Characters / Friends: Main Characters

From the left: Chandler, Rachel, Ross, Monica, Joey, Phoebe

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General

General tropes about the six main characters of the series.

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• '80s Hair: Given that the characters were all teenagers in the '80s, the show was very liberal about this in the corresponding flashbacks. The most notable example is "The One with All the Thanksgivings'', with Ross and Chandler sporting ridiculous A Flock of Seagulls (and later Miami Vice) haircuts.
• '90s Hair: During early seasons, Joey and Chandler both sported shaggy curtains while Ross had his short and gelled. Rachel had the Rachel, of course, while Monica had a shorter bob. Phoebe's the only one who bucked the trend, thanks to longer hair in keeping with her granola girl aesthetic.
• All Work vs. All Play: Ross is All Work versus Joey and Chandler as All Play. Especially seen in "The One with the Inappropriate Sister", where Ross and Chandler are bickering about what Joey should do (Ross wants him to write a script for his career, while Chandler wants him to play a new self-invented game called Fireball).
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Fashionable, sophisticated Rachel is the beauty; organized, sensible Monica is the brains; and surprisingly badass, former street kid Phoebe is the brawn.
• Best Friends-in-Law:
  • Ross witnesses Chandler having sex with his sister Monica and angrily declares "I can't believe it, my best friend and my sister!" When Chandler and Monica explain that they're in a serious relationship and in love and not just fooling around, Ross repeats it, only this time overjoyed. Of course, he was taking anti-rage drugs at the time.
  • When Ross and Rachel start dating, Monica almost name-drops the trope, saying she and Rachel will be "friends-in-law". Although apparently this trope has happened when Ross and Rachel marry again after the series.
• Bromantic Foil: Joey, Ross and Chandler all provide foils to each other in different ways (being an Ensemble Cast none of them are technically The Hero). Joey is The Casanova while Chandler and Ross are Allegedly Dateless. Ross is uptight while Joey and Chandler are relaxed. Chandler is Blue Oni to Ross and Joey's Red Oni. Ross and Joey contrast the most but both interact with Chandler, who falls roughly in the middle, more than each other.
• Butt-Monkey: Except for Phoebe (usually), all of them have their moments. Although the three guys get ridiculed much more often than the girls, Rachel or Monica often get the short end of the stick. Not even Phoebe is completely immune to this, see her subplot in "The One Where They're Up All Night".
• Ensemble Cast: The show famously has six main characters. All six main characters appear in every single episode, with (usually) equally divided-up screen time and the cast themselves insisted they be paid the same amount and each be concealable for Lead Role award nominations. At one point, they even had a chart marking the number of lines and jokes each cast member got, to make sure it was even. The actors also insisted that they all receive the same pay, making the women some of the highest paid in Hollywood.
• Foil: All of the characters bounce off each other in various ways as their personalities conflict. Ross and Phoebe, for example, with his bookish love of science and her off-beat mysticism, or Joey and Chandler being manchildren contrasted with Monica's control freak tidiness. The only time we really see a dedicated foil relationship, it's with two unconventional trios: Rachel, Joey, and Phoebe vs Monica, Ross, and Chandler as the latter have decent money thanks to their work as cook, museum paleontologist, and ... whatever Chandler does and the former don't as a waitress, a struggling actor, and a masseuse/unpaid freelance guitarist.
• Freudian Trio:
  • The girls: unpredictable Phoebe is the id, Control Freak Monica the superego, and Plucky Girl Rachel the ego.
  • The guys: dumb, impulsive and promiscuous Joey is the id, serious and hard-working Ross the superego, and snarky but fun-loving Chandler the ego.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Although it varies throughout the seasons, the pairing with the least interactions and storylines together are generally Ross/Phoebe, Joey/Monica, Chandler/Rachel, and Chandler/Phoebe.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The Gang consists of three guys and three girls.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • Chandler and Joey. Roommates who do everything together, up to and including buying joint furniture and raising their chick and duck. Season 2 even has a 'break up' story. While Joey is quite happy when Chandler marries Monica (with whom Joey has a Like Brother and Sister relationship with), he's upset when they announce that they're moving away... until Chandler and Monica show him his 'Joey Room' at their house.
  • Rachel and Monica have been best friends their whole lives, Monica is Rachel's main support to face the 'real world' in early seasons and they're both thrilled at the idea of becoming sisters if Rachel marries Ross. In one episode, when choosing a girl to marry, they both confirm they'd pick each other over Phoebe.
  • Ross and Chandler during their college years. By the time the shows starts, Ross' place has been taken by Joey (though Chandler calls both of them his best friend), but it's clear they were very close early on, including making life-long pacts and spending holidays together. By the end of the series, the three guys are more-or-less a Heterosexual Life-Partners unit, with Chandler in the center.
• Honorary Uncle: Everyone but Monica as she's Ross' sister.
  • Rachel and Phoebe have been referred to as Ben's "aunts". Chandler is officially the boy's godfather and Joey believes he is too (he isn't, but Ross doesn't have the heart to correct him).
  • Rachel refers to Joey as Emma's uncle while trying to convince him to give her his toy penguin. By the time Emma's born, Chandler and Monica are already married so he's no longer "honorary".
• Idiot Ball: Ross, Monica, and Chandler are all usually pretty darn smart, but randomly become idiots for an episode to keep the plot moving. Usually overlaps with Comically Missing the Point.
• Insane Troll Logic: One of the gang's leading traits (but most common with Phoebe). Really, whenever there's an argument or disagreement in the friend group, someone's going to use unbelievably flawed logic and settle it.
• It's All About Me: All of them can be very self-involved, some of them more than others depending on the episode. Chandler and Phoebe are less obvious than the others but they still fit this trope, especially Phoebe who, despite her Granola Girl act, is not a better person than her friends. However, their selfishness is Played for Laughs and all six are also shown to be caring friends most of the time.
• Jerkass Ball: They will all frequently become jerks briefly to fuel the plot, before going back to their normal selves.
  • Ross and Rachel, during their never-ending Will They or Won't They? saga, often terribly mistreat each other or the other's new boyfriend/girlfriend, but go back to their normal selves afterwards.
  • Joey, whenever Chandler does something even mildly wrong (more in the earlier seasons).
  • Chandler, whenever Monica briefly associates with another guy (once they get together).
  • Monica; when her obsessiveness and Control Freak nature are shown, it's almost always so that she can temporarily be a jerk. (Almost entirely in later seasons).
  • Phoebe probably has the worst of it. Her role as The Gadfly means that she has to be the one to remind the viewers that Chandler and Ross share the role of the Butt-Monkey (mostly in later seasons).
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • Joey and Monica in later seasons after Monica gets together with Chandler, who Joey considers his "brother". Monica feeds Joey for years, they include a "Joey Room" in their new house, and frequently act as his older siblings.
  • To a lesser degree, Rachel/Chandler and Phoebe/Chandler, though they may be too much of The Friends Who Never Hang to count.
• Limited Social Circle: Probably the most obvious example; the six friends barely seem to know anybody other than each other, their families, and their Girl of the Week (or Boy of the Week). And ironically, there are always a lot of people (in the background) at their parties. A bit strange since the friends don't seem to hang out with anyone but each other. This gets lampshaded in "TOW Rachel's Sister" when Jill knocks on the door of Rachel and Monica's apartment. The gang all stare at the door in confusion, and Phoebe actually counts the six of them as if she's trying to work out who could be outside.
• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • The three male leads: Joey (nice, charming Manchild), Chandler (mean, the snarkiest member of the ensemble), Ross (in-between, generally friendly but very neurotic).
  • The three female leads: Phoebe (nice, the friendliest of the three females), Monica (mean, the unofficial "mom" in the ensemble), Rachel (in-between, a former Spoiled Brat that becomes nicer thanks to Character Development). In the later seasons, shifts to Rachel as the nice one, she's easy-going to the point of being describe as a pushover, Phoebe as the mean one, she often mocks her friends and acts superior to them, and Monica as the in-between, being generous and kind but also very controlling.
• Parental Issues:
  • Phoebe's father ran off, her mother killed herself and she lived on the street, seeking refuge in Cloudcuckoolander tendencies to deal with it.
  • The Geller's favored Ross over Monica, producing an Insufferable Genius son with an inflated but fragile ego and Control Freak daughter determined to be perfect at everything. Ross's wife revealed herself to be a lesbian after their marriage and divorced him turning him into a controlling and paranoid Crazy Jealous Guy with several future girlfriends like Rachel, Emily and Elizabeth. Both siblings end up being insecure, competitive and neurotic perfectionists as adults.
  • Chandler's parents had a horrible divorce and paid more attention to their sex games than him. Consequently, he's terrified of commitment and uses humour to hide his deep insecurity and self-loathing.
  • Rachel grew up in a family of snobbish Jerkasses, and was so dependent on them that in early seasons she was incapable of coping in the real world without help. She later had a hard time dealing with her parents's divorce.
  • Joey's parents had a poor marriage, with his mother enjoying her father cheating on her.
  • Interestingly as the series continued a lot of the story arcs are about them overcoming their issues. Phoebe reconnects with her family, becomes more grounded and builds a successful relationship rather than jumping from guy to guy. Monica and Chandler fall in love and find in each other the support their parents never gave them. Ross gradually gets over his divorces, Rachel learns how to be independent, and Joey starts considering commitment.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Phoebe and Joey. They playfully flirt, they have a softness for each other (often both of them picking the other over the rest of the group), they have a lot of Ship Tease, including at least four kisses, yet they have never dated (or had sex) in all ten years, and aside from their jokes about being a possible couple in the future, it was clear that they just wanted to be friends, and nothing more.
• Sanity Ball: Yet another ball. In the first few episodes, Monica was firmly the 'sane' one, but once her more neurotic sides were shown, the role of the Only Sane Man was passed between all six characters depending on the episode (doubling as a Smart Ball in the case of Phoebe and Joey).
• Slapstick: Both Rachel and Monica get knocked down a few times, including colliding into each other rollerskating and Phoebe dragging them both around by the ears.
  • Monica's moments include hitting her eye and wearing a patch, getting her hair caught in a shower curtain, wearing agony-inducing boots, falling on the floor when Joey pulls her down by her jacket, tripping and falling down the stairs at the end of "The One with the Baby Shower" and getting stuck in a bean bag chair during her "fat days."
  • Rachel's moments include tripping and biting her lip when trying to seduce Joshua, and all of her friends tackling her when she has an eye infection.
• Town Girls: Rachel is a spoiled rich girl who works in the fashion industry (femme), Monica is bossy, Hot-Blooded and the most athletic of the girls (butch), and Phoebe is a very naïve Granola Girl who can also be very tough (neither).
• True Companions: Both in the show and in Real Life. The show was described by one critic as a show about a bunch of young adults finding a replacement family for their own dysfunctional ones. And unlike most shows, even though they have some disagreements, there's no thing such as The Friend Nobody Likes in their group, as they are all very close. As stated above, many of the lead actors retained friendships or close ties with their co-stars even after moving on to other projects.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Phoebe with Ross and Chandler, especially in later seasons. But while Ross seems to enjoy their squabbling, Chandler - despite being the Deadpan Snarker - rarely bites back, hinting he's not that comfortable with her remarks.
• World of Snark: Although Chandler is known as the Deadpan Snarker of the gang, the rest of the characters (apart from maybe Joey) would be extremely snarky on any other show. It's just hard to notice because 90% of his dialogue is snark, while everyone else only manages a weak 70%.

Rachel

Rachel Karen Green

"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

Played By: Jennifer Aniston ^{Other Languages} Patricia Acevedo (Latin-American Spanish), Shinobu Adachi (Japan), Élida L'Astorina and Cássia Bisceglia (Brazilian Portuguese)

"It's like, all of my life, everyone has always told me, 'You're a shoe! You're a shoe, you're a shoe, you're a shoe!'. And today I just stopped and I said, 'What if I don't wanna be a shoe? What if I wanna be a— a purse, y'know? Or a— or a hat!"

Spoiled, naïve Rachel enters the series in the first episode in her wedding dress, running away from her own big day. She moves in with Monica, gets a menial job serving coffee, soon learns a little bit more about grown-up life and ends up dating Ross off and on (and off and on and off and on and...).

