Friends became part of pop culture thanks to its characters and their one-liners, and one that became very popular was Joey’s “how you doin’?”, even though he began using it later than most viewers think. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, Friends made its debut on NBC in 1994 and came to an end in 2004 after 10 successful seasons and a lot of ups and downs in the lives of its main characters. Friends is still regarded as one of the best TV shows of all time, and thanks to its time in the world of streaming, its fanbase has grown.
Friends followed a group of six young adults living in New York City and doing their best to juggle their social, professional, and personal lives, which many times ended up overlapping. Each character had their own running gags and one-liners, but one that became so popular even those who have never watched Friends know where it comes from is Joey’s “how you doin’?” catchphrase, which he used whenever he wanted to start a conversation with a woman he was attracted to. “How you doin’?” wasn’t always effective, but it had a big impact on the audience, even if he started to use it a bit late in the show and not as often as many think.
Joey Tribbiani was an actor who didn’t have the best luck getting big or interesting roles, but he had better luck when it came to women. Joey was dim-witted but had a good heart, though he was more interested in having casual dates and one-night stands rather than a serious relationship. Joey had his own techniques to approach a woman, but his go-to was the pickup line “how you doin’?”, which even though he had used for years, even before the events of the first episode of Friends, it was used in the show for the first time in season 4, specifically in the episode “The One With Rachel’s Crush”. In it, Rachel wanted to ask Joshua out but she didn’t know how, so Joey shared his “foolproof” technique, in which he would look a woman up and down and say “how you doin’?”. Rachel and Phoebe were skeptical, but when he tried it on Phoebe, she couldn’t help but giggle.
After that, “how you doin’?” became Joey’s catchphrase, but as popular as it is, it wasn’t used much throughout the show, and it was only spoken a bit over 20 times, without counting when other characters used it – and, of course, it wasn’t successful all the time. Joey’s catchphrase didn’t have the desired effect when he tried it on Rachel after he decided he should be dating someone he was friends with first, on a card dealer in Las Vegas, again on Rachel when she was so drunk she replied “I’m doin’ good, baby. How you doin’?” (and he panicked), and on his roommate Janine. Funny enough, it did work on Rachel once but in an alternate reality, where he was a big soap opera star and Rachel was his fan.
Although Joey had used the power of “how you doin’?” for a long time before it made its debut in Friends, it might be surprising to fans, especially those who have rewatched the show multiple times, to learn that the catchphrase arrived in season 4 and wasn’t even used much. This only shows the power of Joey’s pickup line, because even though it isn’t entirely foolproof, it truly is an unforgettable one.