I never understood the popularity of Friends

[quote]There, I said it.

What a rebel

Because a lot of people are lonely and crave friends.

AMEN, OP. As dull as it was during its heyday - it is even more painful to watch in syndication.

I used to love it as a child. Recently tried to rewatch it - the storylines felt unnatural and the jokes very forced. But yeah Chandler and sometimes Ross were quite funny.

Painfully unfunny show.

They watched it because of how cute Rachel was and still is. Take THAT, Angelina Jolie who can't get a job and has no man.

I kind of liked it. But, I didn’t get it either.

Because everyone wanted to be one of the friends, the friend they didn't identify with

Phoebe was a total bitch to everyone, she was more of a frenemy

When it first came out, there wasn't really another sitcom like it. I used to watch it back in the 90s and quite enjoyed it. I always liked Chandler. My mate couldn't stand it and thought it was overrated. I recently watched some episodes and realised he was right. The '90s was a different time, I guess?

FWIW, OP, reruns of Friends are now on Netflix and my 14 year old Gen Z niece and her friends watch religiously. I have learned through conversations with friends and clients that this is something of a national trend-- middle school girls are all about Friends and Grey's Anatomy.

i once had a discussion with colleagues at least a decade younger than me at work. We were talking about turtlenecks and they insisted that they were out of fashion. I mentioned that I have a turtleneck sweater that I loved.

One yelled, "You mean like the ones they wore on Friends?? Yuck!"

I watched it and enjoyed it the first few seasons. I was around the same age, living in NYC with straight roommates (one guy, one gal) and found it relate-able as a sitcom. I also watched Melrose Place. My favorite sitcom of all time is Seinfeld and it holds up very well.

I've never watched a single episode of Seinfeld, Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, Breaking Bad or that show where what's-his-name replaced Charlie Sheen. Not germane, just bragging.

Yeah, not funny, not believable. Annoying actors. The apartment was the real star of the show.

The only funny thing out of the whole series was Joey and the silly putty penis falling off. Or was it baloney?

I never understood the popularity of Despacito. Or Taylor Swift. Or professional sports. Or super hero movies. Or the Rubik’s Cube. Or mega churches. Or The Bachelor.

Should I start a thread for discussions on each of these? Or just realize that different people like different things and move on with my life?

The program was a metaphor for life. The men seriously dragged down the show but the ladies still made it worthwhile.

R13 - yes, Melrose Place was far better then and far better now. It was soapy and ridiculous but very entertaining (starting the second season that is - the first was unbearable and really just an extension of the putrid Beverly Hills 90210).

Eldergays-- what did you think of the "are they gay" bromance between Joey and Chandler?

Was it controversial at the time?

Did you find it homophobic?

It was a weirdly homophobic show that aimed squarely at middle America -- and hit its target successfully. Liking Friends in the 90s was like announcing you were a loser.

Basically, it was just three skinny girls with big tits in tight sweaters.

It was a fantasy life for lonely people in HS/college who craved friends and believed this was what adulthood was going to be like. Boy, were they in for a surprise!

Melrose Place was fantastic.

So don’t watch it.

This show is a classic. Even when watching the first episodes, you could tell it's a classic in the making. The timing, the direction, it was all expertly done and hasn't been replicated even though lots of other shows tried and failed miserably (The Single Guy, How I Met Your Mother). A lot of credit goes to the director James Burrow for how he stages the scenes and the dialogue.

[quote]Basically, it was just three skinny girls with big tits in tight sweaters.

Big tits? What show were you watching? Jen Aniston doesn't have big tits, neither did the other women on the show.

FRIENDS was basically how Middle America thought young white New Yorkers lived: large low rent Manhattan apartment in a very desirable area is passed down from a relative or friend, young people coming into NYC then within a year or so they end up working for Ralph Lauren etc.

The acting was good, sometimes like a lot of good shows, the acting transcended the so-so scripts!

I have no idea. It's a dumb sitcom. I watched it recently and couldn't believe what an annoying actress Courtney Cox is. Just awful.

Courteney Cox was a terrible actress. Somehow it worked. Aniston was mostly excellent, except for the stumping bit. Joey couldn't act for shit but never gave up. Chandler was mostly one-note but since he was the snarky one, that worked. Ross was pretty good but also rather boring. Phoebe remains a mystery, what was she doing on that show? I'm sure they're all laughing all the way to the bank. Perry has aged terribly, but that's another story.

They all had their funny moments on the show. I watched it then and still catch a repeat in syndication. Fat Monica was/is a riot.

Think of who the average DL poster is.

Now think about Friends and who the show is aimed at.

Should be pretty easy to figure out why the show has so many haters on here.

R16 are you familiar with the Datalounge concept of “pointless bitchery”? I take it that you are a huge “Friends” fan.

Supposably? Supposably.

[quote]Courteney Cox was a terrible actress. Somehow it worked. Aniston was mostly excellent, except for the stumping bit. Joey couldn't act for shit but never gave up. Chandler was mostly one-note but since he was the snarky one, that worked. Ross was pretty good but also rather boring. Phoebe remains a mystery, what was she doing on that show? I'm sure they're all laughing all the way to the bank. Perry has aged terribly, but that's another story.

Yet Lisa Kudrow ended up with a well received series on HBO, as did Matt LeBlanc on Showtime, EPISODES was a great show. David Schwimmer did stage work in London. Aniston is still trying to have a film career. Matthew Perry's re-vamp of The Odd Couple was cancelled.

None of this matters, as they all made enough money to never have to work again.

r26, I can't remember if I actually saw this or read about an alternate ending for the show where they had Phoebe looking in the window of the coffee shop where all the other friends were gathered, and Monica or one of them says "there's that weird homeless lady staring at us again" implying the whole thing and all of the characters and personalities were made up and in Phoebe's head.

Friends was a safe, sanitized, flyover-friendly version of what living in NYC was like.

Over the years, several tourists have asked me where to find Central Perk. I shit you not.

They completely de-Jewed the characters too.

At the start of the series, Rachel was supposed to be a hardcore JAP, getting married to the dentist and all that. There were numerous references that I figured most non-Jews didn't pick up on-- her nose job/old nose, Ron Liebman as her doctor dad, Marlo Thomas as the mom, the job at Bloomingdales, etc.

Or did you get it?

Central Perk is a real place. I've bought a coffee there and a T-shirt.

The bitches line at the end was one of the few times I ever laughed at a scene from this show.

Yeah, me either.

I was a junior attorney at the time and a friend who was a few years senior, but actually younger than me, used to rave about it all the time. He told me, "you have to watch it, I know it looks and sounds completely dumb but when you watch it you're hooked on it, I promise you!"

He even broke his toe once RUNNING to the tv with a bowl of popcorn he had popped to enjoy as he watched the show (his toe hooked under a carpet). He revealed this to me but thought it sounded too juvenile so told everyone else he broke it playing football.

So ok I watched it. I was appalled. I never admitted to him that I had watched it because I couldn't bring myself to tell him I awful I thought it was.

[quote] Friends was a safe, sanitized, flyover-friendly version of what living in NYC was like.

Even [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] offered a more believable look at the dangers of city life in Ed Koch's New York City.

[quote]Courteney Cox was a terrible actress.

She was so bad she made Dee from [italic]What's Happening!![/italic] look like a classically trained thespian.

Giuliani was mayor at the time, actually.

I remember the build-up to their finale. The theme of the NBC's promo spots was "BEST. SITCOM. EVER." There was quite a bit of blowback, and some NBC had to walk back that message and admit that yeah, that statement would have been offensive to the people who worked on All in the Family, MASH, Cheers, and Seinfeld.

