47 'Friends' Facts Every Superfan Should Know
47 'Friends' Facts Every Superfan Should Know
Have you heard the one about Marcel?
It wasn't always called <i>Friends</i>.
The show's working titles were Insomnia Café, Friends Like Us, and Six of One, before everyone settled on Friends.
No one was a real fan of the theme song.
According to Jennifer Aniston, "We felt it was a little… I don't know… dancing in a pond? A fountain felt sort of odd." She says the only reason they did it because they "were told to."
Before the pilot aired, the cast went to Las Vegas.
They dined at Spago inside Caesar's Palace to enjoy their "last shot at anonymity." The cast would return some six years later to shoot Mr. Rachel's wedding to Mrs. Ross (and Joey's movie fail, among other things).
Courteney Cox was just like Monica IRL.
In 1995, show co-creator Marta Kauffman told The Los Angeles Times that Cox had "the neatest" dressing room. In the same interview, Cox said, "OK, I am a neat freak. Not about myself. I don't use a lint brush or anything, and I don't iron, but I could easily pick lint off of someone else." To quote Ross, "MONICAAA!"
<i>Friends</i> was supposed to have just four friends.
Phoebe and Chandler were originally written as supporting roles. Can you even imagine?
Monica and Joey were supposed to get together.
According Kauffman, the studio audience's response to Monica and Chandler first getting together was so overwhelming, the show went "a different direction."
The names of all six <i>Friends</i> were inspired by characters from <i>All My Children</i>.
Chandler is for the Chandler family, Rachel's last name, Green, is for Janet Green, Ross is for Ross Chandler (LOL), Monica is for Monique (Daisy Cortland), Joey is for Joseph "Joey" Martin, and Phoebe is for Phoebe Tyler Wallingford.
David Schwimmer didn't have to audition for Ross.
As Kauffman explained in 2012, "Schwimmer had auditioned the year before for a pilot we were making, and he just stuck in our heads. That was an offer. No audition."
Phoebe was supposed to be goth.
Phoebe was originally pitched as a "goth girl," which prompted Janeane Garofalo to turn down the role. "There is some truth to it, but not exactly that," she later explained. "Long ago before Friends was Friends, when it was in its infancy, it was a show called Friends Like Us, and I was being considered for a role, like a goth girl, which I think morphed into Phoebe."
Gunther was a barista IRL.
"I had a job at a coffee shop called The Bourgeois Pig in Hollywood, which is still around and one of the last independent coffee shops that hasn't been taken over or whatnot,"James Michael Tyler told BuzzFeed in 2014. "I was one of their first baristas — I think I started there in 1990 or so."
Hank Azaria auditioned for the role of Joey.
Twice. It's OK. He was destined to play David and go to Minsk for a really long time. (Maybe too long.)
Jane Lynch auditioned for Phoebe.
So did Kathy Griffin. Obviously we're going to need to see those tapes now. (Jane eventually did appear on the show as a real estate agent in the final season.)
The identity of the actor who played Ugly Naked Guy wasn't revealed until 2016.
Thanks to a Huffington Post investigation. Memorize this name for your next trivia night: Jon Haugen. We applaud you.
Paul Rudd got the role of Mike after a casting director wrote "dreamy" in her notes.
According to Leslie Litt, "We had a casting session for that role but no one was quite it. Paul agreed to do a one-time meet and read with Lisa [Kudrow]. All I wrote on my notes was 'dreamy'!"
There was an intervention for Jennifer Aniston's tardiness.
"David did it. Very kindly," Aniston later told Us Weekly. "The day my alarm didn't ring."
Lisa Kudrow hated the guitar at first.
In fact, she suggested that Phoebe play the bongos instead. (Thankfully, the guitar stuck.)
Bruce Willis guest starred on the show after losing a bet.
The bet was with Matthew Perry, his co-star in The Whole Nine Yards (2000). Rumor has it that Bruce donated his money to charity. Either way, he will always be the neatest guy.
Monica is actually older than Ross IRL.
Courteney Cox is two years older than David Schwimmer, despite playing his little sister.
The orange sofa in Central Perk was found in the basement of Warner Bros. Studios.
You know what they say about one man's trash becoming one of the most famous couches on TV…
Monica's apartment number changed from "5" to "20."
(Top photo: season 1; Bottom photo: season 10) The change was made after the writers realized an apartment with the number "5" did not denote a unit on a higher floor in New York City. Chandler and Joey's apartment also changed from "4" to "19."
Ross lied about not liking ice cream.
Here he is eating ice cream with Marcel ("The One After the Superbowl") and Elizabeth ("The One Where Ross Dates a Student"). Doesn't look like your teeth are hurting in both cases, Ross.
For a long time, <i>Friends</i> was not allowed to show even a condom wrapper during the 8 p.m. slot.
