Friends

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Characters \| Episodes \| Cast and crew \| Broadcasting \| Awards \| DVD releases \| Music scores \| Joey

Friends title card

Created by	David Crane Marta Kauffman
Starring	Jennifer Aniston Courteney Cox Arquette Lisa Kudrow Matt LeBlanc Matthew Perry David Schwimmer
Genre	Sitcom
Run time	approx. 22 minutes (per episode)
Original channel	NBC
Original run	September 22, 1994
	May 6, 2004
No. of episodes	236
Origin Country	USA
Rating	Template:TV-MA
Website	www.wb.com/friends

Friends is a sitcom about a group of twenty something friends that lives in close apartments in Manhattan. It was created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman and was originally broadcast from 1994 to 2004. The series focused on the ocurrencies, conflicts, adventures, romances, peripeties and lives of Rachel, Phoebe, Monica, Ross, Chandler and Joey, who often gather to talk and share their eperiences and problems in Monica's apartment of Central Perk, a fictional coffee shop that eventually become a real franchise.

Friends was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television for NBC in the U.S..In the US, the first episode was aired on September 22, 1994, and the last on May 6, 2004.^[1] It was followed by a host of other broadcast networks in numerous countries throughout the world.

Friends was one of the most popular sitcoms in the United States television history, gaining tens of millions of fans all over the globe. The show won many awards during its run, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, and six straight People's Choice Awards for Favorite Television Comedy Series.

1 Overview
- 1.1 New episodes
2 Cultural impact
3 Production
4 Ratings
- 4.1 US ratings
5 Errors and inconsistencies
6 Merchandise
7 References in other television series
8 Spinoffs
9 Soundtracks
10 Notes and references
11 External links

[edit] Overview

The show focused on the lives of a group of six friends: rich, spoiled "daddy's girl" Rachel Green; neurotically clean chef Monica Geller; quirky, ditzy, optimistic masseuse and folk/acoustic singer-songwriter Phoebe Buffay; ladies man and simple minded actor Joey Tribbiani; wise-cracking office drone Chandler Bing and nerdy paleontologist Ross Geller. As the plot begins, Rachel has just left her fiancé Barry at the altar and moves in with her childhood best friend, Monica.^[2] The pair live across the hall from Chandler and Joey and hang out with Monica's brother, Ross – who recently divorced his lesbian wife.^[2] Then there is Phoebe - the "free spirit" of the bunch (and the quirkiest) and Monica's old roommate.^[3] The settings for the show include Monica's apartment, Chandler and Joey's apartment, Ross's apartment, Phoebe's apartment and the local coffee house, Central Perk.^[4]

Image:Chandlerandjoey'sapartment.jpg

Joey (left) and Chandler in their apartment

After moving to the city, Rachel got her first job as a waitress in the coffee house. She later became an assistant to a buyer and personal shopper at Bloomingdale's,^[5] and later a buyer for Ralph Lauren.^[6] Monica struggled for success the first several seasons, but eventually became head chef at a well-respected restaurant. Chandler worked his way up in data processing and eventually switched to a career in advertising (by the last few seasons) after quitting his previous job. After on-and-off success as a soap opera actor, Joey's career eventually stabilized with a regular part on a soap opera from which he had been fired earlier in the series' run (along with a few odd jobs). Palaeontologist Ross eventually became a college professor. Phoebe made a living as a singer-songwriter and a masseuse (she also had lots of odd jobs throughout the series). Constant story lines throughout the series are the on/off romance between Ross and Rachel and, later in the series, the developing relationship between Chandler and Monica.

The show uses non-stop exaggerated, deadpan humor that are frequently not related to the plot. Some jokes are related to sexual activity, politics and innuendo, sometimes non-sequiturs. The show also occasionally developed on serious angles such as relationship breakups. Situational humor, ironic humor, and irony were also frequently used. Also, many of the humor is explained on many untold and unseen experiences of the main characters.

The show has provided an opportunity for consistent work by actors who were more active in the past. Elliott Gould played Monica's and Ross' father. Marlo Thomas (the star of That Girl) played Rachel's mother.

The show's theme song, "I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts, became a major hit after a Tennessee disc jockey looped it into a full length track and played it on the radio. The band's record label required them to write additional material and re-record the track as a full-length song, which peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #17.

