Joey (TV series)

Joey
Intertitle
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Scott Silveri Shana Goldberg Meehan
Starring	Matt LeBlanc Andrea Anders Paulo Costanzo Jennifer Coolidge Drea de Matteo Miguel A. Núñez, Jr.
Opening theme	"Sunny Hours" by Long Beach Dub Allstars (featuring will.i.am)
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	46
Production
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production company(s)	Silver & Gold Productions Warner Bros. Television
Broadcast
Original channel	NBC
Original run	September 9, 2004 (2004-09-09) – March 7, 2006 (2006-03-07)
Status	Ended
Chronology
Preceded by	Friends

Joey is an American sitcom, which stars Matt LeBlanc reprising his role as Joey Tribbiani from the sitcom Friends. It premiered on the NBC television network, on September 9, 2004, in the former time slot of its parent series, Thursday nights at 8:00 p.m. Midway through the second season, the show was placed on a hiatus by NBC but returned on March 7, 2006, in a new timeslot of Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. One episode, "Joey and the Snowball Fight", was shown on a Tuesday at 8:30 p.m, but was pulled by NBC when it was overshadowed in ratings by American Idol. NBC cancelled the series in May 2006 and did not broadcast the remaining episodes.

Main characters

• Matt LeBlanc portrays Joey Tribbiani, a struggling actor and food lover who becomes famous for his role on Days of our Lives as Dr. Drake Ramoray. Joey is a womanizer with many girlfriends throughout the series, in keeping with his character on Friends.^[1] The series roughly picks up where Friends left off, with Joey at the beginning of the show making a move from New York to LA to proceed with his acting career. He is constantly talking about food or eating sandwiches or pizza.
• Andrea Anders as Alexis "Alex" Garrett, the next door neighbor, landlord and friend. She is an educated, but slightly ditzy, blonde lawyer who graduated from Northwestern University. Initially intimidated, but also intrigued by Joey's tough street-wise older sister Gina, the two women eventually become friends, and she becomes more bold in the way she dresses and acts, thanks to Gina's influence. She is puzzled but impressed by Joey's intuitive gift at being able to know when she is wearing thong panties, and spends most of her time hanging out at Joey and Michael's apartment. She and Joey bond and become close friends. Her husband is a professional orchestra musician and is away from home most of the time, and she confides her problems with her marriage in Joey. At the end of season one, she and Joey become romantically involved during her separation from her husband. In season two she becomes romantically interested in Joey and has a crush on him for a long period. Gina tries to help her to get over Joey, but once Alex starts dating Joey's friend Dean, Joey soon realizes that he is also in love with Alex. Coincidentally the actors portraying Joey and Alex also fell for each other in real life.
• Paulo Costanzo as Joey's nephew Michael Tribbiani who idolises his Uncle Joey's ability to date many women, and who himself is sheltered and nervous around girls. He is self-conscious that he has been so sheltered and that his mother Gina breast fed him until he was seven. Early in the second season it is revealed that Michael suffers from Asperger syndrome. He is a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Wars fan. He is extremely intelligent, an aerospace engineer, attends Caltech and specialises in applied thermodynamics, works with his rival Seth frequently on engineering projects, and is an obvious direct opposite from his more street-wise mother and uncle. He turns to Joey as a big brother and substitute father figure, even after his biological father Jimmy re-enters mother Gina's love life. Michael plays a smaller role in the second season.
• Drea de Matteo as Joey's attractive older sister Gina Tribbiani, who is temperamental and promiscuous. Not particularly bright but very street-wise, Gina is a caring but over-protective and domineering mother. For years she convinced her genius son Michael that he was born when she was 22 instead of 16 years old, and always says he is the one thing she has done really well. She and Joey are friends in addition to being siblings, both having the gift of being extremely appealing to the opposite sex, with numerous lovers. Initially working as hairdresser, by season two she works as a secretary for Joey's agent Bobbie, having impressed Bobbie with her brash manner. In season two she starts dating Michael's father Jimmy once again. In the Season 2 episode "Joey and the Holding Hands", it is implied that Gina has lesbian tendencies.
• Jennifer Coolidge as Joey's oversexed agent Roberta "Bobbie" Morganstern, and reportedly the twelfth most powerful woman in Hollywood. She has an enormous crush on Joey's nephew Michael. She often entertains herself by making her office assistant do funny tricks, or shocking herself with a stun-gun. She is brash, forward, aggressive, highly entertaining and slightly ditzy, laughing at everything and at anyone's expense, including her client Joey's. She was once sued by Phil Collins.
• Miguel A. Núñez, Jr. joined the cast at the start of season two as the character Zach Miller. He soon became one of Joey's best friends. Zach has an interesting career, going from playing extras on TV, to directing amateur plays. Zach does not appear to have a home; he was seen at one time living in Joey's trailer while working on a major blockbuster movie. In one episode, Zach and Joey, both drunk, married in Tijuana, possibly a parody of Ross and Rachel marrying each other in the season five finale of Friends. As a tribute to Joey and Chandler, Joey and Zach argued like a married couple, Zach playing the part of the wife. Zach's final appearance was in "Joey and the Big Move". Núñez was absent from the last five episodes, including the finale of the series, because he found another job. Zach's absence within the show was not mentioned, nor was the character at all.