As co-creator David Crane told Vanity Fair in 2012, "The rules kept changing. For the first three years we could say 'penis.' Then we couldn't say 'penis.' Then we could say 'penis' again." Added Kauffman: "They're masturbating on Seinfeld and we can't show a condom wrapper." Warren Littlefield, then the president of NBC Entertainment, said he had a lot of battles with broadcast standards. "What could be more socially responsible than these characters practicing safe sex?"
The big white dog actually belonged to Jennifer Aniston.
"Pat the dog" was given to Aniston by a friend for good luck on the first day of shooting Friends.
Lisa Kudrow's pregnancy was written into the show.
"Here's what was difficult about having a child: when he visited the set, it was hard to be in character," Kudrow later said. "Because i didn't want him to ever experience me as anything OTHER than his mother."
Cole Sprouse (Ben) had a huge crush on Jennifer Aniston.
"I had a really, really hard time working with Aniston because I was so in love with her," he told the New York Post in 2017. "I was infatuated. I was speechless — I'd get all bubbly and forget my lines and completely blank… It was so difficult."
Marcel was actually played by two monkeys, Monkey and Katie.
The pair would go on to star in Bruce Almighty, 30 Rock, and other things. In 1995, Schwimmer told Entertainment Weekly that he actually hated the monkey. "The trainers won't let me bond with it. They're really, really possessive. It's like, 'Land on your marks, do your job, don't touch or bond with the monkey.' It's a bummer." AGREED.
Matthew Perry's dad made a cameo in season four.
John Bennett Perry played Joshua's dad in "The One with Rachel's New Dress."
Courteney Cox is the only <i>Friend</i> to not receive an Emmy nod for her work on the show.
Even Christina Pickles, who played Monica's mom Judy got a nomination for her guest role one year. Guess the Emmys had no love for Monica's tidiness, wit, and that incredible "7" scene.
Ross is 29 for <i>three</i> years.
For three consecutive seasons (3, 4, 5), Ross mentions that he's 29. (In season five, he actually says he's getting divorced twice before he's 30.) Naturally, Ross also has two birthdays on Friends: Oct. 18 and some time in December. Ross can indeed.
Cliffhangers were never shot with a live studio audience.
The season four finale, "The One With Ross's Wedding," where Ross says "I take thee Rachel," is a prime example. "We couldn't have an audience for that," Aniston said in the 2005 Friends: Final Thoughts special. "We always remove the audience for the cliffhangers because, obvious reasons, you don't want to spoil it."
Jon Favreau (Pete) originally auditioned for Chandler.
But don't worry, Favreau's still got a soft spot for Pete after all these years. "Pete Becker was a man of tremendous focus and conviction. He set his heart to being the Ultimate Fighting Champion and I have no doubt that he gave it his all. I'm only sorry that that chapter was never closed by the Friends writers because I'll always have to live with the uncertainty of what his fate held."
Gunther's first line came after 33 episodes, when he said "yeah."
Gunther also didn't have a name until the middle of the second season, and his hair was bleached every week for 10 years because James Michael Tyler's hair is brown IRL.
"The One With the Halloween Party" was the first episode they filmed after 9/11.
According to Lisa Kudrow, who says it's her favorite episode of Friends ever, "That whole week, while driving in L.A., people would pull up, and give me a very sad look, and a quiet 'thank you' for making them laugh."
Justin Timberlake really wanted a cameo.
According to show co-creator David Crane, there was a meeting with JT, "but we didn't have a good part for him."
Joey and Phoebe could have been a thing.
In 2016, Matt LeBlanc told EW, "Towards the end we actually pitched the idea that Joey and Phoebe had been having casual sex the entire time. We'd go back and shoot all the historical scenes and just before a moment that everyone recognizes, there's Joey and Phoebe coming out of a broom closet together. But they were like, 'Nah.'"
The finale caused Matt LeBlanc so much anxiety he started smoking again.
"I had quit smoking for four years, and in that final two weeks I started smoking again because we were so aware that our time together was coming to an end," he told Vanity Fair in 2012.
When the series wrapped, each cast member took home a piece of Central Perk.
Specifically, pieces of the fake sidewalk outside Central Perk.
Central Perk was torn down to become the airport where Rachel takes off from.
But as we all know, she got off the plane, which makes the tear-down a waste, no?
Jennifer Aniston almost said no to the final season.
Speaking to Matt Lauer in 2004, Aniston said she had "a couple issues" with another season. "I wanted it to end when people still loved us and we were on a high. And then I was also feeling like, 'How much more of Rachel do I have in me?'" She eventually agreed to the final season, just as creators lowered the episode count from 24 to 18.
The creators knew "early on" that Ross and Rachel would end up together.
"We had dicked the audience around for 10 years with their "will they or won't they," and we didn't see any advantage in frustrating them," according to David Crane.
There's a reason you never actually saw Gunther making coffee.