Joey Tribbiani may not be the smartest cookie in the jar, but he’s is the funniest. Portrayed by Matt LeBlanc, Joey provided countless hilarious moments in the course of Friends’ ten seasons. While Chandler had the best one-liners, Joey had the best catchphrase, “how you doing?”
Of course, there’s more to Joey than just that one line. Each friend has had a number of episodes in which they got the opportunity to shine (to take center stage or steal it from someone else), but today, it’s all about Joey and his most memorable episodes. There are a few honorable mentions, including “The One with the Ride-Along,” “The One with Joey’s Bag” and pretty much all the Thanksgiving episodes, but these are on another level of Joey goodness.
“The One With Joey’s Porsche”
While Ross and Rachel were busy getting a divorce and Phoebe, Chandler, and Monica were babysitting the triplets, Joey spent his time pretending to own a Porsche. Of course, he didn’t stop at that. He invented a whole life. One in which his equity investments got him the Porsche, as well as his place upstate. However, once the real owner showed up and took the car, Joey was back to being just Joey.
Having fallen victim to being the fake owner of a Porsche, Joey had a Porsche throw up on him (resulting in the fetching look pictured above), hoping it would help him to keep deceiving people. Joey’s attempts to maintain his “image” didn’t end there, either. Being quite the craftsman, he made a Porsche model out of cardboard boxes and covered it up with a protective car blanket. He would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.
“The One With Joey’s New Brain”
Joey enthusiastically announcing that he’s getting a new brain never gets old. In this awesome season seven episode, Joey’s Days of Our Lives character, Dr. Drake Ramoray, comes out of his coma and gets a new brain. Joey explains that when he comes out of the “brain transplant," he’s going to be Jessica Lockheart in Drake Ramoray’s body (causing Ross to whimper in despair at the scientific strangeness of it all).
Cecile Monroe (portrayed by Susan Sarandon), who plays Jessica Lockheart, gives Joey some tips about ‘being’ the character. Of course, Joey being Joey, he hooks up with her, but he does actually learn how to play Jessica by “owning the room”. The scene in which Joey makes his big entrance as Jessica (with bandages over his head) gets us every time.
“The One Where The Stripper Cries”
Or, as it should have been called, “The One with Joey on Pyramid.” This is yet another great episode from season ten. While all the plotlines in this episode are hilarious, Joey’s guest appearance on Pyramid is by far the funniest.
Now, we know what you’re thinking: Joey on a game show equals disaster. You’re right. He lost almost every round even though his partner’s clues were obvious.
Joey gets cocky when he has to guess things you find in your refrigerator, but manages to mess that up too, because apparently it’s common to find items such as paper, snow, a ghost, a dog, a rock, and the Earth in one’s fridge (the “paper, snow, a ghost” line is still one of Joey’s most memorable). He was equally hilarious and oblivious trying to explain things associated with the U.S. Congress.
“The One With The Birth Mother”
In this season ten episode – wow, Joey had some pretty great moments in season ten – Phoebe reluctantly sets Joey up with one of her friends. Joey promises to treat the girl right, and he might have followed through with his promise if she hadn’t reached for his food.
The poor girl took a couple of fries from Joey’s plate, which got him a bit agitated to say the least. Turns out, Joey doesn’t share food – not even a couple of grapes with Emma. When Phoebe teases him about it, Joey utters the unforgettable line “Joey doesn’t share food”. Still, he decides to give the girl a second chance, but somehow ends up eating her piece of cake while she was answering the phone. When she returns and catches Joey all smudged with chocolate, Joey just smiles and says, “I’m not even sorry”.
“The One With The Baby Shower”
Let’s play Bamboozled! Don’t worry if the rules seem too complicated (or downright ridiculous), you just need some practice to get into it. We’ll just let Joey Tribbiani, the host of Bamboozled, break it down for you: “You spin the Wheel of Mayhem to go up to the Letter of Chance, you go past the Mud Hut through the Rainbow Ring to get to the Golden Monkey, you yank his tail and boom, you’re in Paradise Pond.” What’s complicated?