The popularity of the show was such that, by the end of the series, the six main cast members were each paid US$1,000,000 per episode.^{[citation needed]} The six cast members had agreed to negotiate a common agreement, to prevent the undermining of one member or the other. Advertisements during the series finale, which attracted an audience of over 52 million viewers, cost $2,000,000 for a 30-second spot in the United States and CAD$190,000 in Canada.

[edit] New episodes

Due to the tremendous popularity of the show during its initial run, rumours of a reunion special or movie persisted well after the final episode had aired, with some even stating a deal for a special had been reached. ^[7] These rumours, however, have been continually denied by NBC and the six cast members. Courteney Cox, who plays Monica Geller in the show, has said she would like to do one more episode, but she also said she would not like to do a flashback episode. Jennifer Aniston, seen as the least likely to reprise her role among the main cast due to her movie career, hinted in 2006 at the possibility of a Thanksgiving special. ^[8] However, Lisa Kudrow told Ryan Seacrest on E!'s coverage of the Emmy Awards red carpet that a reunion is simply a rumour.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cultural impact

Image:Friendspurses.jpg

Friends handbags, on sale at a mall in Florida.

Friends has, in some areas, made a notable contribution to popular culture - language and fashion in particular. The use of "so" to mean "very" or "really" was not invented by any Friends writer, but it is quite arguable that the extensive use of the phrase in the series encouraged its use in everyday life. ^[9] Also commonly said by the characters, particularly Monica, was the loud "I know!" The series has also been noted for its impact on everyday-fashion and hair-styles. The hairstyle of Jennifer Aniston, in particular, was copied by many. Joey Tribbiani's catchphrase "How you doin'?" has become a popular part of American slang, often used as a pick-up line or when greeting friends. The show also inspired the cultural meme of the laminated list.

The phrase "Ross and Rachel" is used to describe an on/off relationship with a 'history', or in a situation like "Are you on a real break, or a Ross and Rachel break?" This is played on as a joke in Scrubs: The Janitor describes J.D.'s relationship with Elliot as "not exactly Ross and Rachel", which turns out to refer to two other employees in the hospital.

[edit] Production

Although it seems that most of the action of the series took place in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York City, the series was filmed in California. The exterior shot of the Friends' apartment building is located at Grove and Bedford streets in the Village. No scenes featuring cast members were filmed in New York; even the show's opening is shot around a fountain in California. Occasionally, NBC would air "Super-sized" episodes of their most popular sitcoms, including Friends. These episodes would run 40 minutes including commercials (or just around 30 minutes without). In syndication, a majority of the "Super-sized" episodes were cut down to fit a 30-minute time slot, except for the rare case where there was both too much plot info essential to the episode or series, and there were enough deleted scenes to make a two-episode story arc. For almost the entire first season, there wasn't a street outside of Central Perk, just a painted backdrop. They made the window a little blurry and put many plants in front of the window to hide it. For all the cliffhangers they had to remove the audience then continue filming so that nobody knew what was going to happen.

[edit] Ratings

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[edit] US ratings

The 66-minute series finale was named by Entertainment Tonight as the biggest US TV moment of the year 2004, and was the second highest rated show in 2004 beaten only by the Super Bowl. However, it did not surpass the ratings received by series finales for M*A*S*H (106m), Cheers (80.4m) or Seinfeld (76.3m), nor was it the most watched episode of Friends —that accolade remains with the Season Two episode "The One After the Superbowl", which aired on January 28, 1996 and drew 52.9m viewers. During the 2001–2002 season, Friends was the highest rated show in the United States.

[edit] Errors and inconsistencies

Throughout the entire series, the apartment building shown (the one in which Monica and Joey's apartments are located) does not match the apartments' structures at all. A clear example of this is the fact that Monica's apartment has an external balcony and a large window, two things that are clearly not present in the apartment building shown every time a scene in their apartments started.

In the first six episodes of Season 1, Chandler and Joey's apartment number was 4, and Monica and Rachel's was 5. Shortly after production began, it was decided that the apartment building where much of the show takes place was too big to have upper apartments with numbers as low as 4 and 5, so the numbers were changed to 19 and 20, respectively.

In Season 3, "The One With the Flashback" Rachel and Chandler clearly act as if they've never met when they meet each other at the bar (later turned into the coffee house) - this is set three years before the episode (approximately a year before the beginning of the show, as Rachel and her friends mention her wedding, which she fled in the first episode, is in a year's time). Later on in episodes such as "The One With All the Thanksgivings" and "The One Where the Stripper Cries" it shows that Rachel and Chandler were introduced to each other during their high school/college days, and they even kissed at a college party. It is also important to mention that Monica introduces Chandler to Rachel in the pilot episode, so Chandler has "met" Rachel three different times.

