Friends/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• I was never a Ross and Rachel fan. In fact, I always thought they made each other miserable and were a horrible match for one another. I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about, or why they were written in a way that made them act so horribly towards each other. The shippers kept repeating that Rachel was Ross' lobster (as coined by Phoebe) and thus were simply meant to be and it occurred to me that Ross is in fact allergic to lobster. So yes, Rachel is his lobster and he is therefore allergic to her and that is why the relationship keeps failing. - Pingvin.
  • He's also Jewish, which means no shellfish.
    • Except that the "She's his lobster" stuff refers to being his mate, not his dinner.
      • Not Sure If Serious dot jpg
• In the pilot episode of Friends, Rachel resolves to change her shallow lifestyle funded by her father's money. The next time we see her, she's just gone on a huge shopping spree, laughing at the idea of getting a job, telling the others that she is qualified for nothing and how she was laughed out of several interviews and showing off her "I don't need a job, I have my new boots" boots. A casual viewing makes her just seem to be flighty and irreverent. Then you realize that she has an undertone of self-loathing, and she is actually trying to cope with the realization that she is entirely unequipped to live in the real world.
  • This is made even more amusing when later on in the series her sister does the exact same thing, only fails completely whereas Rachel grew more independent as time went on, indicating the significant shift in her personality over the seasons.
• Example from Friends, which was going to be a Just Bugs Me until I thought about it a bit more. In "The One Where Monica and Richard are Just Friends", the subplot is Joey and Rachel swapping the books they're reading: The Shining and Little Women, respectively. So far, so sitcom. Joey talks about the scary twins, the blood in the elevator and "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". The problem is, these bits aren't in the book. But, if Joey is so scared by the book that he puts it in the freezer, maybe he's never actually finished the book - he's seen the film, so he makes up the details from what he's seen in the film in an attempt to appear less scared.
  • Except that a plot point is Joey accidentally revealing the end using his oh-so-clever "blank" code. The ending he reveals is the book ending, where Jack forgets to check the boiler because he's on a murderous rampage and the hotel blows up with Jack inside, whilst his wife and son get away. The film ending is distinctly different - Jack is chasing his son through the hedge maze - which isn't even in the book, they're hedge animals which come to life - and freezes to death, whilst his family get away. So Joey MUST have read to the end of the book. I suspect it's more a case of Adaptation Displacement; if Joey's read the book over and over, it's likely that he's seen the film many times too (indeed, he mentions seasons later that he loves the film Cujo, so he's obviously a King fan). I'll give you one bit of Brilliance that's just struck me there though - the night he tells Rachel about Cujo is the first night he realizes he has feelings for her. I'd say the whole Shining/Little Women thing was foreshadowing, but I don't credit the Friends writers with such good plotting - let's say it's a subtle callback to the earlier episode instead.
  • In the episode with Dakota Fanning Joey said that 'he's scared of little girl ghosts'. It's a nice call-back to Joey being freaked out by The Shining.
    • The Steven Weber version of The Shining uses the book's ending, so it's possible that Joey saw that version rather than having read the book.
• Yet another Friends instance. In one episode, Joey refers to something as "a moo point", explaining that said issue "is like a cow's opinion: it's meaningless... it's 'moo'." This may just seem like another moment of Joey's stupidity and him mis-hearing the word "moot" at some point in his past (and on the surface, it most likely is). However, in Zen Buddhism, mu is used to refer to meaninglessness. - Richard X 1
  • Which turns it from an Incredibly Lame Pun (also in character with Joey) to a Stealth Pun. - Snarf
• In the The One with the Dozen Lasagnas, after Rachael dumps Pablo; she says that she gives up on men. Ross then panics, since he probably didn't want to lose another person he loves; the same way he lost Carol.

Fridge Horror

• One episode of Friends has Phoebe refusing to play foozball with Chandler, describing the game as "20 armless guys joined at the waist by a steel bar, forced to play soccer forever!" Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?
  • Of course, Chandler argues that it's not so bad, as after the game he "breaks out the little plastic women, and everybody has a pretty good time."
• Arguably happens in universe in "The One with the Breast Milk". When Ross refuses to taste Carol's breast milk, the others who have tasted it say it doesn't taste bad, and Susan says it tastes like cantaloupe juice. Ross is bewildered by this. Considering there'd only be a few reasons why Susan would have tasted it...
  • She could theoretically have tried it the way Joey and Phoebe do, by tasting it from their arms to check the temperature. Since babies take up a huge amount of time, you imagine she has fed the baby more times than she and Carol have had sex (especially because not being biologically linked to Ben and being a bit domineering, she probably bottle feeds him more often than the average father would in a straight couple, because she is determined to cement the bond between herself and her son). If they're in bed together at that point, they're probably trying desperately to get some sleep rather than anything else. But when you consider that Carol would have been lactating long before Ben was born, and that, as seen by Rachel and Phoebe's "Evander Holyfield phase" later in the show, women in the Friends universe get horny whilst pregnant... yeah.
• In 'The One Where Dr Ramoray Dies', Rachel and Monica are about to sleep with their partners (Ross and Richard, respectively), and enter into an argument over who gets to use the last condom. Cross cut with the argument is a scene where Ross and Richard creep out of the bedrooms where they have been waiting to see what is taking so long; bedrooms right next to each other. The horror sets in when it dawns on you that Ross and Monica- who are brother and sister- were completely fine with having sex in rooms right next to each other.

Fridge Logic

• While it was mostly to get Ross to overreact and lose his job, why would someone go into a work-shared fridge, take a sandwich that wasn't their's, and throw most of it away because it was "too large."?