Two cast members had previously appeared as different characters in Friends; Coolidge appeared as Amanda, an old friend of Monica and Phoebe, in a tenth season episode. Adam Goldberg appeared in Friends' second season in the recurring role of Eddie, who moves in with Chandler after Joey moves out. Additionally, Robert Costanzo reprised his role as Joey's father in "Joey and the Dad", a character originated in the first season of Friends. Costanzo was the only actor besides LeBlanc to play the same character in this series as in Friends (Gina appeared in a third season episode of Friends, but was not played by Drea de Matteo; Joey's sister Mary Theresea also appeared in a third season friends episode, but was played by a different actress than on Joey).

Guest stars

• Lucy Liu as Lauren, the executive producer of Deep Powder
• Christina Ricci as Joey's younger sister Mary Theressa
• Richard Ruccolo as Glenn, Joey's assistant
• Simon Helberg as Seth, a friend of Michael
• Carmen Electra as herself
• Ellen DeGeneres as herself
• George Hamilton as himself
• Bob Saget as himself
• Kevin Smith as himself
• Jay Leno as himself
• Brent Spiner as himself
• John Larroquette as Benjamin Lockwood
• Carlos Gómez as the director of Joey's big-budget action picture Captured
• Betty White as Mrs. Bly
• James Lipton as himself

Development

The pilot episode was released in screener for test audiences and members of the entertainment industry to preview the show and drum up business. The screener was subsequently leaked on the Internet and thus has received a much wider critical review process than initially conceived.^[2] There were few differences between the unbroadcast pilot and the version that was broadcast. Ashley Scott played the role of Allison in the unbroadcast pilot,^[3] she was replaced by Andrea Anders and the character name changed to Alex.

The series did well in the Nielsen ratings in its first season (2004–2005) and was subsequently renewed for a second season (2005–2006). In the second season, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. was added to the show as a series regular. Also, Jennifer Coolidge had a more prominent role.

The show was pulled from its Thursday-night timeslot in December 2005, and NBC returned the show in a new timeslot (Tuesdays at 8pm) on March 7, 2006. Despite being in competition with American Idol, the ratings were even higher; Joey was the highest rated prime time program of the week for NBC.^[4] The network pulled the series after the first Tuesday broadcast and its cancellation was announced on May 15, 2006. The remaining episodes have never been broadcast by NBC, but have been shown on various other networks around the world.

The fifth and the thirteenth episodes were directed by David Schwimmer (who played Ross Geller on Friends).

After the series finale in 2004, LeBlanc signed on for the spin-off series, Joey, following Joey's move to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. Kauffman and Crane were not interested in the spin-off, although Bright agreed to executive produce the series with Scott Silveri and Shana Goldberg-Meehan.^[5] NBC heavily promoted Joey and gave it Friends' Thursday 8:00 pm timeslot.^[6][7] The pilot was watched by 18.60 million American viewers,^[8] but ratings continually decreased throughout the series' two seasons, averaging 10.20 million viewers in the first season and 7.10 million in the second.^[9] The final broadcast episode on March 7, 2006 was watched by 7.09 million viewers;^[10] NBC canceled the series on May 15, 2006 after two seasons.^[11] Bright blamed the collaboration between NBC executives, the studio and other producers for quickly ruining the series:^[9]

On Friends Joey was a womanizer but we enjoyed his exploits. He was a solid friend, a guy you knew you could count on. Joey was deconstructed to be a guy who couldn't get a job, couldn't ask a girl out. He became a pathetic, mopey character. I felt he was moving in the wrong direction, but I was not heard.

—Kevin Bright on the reason for Joey's cancellation.^[9]

Episodes

Season 1: 2004–05

Season 2: 2005–06

Reception

Awards

Joey won the People's Choice Award of Favorite New Television Comedy and Matt LeBlanc won Favorite Male Television Star. LeBlanc was also nominated for the Golden Globe of Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical.

Nielsen ratings

Based on average total viewers per episode of Joey on NBC:^[48][49]

International airings

Repeats are currently broadcast in India on WB TV, in the Netherlands on Comedy Central, in Norway on TV2, in Denmark on TV 2 Zulu, in Portugal, Bulgaria and Serbia on Fox Life, in Japan on Super Drama, in Taiwan on AXN and in the United Kingdom on Fiver.

Series information

DVD releases

The Complete First Season was released on DVD on May 30, 2006 with all 24 episodes and French and Spanish subtitles. The Complete Second Season was released on April 29, 2008 in Canada (Region 1) and on September 10, 2008 in the Netherlands and September 11, 2008 in Portugal (both Region 2).^[51]

References

External links

• Joey at the Internet Movie Database
• Joey at TV.com