Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Three words, a raised eyebrow and a drawn-out first syllable: the line is Joey's whole philosophy of seduction, confident, shameless and almost never successful on the people around him. The joke is that his friends have heard it so often that they groan on cue. It escaped the show to become the default flirting parody, the thing anyone does when imitating a smooth talker with no actual game.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for FriendsShow the scene
Joey Tribbiani, Friends' resident ladies' man, explains his technique in season 4's "The One with Rachel's Crush" (1998). Rachel is wondering how to ask out a man she likes, and Joey advises her to look a woman up and down and ask how she's doing, the vowels stretched and the eyebrow raised. He demonstrates on Phoebe, who is briefly charmed before he admits it was only a theory. The Friends fan wiki dates the line's origin to this episode, after which Joey keeps aiming it at women he meets, and at his unimpressed friends, for the rest of the series and into the spin-off Joey.
Sources (3)
- Friends Fandom Wiki: Running GagsJoey section, "How you doin'?"Reference checked
- Friends Fandom Wiki: The One with Rachel's CrushTranscript, Joey advising Rachel; episode infoboxReference checked
- Friends Fandom Wiki: Joey TribbianiLead and personality sectionReference checked
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