I saw it 2 times for 3 minutes each, or maybe 3 times for 2 minutes each.
Bleh.
For the life of me, I can’t see how that show lasted as long as it did - and I love a lot of TV, including the occasional three-camera sitcom.
Never watched more than a few minutes of a couple episodes.
Last American sitcom that I could sit through an episode from start to finish was Seinfeld (assuming Futurama doesn’t count as a sitcom).
I have never seen more than five minutes of it. It seemed rather vapid, but then so does most TV.
Let me fill you in:
A bunch of really pale, impossibly attractive people all live in an apartment building in Manhattan that none of them could possibly afford. They all dress in very stylish clothes which they never wear twice, spend a vast majority of the working day in a coffeehouse doing nothing approximating work, and engage more partner swapping than an Omaha swingers convention. Oh, and there’s a monkey involved, too.
You can tell the funny bits, even with the laugh track turned off, because everybody stops and pauses when you are supposed to laugh. Oh, and Oprah likes the show, so it must be really good, 'cause the Big O doesn’t go for schmaltz or schlock.
None of them ever get hung over, or mugged, or have to work overtime, and amazingly enough no one appears to have any financial difficulties at all. And they don’t appear to spend any of their time sitting in front of the televisor watching humorless sitcoms about impossibly attractive people who live in an apartment building in Manhattan that…ah, well, you get the picture.
And that’s my summary, based upon a maximum of 43 minutes of cummulative exposure. Did I leave out anything?
Did I mention that I miss Max Headroom?
Stranger
WOW…I have finally found Utopia. I never got Friends myself…then again the only think I watch is Jeopardy!
Weren’t they a shaggy elephant that sounded like a bicycle horn, a lion, a chimp and a dog that sounded like Tigger; who wore English firemen’s helmets and played films about dancing traffic cops? Yes, I watched that one a lot!
Oh wait, Friends. I only watched that to recalibrate my mental MarloThomas/Leslie Ann Warren differentiating meter (sort of a Bill Paxton/Bill Pullman thing).
Never watched an entire episode, seen maybe 10 minutes of a show once.
I really hated it when the annoying theme song started showing up on the radio; I kept hearing it at the supermarket.
I saw enough to decide it was like “Seinfeld” with all the edges dulled and warm syrupy cuteness poured all over it. The ensemble seemed to work well together, but potentially good comedic riffs were fatally dumbed down.
I really thought the show had been cancelled years before it was; apparently it just kept rolling along. I know you can’t expect a sitcom to be realistic, but any group of friends who hang out together that much, for that long, should qualify as a cult. And my impression is that the gang suddenly started pairing off romantically after years of interacting as platonic friends; that almost seems incestuous. (Actual incest might have made the show more interesting.)
I had never watched it until they were showing repeats before the last series showed. I happened to catch a couple and thought they were very funny. I watched for a few weeks, enjoying it thoroughly. Then the last series started. I watched an episode and a bit and never watched it again.
I saw exactly three episodes over the entire run: when I was either staying with a friend who loved the show, or when she was staying at my house. Either way, I let her watch it without comment to be polite, but I never could see what she saw in it.
I’ve never seen it. The promos were enough for me.
Voice of dissent here. I love Friends and never get tired of watching the reruns. I find it charming and downright hilarious sometimes, and the quality remained pretty darn consistent through the entire run. The comedic timing of the actors was brilliant individually, and together their chemistry was off the charts.
Seinfeld on the other hand - now that I can’t stand to watch even for a few minutes. How such a boring show about such sickeningly obnoxious people lasted so long is beyond me.
Never saw it either, and I do watch plenty of TV. It just never appealed to me. Like RealityChuck, I’ve enjoyed movies that the cast members have been in, however.
Unfortunately, my last name is Geller, so people bring up the show fairly often with me. Come to think of it, I should explain that–as a bunch of Friends non-watchers, you folks probably have no idea what that has to do with anything. Apparently, the Courteney Cox character and the David Schwimmer character are brother and sister with the last name Geller. So I get a lot of “are you like Ross or are you like Monica? Ha ha!” I have no idea how to answer those questions, and I don’t want to have to explain that I’ve never seen the show to every dumbass who asks. For a long time, people would just refer to “Ross and Monica” with me, and I wouldn’t know what they were talking about. They’d act like I was either a big snot or totally culturally unaware if I said I hadn’t seen it. Over the years I’ve gotten the impression that neither one is a particularly good role model, however, so lately I’ve been getting by with a hearty “I hope not!” response.
Of course, I don’t mind being asked if I’m related to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 
I don’t watch TV in general, but I may have seen Friends once. Is that the show where they had one episode made up of short vignettes with no dialogue? If so, I saw that one.
I agree. (Don’t we all?) I think I’d watch more sitcoms if they’d leave out the laugh track. I tried to watch Reba awhile back. There were some mildly funny lines, but the uproarious laugh track was all out of proportion to the lines. Very distracting. I think I might have enjoyed it otherwise.
Geez, Argent — after the Daily Show thread, what kind of comedy do you like? 
I’ve seen maybe 4 to 5 episodes. To me, it’s a waste. The writers are obviously able to pull off what the average person thinks is “funny” but the show itself is just seems so awful. The people I know that just “had to watch it!” all kind of fit the same mold to me. Oh well.
Since I never watched or cared much about the show, I’m not 100% sure, but I’m at least 95% certain that neither Friends nor any other modern sitcom uses a laugh track. AFAIK, nearly all are recorded in front of a live studio audience. The only time they might have used recorded laughter was if they filmed exterior scenes on location, and since I never watched, I don’t know if, or how often, they did that.
BTW, I think the use of a laugh track is defensible, not to tell people what’s funny, but to make it more natural and comfortable to laugh. Have you ever watched a comedy in an empty theater? The funniest stuff can just fall flat. Or worse, in a theater partly filled with people that don’t get the humor? I’ve occasionally been the only one laughing in a theater, and it’s decidedly awkward. (They kept staring at me: could I help it if they didn’t get the humor in Schindler’s List?*) Compare that to watching comedy in a theater full of people laughing their heads off. Much more enjoyable.
Just kidding! It was Triumph of the Will.*
**Just kidding!
Well, are you? And if so, why did you let her marry that twit Freddie Prinze Jr.? 
Actually, everything you mentioned there has been in the show at least once.
I must admit, I never liked Friends when it was running. I couldn’t get into it at all. I tried a few times, but just found it ridiculous. And then, the show went off the air. All of the seasons were released on DVD. My girlfriend had them all, and I had no Television Service. I began to watch them from Season 1 and on.
I am now a fan of the show. The show was overhyped and had too much publicity, but damnit, it was actually good after it all died down. Not a perfect show by no means, but I found that by starting from the beginning and watching after all the hype died down, I have been able to really enjoy watching it.