How disappointing was the finale? Rachel gave up a chance-in-a-lifetime dream job offer in France and instead went back to her ex even after their relationship had already failed several times.

I never understood the DL hate on this show. It's a funny enough sitcom that doesn't try to be "important." Maybe I related too much to Chandler.

I think this bit is hilarious though. (Hate away.)

Even [italic]Small fucking Wonder[/italic] made me laugh out loud more than this travesty, especially its attempt to pass Dick Christie off as a heterosexual married father. Any show that makes me laugh so much as once succeeds where [italic]Friends[/italic] has failed miserably.

[quote]How disappointing was the finale? Rachel gave up a chance-in-a-lifetime dream job offer in France and instead went back to her ex even after their relationship had already failed several times.

Yikes! It's like feminism never happened. It's like they're actively turning women into handmaidens. I take back every bad thing I said about the last episodes of [italic]Golden Girls[/italic] (which wasn't THAT bad, and even the worst of GG is still light years better than this crap) and [italic]Facts of Life[/italic] (I still say Andy should have gone to Eastland).

I hate Mash and Seinfeld and despise Cheers. None hold up. SEINFELD rarely was funny, it was stupid. Jason and Julia are the worst actors since the trash on Full House. Never, never got why Seinfeld was popular. Homely snarky people. The only thing good was Purdy and his hot body. Cheers was a bunch of losers.

Even [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] was less squicky about guys touching other guys.

You are a bad person if you like this show. A bad, bad person. This bigoted bile does have an effect on people's believing. Someone in college once said to my face that "homosexuality is a choice, like smoking" and later revealed himself to be a fan of this show.

Fascism is being forced to tolerate hate speech in the guise of comedy. [italic]sWill & disGrace[/italic] was just a gay version of it and I hated it almost as much. Seriously, [italic]Gimme A Break![/italic] does an anti-blackface episode, then NBC turns around and subjects us to eight years of gayface while the only gay actor on that show stays closeted through all eight years of it, and now we're subjected to it again! I hate NBC.

[quote]Jason and Julia are the worst actors since the trash on Full House.

Of which this rotten show is a beat-for-beat ripoff, right down to the dumb guys named Joey with show business aspirations played by guys with French surnames.

Who the fuck would like any of these twee, excessively ingratiating cunts in real life? They’re a square, white-bread person’s idea of eccentricity

It was a show that was very much of its time. As someone else said, it was one of the most exceptionally well crafted sit-com’s seen back then, in terms of stylisation and directing. Shows like Will & Grace went on to use the same blueprint.

When Friends started it was funny and fresh, but strangely in the last few seasons it became too polished and slick. Every line of dialogue was a joke and it started to slightly become a spoof of itself.

If I watch it now, the above points fall into place as branding. Friends was a totally marketed and manufactured brand.

The real talent of the show was actually Jennifer Aniston. She was given the flimsy part that any other actress would have turned into an annoying Princess. But if you initially watch Aniston, she was pulling in laughs from straight line delivery and mannerisms, all things that weren’t scripted. She was also the best at doing conflict and the rare serious storyline. She would interact with all the other characters brilliantly. It was partularly good when she moved in with Joey. Although they ruined that by turning it romantic.

Out of all 6, the character of Rachel could have been spun off and she’d have been a modern day Mary Tyler Moore. Joey was the worst character to spin off as he was 2 dimensional and Matt Le Blanc hasn’t got much comedic range. But Aniston was the one who wanted to end it all, Le Blanc, Perry and Kudrow have all said they’d have carried on.

Both Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David have accused Friends of being a rip-off of Seinfeld, but with a cuter cast.

Teenagers in 1993-1998 loved this show and as a result it held a place in the pop-culture zeitgeist. Then those teens moved on.

In terms of the show, it was sometimes funny, but rarely witty beyond the first few seasons. The show then became increasingly reliant kn the Ross-Rachel quasi-soap storyline to see things through.

[quote]When Friends started it was funny and fresh

No, it wasn't. It was meretricious breeder yuppie crap from start to finish. I watched an episode in the first season and couldn't make it through an episode, it was that bad.

[quote]As someone else said, it was one of the most exceptionally well crafted sit-com’s seen back then, in terms of stylisation and directing.

No, it wasn't. It was and is stupid show for stupid people. It was never good and you are lying to yourself if you think otherwise. Every animated sitcom of the decade that ran long enough to syndicate was better than that schlock, yet [italic]The Simpsons[/italic] was disqualified from the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy.

[quote]Teenagers in 1993-1998 loved this show and as a result it held a place in the pop-culture zeitgeist.

I was a teenager during that time period and I hated it then. So did all the educated adults I talked to. The only ones who watched any sitcoms preferred [italic]Seinfeld[/italic] and [italic]Frasier[/italic] or even [italic]Everybody Loves Raymond[/italic].

[quote]In terms of the show, it was sometimes funny

No, it wasn't. Stop laughing at this hateful schlock.

The Christina Applegate episodes are damn funny. The Brad Pitt episode is great too.

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

I loved how NYC was 99% white and heterosexual. Who ever would have thought?

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

Who would have thought people would get so worked up over a TV sitcom that's twenty years old?

[quote] Both Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David have accused Friends of being a rip-off of Seinfeld, but with a cuter cast.

It's like [italic]Seinfeld[/italic] written at the level of [italic]Full House[/italic], but it seriously owes more to that.

This is what a real classic sitcom looks like:

Im more of a millenial, and even tho I havent seen any of the above examples, I think Frasier was a really great sitcom. The restaurant episode is a riot.

I hated it from the very first episode precisely because of the obvious demographic targeting, the hammy delivery, and unappealing actors. The "crafting" some of you are talking about was NOT an asset.

This show didn't just set network sitcoms back a decade. It killed soap operas. While NBC was building up this crap, they killed [italic]Another World[/italic] for good, left [italic]Sunset Beach[/italic] to die on the vine, and left us with [italic]Passions[/italic]. Now they have exactly one soap.

I knew once and for all this was a bad show when, in the days when I was actively part of Sitcoms Online, a soap opera fan who hated [italic]Friends[/italic] won an argument with a [italic]Friends[/italic] fan who hated soap operas.

I can understand the comparison to Seinfeld, individually, each is a basically unlikable character, but collectively they are interesting. However, in Seinfeld they were all older. Friends were young 20s just starting out. How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory are the same as Friends.

Friends was for corny, straight, white people

R72 just like Blackish is for black people.

In the 1970s and 1980s, TV was for everyone who wanted to watch.

A real classic sitcom will give you chills and make you cry every once in awhile between the laughs

R75 is either Ted or woody. Cheers blows.

[quote] Cheers blows Friends out of the water.

Fixed.

Cheers has a theme that makes you want to sing along even if you can't remember the words.

Friends' theme makes you want to run screaming from the room.

That is one of the greatest episodes of a sitcom ever, r75. No contest.

[quote] It killed soap operas. While NBC was building up this crap, they killed Another World for good, left Sunset Beach to die on the vine, and left us with Passions. Now they have exactly one soap.

So in addition to being funny, it actually helped achieve social good.

R77 I don't think friends is great either. But Cheers is unwatchable unless you are a low I.Q. flyover dumbass.

"But Cheers is unwatchable unless you are a low I.Q. flyover dumbass."

Trollin', trollin', trollin'!

[quote]But Cheers is unwatchable unless you are a low I.Q. flyover dumbass.

Then everybody in the 1980s was a low I.Q. flyover dumbass because it won a bunch of Emmys. Deservedly.

