“Friends” was a horrible pile of suck, while “Seinfeld” only became a pile of suck later, after you got tired of listening to the same vile people over and over again.
Seinfeld was and always will be the better show. I watched them both in the early days, along with ER. Thursday night on NBC was a big night. Second season of Friends, I started losing interest, and I maybe watched one or two episodes between the third season and the end of the series. The characters were all just so unrealistically neurotic and irritating.
Seinfeld’s characters were jerks, but I always felt that they were the kind of people I’d enjoy hanging out with. Which doesn’t happen often, being the misanthrope that I am.
I don’t have a pee-pee, but I have a cock.
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
I thought Seinfeld became overrated and a self-parody in later seasons, but I usually watched and enjoyed it.
Friends? Bleh. My penis and I never liked it at all.
Friends. I hated Seinfeld.
I hated Friends, but I hate it more for producing that big sack of “duh” with a pile of hair on it, namely Jennifer Anniston. Her do-nothing life is chronicled in every magazine, and the Walmart crowd is breathlessly waiting for her to breed as if she was the last panda in the the last zoo.
I loved both shows, honestly, and watched them religiously when they were on. I voted for Seinfeld because I gave up on Friends about the time Chandler and Monica hooked up, and I watched Seinfeld to the very end.
I’ve always been mystified by why people hated the whiny, self-absorbed people on Seinfeld. That’s why they were entertaining! Same with Everybody loves Raymond. Of course I wouldn’t want to know those people, but they’re funny to watch. Like Archie Bunker, if you will.
Oh and I’m a goil.
Same here. It started getting surreal in the later seasons, but still clever and funny.
Friends? You’d have to pay me to watch that.
Well now, I voted for Seinfeld, but if we’re factoring the opinions of our penises (penii?) into the equation…Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, and Lisa Kudrow? I wouldn’t kick Julia Louis-Dreyfus out of bed for eating crackers, but really, there’s no contest.
Still, in all non-penicular aspects, Seinfeld was the far superior show. Wittier writing, more memorable characters (jerks or otherwise), and it holds up better in reruns.
I really don’t know how to vote. I think Seinfeld is the superior show - better humor, more daring, more culturally important - but I had more sheer love for Friends. Both were steadily quoted around my house in the 90s. Nothing is funnier than “The sea was angry that day, my friends,” but I remember being a kid and staying up with a lifelong friend, waching the episode where Chandler is forced to move to Yemen to get away from Janice. “I guess I’m moving to Yemen!” was kind of a weird in-joke between us after that, for a while.
I haven’t watched either in years, I stopped watching both in their latest seasons, I tuned in for the Finale of both (Friends was better, in that respect).
Hmm…I’m going with Friends.
also, i may have written Friends fanfic when i was 14. maybe. a little.
Oh, and I am equipped with breasts.
Sounds like a line from The 40 Year-old Virgin:
“Know how I know you’re gay?”
“How?”
“Because you’re a guy and you think Friends was a better show than Seinfeld.”
I loved Seinfeld’s HBO specials, before the TV show, but, for some reason, never really connected with the TV show. I loved Friends, but it hasn’t aged well.
Joe
Female, prefer Seinfeld, though I enjoyed Friends too (up till the last two seasons). Actually, Seinfeld also bugged me in its last couple of seasons – I really disliked where they took Elaine, who became more hateful than even George – but there are still plenty of gems.
Me, I’m happy both shows exist. Sometimes you want emotional funny, sometimes you want acidic funny. I never felt the need to restrict myself to one or the other.
When Friends first appeared I couldn’t watch it.
“Lessee, they’ve xeroxed the Seinfeld set-up of a bunch of friends hanging out in NYC, but decided to improve it by having them all be incredibly attractive.”
When it went into syndication, I finally made it through some episodes-- trying to understand how it endured so long – and discovered the writing could be damn clever.
But it’s no better than clever. Seinfeld invented it’s own space, and was touched with genius. Friends was well-done product. (I do have a crush on Lisa Kudrow tho, dating back to her Ursula character on Mad About You.)
I’ve never found either particularly funny, but Friends slightly more so than Seinfeld, so that’s my vote.
I loved Friends then, and I love Friends now. I watched the occasional Seinfeld episodes, and thought they were funny, but I just couldn’t get past how incredibly awful they all were. I realize that the Friends bunch weren’t much better people, but I didn’t wish they’d all just shut the hell up and quit being so…stupid all the time.
It sounds strange to say that I related to the Friends bunch better than the Seinfeld bunch, but I think I did.
I think that I preferred Seinfeld when both were new, but neither has aged well (though [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny]there’s a reason). I’d be more inclined to watch Friends reruns nowadays. Seinfeld reruns weird me out. It’s not the Kramer thing per se, it’s the thunderous applause when he makes his first entrance.
This is what I didn’t like about Seinfeld. I wanted to follow a story from one episode to the next, sometimes. Not every Friends episode was linked by a story, but quite a few of them were. And like I said in another recent thread, Friends had so many great guest appearances.
I’m not sure what people mean when they say a show “hasn’t held up well”, or has “aged superbly”. Most of the jokes that were funny ten years ago are still funny today. Unless you mean Chandler bragging about his great new laptop with a blazing fast 28 kbps modem.
Friends also had some tender, touching moments that would appeal to anyone with an ounce of sensitivity. Seinfeld was just wacky slapstick, which got tiresome after a while. I can only take so much of a four stooges act.
Putting it succinctly, Seinfeld was Airplane! and Friends was The Princess Bride. Although I liked both, I prefer romantic comedies over simple slapstick.
This last point is why there would be a pee-pee/no pee-pee divide among the viewers.
Those gigantic shoe-box size phones!
Interesting how low the poll numbers are up there for Friends. Maybe all the Friends fans aren’t reading this topic, but busy examining pictures of Jennifer Anniston in the Enquirer for signs of pregnancy.
I watched Friends on occasion, when it was still airing near Seinfeld, but I still watch 2 or 3 episodes of Seinfeld a day. It starts getting good around season 3 and never loses steam until the last couple of episodes of the final season. You would just about have to tie me to a chair to make me watch Friends now.