Joey

"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 S. Bright, executive producer of the show.

Joey was a Spin-Off of the wildly popular sitcom Friends. It transplanted wannabe actor Joey Tribbiani (Matt Le Blanc) to Los Angeles, where he tried to make a go of becoming a big star. It added new characters such as Gina, his equally promiscuous sister, played by Drea De Matteo of The Sopranos; Michael, his sheltered nephew, played by Paulo Costanzo, and love interest Alex, played by Andrea Anders. Plots usually revolved around one of three things:

  • A. Gina's love life in trouble.
  • B. Michael's inability to get a date.
  • C. Alex and Joey's unresolved romantic issues. (She was married, but there was a spark there).

Not too many people were excited about this spin-off as they were unsure of whether Joey would be able to stand on his own as a character and support his own show. Despite a respectable first episode (18 million viewers), viewership quickly began to dwindle. After several attempts at retooling (including adding a new cast member, Miguel Nunez Jr.), NBC put it up against American Idol, which was the final nail in the coffin. In the middle of the second season, Joey was no more, at least in the US, the remaining episodes did air overseas and were eventually released on DVD... in Canada. A total of 46 episodes were released, from September, 2004 to May, 2006.

Not to be confused with the other kind of joey (a newborn marsupial).

Tropes used in Joey include:
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Zach was absent from the last five episodes of the series with no explantion and he was never mentioned or refered to again.
  • Dawson Casting/Playing Gertrude: Drea De Matteo is only six years older than the actor who plays her son.
  • Double Standard: Joey's middle-aged agent Bobbi, who frequently sexually harassed Joey's 21-year-old nephew Michael. This was always Played for Laughs. If the genders were reversed, would it have worked the same way?
    • Except at the end of season one, where she told Joey she could get Michael and a friend tickets to Revenge of the Sith, but used it to trick Michael into a date with her. Gina was pissed.
  • The Eponymous Show
  • Easter Egg: Joey has a picture of himself and Chandler near his door.
  • Hands-Off Parenting: One episode features Joey upset with an online critic who happens to be an 11-year-old girl. Her father lets Joey see her no questions asked despite the the visible anger he is showing. Then when witnessing a hug between the two, he offers Joey pizza
  • Ho Yay: Joey's sister Gina thought that Chandler and Joey were a gay couple. Understandable, considering they did squabble like man and wife.
  • I Am Your Father: Inverted--everybody except Michael's father is aware that Michael is his son.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes
  • Laugh Track: One of the last NBC comedies to have one. The failure of this show, as well as the success of The Office (which began airing in between Joey's two seasons), are the reasons that most NBC comedies released since no longer contain laugh tracks.
  • Les Yay: Gina, Bobbi and Alex were all implied to have attractions to the same sex on some occasions.
  • Missing Episode: Eight episodes from season 2 were unaired due to the show being prematurely cancelled, though they are availible on DVD.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Joey accidentally revealed that a specific character was going to be killed off in an early episode of his new show, Deep Powder in a press junket. The rest of the episode featured Joey being worried that he'd be killed off in retaliation for the leak, but the producers of the show instead killed off a different character, who was played by a Jerkass that nobody involved with the show liked.
  • No Export for You: Season 1's DVD set was released pretty much everywhere the show was aired. The DVD set for Season 2 was only ever released in Canada, while they will play on most Region 1 DVD players, they're long out of print, not to mention very pricey.
  • One-Scene Wonder: Alyson Stoner as the critic who admittingly gives Joey a bad review without even seeing his movie. There's also a scene that shows she and Joey are Not So Different
  • The Other Darrin: Gina was originally played by a different actress on a 1997 episode of Friends.
  • Screwed by the Network: NBC made the boneheaded decision to put Joey opposite American Idol and predictably its ratings soon declined, and It Got Worse--the show then got cancelled midway through season 2, leaving eight episodes unaired.
  • Sitcom
  • Spin-Off
  • You Look Familiar: Joey's new agent Bobbi and Gina's ex/Michael's father both appeared in Friends as different characters.
  • Zany Scheme
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