Joey was Matt LeBlanc's follow-up show after the tremendously successful decades-long run of Friends had come to its conclusion. NBC gave him a shot at his own sitcom and, for me, I thought it was alright. I mean, it wasn't rocket science -- it was supposed to be a frivolous sitcom and it was essentially centered around a character that had come to be known as pretty much an intellectual lightweight so, how could it fail? All the Friends fans would watch, right? It inherited the Friends timeslot. And, it even featured, as shown above, my first real introduction to the fabulousness that is the incomparable Jennifer Coolidge.
What could go wrong? The ratings, that's what. Yup. The show was cancelled halfway through its second season. In fact, the final eight episodes weren't even aired.
But this week, NBC released them on their Friends YouTube channel. Now the whole, full two seasons of Joey are available to watch FREE. I feel like I'm transported back to 2004 again as I'm starting from the Pilot Episode and I've made my way so far to the fifth in Season One.
Jennifer, playing Joey Tribbiani's brutally-honest and unforgivingly glib agent has the hots for Joey's 20-year-old nephew and roommate Michael...and so did I, grrrr.
Cuties Matt LeBlanc and Paulo Costanzo, my new discovery of the comedic genius of the great Miss Coolidge and my two cans of cheap beer from the little family grocery store a couple blocks away on the corner of Elysian Fields and Robt. E. Lee made for a great evening wind down during my own trying times.