Retrospotting: Matt LeBlanc

So, I'm flipping around early this morning, not really looking for something to watch; more looking for near-nudity, which is the best I can hope for on basic cable.

(At 5:30 on a Saturday morning, the pickings were slim. Suze Orman is not likely to take anything off, which can't but be a good thing; a replay of the second round of the LPGA Kapalua Classic might score me some tan calves, but that's about it; and Land of the Anaconda would only have possibilities on Skinemax, not TLC. Sadly, there wasn't a GGW informercial in sight.)

Anyway, I flipped to TBS, to a sitcom clearly from the late '80s/early '90s. The sound was off so I couldn't hear the tell-tale audience laughter, but the camera angles felt like Married.....With Children, except none of the Bundy clan were visible.



Instead, there were two guys in tuxedos, obviously Queens, NY Italian-American Blue Collar goombas trying to fit into high society. (I had captions.)

What makes this post-worthy is that one of them was Joey! Or should I say, Matt Leblanc!

Turns out that it WAS Married.....With Children, and the episode was a back-door pilot for a spinoff called Top of the Heap (later retooled as Vinnie and Bobby).

Matt LeBlanc played Vinnie Verducci, a moron Italian-American from New York who had zero intelligence but knew how to handle himself with the ladies.

I mean, it was flat-out creepy!

I always thought that the Friends character Joey was a complete original, not that there haven't been dumb guys in TV shows before, but that Matt LeBlanc took the character and created him from scratch, giving us the loveable Joey.

Now I know that's bogus. Obviously the creators of Friends at some point saw LeBlanc in Top of the Heap or Married.....With Children or whatever; they saw him playing Vinnie Verducci. They decided that's what they were looking for in their Joey, and that's how he got the gig.

Vinnie and Joey are too amazingly similar for there to be any other conclusion.