Friends was for douchbags, male and female. Still is.

R76 at work

Do you actually think awards usually go to deserving parties? Rarely. I have thousands of friends and acquaintances in many countries. None liked cheers. It was stupid. It appealed to dimwit people who liked corn. NBC never had any must see tv despite what they thought.

Trollin', trollin', trollin'!

Season 4-6 were fun and better than many shows. I can see why its popular then the first couple of seasons and the lasy (especially the first one) are nearly unwatchable.

Cheers gave us Frasier so for that it gets a pass.

[quote] Do you actually think awards usually go to deserving parties?

For this show to win any is not just to cheapen the artistic integrity of the Emmys,

[quote] NBC never had any must see tv despite what they thought.

The whole concept is inherently totalitarian. It says "you VILL watch this show or else." Their promos in the 1980s were cheesy and sentimental but were well-produced musically and were more enticing than coercive.

For this show to win any Emmys not just cheapens the artistic integrity of the awards, but calls into question the ethics of Emmy voters and the nominating committee. No, I don't believe the Emmy always goes to the most deserving winner, and this show is why.

OMG R87 get a life. Put down the chips and the porn and your Star Trek DVD collection and get out of your mum's basement. Go look/find/pay for a cock to suck and STFU. Why are you so obsessed with Cheers? Hankering for some lefty Hilary lovin Danson dick?

It’s huge in Britain. They’re obsessed with it like the French were with Jerry Lewis. Why? I have no fucking idea.

Even the most depressing bukake scene is more inventive and refreshing and witty than Friends.

R92, check your meds. One post about Cheers is not obsessed. I think you have the wrong poster...and the wrong dosage.

You wanna know another thing that’s better than Friends? Four-day-old ejaculate that’s become yellow and chewy, consumed with a spoon on a rainy day with the blinds drawn.

Well, that settles it. R96 is obviously an expert on witty comedy.

[quote] It’s huge in Britain. They’re obsessed with it like the French were with Jerry Lewis. Why? I have no fucking idea.

Chavs. The same people who made Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake famous. You know, morons.

R11 I’ve had very similar experiences. I trained a young girl at work last year, just 17 years old, who worshipped Rachel Green as a character and though her life was #goals. This bemused me, I didn’t think she’d even know who Rachel was. I also have a young niece who at 14 streams FRIENDS on sleepovers with her little galpals.

Maybe I’m not a good general litmus test for popcultural demos but I was a 14 y.o. girl I was digging around the Internet (at that point in still its Wild West phase) for zines, unsigned punk bands & the grimiest indie prowrestling I could find.

FRIENDS was over & already in syndication when I was in middle/HS (Gen Y, boo I know) and it was like catnip to many of my female classmates then, too. I didn’t get it at all and I still don’t. To my teen self FRIENDS was embarrassing, cringeworthy tomfoolery for boring adults with no sense of humour. Besides the hypocritical misogyny, inherent classism & and the other stupid shit about the show, what bothered me most of all was how flat the emotional trajectory was, how these characters never really changed drastically or went through anything significant. Ok, maybe real life is boring, but do we want to see that on TV?

Of course I was no better, really, sneering over in the corner with all the nerdy goths trading contraband anime & chattering about the latest episode of BUFFY, but hey; at least we freaks & geeks can all hold up our hands in 2018 and honestly say we never consumed FRIENDS.

So #goals is to be a hugely entitled white cunt?

Okay then.

Fuck the troll with all the sitcom links. Seriously, fuck him with Samantha's broomstick. No lube.

....

If Friends came out today, the all-white cast would be "problematic."

Friends had such a pronounced white-supremacy/hetero-worship subtext, I’m surprised it made it on screen.

Friends can sit on my big one and swivel for all eternity as far as I’m concerned

Friends can only work on people with very little life experience in the big city, and little social experience in general: sheltered teens/sophomores, or flyovers. Only works on white people.

The "backpacking in Europe" (S9?) episode works as a very convoluted joke, but it's funny. Otherwise, there are a few good moments over the years with Jennifer Aniston. She really was the best of the bunch, but god forbid the best should be a warm, sexy, relatable woman.

Also, the more I look at her, the more I believe she is the lovechild of Barbra Streisand.

R106 Male that Barbra Streisand and Olympia Dukakis

[quote]When it first came out, there wasn't really another sitcom like it

What? It was a clone of Seinfeld. One of many, like Drew Carey, Ellen (who's originally title was These Friends of Mine), even Nancy McKeon had a failed clone of it.

I tried to like it so I could keep up with the conversation about it but found it really dull with horrible actors.

Oh C'mon it wasn't unfunny. I thought Courtney Cox's Monica was a riot. I'm probably alone in my opinion but Jennifer Aniston and her Rachel were annoying af. Ross's humor was a bit forced but Chander and Joey were truly funny. For a show that ran 10 seasons it gave us lots of hilarious moments.

"Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'"

--MST3K

And some credit for Denise Richards. She was great on Friends.

I like Friends but don't love it. There was some good writing, some good comedy timing by the cast, and some great smaller parts/ guest stars - like Kathleen Turner, Christina Applegate, Christine Pickles. It jumped the shark with the near the end ridiculous "Joey had been in love with Rachael this whole time" so called "plot". Cox was far more beautiful than Aniston btw.

This was on during a time of my life when I was much more active than I am now and rarely or never watched TV, and I've only seen snippets of episodes since. Is it correct that there are no or almost no references to contemporary culture/pop culture, politics, current events, and so on? In other words, is it designed to be "timeless" (despite looking horribly dated, of course, due to the fashions and hairstyles). A show like "30 Rock," for example, was littered with such references.

Comedy Central UK is wall-to-wall "Friends" (could make up as much as 70% of their daytime programming) and has been for years.

Cox may have been technically prettier, but Aniston is/was sexier. You can't see why straight men were into her?

Hick kids love any dumb sitcom that shows them possibilities beyond an associate’s from the local junior college and a shift manager gig at the local Walmart. Twenty-somethings struggling attractively to find love and success in NYC were the opiate crisis of 90’s. Nobody actually “likes” heroin, either.

If you are correct R114, and I think you are, it explains why the show is popular with today's middle schoolers.

I did not realize it was so unpopular with DL's Eldergays but it's easy to see why a show about cute white privileged upper middle class heteros would grate. And why it would appeal to a bunch of overprivilged 8th graders.

Though some of you (one of you?) are getting a little carried away in your vitriol.

Though if you didn't it would not be Datalounge.

Yeah I can R116, and ditsy fashionista is sexier than neurotic obsessive compulsive. Aniston is pretty, I don't dislike her.

Let's see, one person is enjoying a $30 million dollar house, hot husband and rich AF, the other is a bitter DL queen.

Who would you rather be?

"The bitter DL queen because at least she has taste and style!"

I agree about Friends, never got it no matter how many times I've tried, just not funny to me whereas Seinfeld was and still is extremely funny and brilliant. I also agree with most of the poster links to classic sitcoms, except wth is Gimme A Break doing in there. BUT most of all, r39 you are sooo wrong about Dee from Whats Happening-- she was hysterical and made the show with her deadpan delivery. Stole every scene she was in.

I don't know why they bothered to set the show in NY, because those characters were SO LA. There was nothing NY about that show.

Of course, if a network had even dared to show how a bunch of REAL NYC dwellers in their 20s lived back in the 90s, Middle America would've had a fucking coronary.

