Why Amazon Prime's 'The Boys' is the most Billy Joel show on TV

Amazon Prime's "The Boys," featuring Karl Urban, left, Jack Quaid,... — Amazon Prime's "The Boys," featuring Karl Urban, left, Jack Quaid, Karen Fukuhara, Tomer Capon and Laz Alonso, premiered its second season on Friday. Credit: Jasper Savage / Amazon Studios / TNS

By Frank LoveceSpecial to NewsdaySeptember 7, 2020

The Amazon Prime Video series "The Boys" launched its second season Friday with an emphasis on the music of Long Island pop star Billy Joel.

"It started as a bunch of ad-libs in season 1 about … how much Huey loves Billy Joel, and a lot of it came from [actor] Jack Quaid," executive producer Eric Kripke told the online magazine Inverse, referring to the series' everyman character who finds himself in a team of vigilantes trying to eliminate corrupt, corporate-owned superheroes.

"I think there was an original line of [script about Huey] staring up at the Led Zeppelin poster on the ceiling and we changed it to Billy Joel because he wouldn't have a Zeppelin poster," continued Kripke, who adapted the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic-book series. "He would have a Billy Joel poster. And his last words to Robin," Huey's girlfriend, who was killed in the inaugural season's first episode, "were 'Never besmirch Billy Joel.' "

In season 2, the premiere of which contains a montage set to Joel's 1982 hit "Pressure," "[W]e had this hilarious a-ha moment where we realized how many Billy Joel songs were completely reflective of what he [Huey] was going through in various episodes," Kripke, who is in his mid-40s, explains. "And we said, well, let's … keep playing Billy Joel songs that match the character's emotional arc. We had to get Billy's permission because it was, like, a lot of Billy Joel, and to his credit, he has shown a remarkable sense of humor and seems like a great guy [and] approved all of it."

Amazon Prime's "The Boys" series prominently features the songs of... — Amazon Prime's "The Boys" series prominently features the songs of Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Billy Joel in its second season, which premiered Fiday. The good-humored Joel approved the extensive use of his songs. Credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara

The Hicksville-raised Rock & Roll Hall of Famer's social-media accounts on Saturday noted that the second season "is full of songs by the Piano Man including 'We Didn't Start The Fire' featured in the Season 2 trailer."

Joel's 1985 music video for "You're Only Human (Second Wind)," a variation on the film classic "It's a Wonderful Life," starring Joel as an angel who keeps a young man from hurling himself off the Queensboro Bridge, is featured prominently on the series. "We wanted to recreate it for the show with Huey instead of the other kid" who stars in the original video, revealed Kripke, who previously created TV's long-running "Supernatural," "but getting out on the bridge and everything was just too prohibitive" an expense.