"Hi! How are you?" How the authors of the spinoff about Joey from Friends buried the series themselves

Few people will remember the spinoff series Joey, about one of the six main characters of Friends, the favorite of the public and all the girls in New York, the failed actor Joey Tribbiani. This is not surprising, as the rating of the series was falling with each broadcast episode, and the last second season was not even shown on the screens until the end. The biggest reason for the project's unpopularity was the fact that it seemed to exist in a vacuum: although the location remained the same, viewers did not see a single mention of Monica's fate with Chandler, the lives of Rachel and Ross, or the adventures of the strange Phoebe. Joey somehow remained himself but lost the memory of those with whom he shared many years of his life in New York.

Despite the enormous success that Friends enjoyed for ten seasons, almost the entire cast decided not to appear in Joey. Screen Rant noted that among the many criticisms were complaints that the spinoff series, which was released immediately after Friends ended, barely mentioned the events of its parent show. However, Joey continued his longstanding role as the quirky kid with the trademark "Hi! How are you?" which was the only thing that reminded us of Friends.

David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) was also one of the actors from the parent series who ended up in Joey. Instead, he refused to continue his role and acted as a director in two episodes: the fifth and thirteenth. There's a likely reason why fans didn't see it - too many other projects at the time of the spinoff's filming and a lack of time because of it.

In particular, the role of the father was played by Robert Costanza, the same actor who was Joey's dad in Friends. This made Costanza the only actor other than Matthew LeBlanc (Joey) to play the same role on both shows.

However, several other Friends actors did appear in the spinoff. But they played completely different roles, which the audience didn't seem to like. The most striking example is Jennifer Coolidge, who was Amanda in Friends. Instead, in Joey, she became part of the main cast as Bobbi Morganstern.

However, to understand the difference in the popularity of both legendary TV series, it should be noted that Friends is available on the Max streaming platform, while Joey is not currently broadcast by any company.