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• '90s Hair: Her haircut from the first two seasons became one of the defining hairstyles of the 1990s.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders: Rachel claimed that she had never failed to score when wearing her cheerleader uniform, leading to her donning it at a party in a desperate attempt to win the attention of Joshua in "The One with the Fake Party". It ends with her falling down and biting her lip. That said, it still works.
• Ambiguously Jewish: She's never said to be Jewish on the show and she celebrates Christmas. On the other hand, she fits the Jewish American Princess stereotype, has a Jewish-sounding name and uses the Yiddish word "bubbe" referring to her grandmother. When Phoebe is writing a holiday song, she tries the line "spin the dreidel, Rachel"; Rachel's only objection is that this doesn't rhyme. Years later, both David Crane and Marta Kauffman said they wrote her as Jewish.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Ross, after their breakup in season 3. Also with her co-worker Gavin in season 9, although he only appears in three episodes.
• Berserk Button:
  • Don't tell her that she and Ross were on a break. On the other hand, don't tell Ross that they weren't on a break.
  • Don't mess about on any sailing boat Rachel's on. She's inherited her father's intolerance for not respecting the dangers of being at sea.
• Better as Friends: With Joey, after they briefly attempt to date late in the series. After their first date, they realize they can't have a sexual relationship because they are too close as friends.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • The Veronica to Julie's Betty for Ross' Archie.
  • The Betty to Bonnie's Veronica also for Ross' Archie.
• Big Sister Instinct: Rachel loves her sisters dearly, but there are times where they test her patience, especially when they drag in their niece and future brother-in-law.
• Book Dumb: She doesn't know the plot of Wuthering Heights or who was the enemy in World War I (though neither did some of the others). She even actually believes Phoebe when she sarcastically says that the plot of Jane Eyre involves cyborgs. She didn't seem to have any trouble with Little Women though.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Happens to her often when she likes someone. With Ross in season 2 (subverted in the first episode of season 5), with Joshua in season 4, and with Joey in season 9.
• Catchphrase: Her long drawn-out Oh, Crap! expression of "Nooooo..."
• Character Development: While Rachel started out as spoiled, selfish and somewhat incompetent, she eventually became a successful, independent career woman and a mother.
• Character Tic: Whenever she comes up with a lie, Rachel tends to swipe her hair.
• Childhood Friends: She and Monica grew up together. While they drifted apart during their college years, they become best friends again during in their mid twenties when Rachel moves in with Monica and Rachel "grows up" with her more practical friend.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She easily gets jealous whenever Ross gets a new girlfriend (especially Julie and Bonnie) and sometimes she even tries to ruin their relationship or antagonize Ross' new girlfriend. In fact, she doesn't like it whenever the person she has a crush on is close with another woman. She later displays the same attitude towards Charlie, Joey's new girlfriend, after Rachel falls for him.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To both her sisters. They mostly appear to be spoiled and clueless, so the post-Character Development Rachel can be the mature one.
• Cool Aunt: While not his actual Aunt, Rachel is delighted when Ross' son, Ben, starts calling her his 'Fun Aunt Rachel' after she teaches him some practical jokes, much to Ross' chagrin.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Her attempt at making a dessert from a cookbook with two pages glued together results in the trope namer for It Tastes Like Feet.
• Cruel Cheerleader: Formerly. She's fairly likable as an adult, but by all accounts, she was an Alpha Bitch during her teen years.
• Daddy's Girl: Dr. Green's favorite daughter and the one he is the most proud of. She was very glad to learn that.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: While they managed to hit it off early in the series after a while her father really doesn't like Ross and the feeling is mutual.
• Daytime Drama Queen: She loves soap operas and is often seen watching them. After Joey gets cast on Days of Our Lives several plots involve him bringing her to set or introducing her to castmates and getting embarrassed when she turns into a Fangirl around them.
• The Ditz: She starts out as one as she was clueless concerning any real-life skills, but thanks to Character Development, she becomes a lot more sensible and capable.
• Drives Like Crazy: She's a terrible driver, and this is why she's the only one whom Monica doesn't let drive the Porsche.
• Dude Magnet: She was one in high school and she's still one as an adult.
  • Aside from all her suitors and/or boyfriends, both Gunther and Ross (and later Joey) remain madly in love with her throughout the show's duration.
  • When Chandler tries to set her up with one of his co-workers, after showing Rachel's picture, at least 20 guys were throwing themselves at Chandler and giving him presents to get a chance to date her.
  • When Joey hosts a party for his soap opera co-stars, she ends up with a huge pile of tissues, which were all the guys who gave her their phone numbers.
• Dumbass No More: Starts out as being the most naïve and arguably least intelligent of the six, but by the second season, is really just Book Dumb and is actually very quick-witted and clever, often deceiving other characters (for good or for bad) with great success.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Her college friend, played by Winona Ryder, is still in love with her.
• Extreme Doormat: An Informed Attribute of the episode "The One with the Joke", in which Rachel is accused of being a "pushover" who gets intimidated easily. Usually averted, because she's almost never portrayed as this (quite the opposite, especially when it comes to Ross). She's less brash and assertive than Monica and Phoebe, but not to the point of being a doormat.
• Eye Scream: Rachel's phobia. An episode involving Rachel with an eye infection reveals Rachel freaks out every time someone gets close to touching an eye.
• Fangirl: Of soap operas; Joey tells her that he hides his cast parties from her because of this trope, since she fawns over all the actors. When she finds out Cecilia Monroe, one of her favourite actresses, slept with Joey, she goes screaming across the hall to get Monica so they can Squee at her together.
• The Fashionista: She quits her job as a waitress in season 3 to pursue a career in fashion. She eventually becomes an executive at Ralph Lauren.
• First Girl Wins: Of course. She is Ross' first love and the one who ends up with him at the end.
• Genius Ditz: She's a bit catty, but handy with working a boat.
• Girly Bruiser: Surprisingly. Rachel is not very athletic and has been described as a pushover, yet in "The One with the Girl Who Hits Joey", she has no problem beating up Joey's Pintsized Powerhouse girlfriend.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She is a spoiled rich fashionista stereotype, but being Joey's roommate in later seasons brings out the The Lad-ette side of her. She starts having fun with him, by dropping food on the floor, throwing huge spitballs at the entertainment center, or sitting in the reclining chairs while drinking beer (the things Joey used to do with Chandler). In one episode, Phoebe gives Joey drums, hoping this would annoy Rachel, but it doesn't work because Joey and Rachel start playing drums together. The same episode also reveals Rachel loves tarantulas and used to have one as a kid.
• Global Ignorance: Starting in Season 8, she is shown to have terrible geography skills such as not knowing the capital of Sweden even right after Phoebe told her, and Ross even says she doesn't know where any countries are.
• Gold Digger: In her back story. Subverted as she couldn't bring herself to marry Barry and left him at the altar in the pilot episode. She does, however, encourage Monica to date billionaire Pete Becker despite not loving him and gets very excited about having a 'money-themed' wedding.
• Guilty Pleasures: She claims her favorite movie is Dangerous Liaisons - it's actually Weekend at Bernie's. She also keeps steamy romance novels hidden under the pillow for late-night reading.
• Has a Type: Rachel has a thing for doctors in the earliest seasons. The show brings up and then hastily backs away from the revelation that her father is a doctor. In season 9, she also starts being attracted to Joey, after she has a dream about him acting as Dr. Drake Ramoray. And in "The One The Could Have Been" she ends up developing feelings for Joey's character Dr. Drake Ramoray. Eventually, she ends up with Ross, who's Not That Kind of Doctor.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Monica, who has been her best friend since childhood. Becomes this with Phoebe too - mostly in later seasons where they spend more time together.
• Hypocrite:
  • She becomes upset upon learning that Ross spread a rumor about her being a hermaphrodite during high school (which spread to other high schools in the area) and claims that she would never do a thing like that to him. Monica reminds her that she did spread a rumor about him (specifically about him hooking up with the older librarian). She claims what Ross did was worse because at least her rumor turned out to be true.
  • Rachel declines pursuing Ross because he's in the middle of a divorce, claiming she doesn't go for divorced guys — Monica points out that she almost crashed Ross' wedding to tell him she still loved him.
  • In "The One That Could Have Been", which takes place in an alternate timeline, she complains about men not respecting wedding vows after her husband cheats on her with the dog walker. Ross quickly points out that she just spent the night at Joey's with the intention of sleeping with him, which she blows off.
  • She asks Ross to take Emily to the opera, saying that she thought that her and Ross have both moved on. When she finds out that Ross and Emily had a good time and have started dating, she acts jealous and annoyed.
• I Am Not My Father: Part of the reason she fights so hard to build her career is because she's determined not to end up like her mother: a Rich Bitch who's financially dependent on others and trapped in a loveless marriage.
• Informed Attractiveness: Like Monica and Phoebe, she tends to get hyped up as absolutely gorgeous.
• Inherently Attractive Profession:
  • Rachel's obsession with doctors was something of a Running Gag.
  • Paul Stevens (played by Bruce Willis) is an older guy who dates Rachel. She's delighted that he's a successful lawyer.
• In-Series Nickname: Rach.
• It's All About Me: She's pretty self-absorbed. Examples include trying to crash Ross' wedding and earlier that season, she forced Ross to forgo his plans to have a private farewell dinner with Emily to throw a going-away party "for Emily" when really, it's just so she can win the affections of Joshua when she claimed they were throwing the party to get some one-on-one time with him.
• It Tastes Like Feet: In the incident when she makes a half Trifle, half Shepherd's pie in "The One Where Ross Got High", Ross claims her resultant dish "tastes like feet".
• Jerkass Has a Point: Invoked In-universe. When she was nine months pregnant and a much bigger Jerkass, she tells Ross not to call her “mommy” and that it’s bad enough he still calls his actual mother that; to which, Monica agrees with when Ross turned to her for support.
  • Also she’s not wrong when she says that Ross has unresolved feelings for her as he says her name at the altar when he’s getting married to Emily.
  • Despite her repeated refusal to accept her part in her and Ross' relationship falling apart in the first place, at least one point when called out on it, she does make the fair retort that if Ross were in her shoes, he'd react just as badly. Given Ross has repeatedly proved to be just as petty, self-absorbed and irrational as Rachel when pressed, it's not hard to believe, especially after he visibly struggled to form a counterargument when Rachel directly confronted him on this point.
• Karma Houdini:
  • During the misunderstanding between her, Joey and Ross when she thought Joey proposed to her, Ross fully blames Joey instead of her because she had his (Ross') baby.
  • She once stole Monica's car and drove it without a license. When she was caught by traffic police for driving above the speed limit, she managed to get away with it by flirting. Ross later attempts to flirt when pulled over for driving too slow and is humiliated when it fails and he's unable to talk his way out.
• The Kirk: Of the women. She's The Kirk to Phoebe's The McCoy and Monica's The Spock.
• Lethal Chef: Due to some pages of a cookbook sticking together, she bakes a concoction that is a half trifle and half shepard's pie.
• Longest Pregnancy Ever: Lasting from May 2001 to August 2002. And then evoked in-verse, as she's two weeks overdue, and spends nearly a full 24 consecutive hours in labor.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: A former classmate mentions just how horrible she was in high school, but she was friends with the unpopular, overweight Monica. She still retains some traits of this as an adult.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Although it wasn't really love, just attraction, Rachel makes a total fool of herself when she has a crush on Joshua in season 4.
• Love Makes You Evil: Downplayed. Every time she sees Ross with a new girlfriend, she will go to great lengths to make sure their relationship ends on a sour note. And not just Ross; she does it to every guy she develops a crush on, including Joey.
• Love Revelation Epiphany: With Ross, who she only began to fall in love with after hearing secondhand that he loved her when Chandler lets the then-secret slip. When she goes to meet him at the airport upon his return from China, she comes face-to-face with his new girlfriend.
• Mama Bear: When she hears Emma crying and realizes someone is in her room near Emma, not realizing it is Joey, she immediately threatens the person to get away from the crib. She also started a Cat Fight with her sister after Amy said Emma wasn't cute.
• Maternally Challenged: When she and Ross are dating she has no idea how to even hold baby Ben, and needs Monica's help to keep him entertained while babysitting. At her baby shower in season eight she doesn't know what any of the baby items she's being given are, and she's three weeks away from her due date. She explains to her mother that she focused all her research on pregnancy and forgot to study what happens after the baby arrives. Ross assures her that every first-time parent has to go through this and that he can catch her up. After Emma is born she makes some mistakes, like waking her up from a nap instead of letting her sleep, but seems to have got the hang of parenthood.
• Ms. Fanservice: In early seasons, her nipples are visible through her shirt and she gets naked in the apartment the night before she and Ross go to Las Vegas (which Ross mistakes for a come-on), as well as being accidentally interrupted in the shower by Chandler. Her "New Dress" in the appropriately-titled episode is basically her very clad nightie.
• My Beloved Smother: After Emma is born, she calls her doctor so often that he eventually drops her as a client. She then becomes worried Ross is sick with the one illness Emma has not been vaccinated for, rubella (despite clearly not knowing what rubella actually is).
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: She does this when Joey tries hitting on Jill.
• Naïve Newcomer: In season 1.
  Monica: Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You're going to love it.
• Never My Fault: She blamed Ross for everything that went wrong in their relationship. She even tried to get him to sign a document that said so. She becomes such a Smug Snake about it that Ross snaps and leaves her.
  Ross: [snaps] And for the record, it took two people to break up this relationship!
  Rachel: [outraged] Yeah! You, and that girl from the copy place!
• Not a Morning Person:
  • When she was stuck in Joey's bedroom during the brief apartment switch in season 4, she gets more than a little annoyed with the singing guy in the next building over waking her up every morning by loudly and enthusiastically singing. Needless to say, when Joey returned at the end of the episode, he joined in the singing as well and comments that he "loves that guy".
  • The apartment switch itself was the culmination of an Escalating War that started with Rachel being woken up a 6 am by the Chick crowing at the sun. Lampshaded by Monica when Rachel storms across the hall to yell at the guys for the noise.
    Monica: Boy, you are really not a morning person—
    Rachel: [through gritted teeth] BACK OFF!
• Oblivious to Love: She often doesn't realize it when men are in love with her, until they tell her. It happens with Ross in season 1, with Joey in season 8 and with Gunther for the entire show until the last episode when he reveals his feelings to her.
• One-Note Cook: In an episode of season 3 where, despite the others' doubts, the brownies she makes receive no complaints (and even then, the doubts only came after Phoebe quickly spit hers out, which only came from a painful toothache). The same can't be said for the rest of her cooking attempts.
• Picked Last: When the gang play touch football she's the last one chosen. As she points out to Ross he didn't "pick" her, he just got stuck with her. In "TOW the Lottery", Joey tells her that if he wins he'll buy the Knicks and put her on the team.
  Rachel: You'd pick me? I never get picked!
• Plastic Bitch: It's revealed that she had a nose job when she was a superficial and spoiled teenager.
• Playing Hard to Get: Rachel plays hard to get with Joshua and with Danny. When Danny misinterprets this and introduces her to one of his friends, she thinks he's playing hard to get.
• Plucky Girl: Thanks to her determination, she becomes a successful career woman.
• Runaway Bride: Rachel ran away from her wedding in the pilot. This was the first event in the series and the cause of many problems for her, so it's basically the 'setup' for Rachel's character. It was later revealed that her groom was already cheating on her and an alternate universe episode showed that had she actually married him, the marriage would have been miserable and eventually collapsed due to his infidelity.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: She finds out about Chandler and Monica's Secret Relationship when she accidentally overhears them talking on the phone. The couple have no idea she knows until Joey accidentally tells them a few episodes later.
• Selective Obliviousness: For Ross' feelings, and later hers.
• Sexy Sweater Girl: Not all the time (although this was The '90s), but enough that it's one of the things Monica mentions to make fun of her.
  Monica: [mocking] Hi, I'm Rachel, is my sweater too tight? No? Oh, I'd better wash it and shrink it!
• Spoiled Brat: In her back story, as she was spoiled by her father for most of her life, and has shades of it as an adult before Character Development, because she's used to getting everything she wants.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly Girl to Monica's Tomboy. Monica is a mild version of tomboy since she loves cleaning and cooking, but personality-wise, she's domineering, loud and hot-tempered and has a Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy relationship with Chandler. She also likes sports, including football, and is the most strong and athletic of the six friends, along with Joey. Rachel, on the other hand, is sweet, ditzy, interested in fashion and shopping, and unlike Monica, she's bad at sports.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the pilot, she's a spoiled rich girl who's never had a job or paid any bills. By the end of the show, she's become quite successful in her chosen profession, and is a financially stable single mother.
  Rachel's sister: Daddy told me to go learn from the only daughter he's actually proud of.
  Rachel: [turning to Ross] Did you hear that? My dad's proud of me! [Beat] Right, not the point. [turning back]
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Mainly in her treatment toward Ross, as both Ross and Rachel become petty to each other after their second break-up and in the following seasons.
• Tsundere: Neatly summed up by Monica.
  Monica: I'm Rachel. I love Ross! I hate Ross! I love Ross! I hate Ross!
• Unknowingly in Love: Downplayed, since Rachel knew she loved Ross in the past, but when Ross was about to marry Emily, Rachel was genuinely surprised when Phoebe made her realize that she was still in love with him.
  Rachel: Why didn't you tell me?
  Phoebe: We thought you knew. It was so obvious. It would be like saying to Monica "Hey, you like things neat."
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo:
  • Ross and Rachel do this so many times it's unbelievable. S1: Ross —> Rachel. S2: Rachel —> Ross. S3: Ross —> Rachel then Rachel —> Ross. S4/5: Rachel —> Ross. S6: Ross —> Rachel. S8/9: They swap per episode. S10: Ross —> Rachel.
  • Later in the series, it happens with Joey. In season 8, Joey falls in love with Rachel, but she turns him down, and he falls out of it. In season 9, she's the one who has a crush on him when he's dating Charlie.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Ross. They would resolve it once, then something will go wrong, cue angry break-up, the UST will slowly build up again over time, over and over again.
• Upper-Class Twit: In earlier seasons, when she was still recovering from her spoiled upbringing, she was clueless concerning any real-life skills, but thanks to Character Development she became a lot more sensible and capable.
• Vocal Dissonance: She has a younger voice in the Japanese dub.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Gal: "You hear that, guys? My Dad's proud of me!"
• What Does She See in Him?: The salesman in "The One with the Cop" can't believe that a woman like Rachel used to date Ross.
• What the Hell, Hero?: During the flight to London, the guy sitting next to Rachel (played by Hugh Laurie) calls her a "horrible, horrible person" for attempting to ruin Ross and Emily's wedding and to further add insult to injury, he agrees that Ross and her were on a break.
• White Sheep: Though she's no saint, Rachel at least has several redeeming features compared to her parents and sisters, a lot of it coming from the Character Development she went through making it on her own over the course of the show. Lampshaded with her sister Jill, who was just as spoiled and vain as Rachel was in the beginning, she was similarly cut off by their father and told to go learn something from "the one daughter he's proud of."
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Has a childhood fear of swings because she had an incident at 4 where her hair got stuck in the swing chain and she hat to cut off her hair, making it uneven.
• Will They or Won't They?: Exaggerated, between her and Ross. It lasts almost the entire series. For reference, the Ross/Rachel UST was introduced in the first five minutes of the Pilot and lasts until the last five minutes of the finale, after ten years of Ship Tease. They don't fall into this trope only when they are actually dating, the second half of season 2 and the first half of season 3.
• Womanchild: Rachel has a childish need to be the center of attention, refuses to take responsibility for her own actions, and constantly whines to her friends about her personal problems. Not to mention everything she does to sabotage Ross's relationships and all the arguments she gets into with him. She also insists on playing high-school mind games with men she's interested in in an effort to maintain control over her love life.
• Yaoi Fangirl: In one episode, when she reveals that she had a sexual fantasy dream involving a threesome with Chandler and Joey, she notes that at some of the points, she was merely a spectator watching the two of them getting busy.

Monica

Monica E. Geller

"I KNOW!"

Played By: Courteney Cox ^{Other Languages}Yolanda Vidal (Latin-American Spanish), Sheila Dorfman, Tatiane Keplmair and Fernanda Bullara (Brazilian Portuguese)

Chandler: It's okay, you don't have to be the best at everything.

Monica: Oh my God! You don't know me at all!

The Team Mom of the gang, Monica can be somewhat neurotic and obsessive, particularly about tidiness, but puts it all to good use in her job as a chef and keeping the gang fed, organized, and on-track in their lives. She was fat in high school, which is still a source of shame for her and struggles with her parents' Parental Favoritism of Ross. She eventually falls in love with Chandler and the two build the stable relationship of the show.

