Or maybe Ross, Rachel, Romance and Regina Phalange?
They haven’t used any main character names for any of the other letters…
But Regina Phalangee - yes! Good one!
I’m just reading Matthew Perry’s memoir, just released. He describes being a major drug and alcohol addict the entire time Friends was on the air. In one memorable passage, he talks about the famous episode where Chandler marries Monica, he says he was driven back to rehab immediately after filming.
Poor guy.
How you doin’…?
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This is what I think EH wanted to post:
Yes, that’s what shows up when I click on my link. Thanks.
Hadn’t thought of this:
It’s a little surprising to look at the episode counts. Of all the Friends’ romantic partners, Paul Rudd is #2 on the list, just behind Janice. He appeared in more episodes than Emily, Richard, and Carol.
To be pedantic, he was in the same number of episodes as Carol the character, but one more than Jane Sibbett the actress.
Carol was played by someone else in one episode.
Here’s an interesting piece on how the this quintessentially 90’s show managed to avoid almost any real 90s cultural signifiers.
Friends debuted in the mid-1990s and ended in the mid-2000s, but it reflects almost nothing about its era - like most sitcoms of its time, it very rarely connected to current events, but more it seemed to defy the impulse to dramatize or comment on any of the trends or social commonplaces of its day. It goes without saying that the show was rabidly apolitical, but it’s more than that; it’s a cultural object that exists outside of culture.
Interesting. Maybe that’s why Friends is so popular with the elderly. After the Price is Right it’s the second most frequently watched show among the residents of the nursing homes that I work at.
It also may be why it’s so popular with the young, too. The more contemporary a show is in its own time, the more dated it becomes after years go by. Whatever was cool in the past is uncool now, so by never being cool, Friends avoids being uncool today.
Yeah, ‘current’ and ‘timeless’ don’t really mesh.
Some of the commenters on that piece were teachers who noted that it’s far and away the most popular show among their non-American students.
The author of the piece treats Friends as if were some sort of abnormality when, in fact, being “outside of culture” is almost a requirement for a successful situation comedy - maybe even a successful television show, period.
Look at other long-running sitcoms from the '90s: Home Improvement, Full House, Everybody Loves Raymond. There’s nothing in those shows that ties them to their era; in fact, two of those shows featured stay-at-home moms, which was a deliberate throwback to a different culture.
Going farther back, shows like I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show air reruns endlessly. Although the clothes and settings look like they’re from the show’s era, nothing about those shows reflected any of the then-current culture.
By contrast, a sitcom like The Nanny, which positively dripped with contemporary cultural references, is a hopeless anachronistic artifact in today’s environment.
This is way late to the game, but if you want to see LeBlanc’s best stuff, watch the series “Episodes”. It’s a hilarious send-up of the sitcom industry and LeBlanc mocks himself to great comic effect. On Showtime, I think.
Seconding this. Really great showcase for his talent. I also thought he seemed the nicest and most grounded of the group on the reunion show.
I always think of Chandler and Monica’s relationship being a late addition, but they were actually a couple for more than half the show’s run (Seasons 5-10), although it did take 3 seasons for them to get married.
Watching Friends, I always admired LeBlanc’s acting skills. Since Joey didn’t have much in the way of witty remarks / rapid-fire banter, LeBlanc had to act mostly with his expressions and physical timing, which were comedic gold.