In "The One With Phoebe's Dad" Phoebe states that her father left her and her mother and sister before she was born, but in "The One With Joey's Bag" Phoebe's dad, Frank, tells how he was a terrible father and sang a lullaby, "Sleepy Girl", that he wrote himself to her and Ursula ("Sleepy Girl" is sung to the same tune as "Smelly Cat"). That would imply that he left after Phoebe and Ursula were born, though Phoebe was a baby, so she might have THOUGHT her dad was gone, but was still there.

In the episode "The One With the Kips" Monica says that she and Chandler had their first fight. This is ignoring the two previous fights Monica and Chandler had in the episodes "The One With the Triplets" and "The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS".

In the episode "The One with the Flashback," Chandler meets Joey. This episode is said to take place exactly one year before the pilot, of 9/1993. However, Joey is seen in The One with all of the Thanksgivings, in an episode taking place in 11/92. And in the one with the sonogram at the end, Carol revealed she was pregnant a year after they split, but this is a year after the one with the flashback, meaning they must have got back together in the mean time.

In the episode "The One with Joey's New Girlfriend", Gunther says he is making a list of people's birthdays, so Ross says "Oh, mine is December." But in the episode "The One Where Emma Cries" Ross has to go to the hospital and while Joey is filling in a blanket for Ross, Ross tells Joey that his birthday is October 18th. Also in the episode "The One with George Stephanopoulos" Chandler and Joey bring Ross tickets as a "birthday present" and Ross replies "Funny, my birthday was seven months ago." He then realises the date is October 20th implying that his birthday is in fact in March.

[edit] Merchandise

A few trivia games have been released over the years, as well as a trivia book. The trivia book spans Seasons one through eight. There have been two versions of a board game released, one being a cardboard box version with fewer questions and the other a die cast collector editon with more questions. Recently, a "Scene It" version of Friends was released with actual show clips, trivia questions and other puzzles on screen. The trivia includes questions from all ten seasons. A new PS2, PC and Xbox game called "Friends: The One with All the Trivia" was released simultaneously with the Season 10 DVD box set. It includes the voices of characters Janice, Gunther and Jack & Judy Geller as hosts. For the two Friends soundtrack albums, see Soundtracks (below).