Again, I think that a natural comparison that was both fame/time period/legacy appropriate is Melrose Place. Both are stuck in a time capsule, but one is eminently more watchable, sexy, entertaining, etc. Friends is nauseating, supercilious, self-important, dull and pathetic. Those actors need to thank their lucky stars that such a "shit" show ever took off. They will live the high life forever due to that train wreck. Melrose I can, will and do currently watch to this day in syndication. Nuff said....

I was never a fan of Aaron Spelling's post-[italic]Dynasty[/italic] work, R124, but yeah you make a good point.

THX, R125. Let us also mention the theme songs - that insipid froth that the Rembrandts slushed for every episode is gag-inducing. MP had a sexy intro at least.......AND sexy male cast members. For the life of me, I can not find a good thing to say about Friends.

My friends in the Middle East love this show and watch it religiously on streaming. I think they believe it's a reality show.

Allee Willis, who wrote the theme song is fabulous. She also wrote Boogie Wonderland and most recently music to The Color Purple.

Unfortunately, she looks like Bruce Villanch in drag.

Given how popular the show was and continues to be in syndication and on Netflix, any theories on why it gets under the skin of DL's Eldergays so much?

Did TV critics of that era regard it as crap?

It won a fuckload of Emmys so I'm thinking it was pretty well regarded.

Why the hate?

Is it because it was such a departure from the types of sitcoms like Golden Girls you all loved? A glorification of young heteros at a time when AIDS was still deadly?

What gives Eldergays?

The first season of Friends was composed primarily of rejected Seinfeld spec scripts.

So, yes: Friends was just a dumbed-down Seinfeld.

[quote]Cheers has a theme that makes you want to sing along even if you can't remember the words.

[quote]Friends' theme makes you want to run screaming from the room.

I always mute the sound if the Friends theme is playing and also did when Cheers was on.

[quote] My friends in the Middle East love this show and watch it religiously on streaming. I think they believe it's a reality show.

No wonder they hate Jews. Ross Geller makes ME hate Jews and I'm Jewish.

R116 - they were both very pretty and yet were both cast in a very dull, pathetic show. Luck prevailed and they surfed that wave. Good for them. Personally, I think that bot actresses could do better - but they could not have chosen a more lucrative gig. They had/have talent that far exceeds that vapid show.

R130 No wonder the first season of friends sucked ass it got much better from the second season on.

From my vague recollection, Friends was a piggy back onto Seinfeld's Must See TV Thursday night line up. Of course the show would never had lasted if it did not find an audience, but I do believe that it owes a huge gratitude to the show/shows that carried it. And, YES the show sucks.

Friends and Sex and the City are directly responsible for unleashing hordes of boring, stupid, shallow, self-involved materialistic flyover cunts and assholes into New York City, most of whom were funded by their parents. They were and are the most uninteresting people you would ever meet and the city became infested by them.

They've been showing the entire run of "Friends" as a holiday marathon here, in Canada, and, in retrospect, its huge popularity during its heyday was baffling. It had to compete with "Seinfeld" and "Frasier", arguably two of the best sitcoms in history. It had some funny moments but a lot of the episodes, particularly the early ones were way too earnest and corny. Its best seasons were probably somewhere between 1998 and 2001. I'd agree with the poster upthread who said that Aniston was the best but she also had the most interesting character and storylines to work with. Lisa Kudrow's post-Friends career revealed how good she can really be, but there was only so much she could do with her character on the show.

Somewhat off topic, and I'll get some flak for this but I never particularly cared for Cheers, after its first 4-5 seasons. The characters were cardboard cutouts, and you could complete the sentences and anticipate their jokes from a mile away. "Frasier" was an infinitely smarter and better written show.

Interesting thing I've noticed is that Warner Bros.' cartoons are more consistently funny than Disney's on the whole, but their sitcoms are not. The only WB-produced sitcoms I've ever liked at any time in my life are [italic]Alice[/italic] and [italic]Night Court[/italic].

[quote] From my vague recollection, Friends was a piggy back onto Seinfeld's Must See TV Thursday night line up.

I looked it up. Friends debut was 1994, and it piggy backed on Mad About You.

MAU 8:00

Friends 8:30

Seinfeld 9:00

And in 1995 the show went to 8:00

Who can forget "Mondays are a bitch". Melrose Place became TV history after the second season. Thanks R139, slotted before or after - Friends certainly benefited from the line up. Mad About You helped this dull, bland, dud of a show as well.

Yep friends always aired first sienfeld an hour later., always so it never piggybacked anything.

[quote] what bothered me most of all was how flat the emotional trajectory was, how these characters never really changed drastically or went through anything significant.

To be fair, the fact that the characters in "Friends" supposedly 'never grow', is perhaps the best show of realism in the series. The concept of "growing up" emotionally is inherently moralistic and is intended much more to get viewers and critics swell with moral self-satisfaction -- 'watching the characters change and become more a truly good person, like me' -- than to paint people as they really are. It may sound a bit nihilistic what I'm about to say, but it is a fact that, after a certain age, changes in personality are small, gradual, and don't follow a clear direction, that is, they don't necessarily make a person better. When we're talking about teenagers, it might indeed be common for a person who's cruel, narcissistic, and impulsive to shed those traits as they grow up, but when it comes to adults (and "Friends" is about adults), this seldom happens. That's why we find so many middle-aged people and elders who are nasty, weird, and entitled.

"Drastic" transformations in personality during adulthood occur more commonly in people who undergo radical changes in geographic and/or cultural milieu - by joining a fundamentalist religion, for example. But sitcoms, by definition, are about the more common, less extraordinary events of day-to-day life, and one must agree that those extraordinary changes mentioned above are seldom for better.

R141 - so it piggy-fronted. Same difference. It was not slotted on a Saturday or Sunday night to fend for itself and it was instead heralded as "Must See TV". That is one Hell of a "training wheel" to strap onto a new show that is being sandwiched between two well-loved hit shows..

Stop making excuses for this crap, R142. You give them more credit than they deserve. You do not know anyone anywhere in real life who resembles any of these unbelievable idiots in any way, shape, or form.

bump

r144 This is funny coming from someone who's praised Seinfeld. Do you honestly think there are Cosmo Kramers IRL?

R146 - you are correct. None of the cast of Friends nor the cast of Seinfeld could be considered "real" New Yorkers - not really... Seinfeld had a comedic edge however - and achieved it years before Friends debuted and took a ride on its coattails. They are two different shows. I can see why Friends took off - it squarely appeals to the bland, median, white-bread masses. The show turns the act of "dumbing down" into an art form. There is NOTHING wrong with this equation - one can land a huge hit if it appeals to the largest, most average viewership. I believe that Friends did this in spades and therefore must be a benchmark of sorts for many shows that have followed it.

And that's why pop culture has been going steadily downhill, R147.

[quote]any theories on why it gets under the skin of DL's Eldergays so much?

Probably because it's boring, stupid, and populated with characters that many of us can't relate to.

[quote]Comedy Central UK is wall-to-wall "Friends" (could make up as much as 70% of their daytime programming) and has been for years.

The funny thing is "Friends" is dead in the US but is a huge commodity outside of it. Americans have been over this show since the early 2000s. Brits, for example, are still quoting it in their daily lives and even in their television programs. You'd think they produced it and that it was still on. It's just bizarre. How the fuck did a show this watered down set in NY catch on in foreign countries??! Matt LeBlanc even got two series in the UK out of this shit. If they could, they'd crown Jennifer Aniston queen. It's such a shit show.

Well to be fair the BBC's biggest show right now is "Mrs. Brown's Boys" and Miranda Hart is seen as a comic genius. The UK is full of retards. The water must be tainted.

