Rejoyla "Joy" Scroggs is a character on Hot in Cleveland. She is portrayed by Jane Leeves.
Biography[]
At the start of the series, she is known as "The Eyebrow Queen of Beverly Hills". She had a child at 17 and gave him up for adoption. She was later engaged but was left at the altar. Now that she's older and wiser, Joy is judgmental and calls them as she sees them. On the surface, she's cynical and pessimistic, yet inside, she's vulnerable and an utter romantic. At the start of the series, she has a strong and instant dislike toward caretaker Elka Ostrovsky, perhaps because the two have more in common than either would like to admit. Much later in the series, it is revealed that the two are related in through an older ancestor.
Joy, who is from England, admitted to having come to the United States to live to distance herself from her mother Philippa, who had criticized her daughter for most of her life. Even as they communicate through the internet Joy still bears the brunt of her mother's wrath and can tell when she can feel her presence from across the Atlantic, even when she is on the Internet. In the Season 2 finale episode "Elka's Wedding" she finds out that she married Victoria in Canada when they were drunk.
Throughout the series, Joy was always looking for Mister right, though it sometimes came down to him being Mister Right Now. She later looks for her son, who she gave up for adoption. When he comes to visit, she accidentally shoots him in the leg with Elka's Polish Pellet Rifle. She makes amends and they agree to take things slow at first, with Owen hesitant after being shot. over time, though, the two form a real mother-son bond.
During seasons 2, her Visa expires and she will need a green card to remain in the country legally. She was going to marry Rick, played by Wayne Knight, though he leaves her for their immigration caseworker. She later gets engaged to Artie Firestone, played by Jon Lovitz, a homeless man who is, in fact, the heir to the Firestone Rubber fortune. Upon finding out that her soon to be fiancee is actually a homeless man, her immigration caseworker doesn't approver her application. She does give Joy an extension on getting it.
Joy finally gets her green card after she is accidentally linked to a scandal with the governor of Ohio. A photo of her plucking the Governor's eyebrows is misconstrued into being thought of as a prostitute giving the Governor a lap dance. Victoria, eager to break the story on her show, "Oh Hi, Ohio" keeps giving anonymous tips to other media outlets to make the story juicy. However, the governor's wife, played by Amy Sedaris, makes a deal with Joy to get her a green card and pardon Elka, in exchange for keeping quiet about what she was really doing with the Governor.
In season four, Owen moves to Cleveland with his son Wilbur. Joy, along with Melanie, Victoria, and Elka, step in to help Owen take care of Wilbur. Initially, Owen was considering giving Wilbur up for adoption, the way Joy did with Owen. Also during the fourth season, Joy goes back to college to earn her degree. While attending Cleveland State, she becomes somewhat of an outcast because she is too old. However, Elka, who is also attending and is much older, is considered "a novelty" because she is 90. Joy realizes that she wants to become a private detective and begins an internship with Bob Moore, played by Dave Foley. While he is quite taken by her, Joy is not as taken by him, though she slowly softens to him.
Regardless of her age, and the snarky remarks of Elka, Joy excels at being a private detective with Bob. However, when Owen's father Simon, played by Craig Ferguson, comes back into her life, she wants to give that relationship another try. Distraught by this, Bob sells the agency to Mitch, who Joy is infatuated with. However, Mitch is in love with Melanie and views Joy as too similar to his ex-wife. At the end of the fifth season, she is proposed to by Simon, Mitch and Bob; leaving her in a predicament.
At the start of the sixth season, she ultimately chooses Simon, though things slowly begin to fall apart. it is revealed that he is married to a woman from another country so she could be extradited to the United States to seek political asylum. Then, he has to go back to the woman's country, leading him to be away from Joy for an extensive period of time. She decides that they can remain friends but not lovers. Mitch leaves, selling the business back to Bob though Joy's services are retained. Though Joy is eager to rekindle their romance, she finds that Bob is going out with a former lover. However, the lover is only marrying Bob because he comes from an extraordinarily wealthy family. Joy realizes that Bob was the "John F. Kennedy Jr." of Canada.
The lover is later spurned by Bob when she realizes that she has feelings for his brother. Joy and Bob are finally together and consider adopting a child together. However, the date they can get their new baby is the day before their wedding. However, the adoption agency doesn't want to give the child to an unmarried couple. So, they get married in a double ceremony in a small Las Vegas chapel along with Elka and Bob's father, played by Bob Newhart. This effectively makes Elka Joy's mother-in-law and allows Joy and Bob to adopt a baby girl, whom they name Betty, (presumably after Betty White). At the end of the series, Joy and Bob along with Elka, Bob Sr., Melanie, Victoria, Johnny Revere, Owen and Wilbur, and Tom, celebrate Betty's fifth birthday.
Trivia[]
- Joy's ex-fiancé is referred to as Kyle Jones in the episode "How Did You Guys Meet, Anyway?", but is referred to as Kyle Costa in subsequent episodes.
- Joy is frequently criticized by Elka for wearing short skirts who short shorts.
- It is unknown if she ever did finish her degree and graduate.
- Her Los Angeles business falls apart, though she doesn't decide to open a beauty salon in Cleveland.
- Despite being a hopeless cynic, she is an incurable romantic.
- She uses the movie Love Actually as a test for all the men she gets serious with.
- The actors to guest star on Hot in Cleveland from the series Jane Leeves is famous for, Frasier, are John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, Millicent Martin, and Tom McGowan. However, Wendy Malik, who plays Victoria was also on Frasier, as a series regular in the final season as a love interest and later second-wife of John Mahoney's character. Mary Tyler Moore also made guest appearances on both Frasier, as a caller named Marjorie on Frasier's radio show, and as a prisoner on Hot in Cleveland, when Elka was arrested.
- Joy's husband has first appeared in the first season as "Dr. Robert Moore" when Victoria is faking a deadly disease.
- in "The man that got away" Simon says that he was 17 when he got Joy pregnant, Joy also mentions that Owen is 32 years old. Assuming Joy was the same age it can be assumed that she is 49 (accounting for pregnancy time) by the episode