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Twenty years ago, one of the greatest sitcoms of all time went off the air… but one of its characters lived on.
Yes, NBC’s infamous Friends spinoff Joey, with Matt LeBlanc reprising his role as Joey Tribbiani, premiered two decades ago today, on Sept. 9, 2004 — just four months after Friends ended its 10-season run. But it wasn’t nearly the success that its predecessor was, with the cancellation axe falling after just two seasons. And while Friends is still incredibly popular to this day with streaming audiences, Joey is nowhere to be found on streaming. Now why is that, we wondered?
TVLine reached out to production company Warner Bros. Television to get the latest update on Joey’s streaming status. A source there confirmed that they still hold the streaming rights to Joey, and the show is available to license — but it has not been “cleared,” or sold to any streaming service as of yet. That includes Max, which also falls under parent company Warner Bros. Discovery and currently streams all 10 seasons of Friends on an exclusive basis.
It’s somewhat understandable, though, that no one has forked over the cash to stream Joey yet, since it was one of the most infamous flops in recent TV history. In it, LeBlanc’s Joey moved from New York to L.A. to pursue his acting career in Hollywood, reuniting with his older sister Gina, played by The Sopranos alum Drea de Matteo, and moving in with Gina’s genius son Michael (future Royal Pains star Paolo Costanzo), who is literally a rocket scientist. Plus, Andrea Anders played landlord/love interest Alex, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. joined the cast in Season 2 as Joey’s actor pal Zach and a pre-White Lotus Jennifer Coolidge co-starred as Joey’s talent agent Bobby.
Joey got off to a great start in the ratings, with 18.6 million viewers (!) tuning in to the series premiere, which aired in Friends’ usual Thursdays-at-8 time slot. NBC happily renewed it for a second season, but ratings began to dwindle, and a Season 2 move to Tuesdays opposite juggernaut American Idol was basically a death sentence. The show went on hiatus and was officially cancelled in May 2006, with eight produced episodes never even airing in the United States. (They did air overseas, though.)
So why did Joey fail when Friends was so popular? Well, for one thing, his Friends never came by to help: None of the other five Friends stars made a guest appearance on Joey, with only Robert Costanzo reprising his role as Joey’s father, though David Schwimmer did direct a pair of Season 1 episodes. Plus, the character of Joey Tribbiani wasn’t the same as he was on Friends, according to executive producer Kevin S. Bright, who blamed NBC executives for turning Joey from a womanizer into a loser: “He became a pathetic, mopey character. I felt he was moving in the wrong direction, but I was not heard.”
Even if we wanted to see Joey for ourselves, we couldn’t: It’s not available on any streaming service, not even for rent or purchase. It was released on DVD years ago, but those sets are long out of print, although you can still find them used on Amazon or eBay. However, we think the time has come for Joey to finally get his day in the sun. It’s been 20 years, and we’ve watched every Friends episode 10 times by now. (Plus, who doesn’t want to see Coolidge as Joey’s agent?) It’s time for some heroic streamer to step up, take a long look at Joey’s streaming rights and say: “How you doin’?”
Would you watch Joey if it were available to stream, Friends fans? And if you actually watched Joey back in the day, please share your memories in the comments.
Nope. This spinoff can be consigned to the deep dark depths of hell. It should never have happened. Let’s all pretend it didn’t and go on our merry.
I’m a huge Friends person and I like the character of joey, however And I like the character of joey, however him having his own spin off was ridiculous. The show stunk.
Joey was a flop because the writing was terrible. The show had a stellar cast and the sort of attention you couldn’t buy with a billboard on the moon these days. A team of competent writers who actually understood what made the character of Joey so special could have turned that into another Frasier.
I remember hating it 20 years ago and I’m pretty sure I’m still going to hate it now.
The final eight episodes of Joey have never been officially released in America. NBC pulled the show off the schedule after the 14th episode and didn’t even burn the final episodes in the summer. The second season region one DVD was never officially released in America, only in Canada. The second season DVD goes for several hundred dollars on eBay. The first season was briefly available to stream on Crackle a few years ago, but not the second season.
Episodes is the true Joey spinoff. Matt is hilarious here!!
Thiiiiiiiiis
I mean it wasn’t the best show in the world. But it was fun. I wouldn’t mind watching it again.
Cause it was garbage.
I didn’t even bother reading the article because the premise of it was laughable. Who is looking to watch this cash grab dumpster fire?
The Joey character worked well in that Friends dynamic but when the focus was put solely on him, it didn’t work. He needed a “Chandler”.
I’d be surprised if people would watch it
Nope, I watch it once, and it was enough
Wonder if it’s also because LeBlanc had an affair and fell in love with Anders during the show and divorced his first wife, later marrying Anders having something to do with it.
I hold that against the show as well. Came to the comments to see if anyone mentioned it, and then I wouldn’t have to.
Just checked his imdb page. He didn’t actually marry Andrea but rather had an 8 yr relationship with her. But yeah, that affair and the ending of his marriage put a damper on Joey for me.
Maybe for some but for most people if they enjoy a show (unless what the actor did is severe) they won’t stop watching, Joey would have had low ratings regardless of Matts personal life.
I think the younger generation who found friends in syndication would watch it out of pure curiosity, and then cancel their subscription to whatever streamer had it
I still believe that had Joey been made a workplace comedy, set on a fictional soap, it would have been a hit. A mostly sane cast of characters with a couple of scene stealing over the top actor trope characters.
It’s not true that Joey became a mopey loser in Joey. He was still dating plenty of woman and his acting career was doing very well. He starred in a prime time drama and, then, a big budget film.
The show wasn’t ever going to be as good as friends but I thought season 1 was entertaining enough. Season 2 looked overly goofy so I lost interest though and stopped watching. To this day though, I still feel like nbc missed out on an opportunity for season 3. Bring back friends characters, change out writers and no “death slot” and this could have had a healthy run of episodes. They definitely could have pivoted to success. PIVOT!
I think it’s worth mentioning that Leblanc was nominated for a Golden Globe for the first season
I would like to see the 8 unaired episodes!
Simple answer: “Because it was terrible.” Does anybody even actually want it on streaming?? (By which I mean, anybody who’s actually seen it and thus knows exactly how awful it was, rather than people who’ve only heard about it and want to experience it for themselves.)
In a heartbeat! I watched all of the episodes when it originally aired, and I thought it was funny.
Why? Because it was a terrible show. He needed the other five, so it was doomed from the start.
There is a lot of garbage TV and Movies that are available on the apps. This show, while not up to Friends level, had a great cast, was good for a laugh and should definitely be available for fans to watch.
Never understood why this show got so much hate. I thought it went in exactly the right direction. The Friends series ended with all the other characters married and settling down, so it made sense for Joey to move on and further his acting career. The scenes with Joey and his agent Bobbi Morgenstern were hilarious; Matt LeBlanc and Jennifer Coolidge had great timing and chemistry. And Drea De Matteo got to have fun and showcase her comedy side, after years of playing a very different role on The Sopranos. Plus Joey himself grows up, gets a movie career, and settles into a long-term relationship. I look at it like a bonus season of Friends. I think any channels that play the 10 seasons of Friends in syndication could then play Joey as if it were Friends Seasons 11 and 12. Fortunately Matt LeBlanc found success again in Episodes, Top Gear, and Man With A Plan, so his fans got to see him back in his element.