Joey’s practice contestants, Chandler and Ross, loved their time on Bamboozled, even though Joey hadn’t yet memorized all the rules and had to check what a Google Card is and how the Wheel of Mayhem works. However, this didn’t stop him from using his phony host voice, which only made lines like “I should know that” and “this is embarrassing” more hilarious.
“The One With Joey’s Fridge”
In this season six episode, Joey’s almost 30-year-old fridge breaks, so he goes around trying his best to get other people to pay for it. After failing to get the money from Rachel, he tries his luck with Chandler.
When Chandler walks into the apartment he finds a nauseous-looking Joey, eating ice-cream next to a table covered with empty containers. Befuddled, Chandler opens with “well you don’t look good, Joe”. Joey then matter-of-factly explains that the fridge broke, so he had to eat everything. Classic Joey.
To get Chandler to pay for the fridge, Joey paints quite the picture, where they’re a divorced couple, Joey has custody of the kid, the kid died and now he has to get a new kid, so Chandler should give him $400. This, surprisingly, doesn’t work, so Joey then tries to get money from Ross by pushing him into the fridge and claiming Ross broke it.
THE ONE WITH MONICA’S THUNDER
While Monica accused Ross and Rachel of stealing her thunder, we’d argue that her thunder was stolen by Joey. When the gang decided to go out to celebrate Monica and Chandler’s engagement, Joey dropped a bomb when he said he’s supposed to be playing a nineteen-year-old the next day. He even went through the trouble of putting on a ridiculous outfit –which for some reason included Chandler’s underwear– to prove that he can pass for nineteen, uttering the unforgettable line “s’up with the wack PlayStation s’up”.
Even after Chandler told him that “on a scale from one to ten – ten being the dumbest a person can look" he is “definitely nineteen,” Joey kept trying to act nineteen, mostly by saying “wack,” even though everyone else was dealing with much bigger issues.
“The One Where Rachel’s Sister Babysits”
In the fifth episode of Friends’ last season, Monica and Chandler task Joey with writing a letter of recommendation to the adoption agency. Their first choice was Rachel, but when Joey protested, they decided to let him write the letter: a decision they almost came to regret. Fearing he won’t sound smart enough, Joey takes Ross’ advice and uses a thesaurus for bonus intelligence points.
Joey writes a very, very smart letter from the bottom of his full-sized aortic pump, using the thesaurus on every single word, including his name (which became “Baby Kangaroo” Tribbiani). On his second try, Joey didn’t go for smart at all but instead dropped off a handwritten letter –complete with drawings– at the agency. Luckily for Chandler and Monica, the agency loved it, thinking Joey was a child.
“The One Where Joey Speaks French”
In this season ten episode, Joey auditions for a part that requires him to speak fluent French, which he can definitely do (according to his resume). Phoebe, who actually does speak fluent French, offers to teach him and hilarity ensues. The name of Joey’s character is Claude, so Phoebs starts by trying to teach him how to introduce himself.
However, every time she asks him to repeat the words “je m’appelle Claude”, Joey speaks gibberish. Every Joey scene in this episode is absolutely hysterical, giving us some pretty hilarious lines such as “blay de la blay de blu blah blay,” Joey’s audition and conversation with the director and his victorious “tout de la fruit” at the end.
“The One Where No One’s Ready”
In this side-splitting episode from the first half of the third season, an increasingly nervous Ross is waiting for his friends to get ready so that they can go to his big event. However, for one reason or another, everyone seems to be taking their sweet time. Joey and Chandler, for instance, get into the most mundane and asinine argument about who gets to sit in Monica’s chair.
Their entire fight is hilarious, but it all comes to a head when –after having his underwear hidden by Chandler– Joey decides to do the complete opposite, which in his mind means putting on all of Chandler’s clothes. Joey wearing everything Chandler owns, uttering the now-famous line “could I BE wearing any more clothes?” is one of the funniest Friends scenes ever.