There seemed to be a lot more critical thinking about TV in the 1970s and 1980s, even regarding the most popular shows. There was even a book compiling all the contemporary critical discourse, pro and con, about [italic]All in the Family[/italic]. The difference is that that show is worthy of that kind of attention because whether you agree with their conclusions or not, they have a lot more to say about human nature.

[quote]The funny thing is "Friends" is dead in the US but is a huge commodity outside of it. Americans have been over this show since the early 2000s. Brits, for example, are still quoting it in their daily lives and even in their television programs. You'd think they produced it and that it was still on. It's just bizarre. How the fuck did a show this watered down set in NY catch on in foreign countries??! Matt LeBlanc even got two series in the UK out of this shit. If they could, they'd crown Jennifer Aniston queen. It's such a shit show.

I have been to England twice, once in the 1990s and once in the 2000s, and I was embarrassed that they liked this show while [italic]The Facts of Life[/italic], which I worshiped as a kid and still enjoy today, is unheard of. The reverse is also true because some UK shows that are popular are not sold to the US at all.

The only good thing about [italic]Vinnie and Bobby[/italic] and [italic]Joey[/italic] is that they proved Rita Moreno was not the reason [italic]Top of the Heap[/italic] failed or that the pilot for [italic]Empty Nest[/italic] was so inferior to the series that resulted or to the standards of the show of which it was a spin-off.

I never got the popularity of Friends either. I don't really like any sitcoms. They are all just the same old rehashed jokes about sex and other stuff. They are mindless entertainment

R152, What is it about The Facts of Life that you worshipped?

A sitcom that didn't other people as a form of humor. What a concept.

I understood it at the time, even if I didn't like it that much. It wasn't like anything on TV. I've heard a LOT of people reflect on "Friends" and generally they don't like it in retrospect, or at least don't like it as much as they did when it was originally aired. Simply a case of a show that doesn't hold up that well. Some shows do, some don't.

This show shouldn't even qualify for the test of time, and it is sickening to see anyone hold it up as anything to aspire to either as a sitcom or for real-life world goals.

And Allee Willis is a hack unless you consider "not enough/give it up" good rhyming.

It was the MASH of the 90s -- another desperately unfunny show.

[quote]Is it because it was such a departure from the types of sitcoms like Golden Girls you all loved?

You mean shows that are actually funny, well-written, well-acted, believable, quotable, emotionally resonant, inclusive of gay people without pandering, with characters you actually care about?

[quote] It was the MASH of the 90s -- another desperately unfunny show.

M*A*S*H was funny when Wayne Rogers and McLean Stevenson were on it; McLean left for starring roles in flops and Alan Alda's fellow traveler Mike Farrell came on in Rogers' place. It wasn't until it became The Gospel According to St. Hawkeye that it became too much to take. Even [italic]Maude[/italic] was more balanced (there, I said it). But that had something at first. [italic]Friends[/italic] had nothing ever, and even its title's use of asterisks is a pretentious and cutesy-douchey affectation.

Golden girls is great but it was such a mess with it's storylines and inconsistencies, at least friends tried to keep their characters consistent throughtout the entire run.

Allee Willis is not a hack. She's written some of the most memorable songs of the last 30+ years.

[quote]So in addition to being unfunny, it actually helped achieve social catastrophe.

Fixed. It's disingenuous to make a show about a soap opera actor while reducing real world opportunities for them.

[quote] at least friends tried to keep their characters consistent throughtout the entire run.

So did [italic]Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life,[/italic] and [italic]Punky Brewster[/italic]. All of them had better continuity than GG, but that was more consistently funny. All of them are better than [italic]Friends[/italic]. All of them.

James Burrows is a hack. He directed the godawful homophobic POS partners.

Don't you realize you're making fun of gay people?

Friends from 3rd season on isn't that bad and it's certainly better than different strokes and punky brewster ,your irrational hate makes no sense.

[quote]it's certainly better than different strokes and punky brewster

At what, lying about human nature? Demonizing people who are different from the norm? Promoting ideas that are genuinely bad and hurtful?

[italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] condemned pedophilia without condemning homosexuality. [italic]Friends[/italic] called it a choice while casting a woman in the role of a gay male drag queen, reinforcing the inherently homophobic that gay men are not really men.

[italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] more accurately reflected the demographics of New York City. [italic]Friends[/italic] looked like Idaho with more skyscrapers.

If you think James Burrows is a hack, what sitcoms do you Iike, because he's done some directing on the MTM show, Will and Grace, Cheers, Frasier- all of the greats.

Moron.

Margaret Cho's sitcom was funnier than this crap…until they turned it into a clone of it.

It is white supremacist propaganda to the fucking core, and the critics who like it might as well be wearing hoods. Every non-Cosby black sitcom of the 1970s and 1980s was better than this.

Now the world don't move to the beat of just one drum…

What might be white for you may not be white for some…

A man is born, he's a man of means…

Then along come two, they've got nothing but their jeans…

But they've got diff'rent strokes…

It takes diff'rent strokes…

It takes diff'rent strokes to move the world…

Everybody's got a special kind of story…

Everybody finds a way to shine…

It don't matter that you got not a lot, so what?

They'll have theirs and you'll have yours and I'll have mine…

And together we'll be fine 'cause it takes diff'rent strokes to move the world,

Yes it does…

It takes diff'rent strokes to move the world!

And to all you soap haters, this was soap opera once upon a time:

Say what?

Oh dear, someone has too much time on her hands and an irrational hatred of Friends. Please spare us the links of SJW complaint reviews of Friends.

Yes it was stupid. So were most shows. And compared to a lot of the sitcoms of the time, it was well filmed.

It's comparable to the Brady Bunch, lightweight and bland with a broad appeal.

[italic]The Brady Bunch[/italic] rarely made me laugh out loud but had charm. This show does not. It is insipid, ill-conceived, pointless, dreary, and its fans project its faults onto other shows while projecting their own personality problems onto the show's critics, who are numerous and growing.

Hating this show is not irrational. Liking it is not just irrational and problematic but actively hurtful. You are calling me a f@ggot by watching this show.

This show is a textbook example of how what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil enables the evil of banality.

Well ya are Blanche, ya are!

Without the Jews, Italians wouldn't know funny if it bit them in the asses.

[quote] AMEN, OP. As dull as it was during its heyday - it is even more painful to watch in syndication.

I'd honestly rather watch [italic]Amen[/italic], which should have been called [italic]Gay Men[/italic] since it was basically the down-low come to life.

Hey lady chill the fuck out and get a life lol sometimes people want to watch some mindless television!! Friends is on tv like 15 times a day and will be on tv even 50 years from now, deal with it!!!

Why? Why should I be forced to deal with this bigoted bile? Other people have to live with the negative after-effects of your enjoyment, R195. Why should we be forced to deal with it when it is you who dished it out to us? No it is you who needs to deal with the new reality that this show is totally unacceptable.

You can't even defend it. You even admit it's mindless. You use the same pejoratives critics used about the likes of [italic]Gilligan's Island[/italic], but how many Emmys did that show win?

You are entitled to your own opinions but not to your own facts.

FACTS: "Friends" remains high-rated on Netflix and popular among tweens, teens, and Millennials. It even reruns on MTV.

OPINIONS: You call it milquetoast. I call it timeless.

FACTS: Season 2 episode "The One With the Lesbian Wedding" featured Ross coming to terms with his ex-wife's sexuality and new relationship, even walking her down the aisle when her parents balked. This was over a year before Ellen Morgan (Ellen DeGeneres) came out of the closet on rival network ABC.