[edit] References in other television series

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In an episode of King of the Hill, when Connie tries to get away from her family, she goes to her room and turns on the TV; you can hear the Friends theme song in the background when she turns on the TV. In another episode of King of the Hill, when Bobby is at the mall he looks at all the videos on display, and one of the TV's is displaying Rachel and Monica talking at the coffee house. In another episode, Bobby has a figurine of Chandler, but decides to give him away because he thinks after sex education, he'll be too busy having sex to play with toys.
In an episode of Futurama, Lrr and his wife are watching Friends. We know this because while watching he says, "This is by far the most absurd of Earth's shows. Why doesn't Ross, the largest friend, not simply eat the other five?" To which his wife replies, "Perhaps, they're saving that for sweeps.". Shortly afterwards, Lrr decides to stop watching, saying "This is a Joey-heavy episode anyway."
In a later episode of Roseanne, the family is sitting around the living room watching The Facts of Life, bored and not talking to each other, prompting Dan Conner to remark "Just think, this was the Friends of the early '90s." Also, in another episode, Roseanne fantasises about them getting stuck on an island (a rip-off of Gilligan's Island) in which mostly every character from the show was imitating a character from said show. When David walks out of the boat, and introduces himself to everyone, he says "I don't even like this show. I want to be on Friends."
In an episode of Half & Half, Mona remarks "Friends don't do friends, except on Friends"
In an episode of Ellen, which was launched in mid-season the previous year to Friends, the title character tells somebody that she owns a bookstore with a coffee shop. The response "Very cool, very Friends" prompts her to complain, "Yeah, but we were here first!"
In The Simpsons episode "Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade," Bart watches the Japanese version of Friends, and later, Bart turns some of his classmates into the Japanese Friends in his mind when he gets bored during a test. In another episode, Homer, searching for a job, attempts to become Rachel's Irish cousin Seamus, with the line, "So yer all doin' each other are ya? Well who's gonna put out for old Seamus," only to be disappointed to learn that Friends has now been cancelled.
Also in the Simpsons, a Treehouse of Horror features them buying an automated talking house, and one of the customizable voices is that of Matthew Perry: "Yeah, could I be any more of a house?"
In one episode of South Park, Shelly (Stan's sister), while babysitting Cartman, is shown watching Friends; you can hear the theme song in the background. In another episode of South Park, Eric Cartman loses his "Funny Fuse," and Mr. Mackey, the school counselor, tells him not to worry because he can be a writer for Friends.
Episode 93 of Animaniacs parodied of Friends called "Acquaintances", right down to the theme song (We Won't Ever Leave). Some of the Friends cast reprised their role in the short.
In one episode of Married... with Children, Kelly walked into the room while Al was watching Friends, asking why he is watching, knowing that he doesn't like Friends (he declared in a previous episode 'Don't have friends, sure as hell don't wanna watch them!). Al replied saying that if you mute the volume and watch with binoculars, you can see that Jennifer Aniston is not wearing a bra. Also, an earlier episodes, Al flips through channels after seeing Friends, coming across similar-named shows such as Pals, Homies and Amigos.
In an episode of Family Guy where the movie Poltergeist is parodied, Stewie Griffin talks to the TV, obviously talking about the season finale of Friends and the situation between Ross and Rachel. He also talks about the Friends spinoff Joey. In another episode of Family Guy, "Death" arrives late to Quagmire's fake funeral, claiming he was at NBC sitting in on talks about the cancellation of Joey.
Second-season promotions for the show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia parody the Friends fountain dance, with members of the cast assaulting one another.
In the UK Saturday morning children's program, SMTV, the hosts filmed sketches of a sitcom called Chums, which is a parody of the show. The opening credits show the hosts playing in the fountain, which is also the opening of Friends.
In an episode of Scrubs, the Janitor says to J.D. (talking about him and Elliot), "It's not like you're Ross and Rachel." JD doesn't understand whom he is talking about, and the janitor points to another doctor, who is talking to a nurse. "You know, Dr. Ross and Rachel from book-keeping."
In the Will & Grace episode "No Sex 'n' The City", Jack McFarland and Karen Walker lament the fact that Friends was ending that season, as were Frasier and Sex and the City. Karen laments: "Oh, Jackie, what are we going to? What are we going to talk about at this water-cooler every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning?"
In an episode of Miami 7, while the British group, S Club 7, were trying to prove they were American, group member Paul says to the rest "Ok guys, you all have seen Friends, group hug!" which is funny to note that the show was somewhat a sitcom and the group was also formed by guys and girls, except that these were seven, not six.
In the Saturday Night Live episode where Snoop Dogg hosted and Avril Lavigne was the musical guest, Snoop Dogg did a skit where he was upset about the end of Friends. In the promo for said episode, which did air during the Friends finale, he said, "Next thing you know, I'm gonna be on Friends!" to which Jimmy Fallon replies, "Bad news, Snoop Dogg..."
In an episode of What I Like About You Holly Mentions all 6 characters when asking her ex boyfriend (who is now her friend) "You know what I love about Monica, Joey, Chandler, Rachel, Phoebe and Ross?" her "friend" then replies "That they're...friends". In another episode, when planning Valerie's wedding, Lauren mentions the centerpiece being dedicated to the greatest couples of all time; Romeo and Juliet, Marc Antony and Cleopatra, and Ross and Rachel.
In the second episode of the fourth season of NCIS, the character of Agent McGee uses too much whitener on his teeth. His colleague, Agent DiNozzo, immediately equates this to Ross' identical mistake in the Friends episode The One With Ross's Teeth.
In an episode of American Dad names Stan of Arabia, the daugther Hayley meets an Arabian student who says he went on an exchange trip to America. He asks what happened with Ross and Rachel.
During the opening sketch in an episode of Saturday Night Live the final episode of Friends is parodied with George Bush in the role of Ross going to the airport to tell Rachel that he loves her.

[edit] Spinoffs

After its finale in 2004, the spin off Joey was created. Only 46 episodes of Joey were filmed. NBC only aired 38 episodes. The show was cancelled on May 15, 2006.

[edit] Soundtracks

In 1995, WEA records released the Friends Soundtrack, a soundtrack album featuring music used in or inspired by the show. In between some of the songs, there was spoken dialogue from scenes from the show's first season. In 1999, a second soundtrack album entitled Friends Again was released.