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• '80s Hair: In the earlier seasons. Though it was one of the few styles (bangs) that managed to remain well into the mid-90's.
• Attention Whore: Often combined with her It's All About Me attitude in later seasons. However, it's mostly sympathetic since it likely stems from her childhood where her parents frequently ignored her and showered praise on Ross for every little thing he did.
  • Examples include when she gives a speech about her (and Chandler's) wedding.
    Monica: Okay, umm, I just wanna say that... I love you guys so so much and thank you for being here on my special night. [Chandler clears his throat]... our special night. I mean it just wouldn’t be your, our night, if you all weren't here to celebrate with me... us... Damnit!
    Chandler: It's okay, I want this to be your night too. [Raises his glass] To Monica.
    Monica: Awww, come on, wait, stop it... okay, to Monica!
  • Her Egocentric Team Naming in "The One with the Ball".
    Monica: Let's go, Team Monica!
    [murderous glares]
    Monica: Okay, we'll think of a name later.
• Berserk Button:
  • Mostly involving tidiness.
  • Anytime there's a competition, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
• Beta Couple: She and Chandler become this to main couple Ross and Rachel in the later seasons. However, they vary from the classic Beta couple mould as a lot of screen time is given to their developing relationship and they certainly face problems.
• Betty and Veronica: When Richard comes back in season 6 and still in love with her, she becomes The Archie to Chandler's Betty (her current and stable Love Interest) and Richard's Veronica (her troubled love from the past).
• Big Eater: She was shown to be like this as a child, most likely related to her numerous compulsive tendencies. Her parents were even once shown asking her to eat excess Thanksgiving leftovers when they ran out of space in the fridge and the show presented this as a typical request. Other examples were Ross going to get her a dozen Linzer Tortes as a snack, and her baking and eating dozens of cookies being a regular Friday night for her.
• Big "NO!": Gave one when she and Rachel lost the trivia contest.
• Boyish Short Hair: Her hair is at the shortest in season 4, even compared to the pilot. She grows her hair longer in later seasons again.
• Brainy Brunette: Being the mature Team Mom, she has more common sense than Rachel and Phoebe who are both fair-haired.
• Butt-Monkey: In the first couple of seasons, she was (along with Chandler) the one who the rest of the friends thought would never get married, and despite being the Team Mom, was viewed by the others as being too quirky and was often teased for it. Her parents give her a hard time about not being married, and not being Ross, pretty much whenever they can. This goes away pretty much entirely in the later seasons, though, if only to focus more on Chandler and Ross being this trope. And also to help express the other characters surprise at Chandler getting married—to Monica, no less
• Cannot Keep a Secret: At one point, Monica learns that Gary is gonna ask Phoebe to move in with him, and asks that she doesn't tell Phoebe. Monica manages to hold out for a full 25 seconds before blabbing.
• Catchphrase:
  • I KNOW!
  • Her hyper-chipper "OKAY!" when all gets resolved.
  • Her Big Nos are fairly epic.
• Childhood Friends: With Rachel, they grew up together. While they drifted apart during their college years, they become best friends again during in their mid twenties when Rachel moves in with Monica and Rachel "grows up" with her more practical friend.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: In one episode, she believes that Chandler is cheating on her with one of his co-workers.
• Competition Freak: Particularly from season 5 onwards, she's obsessed with winning and proving she's better than the others.
  Chandler: You know how competitive you get, and while I say it's cute, others disagree and I'm lying.
• Control Freak: Could easily be the Trope Codifier. Especially after Flanderization, she's a perfectionist who freaks out if something's slightly out of place.
• Cute Bruiser: Monica is the shortest of the main characters, but she's very strong and tough.
• Dark Horse Sibling: Zigzagged. She didn't start out this way with Ross having a doctorate, being the first of his friends to get married (to a great woman nonetheless), being a respected work of a museum, and getting papers published while she had a respectable if humble living. After the loss of her job, Monica slowly, but surely rebuilds her life and is the first of her friends to stay married, gets an amazing job at a high-end restaurant, and even moves into a nice house. While Ross ends up fine too, his path was more fluctuating and left behind a trail so embarrassing he's better off leaving the past in the past.
• Daddy's Girl: Although she resents her parents for apparently preferring Ross she actually has a very close relationship with her father, Jack Gellar, who refers to her as "his little Harmonica".
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Her parents dislike Chandler initially because they think he smoked pot (actually Ross did). They warm up to him though and thank him for 'taking on Monica'. They also disapprove of her relationship with Richard, not because they don't like him (he's their best friend), they just don't like him with their daughter.
• Determinator: Insanely loyal and stubborn, never get in the way when she's set her mind to something. Examples include losing something like half her body weight in a year to get revenge on her future husband, enduring horrible bullying to prove herself at her job and winning any game she plays through sheer willpower. This probably stems from her difficult childhood, where she was overshadowed by her older brother and frequently put down by her parents. To get anywhere, she had to work for it. Just getting past her mother's criticisms and emotional abuse belies her determination.
• Dude Magnet: Since losing weight, just as much as Rachel and Phoebe. Besides her three main love interests, she has multiple men hitting on her throughout the series, including Joey, Timothy Burke, Alan, Fun Bobby, Rachel's high school ex, a diplomatic translator and several one-off love interests. Her main issue is around finding a long-term relationship and not just flings, and she ultimately has fewer boyfriends than the other girls because she spends six seasons in a committed relationship with Chandler.
• Fat Best Friend: To Rachel, in their high school days. She was overweight, insecure, and lived in Rachel's shadow.
• Fat Comic Relief: Downplayed. The flashback and what could have been episodes do play off Monica's weight for laughs, like her parents assuming she'd finish off the leftovers and her getting stuck in a beanbag. But she is still the same character who is just more obsessed with food and isn't confident.
• Feminine Women Can Cook: Inverted. Monica is a professional chef, but she - especially post-Flanderization — is feisty, loud, competitive and downright domineering, especially with Chandler. By the last seasons, she was probably the least feminine of the girls. In "The One with Rachel's Sister", Monica bought a different set of wedding china than the ones Chandler picked out, because in her words, the ones Chandler picked out were "too feminine."
• The Finicky One: Obsessed with cleanliness, controlling over even the most simple of past times and known to fits of neurotics when the slightest thing is out of place.
• Flanderization: Her neatness, bossiness and competitiveness. Possibly justified as her job as a head chef is not only incredibly stressful but requires a headstrong personality.
• Formerly Fat: Former Trope Namer. Monica was famously very fat in her younger days and many jokes on the show revolve around this. Her "Fat Monica" version is often seen in flashback episodes.
• Girl Next Door: More so in early seasons, as she becomes bossier post-flanderization. She is down to earth, maternal, and The Heart of the group. She lives across the hall from Joey (who was originally going to be her love interest) and Chandler (her eventual boyfriend and husband).
• Go-Getter Girl: An adult version of a hard-working woman who strives to be perfect in every respect.
• Happily Married: To Chandler in the last three seasons. The universe puts them through a lot early on: a long-distance relationship, unemployment, and infertility, but they remain incredibly happy and adore each other. They're especially impressive given their significant emotional baggage that stacks the odds against them. Namely, Chandler's parent's terrible marriage and home life which caused his Commitment Issues, Monica's insecurity from Parental Neglect and their highly neurotic natures.
• The Heart: Ross even called her "the glue that holds the group together". She's Ross' sister, Rachel's friend since childhood, Chandler's Love Interest, Phoebe's former roommate who introduced her to her other friends, and Joey's mother figure, especially when it comes to food.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Rachel. They have been friends their whole lives who drifted apart during their college years. They become best friends again during in their mid-twenties when Rachel moves in with Monica and Rachel "grows up" with her more practical friend. With Phoebe too, them living in the same apartment before the start of series.
• Hot-Blooded: She shares this trait with her brother Ross, as they are both fierce, energetic, and passionate.
• Hypocrite: Called Ross immature for not trusting Rachel when Mark got involved even though she ran out on her wedding, but when Chandler was with the regional vice president (who was very attractive) she became incredibly jealous even though Chandler didn't show the slightest bit of attraction.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: A pretty common theme about her relationship with Chandler, as she could be pretty domineering with him, but was fiercely loyal the instant anyone else bothered him. Best seen while getting their photos for their wedding announcement and Chandler is failing miserably.
  Monica: This photo is supposed to say "Geller and Bing to be Married", not "Local Woman Saves Drowning Moron." [the photographer laughs] Hey, don't laugh at him. He's my drowning moron.
• I Am Not My Father: Or mother in her case. Determined not to end up like Judy.
• Informed Deformity: Fat Monica. From the way everybody on the show talks, you'd think she was a two ton blimp. She's notably larger than average, but not that big (mildly obese, at most).
• Informed Judaism: The Gellers' religious affiliation isn't clear until season 7, when Ross appears as the Holiday Armadillo, and then the only other mention is three seasons later, when Chandler has to remind Monica she can't be a minister because she's Jewish. Considering the care she gives to decorating the Christmas tree, we might not have known. The creators have said in the past that Jack Geller is Jewish, whilst Judy is not.
• Innocent Beta Bitch: She was this to Rachel when they were in high school. As seen in the flashbacks, Rachel was a spoiled cheerleader (and confirmed to be an Alpha Bitch by some old classmates), while Monica was her insecure and naive Fat Best Friend. However, in the present day, Monica has the more dominant personality of the two.
• Innocently Insensitive: Her perfectionist attitude can rub people the wrong way without meaning to:
  • She once got an offer to make an entire menu for a new restaurant and wanted to hire her more experienced coworker as a waitress over Rachel who needed the money more.
  • She feels uncomfortable letting Rachel and Chandler moving things they like into her apartment because it doesn't match the furniture even though it's their apartment too in the respective seasons
• In-Series Nickname: Mon.
• It's All About Me: Sometimes, including her response to Rachel saying her pregnancy isn't as big a deal as Monica's wedding "Of course not, nothing is!"; literally saying the wedding is all about her.
• Jerkass Ball: Grabs it in "The One with Phoebe's Wedding", where Phoebe gets justifiably tired of her control freaking the wedding rehearsal. She never says sorry, gloats when Phoebe freaks out at having to do everything on her own wedding day, and Phoebe has to beg her to come back.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Joey in later seasons. This is mainly because Monica gets together with Chandler, who Joey considers his "brother" and the trio form a mini-family within the True Companions. Monica feeds Joey for years, they include a "Joey Room" in their new house, and frequently act as his older sibling.
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: Seeks to avert this. Judy emotionally abuses her in the same way her grandmother abused Judy. As Monica's aware of this, adores children and is generally kind-hearted, it's implied she'll break the cycle.
• The Maiden Name Debate: When she and Chandler are engaged he asks if she's going to take his name. She immediately says no because "Bing is weird". In one episode Phoebe refers to her as "Geller hyphen Bing" implying she did change her name, but then when Phoebe gets married and asks how to do that Monica finally admits she didn't change her name. Chandler is disappointed for a few seconds before remembering that he never liked Bing anyway.
• Mama Bear: While not as pronounced as her general Team Mom behavior, she's very protective of the other girls, as well as Chandler, particularly after they become a couple.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Masculine Girl to Chandler's Feminine Boy. In one episode, Monica bought a different set of wedding china than the ones Chandler picked out, because in her words, the ones Chandler picked out were "too feminine."
• Ms. Fanservice: Perhaps more so than Rachel. She is seen in lingerie and seductive clothes very often.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: She has a pretty slender, wiry build in the present day but is frequently implied to be "freakishly strong" and underestimates her own strength. She's able to easily subdue a panicky Rachel while trying to put drops in her eyes, gives back massages that border on torture, and after a painful handshake with her, Phoebe comments that she's glad she's not Chandler. According to Ross, the only person in the group stronger than her is Joey.
• My Beloved Smother: When she gets caught up in the moment of her adopted son being born, she tells him that she's "gonna love [him] so much that no woman is ever gonna be good enough for [him]."
• Mysterious Middle Initial: Her middle name begins with an "E" but the audience never learns what it is. Apparently even Phoebe doesn't know Monica's middle name as she has to guess it when signing for a delivery.
• Neat Freak: She can't sleep after she willingly leaves her shoes in the living room in order to prove she's not as much of a Neat Freak as everybody thinks. Everybody's right, of course. Also, she vacuums her vacuum cleaner with a smaller one, and wishes for an even smaller one to clean the second.
• Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: Which shows up when she accompanies Phoebe to night school, where she convinces the teacher to give the students a test next week.
• Nice Girl: Despite her faults, she's genuinely kind-hearted.
• Only Sane Woman: While she has her flaws, she's clearly "the mature one" of the six, given that Rachel can be a naïve and self-centered Spoiled Brat, Ross is an eccentric dork, Chandler is a constant Deadpan Snarker prone to immature antics, Joey is a dimwitted Manchild and a gigantic Casanova, and Phoebe is... Phoebe.
• Parenting the Husband: In later seasons, she can treat Chandler like a child sometimes.
  Monica: I want to have a kid with you because I think you're going to be an amazing dad. At the fun parts and at the hard parts.
  Chandler: Can you picture me saying, "Go to your room! You're grounded!"
  Monica: Can you hear me say you're grounded?
  Chandler: You said that to me last week.
• The Perfectionist: Especially in later seasons when Flanderization set in, she's crazily obsessed with being perfect and always wants to take charge.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The smallest main character and yet still able to wrestle down her much larger brother and win.
• Plucky Girl: Not as much as Phoebe or Rachel, but she has her moments.
• The Reliable One: She's the go-to person for support, advice and comfort, the designated cook, and always up for menial tasks.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Monica is Hot-Blooded and energetic, while Chandler is a Deadpan Snarker.
• Second Love:
  • Specifically, the third serious love interest to Chandler, after Janice and Kathy.
  • She was also this to Richard. Much to her surprise, Monica finds out in one episode that she's the only woman Richard has slept with, after his first wife Barbara.
• Secret Relationship: With Chandler for almost an entire season. Justifications included that at the start, neither of them dreamed that their London dalliance could become anything more than that. Plus, after seeing all of the drama induced by Ross and Rachel's relationship, Monica and Chandler thought it best to tell no one. And the other characters found out one by one.
• Shipper on Deck: She supports Ross and Rachel obviously as they are her brother and her best friend, though her enthusiasm (as with most of the others) fades as the series and their on-off again relationship continues. She also ships Ross/Emily at one point.
• Sibling Rivalry: Sometimes with Ross. Apparently, they were much more competitive during their childhood, particularly over football.
• Single Girl Seeks Most Popular Guy: In high school, she always wanted to go out with Big Man on Campus Chip Matthews, who also used to date Rachel. She manages to date him many years later as an adult and realizes he was nothing special.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Monica dated the badass from her high school days and got to ride his motorcycle... but he hadn't ever grown out of that old persona and still lived with his parents, so she relished dumping him. Her first two serious boyfriends were Richard and Pete who both fit the "Nice Guy" stereotype pretty well. She ended up with her friend Chandler who was a nice guy too.
• Spirited Competitor: Monica is an intense competitor and wants to win, no matter how small or petty the challenge is. This applies to everything from sports to board games.
• The Spock: Of the women. She's The Spock to Rachel's The Kirk and Phoebe's The McCoy.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: A sibling example. She's stated to be "freakishly strong", while her brother Ross is weak but the smartest of the group, at least academically.
• Supreme Chef: Of course, she loves cooking and is a professional chef. She absolutely rules Thanksgiving amongst the group. Because Chandler refuses to eat any traditional Thanksgiving food because of his bad childhood memories, she started making him a small rotisserie chicken after they got married with no extra effort seen on her part.
• Team Chef: She's a professional chef, so it's no surprise that she's always the one to make the food when there's a celebration.
• Team Mom: The pilot episode alone has her calming Rachel's anxiety attack, comforting a depressed Ross, telling off Joey, restraining Phoebe's craziness and stopping Chandler from spying on her date. In later seasons, after she marries a much more mature Chandler, the pair act as Designated Parents for the gang, though he can still be goofy at times. Ironically, Monica is the second youngest of the group. Though it wouldn't be wise to call her that... as Chandler found out.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • Tomboy to Rachel's Girly Girl. Monica is a mild version of tomboy since she loves cleaning and cooking, but personality-wise, she's domineering, loud and hot-tempered and has a Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy relationship with Chandler. She also likes sports, including football, and is the most strong and athletic of the six friends, along with Joey. Rachel, on the other hand, is sweet, ditzy, interested in fashion and shopping, and unlike Monica, she's bad at sports.
  • Briefly to Janine in season 6. Janine, a dancer who likes girly things like flowers, complains Monica is 'too loud' and runs away when Monica challenges her to fight it out.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She loves cleaning and cooking, longs to have a family and is obsessed with weddings.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Her bossiness and obsessive-compulsive behavior gradually shot up to eleven in later seasons.
• Town Girls: The Hot-Blooded Butch to Phoebe's Granola Girl Neither and Rachel's The Fashionista Femme.
• Trademark Favorite Drink: Her go-to drink order is a scotch on the rocks with a twist. In the sixth season finale, Chandler works out that she was in Richard's apartment because there's a glass of that drink on a coaster on the coffee table.
• The Unfavorite: Often criticized by her mother, Judy, the same way Judy had been criticized by her own mother. Also, both parents favored Ross, which their dad tries to rectify (seemingly successfully, judging by Monica's reaction) by giving Monica his Porsche.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend:
  • Monica has shades of this concerning Chandler. Notable in this exchange when they're having photos taken.
    Monica: Chandler, what is the matter with your face? This picture's supposed to say "Geller and Bing to be married", not "Local woman saves drowning moron!"
    [The photographer laughs]
    Monica: Hey, don't laugh at him. He's my drowning moron.
  • On another occasion, she and Chandler were arguing with their neighbor Janine; things were pretty aggressive before, but it's when Janine insults Chandler that Monica cracks and gets physically violent.
    Janine: [to Chandler] You know, I know you’re talking, but all I hear is, "Blah. Blah. Blah-blah-blah."
    Monica: All right, you and me! Let’s go! Right now!
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: As a result of being The Unfavorite. A later episode has her father affirming that he's proud of her but we never get such a scene with her mother (who was the worse of the two). However, it's hinted Monica gets over Judy's behavior, as she's Happily Married and a very successful head chef and her mother's favoritism of Ross (with three divorces and two illegitimate children) seems pathetic rather than hurtful.
• What Does She See in Him?: After discovering Monica and Chandler are dating, Phoebe comments that "she could do better" and makes similar comments several times in later seasons. Played with as Chandler, despite his neuroses, is actually a great boyfriend and he and Monica are very happy together.
  Phoebe: David's here. He's just... he's so irresistible.
  Monica: Really? The scientist guy?
  Phoebe: Really? Chandler?
• Womanchild: Monica is the most mature of the friends, except on the few occasions where she becomes a Control Freak and the times where she gets into fights with Ross. Because of how competitive she is, she also often throws huge tantrums when things aren't going her away during any sort of game she plays against one of the others.
• Women Prefer Strong Men: Inverted. She specifically breaks up with Pete because he's obsessed with becoming the Ultimate Fighting Champion and tells Chandler straight up that she doesn't care how strong he is because she loves his inner strength instead.

Phoebe

Phoebe Buffay

"Smelly cat, smelly cat..."

Played By: Lisa Kudrow ^{Other Languages}Michèle Lituac (European French), Gisela Casillas and Rommy Mendoza (Latin-American Spanish), Sylvia Salusti and Letícia Quinto (Brazilian Portuguese)

"I remember when I first came to this city. I was fourteen. My mom had just killed herself and my step-dad was back in prison, and I got here, and I didn't know anybody... then I found aromatherapy. So I know exactly how you feel."

Phoebe is the group's Cloudcuckoolander Granola Girl who has a bit of a dark past: her biological mother left her and her sister with her biological father and adoptive mother, her biological father walked out on her, her adoptive mother died, her stepfather was sent to prison, and she spent some time on the street before finding a stable job (as a masseuse) and roommate (Monica), before eventually moving in with her grandmother. She plays the guitar (badly) and sings (badly) at Central Perk, and exhibits traits of The Pollyanna. Though a bit of a flake, she's a great deal more perceptive and savvy than she looks, due to having more life experience than the rest of the group combined.

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• Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "The One Where Rachel Goes Back to Work", Phoebe works as an extra in one of Joey's shows and after overcoming her stage fright, becomes overconfident and conceited to the point of even believing that Joey is threatened by her acting.
• Afraid of Needles: In one episode, she and Rachel decide to get tattoos, but Phoebe backs out at the last moment when she realizes that it's actually done with needles.
• Agent Mulder: Phoebe believes in auras, psychic powers, omens, reincarnation, ghosts and that trees and even objects have feelings.
• Ambiguous Criminal History: Part of her Mysterious Past, she is heavily implied to have been imprisoned as a teenager.
• Ambiguously Bi: She has dated many men but has also shown attraction to women a number of times, like Ross and Monica's cousin from the eponymous episode or even Rachel and Monica themselves. When she was presented with the hypothetical question of who she would rather have a relationship with between Rachel and Monica, she immediately blurted out "Rachel!" without taking time to think. She also said that Monica had "the breasts of a Greek goddess" with a longing look on her face. In "The One Where Chandler Takes A Bath", she explicitly tells Joey that she has had crushes on all her friends except Ross and Chandler.
• Badass Adorable: She may be lovable and quirky, but do not underestimate her street badass side. Phoebe is a totally tough girl when she wants to be.
• Betty and Veronica: The Archie to Mike's Betty (her current and stable love interest) and David's Veronica (the troubled love from the past), when both men are in love with her in season 9. She chooses Mike.
• Beware the Silly Ones: She may seem like a sweet Granola Girl with a kooky sense of humor, but she was tough enough to mug older boys when she was just a teen living on the street.
• Brutal Honesty: She can be quite rude and blunt to her friends.
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Ursula's Cain.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Especially when it comes to Monica's secrets.
  • In "The One with the Blackout", she tells Joey about Monica's crush on him when he was moving in (while Monica gestures at her to shut up).
  • In "The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies", she tells Richard that Monica has been with a lot of guys before him.
    Monica: Not a lot, Phoebe's kidding, Phoebe's crazy.
  • In "The One in Vegas", Monica didn't want to tell Chandler that she had lunch with Richard because it would have ruined their anniversary. But then Phoebe asks her in front of Chandler "So you told him about the Richard thing?"
  • In "The One with the Truth About London", she tells Chandler that Monica originally wanted to sleep with Joey in London, causing another argument between them.
  • In "The One with the Stripper", she talks about Monica's secret bachelorette party in front of Chandler.
• Catchphrase: "Oh no."
• Character Development: Though her changes were late in the series, Phoebe eventually decides that she needs to hunker down and be in a serious relationship instead of having one-night stands with random guys. This eventually leads Phoebe to getting married and becoming happy that she finally has something normal in her life.
• Characterization Marches On: She starts off as a sweet and well-meaning Cloudcuckoolander character. By the later seasons, she becomes a lot harsher and more selfish, especially to Ross and Chandler. Her high sex drive also wasn't really present in the first couple of seasons.
• Cloudcuckoolander: One of the most well-known examples for a mass-media audience. For instance, she doesn't believe in evolution or gravity, but she does believe in auras, ghosts and omens, and was convinced that her deceased mother's spirit returned in a cat.
  Phoebe: Phoebe Buffay. P as in Phoebe, H as in hoebe, O as in oebe, E as in ebe, B as in bee-bee and E as in... 'ello there, mate!
• Comically Missing the Point: Not as much as Joey, but she often doesn't understand things that are obvious to the others.
• Covert Pervert: Initially, when her "innocence" was more genuine. Then it became less covert and more just part of her character that she was kinky, frequently sharp-tongued and kind of mean.
• Cute Bruiser: Easily the best fighter of the girls (even more so than the supposedly strong Monica) and arguably of the entire group. In an episode, she even breaks Joey's nose (the toughest guy of the group). In "The One After the Super Bowl", she breaks off the Cat Fight between Rachel and Monica by grabbing their ears. She lived on the street, after all.
  Phoebe: Okay, now I'm gonna kick some ass!
• The Cutie: Mostly in early seasons: her quirky, cheerful, and naïve personality combined with Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold and The Pollyanna make her cute.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Her stepfather was sent to prison when she was young, her adopted mother was a drug dealer who killed herself, she ended up homeless when she was 14 which forced her to become a mugger and never graduate high school, she has an Ambiguous Criminal History which implies she went to prison or was at least arrested at one point, and casually mentions several traumatic events which add to her Expansion Pack Past.
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Phoebe's level of intelligence could vary greatly depending on the episode. Mostly, she could be a Cloudcuckoolander who, despite her oddness, was otherwise pretty functional. At other times, she could be elevated to being a slightly weird voice of reason or a full-blown Dumb Blonde.
  • Her level of "innocence" also varies. Sometimes she seems pure and naïve like a child, sometimes she's a friendly but tough girl with a slightly edgy streak, and other times, she's a snide and sexually aggressive Manipulative Bitch.
• The Ditz: She frequently comes off as a flaky airhead.
  Phoebe: I got a call at two in the morning, but all I could hear was, like, this high squeaky sound, so I thought, okay it's, like, a mouse or a possum. But then I realized, like, okay, where would a mouse or a possum get the money to make the phone call?
• Dreadful Musician: To some, but she's mostly more of a Dreadful Songwriter. Her lyrics are either terrifyingly banal (like "Smelly Cat") or terrifyingly tasteless (like a Christmas carol she wrote about her mom dying).
• Drives Like Crazy: "Hey, I didn't have my license taken away because I drive carefully. Haha."
• Dude Magnet: Like Rachel, she picks up numerous guys with ease.
• Dumb Blonde: To an extent, but she's more a "ditzy and naïve blonde" who likes to act silly. She's more streetwise than most of the other characters, despite her kooky behavior.
• Dysfunctional Family: A fierce competitor with Chandler, given her dad ran away, her mom killed herself, her twin sister hates her, her grandma was weird, and then she met a half-brother who married a much older teacher.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: She is the free spirit and fun-loving member of the group. Many men seem to find her attractive.
• Expansion Pack Past: Downplayed, but all her comments about her Mysterious Past reveal a complicated and tragic origin for Phoebe. She became homeless when she was 14 (despite being shown to have a close relationship with her grandmother and her sister Ursula apparently not ending up homeless) which led her to start mugging to survive, even mugging Ross at one point which they wouldn't discover until years after they met. She never attended high school or went to college, but picked up enough French and Italian to become pretty fluent and ended up living in Prague at one point. She also mentions getting hepatitis when a pimp spit in her mouth, being chased by an escaped mental patient when she was sixteen who wanted to kill her and was eventually shot by a friend of Phoebe's, implied she's been to prison or at least got arrested in "The One In Vegas, Part 2", learned boxing at a YMCA, and at one point stabbed a cop.
• Foil: In general, Phoebe tends to be the unconventional contrast to multiple members of the group as she's more free-spirited and honest in comparison to the other friends who tend to hide things as long as possible.
• The Gadfly: It's often difficult to discern whether or not her Cloud Cuckoolander moments are her being genuine or just messing with people.
• Giftedly Bad: With her songs. Despite her passion for playing guitar and singing, the lyrics of her songs are just as odd as she is.
• Good Bad Girl: She tends to reveal many unexpected sexual escapades at the most random times, until season 9 when she started dating Mike.
• Go-to Alias: She often uses the name Regina Phalange when she doesn't want to use her real name.
• Granola Girl: More in earlier seasons, where it was probably her most obvious personality trait. Slightly less so in later seasons when she ends up a little less hippy and a little more edgy.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Very downplayed. She has light blonde hair and a wide-eyed look on the world similar to a child's, but certainly isn't innocent.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Not often, but it comes up now and then. When she went to a charity event, her idea of helping the kids was to drain the bar so the kids wouldn't drink it.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Some of her humor derives from the fact that her sexual practices have no boundaries.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Monica and Rachel. Despite knowing them less than they know each other, she develops a strong friendship with both of them as the series progresses.
• Hidden Depths:
  • She spoke to Joey's grandmother in Italian. Even Phoebe was unaware of her skill.
  • She knows French... from learning it in a street corner with some other people, presumably.
  • She demonstrates her knowledge of wines when Rachel's father berates a waiter for serving the '74 Lafite instead of the '75, then storms off.
    Rachel: In case you didn't notice, that is a scary man.
    Phoebe: He's right, though. The '74 is absolute piss.
• Home Nudist: Has admitted to doing this while living alone.
  Phoebe: Why do you think it takes me so long to answer the door?
• Hypocrisy Nod: One episode has Phoebe receiving a fur coat, even though she's the first one of the six to be for animal rights, and despite her initial reluctance she quickly starts wearing it and loves it. Then she suddenly runs across a squirrel that's staring at her, leading her to admit she's gone against everything she stood for and throw the coat away.
• The Ingenue: Downplayed. She comes off as very naïve and Still Believes in Santa, at least until Joey reveals the truth to her. But she is not as pure as she seems (see Good Bad Girl) and has a mean streak.
• Insane Troll Logic: She thrives on this! For example, in "The One with the Cat", she tries to justify her belief that a stray cat is the reincarnated spirit of her mother by explaining that her guitar case is lined with orange felt. Her mom's favorite fish, meanwhile, was orange ruffy. Cats like fish. Soooooooooooo...
• In-Series Nickname: Pheebs, though she didn't get it for a while.
  Phoebe: [to Rachel] Oh, Pheebs.
  Rachel: Honey, that's your name.
  Phoebe: That's short for Phoebe? I thought that's just what we called each other.
• Jerkass to One: A downplayed example when it comes to Ross and Chandler. Joey is her favorite, she usually gets along with Monica and Rachel, but is a lot more harsh and critical to Ross and Chandler. With Ross it's zig-zagged, and while she can be rude to him, she's also supportive of his relationship with Rachel. Also, in the first four seasons, she's a relatively good friend to Chandler, but after he starts dating Monica, she becomes dismissive of him for some reason.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's far from a bad person and obviously loves her friends, but she definitely has a mean streak and can be downright bitchy and rude in later episodes.
• Large Ham: Sometimes. Helps she's enthusiastic and prone to yelling. In one episode, she and Ross go over the top when they read the lines of one of Joey' scripts.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Light Feminine (cheerful Manic Pixie Dream Girl who wears bright clothes) to Ursula's Dark Feminine (Femme Fatale who wears black).
• Like Brother and Sister: With Chandler in early episodes, being both the goofy, playful members of the group, they have fun with each other and often spend time together. Over time, this becomes the dynamic of Phoebe's friendship with Joey for the rest of the show, while she and Chandler turn into The Friends Who Never Hang.
• Likes Older Men:
  • Quite a few times. She has shown attraction to both Monica's dad in "The One Where Ross Got High" and Rachel's dad in "The One with the Stripper". In "The One with Joey's New Brain", she competes with Rachel over who gets to keep a phone who belonged to a young attractive guy, but when an elderly man later comes to claim the phone, she happily goes to dinner with him, claiming he's even more attractive than the young guy.
  • When she meets Richard for the first time, she compares him to James Bond, and is reduced to insensate giggles when he politely asks how she is.
  • In "The One Where Chandler Takes A Bath", she brings up Lee Majors (who was in his 60s at the time) as an example of a celebrity she finds attractive.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: She seems to act as this to the rest of the group, as well as in most of her relationships. Notably, the group occasionally finds her actions annoying or intrusive, and in the 10th season, Phoebe admits that she has never been in a relationship which lasted more than a month. Occasionally, being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl seems to actively work against her, such as the first time she was ready to move in with a man, and then broke up with him shortly after he impulsively shot a bird with his handgun. On another occasion, she ends a relationship because her boyfriend is even more of a Manic Pixie Dream Guy than she is, and she can't stand him.
• The McCoy: Of the women. She's The McCoy to Rachel's The Kirk and Monica's The Spock.
• Meta Girl: Not exactly the Only Sane Woman, but was always the one to point out the show's clichés, like the amount of gay jokes Chandler makes or the First-World Problems Rachel has with Ross.
• Mirror Character: To Ross, while also being a Foil. Both characters are a little more isolated from the friend dynamic; Monica and Rachel are childhood best friends and roommates, while Chandler and Joey are best friends and also roommates for half of the series which leaves Ross and Phoebe a little on the wayside since they live further away from the rest of the group. They're also portrayed as the characters with "quirkier" interests that the rest of the group doesn't care about (Phoebe in general, Ross with paleontology). In certain episodes, it's shown that Ross actually understands how Phoebe thinks, whereas Phoebe is the only one who appreciates Ross' musical pursuits (with the bagpipes and the keyboards).
• My Sister Is Off-Limits:
  • She's unhappy when Joey starts dating her twin sister Ursula, but in a twist on the trope, it's not Ursula she's worried about. Her concern is that when Ursula inevitably dumps Joey, he'll be so hurt he won't want to be friends with Phoebe anymore, as she'll remind him of Ursula.
  • When her younger half-brother gets engaged to his old elementary school teacher, she becomes a little concerned. She tries to "help him" by breaking her brother up with his fiancée. Unfortunately, the breakup leads to her brother becoming depressed.
• Mysterious Past: Ultimately her teenage years where she was homeless are a mystery, as is why she wasn't living with her grandmother or why Ursula seemingly never ended up homeless based on how she acquired things like their birth certificates and mother's suicide note. Her multiple comments and stories about her past have led her to develop a sort of Expansion Pack Past.
• Nice Girl: In earlier seasons, she is the nicest of the three girls, despite her oddity. She becomes a lot less nice by the end of the series, but still has her kind moments.
• The Not-Love Interest: To Joey, often hinting about potentially being together in a future. Besides some isolated kisses, they never actually dated, never had sex and in fact, Joey ends up introducing Phoebe to her husband to-be.
• Opposites Attract: With Mike. He's pretty normal and she is quirky.
• Parental Abandonment: Has lost more parents than most people have: her birth mother leaves, her biological father walked out on them, her adoptive mother died, and her adoptive mother's second husband was in jail... And, as the page quote reminds us, all this happened before she was 15.
• Past-Life Memories: She claims to remember losing her arm on Thanksgiving during the Civil War and again during World War I.
• Ping Pong Naïveté: Since she's frequently shown to be quite clever, quick-witted and Street Smart, you may think that all her moments of ditzy idiocy are just Obfuscating Stupidity.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Joey. They playfully flirt, they have a softness for each other (often both of them picking the other over the rest of the group), they have a lot of Ship Tease, including at least four kisses, yet they never dated (or had sex) in all ten years, and aside from their jokes about being a possible couple in the future, it was clear that they just wanted to be friends, but nothing more. They even keep a pact until Phoebe's wedding to Mike to get married if they are both still single when they're forty.^note Matt Leblanc and Lisa Kudrow had the idea that Joey and Phoebe should have had a secret friends with benefits relationship the entire time, but it was nixed by the producers.
• Playing the Victim Card: She occasionally uses her mother's suicide when she wants the others to feel bad for her, or to get out of trouble when she makes mistakes. The rest of the gang eventually wise up to this and call her out on it.
  Phoebe: Ohh, I lost my mom to suicide.
  Rachel: Okay no way, you cannot use that to get the cute guy and the last blueberry muffin.
  Phoebe: Did I use that already today? I'm sorry.
• The Pollyanna: Very cheerful and upbeat, despite her Dark and Troubled Past.
• Psychic Powers: Implied and Played for Laughs. During one pre-opening credits scene, everyone's thoughts are given voice-overs. Joey's thoughts are a random tune. Phoebe's thoughts ask "Who's singing?"
• Really Gets Around: Almost at Joey's level. She tends to reveal many unexpected sexual escapades at the most random times, until season 9 when she started dating Mike.
• Running Gag: "Regina Phalange." Even acts as a Chekhov's Gun so that Ross can say good-bye to Rachel in the season finale.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Energetic Girl to Mike's Savvy Guy.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • She is clearly a Ross/Rachel shipper. According to her, Ross is Rachel's "lobster" (the person you are supposed to be with the rest of your life). Even when they aren't dating she's always the first to believe that they have still feelings for each other (in season 6 and again in season 9) and she's also the one who drives Ross to the airport, to convince Rachel to stay, in the last episode. That said, though, she is also the one who (unsuccessfully) attempts to convince Rachel not to go to London to crash Ross' wedding to Emily and declare her love for him.
  • Inverted when it comes to Chandler/Monica. Possibly because she doesn't seem a big fan of Chandler in later seasons. She even tried to introduce Monica to her "soulmate" when she was already married to Chandler! This could be due to being a Green-Eyed Monster as she's realizing she wants a committed relationship and is jealous of how happy Monica and Chandler are together.
    Phoebe: [when she finds out that Chandler and Monica are together] I think it's great! ... For him. She might be able to do better.
• Soapbox Sadie: Often rails against cruelty to animals and preservation of nature but she sometimes falls short.
• Smarter Than You Look: She acts like a ditz, but is definitely not stupid. She's Street Smart and can speak two foreign languages.
• Still Believes in Santa: Phoebe (the kookiest of the titular friends) and Joey get into a debate about whether completely selfless good deeds exist or not, with Joey taking the side of them not existing. While making his point, he mentions "the deal with Santa Claus". Later, Phoebe follows up on that remark to make sure Joey meant that Santa Claus doesn't exist. After getting the confirmation, Phoebe spends a few moments staring wide-eyed into space.
• Street Smart: She is not well educated and lacks knowledge in other areas, but she spent some of her childhood on the street and gained a lot of knowledge from it.
• Street Urchin: From the age of 14.
• Suckiness Is Painful: Phoebe is a terrible guitar player and singer, mostly for the comedy, but also because Kudrow hated learning to play the guitar and got out of it by insisting that because Phoebe is supposed to suck, it's okay if she only knows two and a half chords.
• The Tease: Very flirtatious, often just for the fun of it. She flirts with Joey (who is just as flirty as her, to the point of Ship Tease), and also with Chandler in later seasons (oddly, she never did it before he started dating Monica).
• Telepathy: At one point when the everyone's thoughts are heard, she shows the ability to hear Joey singing in his head.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Towards the end, she can be very mean to both Chandler and Ross.
• Town Girls: The Neither to Rachel's Femme and Monica's Butch.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Ross and Chandler, especially in later seasons. But while Ross seems to enjoy their squabbling, Chandler - despite being the Deadpan Snarker - rarely bites back, hinting he's not that comfortable with her remarks.
• Weird Aside: She often begins a story with "When I was living on the streets..." or "When my mother killed herself..." - The titular friends take it in stride (after all, they already know about Phoebe's mother and life story), new acquaintances do not. Also, when Phoebe was a surrogate mother she liked to freak people out by talking about having her brother's baby.
• Weirdness Magnet: Having the ghost of an old woman possess her, being chased around a junkyard by a psychotic, being stalked by men who mistake her for her twin sister, Ursula, and having her apartment haunted by her grandmother.
• With Friends Like These...: With Chandler in later seasons.
  • Possibly lamsphaded by Chandler in season 10, when Phoebe and Monica have a fight.
    Monica: We are not friends with Phoebe anymore.
    Chandler: If she asks, I protested a little, but okay!
• Womanchild: Phoebe has a childishly naïve outlook towards life (even with her crappy childhood) and still believes in fantasy figures such as Santa Claus.
• Women Prefer Strong Men: While she has dommy qualities herself, she made it clear that she wasn't a big fan of soft/sissy guys and got the most hot for Mike when he was beating Monica at ping-pong. It’s most telling in one episode when Monica immediately goes about waiting to spend all of Chandler’s money (the exact number isn’t show, but it’s implied to be a LOT), and when Chandler puts his foot down and refuses to spend it on a “party” Phoebe OPENLY shows an attraction to him.” Phoebe: Money and a backbone? Now THAT’S a Chandler I can get behind.”

Joey

Joseph Francis "Joey" Tribbiani, Jr.

"How You Doin?"

Played By: Matt LeBlanc ^{Other Languages}Benjamín Rivera, Jorge Roig Jr. and Luis Alfonso Mendoza (Latin-American Spanish), Francisco Quintiliano and Vágner Fagundes (Brazilian Portuguese)

"If the package is this pretty, no-one cares what's inside."

The Casanova of the gang, a laid-back Italian womanizer, Joey is Chandler's best friend and roommate, and often the group's comic relief. He tries to make a living as an actor, with varying levels of success. Though always the least intelligent of the Friends, later seasons turned him much dumber. He's also a Big Eater and a bit of a mooch, particularly on Chandler. Despite these shortcomings, he ultimately shows himself to be the heart of the group, capable of kindness and selflessness without compare. He ended up with his own spinoff, which was cancelled after two seasons.

---

• Alone Among the Couples: He ends up as this in the last episode. But he gets a Love Interest in the Joey spinoff.
• Always Someone Better: To Chandler a few times. His prowess in attracting women is pretty much indisputable by any characters, which has lead to some insecurity on Chandler's part when he's compared with him (not helped by Joey's overall pride and occasional insensitivity towards Chandler on the topic).
• Ambiguously Bi: He's The Casanova but the flashback episode "The One with Joey's Interview" has a whole montage of suggestive moments with Chandler and Ross.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Most of his in-series acting is either this or overacting.
• Bad Liar: One of the subplots of "The One with Rachel's Other Sister" is about him being a terrible liar and Phoebe teaching him how to lie.
• Berserk Button:
  • He really does not like to share his food. When Ross steals his muffin, Joey reminds him of that quite loudly.
  • Do not lie to Joey, especially if you are his best friend. It happens quite a few times with Chandler.
• Better as Friends: With Rachel.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He has a long fuse and is generally a goofy and amiable dude, but awaken his deeply-buried wrath and everyone, even his close friends, have good reason to be afraid of him.
• Big Brother Instinct: He's very protective of his seven sisters. When the youngest, Dina, got pregnant by her idiot boyfriend, Joey attacked said boyfriend, dragged him to Dina, and tried to officiate a Shotgun Wedding. He also acts like this towards all his friends, particularly the three girls. He even allows his sisters to beat the crap out of Chandler when he drunkenly makes out with one sister and can't remember which one it was^note It was Mary-Angela.
• Big Eater: In one episode, he volunteers to eat a whole Thanksgiving turkey, which doesn't mean he'll stop eating until then. (He calls it "warming up.") He eventually does eat the entire turkey, and still has room for dessert. Another episode involving Phoebe's birthday dinner at a nice restaurant. Over the course of the episode, everyone, including Phoebe, leaves for other activities... except Joey. He's bummed at first, but lights up when all of the already ordered entrees arrive. He is also the only one who enjoyed Rachel's trifle that contained beef, also managing to eat the pieces everyone else claimed to have eaten. In an Imagine Spot of what if he'd married Monica, he became morbidly obese from overeating her constant good cooking.
  Joey: 'Cause I'm a Tribbiani! And this is what we do! I mean we may not be great thinkers or world leaders, we don't read a lot or run very fast, but damn it, we can eat!
• Book Dumb: He lacks academic knowledge, but is street smart, at least in early seasons before devolving into The Ditz.
• Brainless Beauty: A sympathetic one. Even Rachel tells him "Thank God you’re pretty" in one episode.
• Brilliant, but Lazy:
  • For all the criticism of his acting ability, he is actually quite gifted at memorization. He is consistently able to memorize lines in a short amount of time no matter the subject matter (although he'd naturally need help with pronunciation for the more complex words). However, he's consistently Book Dumb because he cares so little about academic pursuits and would rather do something fun. On those rare occasions where does he try to apply himself (such as reading an encyclopedia in "The One with the 'Cuffs" or preparing for a trip to the Met with Charlie in "The One with the Fertility Test"), he had no trouble retaining the information and engaging in conversation on the given topics. ^note Though the Met trip encountered an obvious problem when Joey took a wrong turn upon entering the building.
  • "The One with the Cooking Class" suggests he has enough raw talent to rival Monica as a Supreme Chef, if he actually went all in instead of just making the occasional meal for himself and his friends.
  • Joey has also shown that his acting skills actually go a long way in mundane settings. Whenever he's helped out the other friends in their professions, he adopts a "character" to help him with the job. This typically ends up with Joey becoming more popular and well liked with the rest of the staff, and shows that Joey has real skills when he puts the effort into it.
• Brutal Honesty: Goes between this and Innocently Insensitive. It's Played for Laughs usually, but he tends to be very blunt about Chandler's romantic prospects throughout the series and his overall superiority towards Chandler in terms of winning over women or making love.
• Butt-Monkey: He’s definitely luckier than Chandler and Ross, but his friends sometimes make fun of him for his embarrassing acting gigs (Al Pacino's butt, the VD poster) and he's often the butt of the jokes for his stupidity, his failures, and other situations.
• The Casanova: He's successful with women, and is seen dating and sleeping with many different girls in various episodes. In fact, women are his biggest obsession along with food. ^note "I want girls on bread!"
• Catchphrase: "How you doin'?"
• Characterization Marches On:
  • In the original series, there's a running joke about him being a terrible actor who constantly has to lie on his resume (Phoebe once told him that one of the casting directors said they had never heard a more fake Italian accent from someone of Italian origins). In the spinoff, Joey is seen as a much more competent actor.
  • In the pilot, he was a bit of a Jerkass and more of a Handsome Lech. Beginning in the second episode, he's the lovable goof we all know and love.
  • He didn't have as much of a childlike naïvete in early seasons that he was later known for, to the point that it ends up contradicting some of his behavior in later seasons. For example, he doesn't initially believe in Santa Claus in early seasons up to at least season 5, but by season 9 is upset at missing out at meeting Santa at the Thanksgiving Day parade. Similarly, he's one of the first to know that the "pet got sent to a farm" story is a lie and gives Ross a look of pity when it's revealed he once fell for it; by the series finale, he believes the exact same farm story to cover up the deaths of the chick and the duck.
• Chick Magnet: Due to being a ladies man. All his female friends (Rachel, Phoebe, Monica) were attracted to him at different points.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Joey is this when it comes to his female friends. He hits on them on numerous occasions and tries several ploys to either see them naked or see them kiss each other, but he's kind, fiercely loyal and incredibly respectful towards them. When everyone believes Phoebe's been in a porno movie, Joey is the only member of the gang who refuses to watch it. He also freaks out quite a bit when Rachel calls his bluff and actually offers to sleep with him. Upon hearing Phoebe was pregnant, he goes out to beat up the supposed father... then comes back and proposes to Phoebe so she won't be alone. Later, when he finds out that Rachel is the one who is actually pregnant, he promptly proposes to her too. In one episode, when a drunken Rachel responds favorably to his "How you doin'?" line, he tells Ross not to let her drink any more.
• The Ditz: Especially in later seasons. Joey's ditziness especially shines through in the subject of geography - at various points in the series he has thought that the Netherlands was where Peter Pan lives, described Chandler's "going to Yemen" ruse for getting rid of Janice as clever because "it almost sounds like a real place", and gone to the bank to try changing dollars into "Vermont money".
• Dumbass Has a Point:
  • In one episode, he pointed out, when everyone (except Phoebe, who was usually self-employed) wondered why their bosses hated them, that they were in a coffee shop at 11:30 a.m on a Wednesday.
  • While he does screw up things for his friends, it's noted that his friends often lied or mislead him first.
• Dumb Is Good: The least intelligent of the main group and yet he's definitely The Heart.
• Dumb Muscle: Something of an Informed Attribute, but in-universe he's considered the strongest of the three guys, as mentioned a few times by other characters.
• Ethical Slut: Rare Male Example. He goes through women like most people breathe oxygen, but always respects their boundaries and never comes off as predatory. If anything, he's probably the nicest to potential Love Interests out of any of the three guys.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He may sleep around a lot, but Joey draws the line at being considered a creepy sex addict a la Dennis Reynolds from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. For example, he draws the line at having sex with someone who is drunk, and when Ross reveals he had a sex tape of him and Rachel he points out it would've been okay had she consented to it ^note  He does cut Ross slack when Ross reveals it was just an accident and he just never got around to deleting it..
  • In particular, he's horrified when he discovers that Monica and Chandler are having sex while Emma is in her crib just one room over.
    Joey: You can't have s-e-x when you're taking care of a b-a-b-i-e!
  • While he has two-timed before, he draws the line on doing so with one's wife, and is upset to learn that his dad has a mistress.
  • While he was never in this exact situation himself, when Chandler was dating a woman going through a divorce who had a chance to patch things up with her husband, Joey observed that in Chandler's position, he would step back and give the woman a chance to make her marriage work, particularly when the couple had a child to consider.
  • Based on how protective he is of women when they're pregnant, and his offer to marry Rachel when she was carrying Emma, it's heavily implied Joey believes that a man should be there to help their pregnant wife and be there to raise the child once they're born.
  • When the gang find out that "Phoebe Buffay" is starring in porn Joey is the only member of the gang who refuses to watch it, and he tries to get Gunther to ban a guy from Central Perk for talking about the movies. Then again, when the gang work out it's actually Ursula in the movies (using "Phoebe" as her Porn Name) he immediately changes his mind and joins in watching.
• Extreme Omnivore: Rachel's little incident of It Tastes Like Feet mentioned above? Yeah, didn't bother him in the slightest. He actually ate everyone else's slices.
  Joey: What's not to like. Custard? Good. Jam? Good. Meat? Good.
  • In another episode he mentions that Chandler and Ross once bet him $50 to eat a book. Monica uses this as proof of how truly bad the food at Alessandro's was.
    Monica: I have five friends who couldn't eat it, and one of them eats books.
  • He's the only member of the gang besides Phoebe who voluntarily tasted Carol's expressed breast milk
• Eye Take: A character trademark. Whenever Joey comes to major realization, the camera holds on him as the information takes a moment to sink in before he goes bug eyed and dramatically reacts.
• Flanderization:
  • His eating habits and lack of intelligence, particularly his Manchild behavior. For instance, early in the show, he knows what an Adam's apple is. Later in the series, Chandler has to tell him it's not a "Joey's apple" as it's not named after every individual.
  • His spin off added to this. He got no dumber but rather his womanizing habits got the attention. On Friends he was very successful with women but within reason. On Joey he seems to have multiple sexual partners every day.
  • It got to the point that, in later seasons, LeBlanc asked the writers to tone it down and give him different jokes.
• Foil: To both Chandler and Ross, especially in terms of success with women. He's consistently portrayed as more dimwitted than either of them, but ultimately a nicer friend with more consistent success with women.
• The '40s: Perhaps to highlight their friendship, Joey and Chandler start the series with elements of the forties aesthetic. Whereas Chandler is a suburbanite in his bowling shirts, Joey starts the show as a womanizing greaser, though he loses the leather jacket pretty quickly.
• Giftedly Bad: With his acting skills. Often, he'll try to go full on Large Ham where it's not necessary. In his defence, some of the roles he gets are in some real stinkers, such as a Sigmund Freud musical, a ridiculous daytime soap opera, and a porn flick (where he didn't have sex on camera).
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: He definetely thinks so. Heck, his first response to Ross telling the gang his wife was a lesbian was a "Cool!", followed by a lecherous smirk.
• Going Commando: A mild running gag. In one episode, Chandler needed to borrow some underwear, to which Joey said "Sorry, I'm not wearing any".
• Gratuitous Italian: Kind of. Chandler says Joey "only knows the bad words" of Italian.
• Handsome Lech: His treatment of potential female roommates borders on stalking. He views the single women of New York as sexual conquests and not much else (he's never abusive, he's just... very, very shallow). According to LeBlanc on a Gaby Roslin interview, he wasn't a great fan of the more lecherous moments, as he felt like Joey had to be sweeter than that otherwise it'd make no sense why the girls would view him as a friend.
• The Heart: Despite being dimwitted, selfish with food and having a sleazy and perverted view of women, he's extremely loyal, protective and arguably the most kindhearted of the friends.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Chandler.
• Hidden Depths:
  • In "The One with the 'Cuffs", he is able to absorb a lot of information on topics beginning with the letter "V" from the one encyclopedia he was able to afford.
  • In "The One with the Kips", he shows his strange knowledge of elevators.
  • He also knew how to turn off the radiator in Monica and Rachel's apartment after they broke the handle off. Might not seem like a big deal, but nobody else on hand knew what to do.
  • He's a fantastic, if careless craftsman, though it's only shown in one episode, "The One with Frank Jr." where he built a giant entertainment center for his and Chandler's apartment and did such a good job of tiling Monica's bathroom that, even with all her super OCD, she called "beautiful". The carelessness comes in when he almost lobotomises Chandler with an electric drill and builds the entertainment center too big for the wall.
  • In "The One with Russ", it's revealed that he relieves stress by cooking spaghetti sauce.
  • He almost consistently gives pretty good relationship advice to the rest of the group.
  • In the extended cut of "TOW all the Jealousy", he takes longer to read Julio's poem than the others but still immediately gets that it's calling Monica shallow and "empty". By contrast, Chandler read it faster but Phoebe had to explain the message to him.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: One episode reveals that he was sexually abused by his tailor for years as a kid, without even realizing it. It's Played for Laughs.
• Home Nudist: When the gang notice someone watching them with a telescope he mentions that he sometimes likes to cook while naked ("nothing that spatters"). He also frequently Sleeps in the Nude and doesn't always remember to get dressed before leaving his room.
• Hospital Hottie: He's meant to be this as Dr. Drake Remoray on Days of Our Lives, complete with altered voice, but the exaggerated Soap Within a Show means that his character is way too ridiculous to take seriously. After Joey leaves the show, he pokes fun at this by switching voices mid-sentence whenever he has to say his character's name.
• Hypocrite:
  • He was furious when Chandler kissed his girlfriend, Kathy, even though he was cheating on her with another girl. The reason why he sees them as different situations is because Chandler is his Heterosexual Life-Partner; it's the betrayal by a friend that upsets him the most.
  • He gets outraged when Phoebe's friend Sarah takes french fries of his plate, but eats her dessert with very little qualms while she's taking a phone call.
• Hypocritical Humor: He gets annoyed when he realizes one of his one-night stands doesn't remember him even though he never bothers to remember any of them. He justifies this by saying "I am very memorable!"
  • In defence of all concerned parties, it turned out that Joey actually slept with the girl's roommate rather than sleeping with this specific girl and forgetting her.
• I Call Him "Mister Happy": The Little General - formerly Little Major, but it earned a promotion after Denise DeMarco.
• I Can't Dance: His resume claims he has years of dance experience and even trained with Twyla Tharp. In reality, he's a terrible dancer whose "moves" are limited to swinging his arms around and bobbing his head.
• Imaginary Friend: Apparently he had one as a child, a Space Cowboy named "Maurice".
• Informed Ability: His acting. When it's shown, he's usually in terrible off-off-off-off-Broadway crap and most of his listed skills are lies (dancing, speaking French, sword-fighting, riding horses...). By the end of the series, though, he's secured a successful career as an actor and even co-starred in an Oscar-worthy film. However, we never get to see the higher quality acting he's supposed to be doing that would have led to that result.
• Innocent Innuendo: He can make anything sound dirty, including "Grandma's chicken salad."
• Innocently Insensitive: Joey's easily the nicest, most easy-going and most genuinely accepting of the friends, but that doesn't mean he doesn't say and do offensive, insulting or hurtful things... it's just that he's too much of a Ditz and Manchild to really get when his well-meant words or actions can be upsetting. As such, he can be hugely offensive while genuinely thinking he's just being friendly and helpful. On the rare occasions when he understands that he's Hurt someone, he'll feel bad and try to make amends.
• Irony: Joey is considered to be the least intelligent of the friends, but he's the one who found clues and figured out Monica and Chandler were in a Secret Relationship, whereas Rachel, Phoebe and Ross caught them in the act.
• Italian-American Caricature: He fits some of the stereotypes but not others, you don't really see him in bowling shirts as being an aspiring actor he follows fashion a little more than average. However, he has a huge family (being the only boy with seven sisters whom he is very protective of) who are Catholic (even if he doesn't attend). He is also very fond of both his grandmothers (Nonna and Nonnie) and translates for Nonnie who can't speak English. He's a Big Eater who will eat anything but does have a fondness for Italian food like pizza and lasagne in particular, and at one point realises to his horror he's becoming like his father when he gets upset and angry about wasted pastrami.
• I Was Young and Needed the Money: Joey was once in a porn movie because he was "young, and needed some money". When he couldn't go through with it, they let him play a guy who walks in during a sex scene to watch the couple have sex on the photocopier. At least he had a speaking bit, "You know, that's bad for the paper tray." But, being Joey, he seems genuinely proud of his role and quite happily sits down to watch it with the gang and point out his appearance.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Despite his stupidity, he's regularly shown to be a nice and caring friend toward the other five.
• Ladykiller in Love: As short-lived as it was, his crush on Rachel in season 8 was genuine. He also develops real feelings for Phoebe's twin Ursula in season 1, his co-star Kate in season 3, his new roommate Janine in season 6 and finally with Alex in the spin-off.
• Lethally Stupid: In "The One with Frank Jr.", specifically the scene where he's drilling a hole in the wall and the drill comes out the other side really close to Chandler's head.
  Joey: Oh, I'm sorry. Did I get you?
  Chandler: No, you didn't get me!! It's an electric drill; you get me, you kill me!!
• Like Brother and Sister: With Monica in later seasons, when she marries his Heterosexual Life-Partner Chandler.
• Logical Fallacies: Joey naturally falls into this a lot.
  Joey: You hid my clothes?! Well... I'm going to do the exact opposite!
  Chandler: ... You're going to show me my clothes?
  • Which is pretty much what he does. By wearing every pair of clothes Chandler owns.
• Lost Food Grievance: Do NOT try to take his food, doing so is his main Berserk Button. He refused to call one girl back after she stole some of his fries on a date and Rachel reveals that he once got mad at Emma, a baby, for trying to take one of his grapes.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: He talks openly and often about his many, many sexual conquests, at one point admitting to deflowering an intern on the set of his television show. His love of pornography is also the target of numerous jokes.
• Manchild: He constantly mooches off Chandler (with everything from rent payments to acting classes), he refuses to maintain a steady romantic relationship even when he's well into his mid/late-30's, and he's hopelessly idealistic about his acting career despite clearly being a pretty lousy actor. As the show went on, these traits were Flanderized for him, and by the final season he was buying Cabbage Patch Kids dolls, being entertained by a book intended for preschoolers, and had a written letter of his being mistaken as one written by an actual six-year-old.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: He is the only boy out of seven sisters.
• The McCoy: Of the men. He's The McCoy to Chandler's The Kirk and Ross' The Spock.
• Mr. Fanservice: The go-to guy for Shirtless Scenes among the main male characters, and is definitely the most well-built and traditionally attractive of the three. He even gets a few nude scenes over the years, though generally for Naked People Are Funny purposes rather than outright fanservice. Many women also consider him this In-Universe, and he's even used it leverage a few acting gigs.
• Never Gets Fat: To the point the "Joey Special" (two large cheese pizzas) is named in his honor. Averted in an Imagine Spot where he married supreme chef Monica, as having a wife who constantly cooked gourmet food for him was finally enough for him to grow extremely fat.
• Nice Guy: Joey is incredibly loyal and a great friend. He manages to be a good guy despite his womanizing ways.
• The Not-Love Interest: To Phoebe and Chandler. Before Chandler and Monica got together, he and Joey were considered to be "The other couple of the series" by some interviewers.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Joey or Joe. In the latter case, it's usually Chandler being sarcastic. Phoebe does call him by his full name when he blows her off one night. Another instance is when he is sitting at the coffeehouse brainstorming for a new stage surname with Chandler. They always use Joseph, not Joey. He finally likes one of Chandler's suggestions (Stalin), but it fails to impress the crew in his next audition.
• Papa Wolf: He can be very protective of his friends. In "The One with the Red Sweater", Phoebe tells him that she's pregnant (when actually Rachel was), and that the father wants nothing to do with her or the baby.
  Joey: Well who is this guy?! Huh? Who is he? 'Cause I will track him down and kick his ass!
  Phoebe: David Lynn.
  Joey: David Lynn! David Lynn! David Lynn!! [exits]
• Parental Substitute: To Phoebe during her wedding day, filling the role of Phoebe's father, after Phoebe tells him that her stepdad can't come to the ceremony. He takes the role very seriously.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Phoebe. They playfully flirt, they have a softness for each other (often both of them picking the other over the rest of the group), they have a lot of Ship Tease, including at least four kisses, yet they never dated (or had sex) in all ten years, and aside from their jokes about being a possible couple in the future, it was clear that they just wanted to be friends, but nothing more. They even keep a pact until Phoebe's wedding to Mike to get married if they are both still single when they're forty
• The Pornomancer: Possibly the most famous modern pornomancer. Despite not having any magical skills (or intelligence) of note, he rarely needs to utter more than "Hey. How you doin'?" before scoring.
• Pride:
  • He is very proud of his past role as Dr. Drake Ramoray and after that, sometimes believes to be too good for being treated as a normal actor, he has already lost a job out of denying to have a small role, he refused to believe a very shady movie wasn't his big break, and in "TOW Rachel's Assistant" he refuses to audition to come back to 'Days of Our Lives', believing he should have the part automatically (to be fair to Joey, he was auditioning for the part of Drake Ramoray's twin brother, so he was uniquely qualified for the position). It's particularly noteworthy that he considers himself a better actor for that gig, despite the fact he only earned it by sleeping with the cast director.
  • He feels this ways about his performance in bed, asserting that women should remember him even when he doesn't.
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: In some of his acting gigs, one is even the page quote. And the very first episode of Joey has him introducing himself with "I am [name]!"
• Really Gets Around: Big time. Best demonstrated when Chandler wants to ask advice for a sexual problem, and rhetorically asks, "Joey... you've had a lot of sex, right?" Joey replies, "Today? Some... not a lot."
• Real Men Wear Pink: He's the most confident, macho, and "manly" of the three male characters, but he has no problem being In Touch with His Feminine Side in quite a few episodes. Being Janine's roommate in season 6 makes him develop an interest in girly activities, such as knitting and flower arranging. In another episode, he really likes wearing a bag, even if the others make fun of him because it looks like a woman's purse.
• Romantic False Lead: He's used as plot device to create tension between couples several times: with Chandler and Kathy in season 4, with Ross and Charlie in season 9, with Chandler and Monica in "The One with the Truth About London", and with Ross and Rachel in seasons 8-10.
• Secret-Keeper: He's the first one to learn of Chandler and Monica's Secret Relationship and keeps that knowledge to himself for several months until Rachel finds out.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • Manly Man to Chandler's Sensitive Guy. Generally, Joey will sleep with girls for a night and Chandler will make them breakfast the next morning.
  • In later seasons, he is also the Manly foil to nerdy Sensitive Guy Ross. We see this dynamic more often after Chandler starts spending more time with Monica.
• Sex God: He is sometimes portrayed as an extremely satisfying lover.
• Shipper on Deck: A hardcore one for Chandler/Monica as he helps hide their relationship for months, officiates at their wedding and tells Chandler that they're perfect for each other and going to be together forever.
• Simple-Minded Wisdom: Despite Joey's intelligence, there are times where he's given worthy advice to his friends, even though it's given in his usual foolish manner. For example, when Rachel asks about the healthy amount of time to wait before asking someone out, Joey tells her "The big question is, does he like you?", stating that her feelings for him will be doomed from the start if he doesn't like her back.
• Sleeps in the Nude: Joked about at least twice. In one example, it resulted in Chandler Screaming at Squick.
• Smart Ball: Once in a while, he can be inexplicably cunning, fire off weird but practical knowledge or think brilliantly outside the box, and then go right back to being a ditz, sometimes in the same sentence. Joey was also the only one in the group to figure out on his own that Ross had a thing for Rachel (Chandler being Ross' confidant and the girls finding out when the secret was blown). He was also the only one to figure out on his own that Chandler and Monica were together (Rachel accidentally heard them having phone sex, and Phoebe and Ross saw them having sex).
• Supreme Chef: While he's been shown making a few errors (such as being unable to flip flapjacks well), he's been shown to pretty decent cook in his own right on occasion, with "The One with the Cooking Class", even hinting that he could potentially be good enough to rival Monica.
• Test Subject for Hire: He would do this between acting jobs. Some examples:
  • In "The One Where Rachel Finds Out", he's participating in a fertility study requiring him to abstain from sex during the duration.
  • In "The One With The Unagi" he needs money again, so he considers returning to medical experimentation. However, the only study open at the time is being conducted on identical twins. Joey tries hiring a lookalike to pretend to be his twin brother, but it doesn't work.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: He seems to have lost quite a few IQ points over the years, to the point where in the final season he can't tell left from right.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He is pretty much a Jerk with a Heart of Gold in early seasons. From season 4 onwards, his caring nature, Undying Loyalty, and close relationship with everyone in the group are emphasized much more.
• Too Dumb to Fool: While he's dimwitted for the most part, he is capable of becoming exceptionally quick or suspicious, especially when his friends lie to him.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Most Italian dishes, especially meatball sub sandwiches, lasagna, and the "Joey Special."^note Two pizzas.
• Undying Loyalty: Probably his main redeeming factor on the show. He can often be very shallow and dimwitted but is a very loyal friend to the rest of them, ranging from trying to ignore his feelings for Rachel out of respect for Ross to volunteering to get a job at Monica's restaurant just so that she can fire him and get her staff to respect her.
• Unmanly Secret: Despite being a tough adult man, he has a stuffed toy penguin named Huggsy.
• Very Fake Résumé: His acting resume is full of "special skills" that are actually a pack of lies. Over the course of the series we learn he's claimed extensive dance training in multiple disciplines (ballet, tap and modern dance), fluency in French, archery, horseback riding, guitar playing, and "can drink a gallon of milk in 10 seconds". It also claims he can do a Southern accent, but every time he tries it comes out Jamaican. He explains to Monica that he was always taught that you should say "yes" to whatever is asked of you in an audition, and try to work out how to do whatever it is when you get the part.
• Yuri Fan: Is the most likely one to suggest that Girl on Girl Is Hot.

Chandler

Chandler Muriel Bing

"I say more dumb stuff before 9 a.m. than most people say all day."

Played By: Matthew Perry ^{Other Languages} Sergio Gutiérrez Coto (Latin-American Spanish), Alexandre Moreno and André Sauer (Brazilian Portuguese)

"I'm not so good with the advice. Could I interest you in a sarcastic comment?"

The group's Deadpan Snarker. A friend of Ross' from college, the friends never quite understand the nature of his job in the business world, which he hates, but it's led him to be generally the most financially successful of the group, to the point that he essentially supports Joey in the early years. His dad runs an all-male burlesque called "Viva Las Gaygas". His mom is a world-famous erotic romance novelist. Neither fact sits well with him and has led to a severe fear of commitment and a lifetime of over-compensating for his insecurities with a a sharp, acerbic sense of humor. Originally best defined through his Heterosexual Life-Partners relationship with Joey, he eventually falls in love with Monica, and they build a rare stable relationship within the gang, which leads to his slow maturation throughout the series into the Team Dad alongside Monica's Team Mom.

---

• AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: Only occasionally, but when he does... could he BE more of an example?
• Agony of the Feet: Monica accidentally cut the tip of his toe off in "The One with All the Thanksgivings".
• Allegedly Dateless: He 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 humor 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.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: It's hard to beat telling people how you got your son his first condoms on The Tonight Show. "And then he burst into flames."
  Chandler: All kids are embarrassed by their parents. You'd have to come up with a whole new word for what I went through.
• Ambiguously Bi: Loved women and Monica, but had some Even the Guys Want Him moments, was teased the most for acting gay, was deeply protesting constantly and has made out with both Ross and a crossdressing man while drunk. Plus, in "The One with the Superbowl", after Phoebe sings her No Bisexuals song, he notices a kid smiling at him knowingly and ends the scene sulking. Chandler was originally meant to be gay, but the writers dropped the idea when Matthew Perry was cast. He's also a huge fan of romantic comedies, knowledge of celebrities (which makes Rachel suggest he watches less E! and more ESPN) and once started a sentence with "If I was a guy..."
  Chandler: What is it about me? Is it my hair?
  Rachel: Yes, Chandler, that's exactly what it is. It's your hair.
  Phoebe: Yeah, you have homosexual hair.
• Benevolent Boss: Several episodes establish that those working under him at his job generally view him this way, possibly because he doesn't really care about his work and can't be bothered to pressure them. He even lets his staff go home after they were contracted to work on Christmas which would likely have gotten him in trouble had he not decided to quit shortly afterwards.
• Beta Couple: With Monica.
• Betty and Veronica: The Betty to Richard's Veronica for Monica's Archie.
• Beware the Silly Ones:
  • For the most part, his jokes might hurt feelings sometimes, but they're not meant with malice. But in “The One Where Ross Finds Out”, where Monica has been driving him crazy with all the training, he makes her stop by 'innocently' pointing out every shitty thing that had happened to her recently and how depressed she must feel. He even warns her beforehand to not make him do anything he'll regret.
  • In "The One with Rachel's Other Sister", Chandler is genuinely hurt that Ross wouldn't consider him a good parent to Emma if he and Rachel died without Monica around due to the perception that he makes jokes all the time and wouldn't put his foot down. When Rachel and her sister Amy get into a cat fight and break one of Monica's fancy plates, Chandler proves Ross wrong and calls them both out for acting childish, and makes them apologize to Monica and each other.
  • In "The One with the Thumb", when the group start ragging on him for his smoking, Chandler successfully manages to turn them all against each other when he points out all their annoying flaws, prompting them to forget all about his cigarettes as they argue amongst themselves.
• Bound and Gagged: In "The One with the 'Cuffs", Rachel's boss leaves him handcuffed to a drawer in her room.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite being the joker of the gang and rather lazy, he's shown to be very capable at his job, being promoted several times (including heading up an office in Tulsa). When he switches to advertising, he's good enough to skip several rungs on the career ladder. Even in his youth, he was voted "Class Clown" in high school but still managed to get into Columbia Univeristy.
• Butt-Monkey: A very close second, after Ross. While Ross is very unlucky in every situation and his humiliations tend to be more physical, Chandler's Butt-Monkey status mainly consists of his friends belittling him and making passive-aggressive comments about him (both to his face and behind his back) and generally being considered a loser for no apparent reason. Chandler's own Self-Deprecation also helps.
• The Cameo: Appears in Caroline in the City.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Chandler is pretty much made of this trope; several times during the series, he has accidentally revealed his friends' secrets. Probably his biggest offense is when he revealed to Rachel that Ross was in love with her. In a final season episode, he reveals to a child that they were adopted and then later reveals to Phoebe's nieces and nephew that Phoebe actually gave birth to them (though to be fair, he didn't know that these were secrets).
• Character Development: At the beginning, Chandler had serious issues with commitment, which made him incapable of holding a relationship. He eventually overcame them thanks to his relationship with Monica and was also ready to start a family with her.
  • Over the course of ten years with the gang, he went from hating Thanksgiving, since it was the day his parents broke up, to volunteering to help Monica make the dinner and getting mad at the others for "ruining Cranberry Day!" His attitude noticeably switches after he and Monica are officially together, indicating that she's the reason his opinion on the holiday improved.
• Characterization Marches On:
  • In the first few seasons, Chandler is shown to be as rabid a sports fan as Joey is. As the Ambiguously Bi traits increase in later seasons, this goes away to the point where even Rachel chides him for not knowing who Paul O'Neill is.^note  O'Neill was the popular right fielder for the New York Yankees dynasty at the end of the 90s. This was slightly explained away in season four's "The One Where Chandler's In A Box", where he pretends to want to watch the game, but Phoebe tells him he doesn't have to act macho because the other guys weren't there, and he happily watches the parade instead.
  • He also can't think of a masculine sport on the spot:
    Chandler: This is like figure skating team all over again! ... I mean synchronized swimming! ... I mean... I mean the balance beam. Help me.
    Ross: FOOTBALL!
    Chandler: Thank you!
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Chandler is this to the child-like Joey. When they are getting ready for the flight to London:
  Chandler: You got your passport?
  Joey: Yeah, in my third drawer on my dresser. You don't want to lose that.
  [Chandler glares at him. At first Joey doesn't know why, it takes him a little bit to figure it out]
  Joey: Ohh!! [runs to his room]
• Commitment Issues: One of his defining traits. The first four seasons have him freaking out whenever it gets serious with a girl and it's only thanks to Monica's support he copes with their relationship. This is attributed to his unstable upbringing, his parents' horrible divorce and being continually screwed over by the women he does commit to (and given that, until Monica, every girl he dated during the series cheated on him, and that his parents can't stand to be in the same room together, it’s hard to judge his fears).
  Chandler: So, I guess this is it.
  Monica: What's it?
  Chandler: Well, it's over. The thing we had.
  Monica: Why, exactly?
  Chandler: Because, we had a fight. I mean...
  Monica: Chandler, you don't just give up after you have a fight. I mean, if you do that you'd never have a relationship lasting longer than... Ohhhhh.
• Crappy Holidays: He views every Thanksgiving this way as he associates it with the year his parents decided to tell him they were divorcing in the middle of dinner. He refuses to be part of the celebrations and can't eat any of the traditional foods (as his mouth was full when his parents broke the news). Joey eventually declares it a tradition to hear Chandler's story every year.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: While dating Kathy, he doesn't like her kissing her co-star and suspect that she is cheating on him. After being in a relationship with Monica, he doesn't like it whenever Richard is brought up.
• The Cynic: This mostly stems from both his parents' divorce and his all around crappy childhood. He gradually gets better later in the series, largely thanks to Monica's love and support.
• Deadpan Snarker: Of legendary proportions; it seems like Chandler can't go a scene without snarking some way - even in situations in which he really shouldn't. It's even exploited in "The One with All the Resolutions", in which he truly takes pains to not snark as part of his New Year's resolution (and gives up in less than a week).
• Deconfirmed Bachelor: Starts out with serious commitment issues but finds he is 'happier than he ever thought he could be' after falling in love with Monica.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: A specialty of Chandler's, especially around Monica's parents.
  Chandler: I tend to keep talking until somebody stops me.
• Dysfunctional Family: Part of why he's so quirky is being raised by two Amazingly Embarrassing Parents, a mom who Really Gets Around and writes trashy sex novels, and a dad who became a Drag Queen and ran away with the pool boy (on Thanksgiving to make him hate said holiday...).
• Embarrassing First Name: Chandler's first name is considered embarrassing, though not so embarrassing that he doesn't use it - which makes sense, because his last name is...
• Embarrassing Last Name: Bing, and his middle name is...
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Muriel.
  Ross: Chandler Muriel Bing... Boy, your parents never even gave you a chance, did they?
• Flanderization:
  • His effeminacy. In the first season, he liked sports, beer, pizza and Baywatch as much as the other guys but had to fight against the popular misconception that he was gay. By the end, he has two copies of the Annie soundtrack, can identify the film Miss Congeniality through a wall, pretends to watch NFL football while openly admitting he doesn't like it, gets pedicures and has had it revealed that he (accidentally) made out with a guy in college.
  • His jokes. He started out as a Deadpan Snarker, but his humor gradually became less deadpan sarcasm and a lot more goofy and immature after a certain point (possibly when he got married). Specifically, his penchant for making jokes when he's uncomfortable gets downgraded to fart noises when he's saying goodbye to Rachel in the penultimate episode.
• The '40s: The mid-90s saw a flash of nostalgia for the era. Chandler played his part with his bowling shirts and sweater vests in the early seasons.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: While the six were inseparable and had love and affection for each other, the two pairs of friends who arguably got along the least were Chandler/Phoebe and Chandler/Rachel, who both seemed to have a lot more interaction with him (Rachel even had sex dreams about him and Joey together) before he started dating Monica.
• Gag Penis: For maybe two hours, between Rachel telling this to the other girls (long story) and Joey ratting him out.
• Happily Married: To Monica in the last three seasons. The universe puts them through a lot early on: a long-distance relationship, unemployment, and infertility, but they remain incredibly happy and adore each other. They're especially impressive given their significant emotional baggage that stacks the odds against them. Namely, Chandler's parent's terrible marriage and home life which caused his Commitment Issues, Monica's insecurity from Parental Neglect and their highly neurotic natures.
• Has a Type: Enjoys the controlling, domineering type of woman, like he kept ending up with Janice until she annoyed him too much, Joanna had those handcuffs and Julia Roberts's character kinkily manipulated him into a Humiliation Conga, plus he had a sweet speech to Monica about it's fine that she was high-maintenance because he liked '... maintaining' her.
• Hates Being Alone: In season 2, when Joey moves out, he's openly distressed and quickly finds a new roommate despite admitting he can afford his apartment by himself. He also worries that all the other friends will get married and leave him behind, begging to be allowed to come over for holidays when this happens. Given his unstable parents and childhood, the group is probably the first security he'd ever known.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Oh, so many times. Lampshaded when he does this when he and Monica go to the drag club his father performs at. One of the workers tells him, "We get it. You're straight."
• Henpecked Husband: Played with. While Monica often gets her way, it's mostly because they're small issues that Chandler doesn't care about. When it comes to their big decisions (moving in together, the price of the wedding, having a baby etc.), he and Monica have a very balanced dynamic, and there are several occasions when he puts his foot down.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: So much. Suffers security issues and always believes himself to be inferior to his wife Monica and is no match for her previous love interest, Richard, even after they've been together for years and are Happily Married. Also, when he and Monica are looking for good qualities in a potential sperm donor:
  Monica: It's just that when we were asking him all those questions before I just realized I don't care if he's the most perfect guy in the world. He's not you.
  Chandler: Yeah. He's better!
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Joey. Also with Ross during their college years.
• Hidden Depths: He plays a mean game of ping pong much to Monica's surprise (Note: he was well-aware of this skill, he just didn't tell Monica because he didn't want to do couples tournaments and the like). It's not just ping pong, judging by the kinds of games Joey and Chandler play in their apartment Chandler actually is fairly athletic, just not competitive (which is Truth in Television, as Matthew Perry was a very skilled tennis player in real life).
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: His parents were never intentionally abusive per se, but his past does come close. When Monica finds out that he's Unable to Cry, she tries to make him cry by showing him an album of pictures of his childhood. Plus, in a (usually cut out) line from "The One with the Pediatrician", he was apparently molested by his piano teacher.
• Hypocrite: He is extremely upset to discover that Kathy is cheating on him, despite the fact it's how he got together with Kathy. While he tells off his friends for hanging around him while he's depressed instead of enjoying themselves, he states that Kathy didn't cheat on any of them. Then he realises he has to exclude Joey, acknowledging that Kathy cheated on Joey with him by giving Joey a big hug.
• Hypocrisy Nod: He can occasionally make some mean jokes towards his friends but gets upset if one of them does so to him. He brings this up in "The One Where Monica Sings" when Ross makes a remark about him and Chandler tries to remind him that "he can only dish it out."
• I Am Not Left-Handed: As revealed during his table tennis match with Mike, he's fairly good at competitive games, more than enough to keep up with Monica. He just preferred to downplay it because of her ultra-competitive nature.
• I Am Not My Father: Many of his neuroses stem from worrying he'll end up like his flighty and self-absorbed parents, and mimic their unpleasant marriage. Much of his Character Development, especially his relationship with Monica, revolves around getting over these issues.
• I Can't Dance: He openly admits he's a terrible dancer and refuses to dance at weddings to avoid embarrassing himself. Before his wedding to Monica he takes dance lessons so he can surprise her for their first dance, but then his shoes turn out to be too slippery to do anything but his old "waving my hands around" move.
• Informed Deformity: It's revealed in a flashback that Monica accidentally dropped a knife on his toe and he had to amputate the top of it. We would have no way of knowing prior to this episode.
• Insecure Love Interest: Concerning Monica. He felt inferior to her ex-boyfriend Richard (his previous idol) and got very worried when Phoebe introduced Monica's 'soulmate', and offered to stand aside for him. Thanks to Monica's reassurances he does get better. Also with previous girlfriends like Janice and Kathy, as much of his Self-Deprecation references his struggles to please women, which he frequently feels dejected about (not that he'd show it...).
• I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: Chandler had a Flock of Seagulls haircut in his college days. Also, he once won a Vanilla Ice look-alike contest.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • Subverted. Joey comes up with a few nicknames but no one uses them.
    Joey: It's like the end of an era! No more J-Man and Channy!
    Chandler: Okay, I gotta ask, who calls us that?!
  • Chandler refers to himself as the Chan Chan Man but it doesn't catch on. He was called Skid Marks in the past.
  • Janice, much to his chagrin, calls him "Bing-a-ling".
  • Ross occasionally calls him "Chan" but this doesn't seem to stick as a nickname.
• In the Blood: Gets severe cold feet right before his wedding because he and Monica were about to become "the Bings", and Bings never had happy marriages.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Especially in later seasons, where he's sensitive, peaceful, obsessed with Broadway plays, and often mistaken for gay. He's also best friends with the manly Joey, and falls in love with the strong-willed Monica. Both relationships emphasize his feminine side but given how he takes care of Joey and calms Monica's stressing, they're pretty thankful for it.
• Irony: Despite hating Thanksgiving, many fortunate events happen to Chandler on this day during the series such as Monica's parents accepting him dating their daughter and receiving a phone call that a single mother had accepted he and Monica to be the foster parents for her baby.
• The Kirk: Of the men. He's The Kirk to Joey's The McCoy and Ross' The Spock.
• Like Father, Like Son: Snarkily name-dropped when Rachel squees that he has great taste in men.
• Lonely Rich Kid: The houseboys seemed more dependable than his parents when he was growing up.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Early on, Chandler was portrayed as being bad in bed, something he was very aware of, but eventually (and with Monica's help) he got much better, to the point Monica thinks he's the best she's ever had.
  • In "The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant", a woman leaves a message on his machine looking for her old lover Bob, Chandler pretends to be Bob and makes a date with her. He then "consoles" her when "Bob" doesn't show up, and they sleep together. But the next morning she calls "Bob" again, to confess that she slept with another man but deeply regrets it, saying Chandler was disastrously bad in bed and that she had to stop herself from calling "Bob's" name.
  • In "The One with Phoebe's Uterus", Chandler is apprehensive about sleeping with his current Love Interest Kathy, because she used to date Joe (who is a Sex God) and Chandler fears the inevitable comparison since he knows he's no good. So he seeks Monica and Rachel's advice on how to become a better lover, leading to them showing Chandler a diagram of the seven female erogenous zones (unseen by the audience). By the end of the episode, a sated Kathy personally thanks Monica and Rachel, showing that the lesson did indeed help and from this episode on, the joke that Chandler is bad in bed is no longer used.
• Manchild: Mostly in early seasons, where he often joins in Joey's immature boyish antics. He gets better, though he still has his moments from time to time.
  Monica: Come on. Why don't you put on the tux and I'll fix you up a nice Martini.
  Chandler: You know I don't really like Martinis.
  Monica: Oh. Well, how about a Yoo Hoo with a funny straw?
  Chandler: Ooh, yum!
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Feminine Boy to Monica's Masculine Girl. Chandler wasn't that feminine in early seasons (he and Joey shared the same manly interests) but the show starts making girly jokes about him (wimpy, unathletic, enjoying romantic comedies, etc.) after he's paired with the strong-willed, domineering Monica. In one episode, Monica bought a different set of wedding china than the ones Chandler picked out because, in her words, the ones Chandler picked out were "too feminine."
• Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: All of the friends fell into this, but Chandler was probably the most notable early on due to his simultaneous desire to be with someone and his commitment issues. Big nostrils, having a big head, not hating Yanni—all was fair game and a reason why he was regularly single for the first couple seasons. He did start to get better at it before ending up with Monica. Of course, he actually thought that relationship was over early into Season 5 when they had a fight during a getaway. Monica tells him adult relationships don't end so arbitrarily and that they can work through one fight.
• Mistaken for Gay: His co-workers thinks that he is homosexual and one of them even tries to set him up with a male friend. He and Joey are also mistaken as a gay couple on more than one occasion. Hilariously, he's never mistaken for being gay by actual gay people, with the aforementioned friend claiming that their Gaydar pegs him as straight instantly.
• Nice Guy: In early seasons, he's cynical, has Commitment Issues and can be pretty lazy and mischievous with a sarcastic streak, but is a lot sweeter than he realizes. As the series progresses, he takes a level in kindness, though is still very much the Deadpan Snarker.
• No Social Skills: More so by the end due to flanderization. Monica lampshades this in the finale by asking if there's any social situation he's comfortable with.
• Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation:
  • Monica is able to say what Chandler's job is (statistical analysis and data reconfiguration)... after he has left it. Chandler lampshades it, of course.
    Chandler: I quit and you learn what I do?
  • This trope was also how he and Joey won Rachel and Monica's apartment. Ross asked the question, and...
    Rachel: Oh, gosh. It has something to do with numbers...
    Monica: ... And processing...
    Rachel: He carries a briefcase...
    Ross: Ten seconds. You need this, or you lose the game.
    Monica: It's, um, it has something to do with transponding.
    Rachel: Oh! Oh! He’s a transpons... transponster!
    Monica: That's not even a word!! I can get this, I can get this!
    [their time runs out]
• Off the Wagon: He used to be a smoker but quit. He has several relapses over the course of the series.
• One-Hour Work Week: Less justified than most of the others, as... whatever it is he does looks like a 9-5 office job. Lampshaded in one scene at Central Perk. Chandler's complaining about not being treated well at his job and Joey notes, "Well, maybe it's because you're hanging out here at 11:30 on a Wednesday..."
• Out-of-Character Moment: "The One with Ross' Teeth" has him being the manly policing one, and complaining to Joey from episode start that Janine is turning Joe into a woman. Given the amount of times before and after the episode that Chandler's treated like a Virtual Girl by everyone else, it's very hypocritical of him.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Monica's previous boyfriends, especially Richard. Given that he'd idolized Richard, and her other ex-boyfriends included millionaire Pete, The Ace Allan and Fun Bobby, his insecurity is understandable. Thanks to his strong relationship with Monica, he overcomes many of his confidence issues, except for being a Sad Clown: "Being funny is all I have!"
• Parental Neglect: His mother was a famous erotic novelist, his father ran off with the houseboy and he was sent to boarding school. This conversation sums it up nicely:
  Chandler: Oh, that’s Parent’s Day, first grade. That’s me with the janitor, Martin.
  Monica: Where were your parents?
  Chandler: Oh, they didn't want to come.
• Parental Substitute: In a joking manner, Chandler sometimes treats Joey as if he were his son due to Joey's lack of maturity, even stating that if he can't have Emma in the event of Ross and Rachel's death, then they can't have Joey.
• Pungeon Master: He can craft witty puns and clever wordplay on the spot from time to time.
  Chandler: You got a man who's a nanny? You got a "manny"?
• Runaway Fiancé: Has a Freak Out before the wedding to Monica and runs off. Played sympathetically because of his Commitment Issues and he of course came back, but he's not quite let off as Phoebe throws out some What the Hell, Hero? comments, Ross really does try to kick his ass when he thinks Chandler's leaving again, and even Monica finds out (from Joey, who chose to voice his disapproval at the altar) and snarks at him a few times.
• Sad Clown: Chandler is a rare example from a comedy series. This was lampshaded quite early on, when Phoebe's psychiatrist boyfriend, as part of his schtick of alienating everyone by pointing out uncomfortable truths, said, "I wouldn't want to be there when the laughter stops." Chandler himself says later that he's using humor as a defense mechanism. He's scarred from his thoughtless parents and neglected upbringing when it was implied he was used as a pawn in their divorce. He has serious self-esteem issues because of it and it's only through his relationship with the other friends (particularly his girlfriend Monica), that he gains confidence.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Monica is Hot-Blooded and energetic, while Chandler is a Deadpan Snarker.
• Second Love: Third to Monica, after Richard and Pete. Richard's status as Monica's First Love is a recurring fear of his, though but Monica makes it very clear she loves him more than Richard.
• Secret Relationship: With Monica for almost an entire season. Justifications included that at the start, neither of them dreamed that their London dalliance could become anything more than that. Plus, after seeing all of the drama induced by Ross and Rachel's relationship, Monica and Chandler thought it best to tell no one. And the other characters found out one by one.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Sensitive Guy to Joey's Manly Man. Generally Joey will sleep with girls for a night and Chandler will make them breakfast the next morning.
• Sex God: After some coaching from Monica and Rachel when he dates one of Joey's exes. Later, Monica tells Rachel her new secret boyfriend (Chandler) is the best she ever had.
• The Smart Guy: Not as overtly so as Ross, but he is plenty smart as long as Joey isn't influencing him and balances it out but not being overly dictated by his emotions like Ross. He graduated from Columbia and is consistently one of the most intelligent people of the gang such as being able to come up with a plausible trail to how Rachel would find out Ross slept with Chloe in less than 10 seconds.
• Smoking Is Cool: Or so he claims.
  Chandler: Hey, y'know, I have had it with you guys and your cancer and your emphysema and your heart disease. The bottom line is, smoking is cool, and you know it.
• The Snark Knight: He's the resident Deadpan Snarker, but what elevates him to this status is just as many of his barbs are directed at him as other people.
• Stepford Snarker: He openly admits to using sarcasm to hide deep insecurity that developed due to his rather unusual and traumatic childhood. His snarking also grows noticeably worse during painful situations such as Ross and Rachel's break up, his parents visiting or friends leaving.
• Took a Level in Badass: Chandler is referenced as being mediocre in bed a couple times over the course of the early seasons, until the famous scene where Monica gives him a diagram-based crash-course in pleasuring the female body. His girlfriend literally runs across the hall to hug and emphatically thank Monica following their next lovemaking session. Ends up being a good call on Monica's part, as when she and Chandler later enter a relationship, she repeatedly describes him as the best sex she's ever had.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Because of his upbringing, he used to be kind of a jerk when he was younger (lifting up Susie's skirt in fourth grade or insulting Monica for being fat). In early seasons, he is very cynical and has a hard time showing affection to people, but shows his kind side often enough to be a good guy. After he starts dating Monica, he loses most of his cynicism, and becomes a regularly sweet and devoted boyfriend.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Chandler loves Yoo-Hoo chocolate milk; in addition to scenes that explicitly bring it up as a joke, there's also times during the series where he's drinking it without it being a set-up for a punchline.
• Triple Nipple: Had a "nubbin" for the first couple of seasons; after it scared off a girl he was trying to date, he got it removed.
• Tough Room: He's considered to be the funniest character on the show, but his friends find his jokes annoying for most of the time. A little justified for a couple of reasons: 1) he makes those jokes all the time meaning his friends are likely going to get tired of them eventually (indeed, they laugh less and lampshade more as time goes on), and 2) he frequently makes his jokes about them, giving them another reason not to laugh.
• Unable to Cry: An episode entitled "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry" gave him this Compressed Vice, which was somewhat of a retcon because every other time he was considered the most emotional out of the three guys.
• Unexplained Recovery: One episode has him making a huge scheme and ending up flying to Yemen to escape his on-again-off-again girlfriend Janice. The next episode does not address how he managed to come back, though one can presume that he simply bought another ticket for a trip back immediately after arriving. Assuming that the return trip cost as much as it did to get there, this means he wasted over $4000 just to get out of dating Janice without having to directly break up with her.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Phoebe in the later seasons. Despite being the Deadpan Snarker, he rarely bites back, hinting he's not that comfortable with her remarks. They share rare sweet moments in "The One with the Ring" and "The One with Phoebe's Wedding", implying they are still good friends.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: He's far more grounded and responsible than either of his parents.
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: A Running Gag is that nobody is able to define what he does for a living. He and Joey actually win Monica and Rachel's apartment when they can't answer the question as to what his job is. Monica is finally able to define it when he finally quits.
• You Are What You Hate: Played for laughs when he gets a promotion in his original company in season 1. He ends up acting like the kind of boss he had always complained about and recoils in fear.