The show also dabbled in easy, homophobic humor, especially where the Joey/Chandler friendship was concerned.

OPINIONS: Very progressive for the '90s. Holds up well today, certainly better than "Seinfeld" or "Cheers." A classic.

[quote]This was over a year before Ellen Morgan (Ellen DeGeneres) came out of the closet on rival network ABC.

And after they forced her to change her show's name from [italic]These Friends of Mine[/italic]. Other shows had gay characters and gay marriage first. Northern Exposure, Golden Girls, Roseanne, Brothers, and Soap are all better shows and all more progressive by far.

[quote] OPINIONS: Very progressive for the '90s. Holds up well today, certainly better than "Seinfeld" or "Cheers." A classic.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. You are not entitled to an opinion that is based in a false premise, and anything based on the idea that this show is anything other than reprehensible and indefensible is automatically wrong. You have no taste, are stupid, a bigot, and an asshole. Especially anyone who thinks this crap show is better than a true classic like [italic]Cheers[/italic], which did a pro-gay episode in 1983. Nineteen-eighty-fucking-three.

[quote]FACTS: "Friends" remains high-rated on Netflix and popular among tweens, teens, and Millennials. It even reruns on MTV.

In other words: popular with mindless sheep and those with undeveloped brains despite the presence of superior choices.

Think for yourself and stop laughing at hate speech.

[quote]The show also dabbled in easy, homophobic humor, especially where the Joey/Chandler friendship was concerned.

Dabbled? They enabled another generation of men to make excuses for why they stayed in the closet. It's like [italic]Soap[/italic] and Jodie Dallas never happened.

Thank you for being a friend.

Speaking of precious metals, [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] had a more nonchalant attitude towards guys touching other guys. Joel Higgins and Franklyn Seales put their arms around each other and acted like it was nothing. And Dexter queening out over Whitney Houston speaks for itself. And the bookend of Derek putting Ricky in drag was them hugging each other goodbye in the last scene of Jason Bateman's last episode.

The one thing I cannot forgive them for —or [italic]Empty Nest[/italic], which I also enjoyed and was almost as good as [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic], had hotter guys and went to some dark places with some of the stories — was enabling the rise of Matthew Perry by miscasting him as a guest star. Even then, he was an unpleasant douche.

[quote]If you think James Burrows is a hack, what sitcoms do you Iike, because he's done some directing on the MTM show, Will and Grace, Cheers, Frasier- all of the greats.

Of that list, only [italic]MTM[/italic] and [italic]Cheers[/italic] are classics. [italic]W&G[/italic] was and is a fucking minstrel show that proves my point about [italic]Partners[/italic], and [italic]Frasier[/italic] ran twice as long as it should have since it was NBC's last post-[italic]Seinfeld[/italic] link to its Tartikoff-era greatness.

The best network sitcoms since 1990 have mostly been animated.

Me either. Couldn't hardly sit through one episode.

Did they ever get around to killing off the tampon lady's character from the [italic]Scream[/italic] movies. I wasn't going to keep putting my money into them after the second one unless they did.

Fatty fatty two by four

Can't get through the dressing room door?

Reply 479 on this thread called Allee Willis out.

R199, you could BE any more histrionic?

Awful white-power drek. And casting a squeaky skinny shiksa like Cox as a Jewish woman!

Could re-emphazing the wrong word be ANY less funny?

[quote] Awful white-power drek. And casting a squeaky skinny shiksa like Cox as a Jewish woman!

They wanted Nancy McKeon. She didn't want it, so they went with someone who was to [italic]Family Ties[/italic] as George Clooney was to his years on [italic]Facts of Life[/italic]: an anti-funny cipher whose role could have been played by anyone. That tradition continued here and became toxic, like everything about this show.

Anybody here ever frequent IMDb's message boards? Bunch of 13-year-olds arguing the merits of various actors, movies and TV shows. Wonder where they all went when those boards were shut down?

7 'Friends' Moments That Have Become Horrifying With Age

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I was in high school when Friends premiered and I thought it was lame even then. I never understood the popularity of that show.

I've never seen a single episode from start to finish. It looks like plastic American junk food. Fake cardboard characters jumping about smiling.

I never got into the show when it aired

Still as unfunny as it was back then.

Friends was definitely for boring straight people. I've never known may gay guys/lesbians who were into it.

Friends was always terrible - from the very first episode. The jokes were somehow crude yet dull, the actors were quite attractive yet dull, the sets were straight of a Pottery Barn catalog and very 1990's DULL. How could the show fail? It was aimed at the lowest common denominator and squarely at dull, lower-middle class America. It succeeded. Good equation - shocker.

of = off

90s TV was bad. What were we thinking?

There are some weird moments of homophobia that made me uncomfortable.

No mention of Courtney Cox dating Tom Selleck on the show? No chemistry! Cox seems asexual on Friends.

I was 20, visiting my mother, and we watched the first episode together. We endured it and she said, "This show will never get picked up."

It was shlock and even my mother could sniff it out in 1994.

I'm not choosy..... It's just not really yummy. :P lol!

I'm surprised it had the longevity it did because the first two seasons were abysmal. Most shows grow by the end of the first season and well into the second but it took Friends nearly to the end of the second season to even approach any semblance of a quality show.

What was the point of these stupid chopstick/fork and spoon combo utensils? I think they were trying to start some kind of culinary trend.

Any Aaron Spelling series is guaranteed lowbrow uneducated garbage,

SEINFELD was okay even though he, Costanza and Elaine were untalented and pretty ugly...julia made a career out of playing Elaine over and over. Seinfeld does not hold up.

Cheers sucked ass, never got it. Ditto mad about you. When Pail appears in Alien 2, we always root for the alien. Friends was harmless, sometimes funny, often stupid but still funny. Matt was cute and kind of fit fat sexy. Lisa is very funny, her HBO series proved that.

I forgot about Dee. SHE was funny and really the best character on that show.

Remember girls the absolute worst sitcom of all time is Full Of Shit House.

This show has enjoyed a revival in popularity among young people for some reason. I have never found it funny and I'm perplexed to see teenagers and early 20 somethings talk about this dated-ass show. Friends lasted 10 years too which shows people had bad taste even back then.

I think we have way better sitcoms in the 2000s and 2010s like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, The Bernie Mac Show, Peep Show, Atlanta, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Louie, Wilfred and Scrubs. Not depending on a shitty laugh track actually requires you to write a funny script.

Seasons 4 through 7 are enjoyable (some episodes). People in europe eat this show up for some reason. Also tv options back then were very limited and not much quality.

You're singing my song OP. Never liked or "got" that show either.

I think the popularity overseas is similar to Tom & Jerry and big budget Hollywood movies. The plot and humor is slapstick and simple enough to be enjoyed globally. Less struggle in translating the humor. The actors are visually pleasing and characters live comfortably which makes it more marketable.

As an American myself I dont find it funny but I can see why it was more popular overseas compared to something think Frasier or Seinfeld.

*like

R232 I follow a handsome german actor guy on instagram and he always has stories watching episodes of friends...he seems to really love it..even the early seasons which sucked.

It's also ironic that I enjoy the actors in other things they have done.

Like Lisa Kudrow is pretty funny in that movie with John Travolta and the show where she played a therapist.

Jennifer was funny in Horrible Bosses.

I kind of wish Matt LeBlanc's Married with Children spin-off Top of the Heap lasted longer. It was at least so bad it's good.

It's fine, but not remarkable. I remember the meltdown last year when it left Netflix. The Blu-ray set is $60. Like a quarter an episode.

I was staying in hotels shortly before COVID and it was comforting that no matter what time of day, at least 2 channels were always playing Friends and Law and Order.

And as others have said, the cast are great in other things. I love everything Kudrow has done, Cougar Town is great, and Episodes was very good.

I had a crush on beefy Joey. But for the most part, very few episodes were worth watching. Especially grating: Ross mooning over that British twat.

R237 that flashback where he strips in front of monica...prime spankbank

The episodes in Vegas were funny though as well as the ones with Reese Witherspoon.

People keep writing these articles about how problematic Friends was and that being the reason why some people don't enjoy it. I don't get that because the major reason why some people don't enjoy it is simply because it's not funny. Tons of other shows are politically incorrect yet are considered funny like Married...with Children, The Jeffersons, South Park, Family Guy, Beavis & Butt-head, etc. You don't need to write think pieces on Friends that argue it's criticism is due to being archaic, it's just isn't that funny and a lot of people didn't understand the hype even when it was airing.

None of those are funny either.

r234 Germans have awful taste in television.

I never understood the appeal of any of the characters except Phoebe... oh and Ursula her sister. The jokes are very strained and there is a very plastic and unnatural flow to the whole production. Almost as if there is real animosity amoung the cast. Ironic

R228 We would never be friends i can say that.

I loved it when I was growing up. Everyone at school did. Loved the feel, it could be quite funny and the cast were good. I haven’t rewatched it since as I don’t want to be disappointed I guess, and also haven’t felt the desire. On the other hand, I’ve rewatched Frasier several times and love it even more and think it still holds up very well (aside a lot of the misogyny and slut-shaming directed at Roz).

Well, they had only nice things to say about you OP, but go ahead and hurt their feelings anyways, they be at the bank drying their eyes.

People here specifically can't stand Schwimmer as Ross, but he's the one I wanted to fuck.

R247 In the planetarium and under the Australopithecuses?

David Schwimmer is good-looking but his character is annoying. Just like Josh Radnor is hot but annoying on How I Met Your Mother

"Friends" was traumatic for a lot of DLers when it came out because they were already in their 30s and 40, while the Friends were in their 20s. It was the first real sign to them that they were getting old and there was another generation of young people on the scene.

I enjoyed the first season, which I watched back when no one else was watching; apparently it caught on during the reruns of the first season. But I was young, so wasn't that picky about my TV shows, and some of the humor in the first season was about how they were a bunch of dippy white bores in NYC. Their awkwardness was more about not knowing what the definition of common words were or how the postal system worked, while Seinfeld was about psychopaths.

Tuned in for the second season and right out of the gate it was full-on Look How Popular And Cool We Are!!!! and it sucked from there on out.

If for no other reason I would hate ‘Friends’ for Jennifer Anniston’s awful hairstyle.

The “Rachel haircut” was fucking awful, and back in the mid 90’s every girl and woman seemed to have it, blissfully oblivious as to how unflattering it was.

This show felt like Saved by the Bell (3 guys, 3 girls, different personalities) for grownups mixed with the concept of Living Single (young professionals living and dating in NY).

It was slated to be the first great GenX sitcom, but obviously a lot of the higher-ups signing off on executive decisions were crusty old tired geezers with outdated ideas. That probably accounts for some of the jarring misogyny, homophobia, etcetera.

It continues to blow my mind that, despite that fact that the character literally embodied every single JAP stereotype ever, many DLers did not realize that Aniston's Rachel Green was supposed to have been Jewish.

Everyone in that show was Jewish except Chandler (WASP) and Joey (Italian). IRL, Aniston is Greek/Italian and Cox is white American (English/Irish/Scottish)

Phoebe is supposed to be Jewish?

R255 Reality Bites, Higher Learning, Empire Records, High Fidelity, Melrose Place, Beavis and Butt-head/Daria and Living Single seemed like better representation.

R258 Her actress is Jewish. I kind of assumed she was meant to be too. She didn't fit the stereotype though like Ross and Rachel did.

I love that this show drives the exhausting woke brigade up the wall. They made fun of trannies, lesbians, black women and fat people!! The big four.

Pissing off SJWs. Friends turned out to be good for something after all.

Phoebe was a shrill, judgmental bitch. Lisa Kudrow is an extremely limited actress who has the same line delivery and mannerisms in every role she plays.

Although Jen Aniston is a bit of a joke, especially with her penchant for playing the same character over and over again, she at least had the best comic timing of the entire cast. Schwimmer and Cocks were dreary.

R263 I completely agree with you about Lisa Kudrow, but I also think she makes it work for her in a very unique way in which once every generation there is an actor who fits that niche and is still highly successful. I would put Tallulah Bankhead in that same category as well. Lisa, overtime, has done a wealth of different TV series and film work that is very solid and a remarkable career from an Indie cred artistic standpoint. So while it might be easier to see Cox or Aniston as the most commercially successful, I think Lisa has been more artistically successful.

Mad About You and The Comeback are iconic TV roles and of the films Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, The Opposite of Sex and Easy A I think will withstand the test of time to be considered masterpieces of comedy.

Phoebe was strangely the character I related to the most. I don’t know what they says about me. Lisa Kudrow is awesome.

R265 Phoebe was a crazy flaky cunt and she knew it.

This show and Big Bang Theory are a mystery to me. So unfunny. Well at least Friends had Lisa Kudrow who's actually funny.

And none of the males were hot!

Friends would have been tolerable if it was just about the friendship of Chandler and Joey. Throw in a ton of shirtless scenes and homoeroticism too. Maybe have Phoebe be a drop-in character like Urkel. Have Chandler come out in season 3 once the show had high enough ratings.

Seinfeld is from the same era, but a much better show. I don't understand why it doesn't receive similar affection. Friends is so contrived. How does chronically unemployed Pheobe never wear the same outfit twice?

The show sucks for the same reason [italic]Who's the Boss, Growing Pains, Charles in Charge, Saved By The Bell[/italic], and [italic]Full House[/italic] all sucked: they weren't fucking funny. Only this managed to be even less funny. But if those shows had never existed, this one wouldn't either because they'd have nothing to rip off.

[quote] Pissing off SJWs. Friends turned out to be good for something after all.

Except this time I agree with them and think they don't go far enough if actually classic shows like [italic]Good Times[/italic] and [italic]The Jeffersons[/italic] now come with warning labels while [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic] and [italic]The Muppet Show[/italic] had whole episodes pulled. Yet for a show that actually is "problematic" by any reasonable definition of the word, not only is nothing done about it, but even bringing it up gets you silenced and insulted, furthering the show's bigoted attitudes even more.

Oh, and my least favorite [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic] episode is the one Matthew Perry ruined. Even then he was obnoxious as was the character they cast him as. For some reason, former producer David Duclon even gave him a show on Fox. It deservedly bombed.

Aniston really was wonderful on the show and gave us a character to root for. There was something so likable about her. Something in her eyes seems kind and trustworthy. Rachel could have easily gone into spoiled bitch territory and she always kept her grounded and relatable. The episodes where Christina Applegate showed up as her sister were some of the best. Those two had great chemistry and Applegate was hilarious.

Kudrow is probably the best all around actress of the bunch. She has the most range and is always a delight to watch.

As for all these annoying think pieces about this show, I think they're a little silly. Most of the so-called homophobic and transphobic jokes are usually at the expense of the character making them. We're meant to laugh and the characters making the mistakes, not cheering them on for it. They make mistakes and it's awkward. If there was a show where someone misgendered a trans person and they were made out to look like a fool because of it, that's not the show trying to say "hey, it's misgendering hilarious?" They're cashing in on the awkwardness of what happens when you put your foot in your mouth and make a mistake. That's where most comedy comes from.

[quote]It continues to blow my mind that, despite that fact that the character literally embodied every single JAP stereotype ever, many DLers did not realize that Aniston's Rachel Green was supposed to have been Jewish.

Except when Fran Drescher did it on [italic]The Nanny[/italic], it was actually funny. Hell, even Mindy Cohn was funnier than her!

I enjoyed Friends, Seinfeld, Cheers, Frazier and Everyone Loves Raymond.

R275 makes Barbara Thorndyke look like Maya Angelou.

The same network that put this crap on the air also gave him a show. Everything you hate about Trump you enabled by watching this show.

Geesus...it's just entertainment. Lighten the fuck up. We all have our guilty pleasures...even the so called "above it all intellectuals" on here.

The producers of this show also made my show in addition to [italic]Space Jam[/italic], so it's not like they never cast Black people in stuff.

And there's a reason no one ever asks why there were no Black people on [italic]Cheers[/italic]. There was one and he didn't come out until the show went off the air:

Friends is for boring white suburbanites of middling intelligence.

[quote] Geesus...it's just entertainment. Lighten the fuck up.

No. It's not entertainment. It's propaganda for the one percent with fake laughter attached to unfunny statements. Don't tell me to "lighten the fuck up." Stop tolerating declining cultural standards.

LOL Fran Drescher was in no way supposed to be a JAP R274

She was an outer borough Jewish Guidette

It is hate speech disguised as comedy. It's not fucking funny. It's offensive. And if you're not offended by it, then you're a bigot.

Social justice warriors have invaded this thread. Aren't you SO woke...I'm really impressed. Fuck off now.

No, R284, you fuck off and start acknowledging how your enjoyment of this racist sexist homophobic antisemitic crap is hurtful to gays, Jews, and people of color.

And to repeat something that is often pointed out on DL:

Boomer Eldergays HATE Friends with a passion because it was the first show that made them realize they were old.

They were in their thirties or forties and there was a hit show about a bunch of twentysomethings and they could not relate to them

At least Seinfeld and his crew and Reiser and Hunt on Mad About You were in their 30s

But these damn Gen Xers

They were on your lawn and you wanted them off!!

Now!!!

R286, you shut your racist white ass the fuck up and admit this show is the worst and most offensive TV show ever before we finally start putting the "war" in social justice warrior. Every episode of this vile shit needs to be destroyed.

If hating bad comedy makes me an SJW then I will wear that epithet with Gay Pride.

Datalounge frequently reminds me that sanity is a gift.

Lol!

This is a classic show. If you are offended by it, then you are a racist:

This show is also a classic. If you are offended by it, then you are a racist:

Take your Zoloft, r287. If you want to improve society, going after a low brow sitcom is probably not an efficient way to do that.

This show is also a classic. If you are offended by it, then you are not only a racist, but a sexist, an antisemite, and a homophobe:

[quote] Take your Zoloft, [R287]. If you want to improve society, going after a low brow sitcom is probably not an efficient way to do that.

It is when the oligarchy projects its flaws and complicity in deepening social inequity onto TV shows that tried to do something about the problem.

The trolls are loose...out of the loony bin.

Stop telling me how to feel about this stupid and offensive piece of Nazi propaganda being shoved in my face.

R296's mental health slurs are proof that the show is crap and its fans are all bigoted scum.

People who condemned the show actually pointed out things that actually happened on the damn show as reasons for being offended. You dismissed them all with insults and slurs against every marginalized group in the goddamn book. You proved the haters' points and then some. This show is why cancel culture exists and what cancel culture needs to be targeting. Then and only then will it actually be helping to further the cause of social justice.

It is one troll, possibly Anscher?

Block it and all today's crazy posts disappear

The absolute worst of [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic] looks like the Bard of Avon compared to this disgustingly unfunny crap. Stop telling me to stop criticizing it. Stop treating shit as if it were freshly baked chocolate chip cookies!

I think in the first several seasons, the gay jokes were meant to poke fun at Ross, Chandler, and Joey's fragile masculinity. I mean, they had the lesbian wedding in season 3 and even that episode with everyone saying how dumb Ross was for not letting Ben play with a Barbie. But in the last few years, it strangely became more conservative. "The One With The Male Nanny" in season 9 is horrifying to watch now.

It changed nothing if a generation of androgynous women would rather be men than lesbians.

Even [italic]The Facts of Life[/italic] and [italic]Gimme A Break![/italic] were not that retrograde in their treatment of female androgyny.

I can truthfully acknowledge that I never watched one episode of Friends. Basically I cannot stand the sight of several of it's actors, so why waste my time. I'm currently watching an Australian soap opera/drama called "Love My Way" and after enduring fifteen episodes find the actors, the characters, the story line irritating and annoying. One lead male actor always bursts our ranting or crying, the female lead is not over a family death that occurred episodes ago. I don't contemplate wasting anymore of my time. And the amount of beer and wine consumed.

Frequenting a gay bar due to the excellent tuna melts would have been a good plot. Matthew Perry rejected the plot, according to the article. What a dumb-ass. Golden Girls seems more progressive than Friends.

Seems to be fashionable to diss Friends now. Maybe it was of its time, I don't know, I haven't watched any reruns. I loved it at the time. Of course many shows have copied it, and its humor, so it doesn't seem as new and fun as it did, I imagine. But since it was a hugely popular, highly rated show with popular actors, there's no need for people here to insult those of us who liked it. Since most people liked it, and you were in some weird minority fringe you pathetic losers.

Kudrow was the funniest.

Aniston's acting improved as time went on and her character and hair helped make the show trendy

Cox was decent in the uptight Monica role but she was the only one with no awards nominations

The three actors were not that funny or talented, they were lucky.

Once we have cancelled FRIENDS we should totally take a swipe at FULL HOUSE. I hear the show had numerous episodes that promoted genocide and poor fashion sense.

Plus...Full House had a jail bird....terrible influence on the children.

I truly can't tell if these hate filled posts directed at the show are an attempt at satire or humor. A lot of aspects of the show were groundbreaking at the time. The lesbian wedding for one. Any gay themed humor was usually only there to make one of the characters look like an idiot. They never made fun of the lesbian couple. They are depicted as sane, normal people unlike Ross who couldn't get around the fact that his ex-wife was now with a woman. In most of the episodes, the characters learn they came off wrong.

In the episodes with Chandler's trans dad, he's embarrassed by him because of how the kids teased him about his father growing up. Thanks to Monica, he realizes that at least his father was present in his life and loved him enough to show up at games and stuff. I felt like that was a truthful and positive episode. Did people want Chandler to come out singing the praises of his father who transitioned at some point in the 80's? I'm sure their family was a laughing stock back then. He's going to be uncomfortable around him. It's understandable.

I really don't understand all the think pieces and analyses about Friends these days. It was just a wish-fulfillment sitcom about carefree attractive people and it seemed the writers purposely dumbed it down in order to get the widest audience possible. It was a product of its time and its demographic was flyover country middle class white Americans. Gay and trans jokes were normal back then and they were still tolerated in the 2000s as well. It wasn't until recently that majority of straight people woke up and realized that those jokes weren't really funny and could be very hurtful. It's not that different from how racial or anti-semitic jokes were common in the first half of the 20th century.

And I agree with the poster above that the show never portrayed homophobia or transphobia as right. The characters were all idiots in general and I don't know how any viewer would copy them or think they were role models in the first place.