Friends/Trivia

• Acting for Two: Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe and recurring Evil Twin Ursula, and David Schwimmer's one-off as "Russ", a Ross-esque guy Rachel briefly dated (without noticing the similarities, such as profession and the unique manner of speaking).
• Actor Allusion: On "The One with the Football", Phoebe wears a That Girl T-shirt. Marlo Thomas, the star of that show, played Rachel's mother.
  • There's even one for animal actors. In "The One After the Superbowl", Ross learns Marcel the monkey is now filming the fictional sequel to Outbreak. The monkey actually was the monkey in the film.
  • For one episode in the opening credits, Courtney Cox gets first billing and is now billed as Courtney Cox-Arquette (due to her marriage to David Arquette). The rest of the cast also have Arquette hyphened onto the end of their names in the credits for that episode. The end of the episode has a little dedication saying "For Courtney and David, who did get married".
    • In "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Championship", we meet formerly-bald Bonnie, played by Christine Taylor. Laura, her Alpha Bitch character in The Craft, lost her hair as part of a bullying-revenge subplot.
  • In "The One with Mac and CHEESE", when Joey doesn't quite get the "CHEESE" reference, Phoebe and Rachel comment on variations on the name. Rachel says "Bic Macs" and Phoebe says "Oh, you love those!" referring to Aniston's role in Mac and Me.
• Creator Backlash: The writers openly acknowledge in one of the Season Eight commentaries that they don't like the Chandler/Monica plot in "The One with the Truth About London."
  • They also have some disdain for Season Six, feeling they were simply going through the motions during that time period. Not surprising, given that this was when a lot of the backstage drama with issues like Matthew Perry's drug addictions really began to hinder the series.
  • Matthew Perry said once he hates it when he's checking out a rerun, and a Season 3 episode comes on, and he sees himself, very skinny. He was having weight problems during that time.
• Creator Breakdown: "The One with the Cat", an episode where Phoebe thinks her dead mother has been reincarnated as a cat, was written by co-creator Marta Kauffman, who lost her own mother at the time (the episode is dedicated to her). The episode got a mostly negative reception from the fanbase at the time of its airing, mainly due to Phoebe successfully making Ross out to be the bad guy for his insistence that she'd return the cat to her child owner (adding to the ridiculousness, Phoebe had just met her biological mother). One of the other writers mentioned in an interview years later that the episode being written to take Phoebe's inane side would've been shot down at the table read had it not been for the circumstances surrounding it; they would've felt bad going against Kauffman on this issue.
• Dawson Casting: High school-aged Ross, Rachel, Chandler and Monica are played by the regular cast. Additionally, the characters were all meant to be in their mid-twenties at the beginning of the show, but Lisa Kudrow and Courteney Cox were already in their thirties.
• Deleted Scene: The uncut episodes on DVD tend to have scenes that were cut not just for syndication, but also scenes that also didn't originally air due to content. One example is when Joey is angry at Chandler for making fun of the bracelet he gave him; when Chandler says he should focus on the fact Chandler wore it even though he hated it, Joey tells him to "focus on this" and grabs his junk while the camera cuts to behind Joey. Another extra sequence, in "The One with the Cheap Wedding Dress", seems to be an ad-lib from Matt LeBlanc: After a love interest ditches both Ross and Joey at a restaurant, Ross asks if Joey is hungry, to which Joey replies, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"
• Directed by Cast Member: David Schwimmer directed ten episodes in the later seasons.
• Dueling Shows: With Living Single.
• Edited for Syndication: The show's run on Nick at Nite (which, as of this writing, is still ongoing) is full of this, as one would unfortunately expect. Various episodes that were a bit longer than the half-hour time slot are cut rather drastically, with various scenes shifting regardless of whatever was happening at the moment, making certain joke buildups seemingly pointless. To their credit, nothing plot relevant is cut, but it's really jarring and even those who haven't seen the full episodes can tell that some hasty editing was done.
• Executive Meddling: The Season Six episode "The One with the Proposal" was subjected to this. Originally, the episode was supposed to depict a big showdown between Chandler and Richard, ultimately ending in a cliffhanger with Monica deciding who to marry. However, there was last-minute speculation that Season Six would be the final season of Friends. Thus, the writers were forced to retool the episode to end with Monica and Chandler proposing, so that if the series was cancelled, there would be no cliffhanger left dangling.
  • To be fair, the writers also changed the 'showdown' ending because they realized it would be obvious that Monica was going to pick Chandler. They didn't like playing the proposal for cheap laughs and drama, so changed it to the more private, romantic proposal we see. They explain it all on the episodes commentary.
  • NBC execs forced Marcel on the show, because apparently Friends needed a monkey for comic relief. Both cast and crew found it to be a pain in the ass and give it a Take That in Season 6. The execs also attempted numerous spin-offs and crossovers with the show to try to piggyback off the show's success.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The fountain from the opening credits is the same one for the number "The Lees of Old Virginia" in the film 1776.
• Name's the Same: Meta-example: Joey is played by Matt Le Blanc, Chandler by Matthew Perry. Directors didn't always catch on to this.
  • Lampshaded by Matt Le Blanc in one of the blooper scenes that aired before the final episode.

Director: A little louder, Matt.
Le Blanc: Which Matt? (Beat) Nine years and still happens.

• The Other Darrin: In the second episode, Ross's ex-wife Carol was played by Anita Barone, whose look and acting style were nothing like those of Jane Sibbett, who replaced her for the rest of the series.
  • Also Rachel's friend Mindy, who eventually married her ex-fiancé, was originally played by Jennifer Grey.
  • Joey's sister Gina is played by KJ Steinberg in "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister", but Drea De Matteo in the later series.
  • Happens to Ben and Emma too, but it's less noticeable since they were both babies when this happened.
• Real Life Relative: Jennifer Aniston and Tate Donovan were dating around the same time as their characters.
  • Matthew Perry's father played Joshua's (Tate Donovan) father in one episode.
  • When Julia Roberts guest starred, her real life sister played her assistant.
    • Roberts guest starred in the first place because she was dating Matthew Perry at the time.
  • In one episode, Ross's old friend from high school comes to visit. Turns out he is the president (and only current member) of the Anti-Rachel club. He was played by Jennifer Aniston's then real-life husband, Brad Pitt.
• The Red Stapler: The "Rachel" cut, the flat, straight and square-layered hairstyle worn by Jennifer Aniston in the first couple of seasons, was so popular with women that it came to be associated with The Nineties the same way that big, frizzy, voluminous hair came to define the preceding decade. The funny thing is that this was unintentional. The stylist originally wanted Aniston to have even-length hair, but accidentally cut off a bit too much on the front right; instead of matching all the rest of her hair to it, he just cut off a bit on the other side to make it symmetrical. In an interview, Aniston claimed that she hated the haircut and didn't get what the "big deal" was.
• Technology Marches On: In "The One with the List", Chandler marvels at his brand new computer: "Twelve megabytes of RAM, five hundred megabyte hard drive, with built-in spreadsheet capabilities and a modem that transmits at over 28,000 bps!", which was quite high tech for 1995. Nowadays there are cellphones running faster than that. Ross is also mentioned several times as having a beeper and one episode even revolves around him getting beeped by people looking for a male prostitute.
• Throw It In: The episode "The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant" dealt with a woman calling Chandler and Joey believing she's calling a guy named Bob, and Chandler picks up, pretends to be Bob, sets up a meeting with her and then shows up to win her over when she's "stood up". The tag scene for that episode had the woman calling again, looking for Bob, this time with Joey hearing the message. The script called for Joey to pick up and say "Bob here", but Matt LeBlanc tripped and fell, desperately trying to grab the phone as he went down. This ended up a lot funnier than the scripted version and was kept for the episode.
  • In "The One with Phoebe's Uterus" Joey walks in wearing a blue blazer and Chandler quips, "Donald Trump wants his blue blazer black." Awkward pause. "Back. He wants it back." Matthew Perry messed up the line, but the other actors make fun of him over it without breaking character, so they continued the scene.
• Too Soon: The season premiering after 9/11 had an episode where Monica and Chandler are married and on their honeymoon about to board an airplane while leaving Joey and Phoebe in charge of Monica's apartment. The original version was revised at the last minute because its plot involved Chandler seeing a sign saying 'no jokes about bombs', making a joke about it, and guards swarming them and asking for a luggage search because they take those jokes seriously. Later, as they're searching, Joey and Phoebe call saying that there's an apparent gas leak in Monica's apartment. Monica replies into the phone: "Do you think I want that place to blow up!?" The guards come in hearing everything except the first three words, and rekindle their search for the 'bomb'. Additionally, "The One After 'I Do'", which was the first new episode shown after 9/11 (first aired on September 27, 2001), had a Vanity Plate saying that it was dedicated to "the people of New York." The show also began using new establishing shots without the Twin Towers in them.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Whilst not in itself very topical the show did manage to capture the burgeoning coffee shop scene of that era as well as gentrification of New York's brownstones under Guliani.
  • Many, many shots of the World Trade Center towers.
  • In Season 1 finale "The One Where Rachel Finds Out", Rachel is able to go all the way to Ross's departure gate when Ross is leaving for China and when Ross is coming back.
  • In Season 2's "The One with Five Steaks And An Eggplant", the gang loses their minds with excitement over a Hootie And The Blowfish concert. To be fair, Hootie was probably the biggest band in the country when the episode aired (their debut album Cracked Rear View had sold more than 10 million copies in the US by then, despite being released only one year prior). So it's easy to see why the writers assumed they would have more staying power than they did.
  • George Stephanopoulous is a pretty dated reference point but features heavily in a first-season episode (complete with him in the title).
• What Could Have Been:
  • Courteney Cox originally auditioned for the part of Rachel.
  • James Michael Tyler was supposed to be just another extra on the set. However, he was recruited to be a recurring character in the coffeehouse because he was the only extra who knew how to operate a cappuccino machine.
  • Joey and Monica were originally supposed to be the main couple focused on over the course of series rather than Ross and Rachel. A couple of episodes seem to have a few nods to this, such as Joey mistakenly thinking that Monica is flirting with him in "The One with the Flashback", and Monica revealing that she'd originally wanted to have sex with Joey right before getting together with Chandler in "The One with the Truth About London". There are also a few hints of this in "The Pilot", as Monica and Joey quibble with each other quite a bit more than they would during the remainder of the series.
  • The producers supposedly approached REM, then They Might Be Giants, to perform the show's (already written) theme tune "I'll Be There For You". The Rembrandts were their third choice.
  • Early on, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow had kicked around the idea that Joey and Phoebe were having casual sex in secret, but the writers were against it.
  • During the casting process, at one point, Leah Remi auditioned for Monica. Jon Cryer was considered for Chandler. Jessica Hecht (Susan) auditioned for Monica as well.
  • Jennifer Aniston auditioned for the role of Monica as well, and Courteney Cox auditioned for that of Rachel. Producers realized that were better suited for the other role.
  • An early idea for Chandler was for him to be gay. Then they got Matthew Perry and the idea was abandoned.
  • Originally, Chandler and Monica's relationship was going to fizzle out (likely about when the others learned about it), but the pairing became popular with viewers.
  • The writers considered having Chandler and Monica sleep together in the Season 2 finale. Monica would still have broken up with Richard but Chandler's internet girlfriend would have been a crazy trekkie rather than Janice, and they'd both be so depressed they'd have sex after Barry and Mindy's wedding. This was scrapped, and it wasn't until two seasons later at Ross and Emily's wedding that they got their chance.
  • Originally, Monica was the one having a baby in Season 8, but the writers thought it would open more storylines if Rachel did instead. To avoid having another pregnancy story in Season 10, they developed Chandler and Monica's infertility and eventual adoption arc.
  • They also thought about revealing Monica was pregnant in the final episode but nixed it in favor of their adopted baby turning out to be twins.
  • The opening title scene was originally supposed to show the main cast playing around/goofing off in the water fountain, but this was only used once in the pilot episode and scrapped afterwards due to the producers feeling that the scene showed the cast as a closed group of friends that might snub anyone outside their group (to be fair, sometimes they do). All of the opening title scenes afterwards show a mixture of the fountain scene and scenes from other episodes.
  • The writers were, at one point, going to have a throwaway joke about Phoebe being molested as a kid. But this was scrapped after Kudrow refused to make a crack about such a serious subject.
  • There was also supposed to be a longer arc involving Rachel's sister Jill, but Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon didn't get along, so it ended up cut short.
• Word of God: In an interview, Kevin Bright revealed where he thought all the characters ended up: Joey's finally had his big break and is a star, Phoebe's still with Mike and has opened up a holistic spa chain, Ross and Rachel got married and have had another baby, Chandler and Monica managed to have a child naturally and are contently living in the suburbs with their three children as Chandler starts his own number crunching business. So in Kevin's words they're all living Happily Ever After.