Hey Joel (2003)
Hey Joel is an American animated television series. It is about Joel Stein, the host of a three-minute rock-star interview show on VH1 called "3 minutes with Joel". However, he is anything but respectful to his famous guests, often badgering them with aggressive, pointless, irreverent, and often insulting questions. Jon Cryer provides the voicing for the part of Joel. His coworkers include Michele, his producer, on whom he has a crush; Kevin, his production assistant; Leif, his nemesis, who is VH1's star; and Z, the all-business head of programming. The band Fountains of Wayne performs their own original compositions for the show, and appear as animated characters during the musical sequences. After an initial run on VH1 in 2003, the show was picked up by Teletoon, and episodes continue to air in Canada. The first season was made available on DVD June 24, 2008.
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Episode 1 - Judgment Day
Release Date: 2003-06-03Z becomes bored with Joel and tries to replace him, while Joel is angered when Alicia Keys runs over his toe(nail) with her limo.
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Episode 2 - Tattoos and Taboos
Release Date: 2003-06-10An e-mail circulates around the office, from a Wendy Pubes. Joel has romantic feelings for Michele, as does Alyson, who thinks Michele is a lesbian. When Alyson implies to Joel that she wants a certain someone to get a transfer to LA because she likes someone, Joel thinks its him. Michele convinces Alyson she likes Joel, so the transfer is off, and Joel is left unloved.
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Episode 3 - Dream
Release Date: 2003-06-17Joel gets in shape with a personal ""A-list celebrity"" trainer, and takes ""Man Fuel"", which he thinks makes him bulkier and strongier, but ends up giving him breasts. Michele is forced to book an A-list celebrity, specfically a ""Rolling Stone"", so she takes Bill Wyman away from Leif, and convinces him to do Joel's show, by pretending Joel is a woman.
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Episode 4 - Guitar
Release Date: 2003-06-24In a misunderstanding, Joel autographs a guitar signed by the world's most famous guitarists, then must get his signature removed in time for a charity auction. Meanwhile, when Kevin reads that the average New Yorker is mugged once every 10.3 years, he decides to get his mugging out of the way right now, and Michele's hangover makes her worry-is she getting old?
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Episode 5 - Dark Week
Release Date: 2003-07-01In a ticking-clock parody of "24," Joel must overcome the stage-fright Donny Osmond has cursed him with before facing the cameras as an awards show presenter.
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Episode 6 - Big Rack Attack
Release Date: 2003-07-08Joel grows breasts after overdoing it on a bulk-up supplement, but Michele convinces him to keep them when she realizes that his pubescent look will help her book a celebrity with odd tastes.
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Episode 7 - Business Affairs
Release Date: 2003-07-15A totally innocent exchange of emails between two employees is electronically circulated to the entire company, leading to an all-day Sexual Sensitivity Seminar whose leader pits Joel against Michele to get Michele transferred to L.A. Arrogant Leif - who thinks he's VH1' s star -can't get past his own building's security.
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Episode 8 - Joel Sells Out
Release Date: 2003-07-22Joel and Michele scheme to score freebies off product-mentions he "casually" gets rock stars to discuss in interviews, but that gives Z the idea for a full-time sponsor: Wobu, a trendy vitamin water, whose rep starts insisting on changes to Joel's on-air style after a Bono interview turns into a shouting match. Kevin's share of the take is 30,000 worms he can't get rid of.
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Episode 9 - Book'd
Release Date: 2003-07-29Joel gets hired to write a pre-celebrity bio book of an unknown boy band, then discovers they all hate each other, that their manager is a perv, and that his ironclad contract requires him to deliver five books for the price of one.
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Episode 10 - The Ur-Man And The Seal
Release Date: 2003-08-05Upset that she's not impressing the right folks at VH1, Michele ropes Joel into playing Pinniped - the hero seal of an 1800-episode Japanese anime series that is the centerpiece of station CEO Hugo's attempt to lure 6-year olds to his new VH1 Juvenile. Meanwhile, Executive Remotivation Week finds musically unsavvy Z working as counter help at Skyscraper Records.
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Episode 11 - Hockey
Release Date: 2003-08-12Joel's search for a celebrity pal leads to an on-air hockey duke-out with heavy-metalman Rob Halford, and then a crush on Eighties's popstress Debbie Gibson, who won't stop believing that her love can change the gay Halford. Kevin catches Michele helping herself to some cash being collected for a Leif gift, to get even for his revealing their ancient one-night stand.
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Episode 12 - The Niece
Release Date: 2003-08-19Embarrassed by Michele's accusation that he's turned into a suck-up to the stars, Joel lashes out at a celebrity relative intern until he learns she has cancer - and then he has a bigger problem: Does he have to be nice to her now, or does slamming on the cancer girl make him real cutting-edge? Meanwhile Hugo forces Kevin to re-design VH1's web page depicting Times Square, 2500.
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Episode 13 - Project Televisionary
Release Date: 2003-08-26Joel gets renewed for next season, but the price is steep: VH1 is finally going to air Project Televisionary, the story of how Joel came to VH1 and met Kevin and Michele-it's unusually humiliating and might destroy all their friendships.