‘Friends’ Fan Fail: My Kingdom for a Joey Funko Pop! Figure

Joey (Credit: Funko)
Joey (Photo: Funko)

How am I doin’? Well, not great. It’s that time of year, when I desperately try to fulfill all of his Christmas wishes. Much to my delight, my 10-year-old son, Ryan, has recently discovered Friends and is in the process of watching all 10 seasons from the beginning on Netflix. While his new TV obsession has brought me hours of joy (a mother can only watch so much SpongeBob SquarePants before losing her mind), it’s providing me with one of the most difficult Christmas gift challenges yet.

You see, Ryan also collects Funko Pop! figures — the cute, giant-headed, plastic versions of all your favorite TV and movie characters — and obviously the entire Central Perk crew was at the top of his WANT list this year. So off to amazon.com I went, to quickly pull up these sweet little figures and have them delivered to my home in time to wrap and hide in my front closet.

(Credit: Funko)
Photo: Funko

I was able to easily find Monica with her chef’s hat, Rachel with her apron, Phoebe with her guitar, Ross with Marcel, and Chandler with the chick, all for a reasonable price ($15 or under), but no Joey (or the duck he comes with). I searched again and found one — for $59.99! I thought it had to be a mistake. I mean, why would the other friends be so affordable and Joey $60? So I searched again and found another Joey — for $160.67!! Then I went to eBay, only to find all the Joey bids were up over $62!

Related: The Ultimate 24-Hour ‘Friends’ Marathon

Why?! Why is this happening? I can’t give my son five out of the six friends! Chandler just doesn’t work without Joey, and the chick definitely does not work without the duck. My colleagues at Yahoo TV reached out to a rep for Funko to see if there was any explanation for why mini-Joey was in such high demand — but the company is baffled as well. The figures “all truly sell about the same amount,” a rep told us via email, adding that “Chandler [is] actually the No. 1 seller but only in a slight lead.”

Chandler (Credit: Funko)
Chandler (Photo: Funko)

Could this be anymore mind-boggling? I guess I’ll just chalk this up to one of life’s little mysteries and hope Santa has some kind of miracle up his sleeve. Or maybe I’ll see if anyone has a Gunther.

Friends is currently available to stream on Netflix.