History Friends / TropesFToJ

** Likewise, the first season episode with Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre. Chandler is nearly hypnotized by her hotness.

** Phoebe is practically guaranteed to use the name "Regina Phalange" whenever pretending to be someone else. In "The One Where Joey Speaks French", she gives her alias as a French woman as 'Régine Phalange'.

** Again from the Thanksgiving episode, Ross and Chandler visit in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE0llk5Cxok fall 1988]]. By now at least their haircuts are current, looking very Miami Vice and both having perpetual stubble.

** In "The One With The Prom Video" Ross is seen with an afro and porn stash on the videotape, it being set in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hXCNyLjwws spring 1988]]. Joey explicitly calls him "Mr. Kotter", a reference to the late seventies show "Welcome Back, Kotter."

** The French translators of the show decided for some reason to give up the original kind of IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming and replaced it with another one: each episode is named "The One With [insert description of the actions of one character in this episode]". For instance, "The One with Monica and Chandler's Wedding" is translated as "The One Who Married Monica" ("Celui qui a épousé Monica"). It is unknown whether they thought it was a more clever way to do things or missed the point with the first couple of episodes and then thought it was too late to change.

* FormulaBreakingEpisode: The 1-hour special "The One that Could Have Been." Aside from the pre-opening sequence, the entire episode takes place in an alternate timeline where each member of the gang's lives had turned out differently than in the actual show (although things more or less wind up close to how things are regularly by the end).

* HollywoodDateless:
** Chandler is constantly knocked by himself and others for being terrible with women. While he does have commitment issues that prevent his relationships lasting long, he has no trouble getting women. Later in the show, once he's in a stable relationship with Monica, the show claims he's always been terrible with women, unable to even talk to them, despite the early seasons showing he successfully uses humour to smooth-talk and charm women without any problem at all and the later seasons having him and Monica being the only two in a functional (rather than dysfunctional) relationship.
** Ross, despite his numerous girlfriends and dates during the show's run and him being kind of an Adorkable ChickMagnet (evidenced by "The One with the Girl from Poughkeepsie" and "The One With The Cooking Class"), is regularly referred to be as hopeless with women for some reason. There's even an episode named "The One Where Ross Can't Flirt", and Joey once said to him that he (and Chandler) "repels women all the time".

* HomeNudist

** Rachel suggests making one with Ross, who claims he already has one with Phoebe... who is the one who suggested it to Rachel in the first place, claiming she has one with Joey. By the end of the episode, they settled on Ross being Rachel's backup, and Joey being Phoebe's. At the end of Season 1, Chandler attempts to cheer up Monica by suggesting one with her.

* HasTwoMommies: Ross's former wife, Carol, and her partner Susan. Ross's son, Ben, splits his time between his dad and moms. In one episode, Ben refers to Chandler as "Daddy." [[spoiler: Of course, at the end of the show, it's indicated Ben ends up with three when it's made clear that Ross and Rachel are back together, this time for good.]]
-->'''Ross:''' No no--one daddy, two ''mommies''.

* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Phoebe finds a cop's badge and pretends to be a cop. This works well until she tries it on [[ConfrontingYourImposter the cop to whom it belongs]].

* InterruptedIntimacy: When Chandler and Monica first get together in London, Joey walks in on them. Monica hides under the sheets leaving Chandler to be forced to pretend to have ADateWithRosiePalms to throw Joey off. This trope then happens to the couple on several occasions over the next few months while they're trying to keep their relationship secret. Even after their relationship is official, they can still sometimes be victims of this trope. After they're married and decide to try having children, they get down to business in a hospital janitorial closet and are interrupted in the middle of the act by Monica's father walking in on them, traumatising all three of them.

* GagBoobs: During the second and third seasons of the show, Monica had to work at a 50s themed diner where she was made to wear huge fake boobs under her uniform.

* {{Japandering}}: Joey from is at one point a mid-level daytime SoapOpera star and ends up doing this from an advert for Ichiban Lipstick for Men. The advert is very much a WeirdJapaneseThing: Joey is wearing bright blue lipstick while bright blue animation and dancing schoolgirls interject a number of flash cuts. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2CQTnYcFGg You watch it, you can't un-watch it]].

** This was a joke referencing how viewers rarely knew the titles of individual episodes of a television series. With the rise of [=DVR=]s (which give the episode title when recording) and internet discussion forums with individual episodes, arguably now a case of AluminumChristmasTrees.

'''Joey''': Give me $400!

* {{Gainaxing}}: The reason why Chandler and Joey love ''Series/{{Baywatch}}''. In "The One Where Eddie Moves In":
-->'''Joey:''' Hey, hey, they're running!
-->'''Chandler:''' See, this is the brilliance of the show. I say always keep them running. All the time, running. Run! Run Yasmine, run like the wind!

* JiggleShow: Also the only reason the guys watch ''Series/{{Baywatch}}''.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex:
** It was ''because'' their sex was so good that Monica and Chandler, two of the nicest most loyal characters on the show, upgraded from a one night stand to FriendsWithBenefits and then to a serious relationship. They risked a valuable friendship but the sex was just. that. good. It's also emphasized that sex with each other was better than with previous partners (which had been from reasonably okay to bad). They both describe each other as the best they've ever had, with the implication its because they're better people with each other.
** Ross and Rachel also admitted on more than one occasion how good the sex between them was. Rachel mentioned that it was because she and Ross had a connection and intimacy.
--->'''Rachel''': You were always really good at...''the stuff''.
--->'''Ross''': You were really good at ''the stuff'' too.
--->'''Rachel''': ''[proudly]'' I know.

-->'''Chandler''': What does she have to "think" about, I love her!
-->'''Richard''': Apparently, I'm willing to offer her things you are not.
-->'''Chandler''': I ''am'' willing to offer her all those things, this was just a plan, you know, a way to throw her off course so when I offered her all these things, she'd be surprised!
-->'''Richard''': Well, if it helps, it worked ''very'' well.

* IdiotBall: Every now and then, a character would usually have to pick this bad boy up and run it into the endzone for a off-kilter subplot to work. Some of these, though, were probably just PlayedForLaughs.

* JustFriends: With the title of the show what did you expect? Phoebe and Joey are the obvious example, they have a ShipTease but nothing ever comes of it and they settle on PlatonicLifePartners. Monica and Chandler in early seasons [[{{SubvertedTrope}} really were]] just friends before becoming FriendsWithBenefits and falling in love.

** The trope is the premise for season 3's "The One With The Flashback", where Janice expresses disbelief that the gang has been friends for so long (three with the full six, one more without Rachel) without various hookups. The episode reveals Monica and Joey had crushes on each other when he moved in, until Joey mistook an invitation for lemonade as a sexual come-on, while Ross and Phoebe nearly had SexForSolace after Ross realized Carol was a lesbian and his marriage was basically over.

* FirstWorldProblems: The show occasionally pokes fun at itself for how self-centered the main characters are:

* FirstWorldProblems: The show occasionally pokes fun at itself for how self-centered the main characters are.
** The page quote points out Phoebe's sympathy for Rachel's feelings for Ross only goes so far in terms of life quandries:
** In "TOW The Worst Best Man Ever", a pregnant and mood-swinging Phoebe has had enough of Rachel's endless complications with Ross: