Friends:

Hey, it’s The One With The Spin Off.

Lovely, lovely Joey. Lucky he didn’t grow up over here, where having that name can be a nightmare. But not for Joey, who’s one of those characters who sails through life, existing on his plentiful good looks and fractional IQ. And to make this hunky, love-monster even more likeable, he’s an actor. Actors are always great, right?

Sadly for Joey, he’s not a very good actor. Luckily for Joey he’s too dumb to realise it and takes criticism on the chin. Actually the criticism usually sails way over his chin, but that’s ok as Joey believes anything that is ever said to him has to be positive. They found in tests that Pandas think the same way.

But he does get work. He’s been a regular on daytime sop Days of our Lives, he’s advertised lipstick for men in Japan and starred alongside a robot in Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E. The robot got all the plaudits.

Besides loving himself, Joey loves to eat. And when he’s done eating, he loves to love. At last count he dated around 742 women during the course of the series. That breaks down to about 60 per show. And during many of those he had a cold. But how can he fail with a chat up line like ‘How You Doin’. Just reading that makes me want to sleep with him right now.

Ok, so he’s not the brightest spark, but he’s loyal, loving and has a cuddly penguin called Mr Hugsy. Now I see why he got his own show.