explained on how the books came about.

Smith is a comedy writer and producer who co-founded the Goose Lodge, a speakeasy underground comedy club in Brooklyn, and works for “Impractical Jokers.”

Before Murray and Smith spoke to the children in the school’s auditorium they met Ogden students fifth-graders Evan Petithomme and Jackie Soltanovich and fourth-grader Abby Fraser-Baez. All five were also interviewed by students from Hofstra University’s radio station WRHU.

Speaking about the book Smith noted that it was all written during the pandemic. “James and I would hop on the phone for five, six hours at a time working through the plot coming up with the stories and characterization, and then we would go back and forth writing chapters sending each other edits, it was pretty easy to do it virtually,” she said, adding that the next two books will be in-person projects.

The idea behind the book Smith said was aiming to capture the transition of life for young people between middle school and high school. “We were trying to capture that kind of uncertainty and for lack of a better word an alien environment,” she said, noting the experiences in the book are personal ones.

Being introduced to Murray was exciting for Soltanvich. “It’s not every day that you get to just meet a celebrity like someone you watch as a TV show and see James’ different types of careers like writing and acting and stuff like that it’s really, really cool,” she said, noting that when she starting reading the book that “everyone is different in the best way.”

After reading the first five chapters, Fraser-Baez said she loved how the action just flew from the book and can see it as a movie. “I honestly can see the book just happening,” she said. “I made a movie in my head and honestly it’s really cool to be able to imagine everything just happening.”

The characters stood out for Petithomme. “Because the characters have all these different things about them and I feel like it’s just nice, it’s awesome,” he said.

Identical to the “Impractical Jokers” the book has four best friends. “I think the book is about friendship,” Murray said. “And the friendships you form as a child are your friends for life. [They] come to learn that together they can achieve anything and overcome any obstacle.”