Ross

Dr. Ross Eustace Geller

"Unagi is a state of total awareness."

Played By: David Schwimmer ^{Other Languages}José Carlos Moreno, Mario Filio and Mario Castañeda (Latin-American Spanish), Guilherme Briggs and Felipe Grinnan (Brazilian Portuguese)

"Oh, sure, Ross'll do it. It's not like he has a job or a child or a life of his own — no, no, I wanna play!"

The nerd of the group, Ross is an Allegedly Dateless paleontologist whose wife left him when she realized she was a lesbian. She also turned out to be pregnant, and Ross tries his best to be a good dad to his son, Ben. He's fairly awkward and insecure when it comes to relationships, owing to more than his fair share of bad luck with women. His habit of not trusting something's going to work without his intervention often leads him ruining things because he intervened. Though he can be (almost) as neurotic as his sister at times, Ross is generally also seen as the smartest of the group and has a habit of always being right and correcting the rest of the gang when they are not — whether that's major ethical lapses or minor grammatical mistakes. He loves Rachel, but you knew that already, right?

---

• Afraid of Needles: As seen in "The One with the Baby On The Bus" during which he has a severe allergic reaction to kiwi fruit and doesn't want to go to the hospital for a shot. He suggests that they could "take the needle and squirt it into my mouth, you know, like a squirt gun" instead. Monica says he can hold her hand while he gets the shot; he grips it so tightly, she ends up with a bone bruise and a puncture wound from her ring.
• Allegedly Dateless: Despite his numerous girlfriends and dates during the show's run and him being kind of a Chick Magnet (evidenced by "The One with the Girl From Poughkeepsie" and "The One with the Cooking Class"), he's 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".
• All There in the Manual: The creators state Ross' middle name is Eustace. The name "Eustace" was written in the original script for one episode of season 1, but the line was cut, so it never actually aired.
• Amicably Divorced: With Carol. And with Rachel in the last few seasons. Not with Emily, though.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Rachel after their breakup in season 3.
• Berserk Button: He becomes extremely angry when someone at work eats his sandwich.
  Ross: MY SANDWICH?
• Betty and Veronica:
  • The Archie to Rachel's Veronica and Julie's Betty.
  • The Archie to Rachel's Betty and Bonnie's Veronica.
• Big Brother Bully: To Monica, in their childhood. Monica admits that she hated Ross as a kid because he was mean and always making fun of her. While there's still some Sibling Rivalry, they get along much better as adults.
  Monica: I hated you. I mean I, I, loved you in a 'you're my brother so I have to' kind of way, but basically, yeah, I hated your guts.
  Ross: Why did you hate me?
  Monica: Because, you were mean to me and you, you teased me and you always, always got your way.
  Ross: And that wasn't fun for you?
• Big Brother Instinct: See the dramatic explosion above. Also, at Monica and Chandler's wedding, he tells Chandler that if he ever hurts his little sister, he will hunt him down and kick his ass. Of course, since it's Ross, everyone just starts laughing at him—until he proves that he wasn't kidding when he lays Chandler flat out and tells him "you're not running out on my sister!"
• Born Unlucky: Something bad always happen to him in almost every episode. Even something as simple as getting a spray-on tan ends up with him getting tanned unevenly.
• Butt-Monkey: The whole cast go through instances of getting dumped on, but poor Ross seems to have become the official Butt-Monkey in later seasons, ending up the victim of failed attempts, misunderstandings and overreactions one right after another. His romantic life is cruelly wrecked by said misunderstandings and overreactions, and his somewhat pathetic, lovesick nature makes sure he always suffers the full impact without ever really getting to stand up for himself and make an honest effort at a healthy relationship.
• The Cameo: He makes an appearance in The Single Guy.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Ross doesn't tell Rachel he loves her for the entire first season of the show, chickening out every time the opportunity arises. This has the unfortunate result of Rachel only finding out from Chandler while Ross is on a trip to China, and when she realizes she loves him too, he's already met someone else there.
• Catchphrase: His distinctive "Hi" and "We were on a break!".
• The Chew Toy: The director's commentary for one of the early episodes claims this is because David Schwimmer is excellent at physical comedy (such as walking into an open washing machine door).
• Chick Magnet: Ross attracts several women during the show, including Rachel (of course!), Julie, Bonnie, Emily, Elizabeth, Mona, Charlie, Chloe and others.
• Competition Freak: Not as bad as Monica, but he can still get pretty competitive at times. Judy banned them both from playing football as kids because they were so obsessed with beating each other it led to him breaking his nose. He also openly admits that he always plays to win at poker and doesn't care if that means other people have to lose.
• Cosmic Plaything: Ross can't catch a break. Whenever his relationships endure the initial crush-stage and he convinces himself things are going smoothly, Rachel will interfere, or some misunderstanding happens, or his own desperation gets in the way, invariably resulting in utter heartbreak on his part. This is never seriously acknowledged, and more often than not, his friends rub it in his face afterwards, usually with all the blame too.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: It's pointed out that he became this after his first divorce. Ross' jealousy becomes full-blown when Mark is introduced to Rachel, causing Ross to go to extreme lengths to show he is dating Rachel. His causing a mess at Rachel's work in an attempt to show he loves her is what causes her to take a break from him in the first place. This trait shows up again when Emily spends several days in London with Susan and he convinces himself something will happen between them.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's not quite the snarker that Chandler is, but he has his moments.
  Joey: What? Ross, tell him. Isn't that how a tailor measures pants?
  Ross: Yes, yes it is. In prison!
• Desperately Craves Affection: Ross' deepest flaw is his neediness. It causes him to push for closeness his parther(s) isn't ready for, not allow her time to cool off during bad arguments, and make short-sighted decisions because they give him emotional comfort in the moment- behaviours that frequently endanger his romantic relationships.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Can be just as bad as Chandler when it comes to this, especially when he tries flirting with other women. His tendency to do this gets acknowledged in "The One with the Male Nanny".
  Joey: Not knowing when to shut up!
  Ross: Yup. That's my thing.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Ends up on the receiving end of this several times.
  • His divorce from Carol seems to have gone poorly for him as the first episode sees him putting together all-new furniture. It's never established whether or not the apartment was new or if Carol took the furniture in the divorce.
  • After breaking up with Julie and Bonnie for Rachel's sake, he did not end up with her both times because she scolds him for making a list about her flaws in the former and for him not following her list in the latter.
  • After refusing to pay for his new apartment handyman's retirement fund, everyone in the building gives him the cold shoulder.
• Ditzy Genius: He's the smartest of the group academically, but also one of the most foolish and he lacks common sense, especially in later seasons. One example is "The One with Ross' Tan", where he tries to get a tan but he keeps getting the procedure wrong.
  Monica: How could you mess this up? It's so easy? You go into the booth, you count to five and you turn around!!
  Ross: How do you count to five?
  Monica: One, two, three...
  Ross: Damnit!
• Dogged Nice Guy: Towards Rachel, in seasons 1, 4, 8 and 9. He is constantly whining about her boyfriend, who he deems inappropriate for her (Paolo), and feels entitled to her affection just because of "their history"- which started with a high school crush. Moreover, the episode where Ross and Rachel get together for the first time shows Rachel finally realizing what a great guy Ross is for waiting for this.
• Dreadful Musician: With keyboard and especially bagpipes.
• Flanderization: In early seasons, Ross showed basic nerdiness, clumsiness and neurotic tendencies, but during Season 5, David Schwimmer's penchant for high-intensity comedy ("MY SANDWICH!" for example) saw these character traits turned up to eleven. From that point onwards, Ross' character became almost a parody of itself and started riding a line between being more funny but less likable.
• Freudian Excuse: In season four Phoebe theorises that his Crazy Jealous Guy tendencies are the result of Carol leaving him the way she did.
• Generation Xerox: Not only does he look like his dad (thanks to David Schwimmer's uncanny resemblance to Elliot Gould), but has picked up a lot of his mannerisms. Shown off well in "The One Where Nana Dies Twice" where they're sitting in the same pose at the hospital and they stand up at the same time and in the same way.
• Give Geeks a Chance: Palaeontologist Ross and the socialite Rachel are the show's lead examples, and had this dynamic going back to high school where he was the nerd and she was the Lovable Alpha Bitch, who barely noticed him. As adult, she's a spoiled, sheltered young woman who eventually goes to work in fashion and he becomes a university professor.
• Good Parents: Loves Ben and Emma very much and is very involved in their lives despite not being with their mothers anymore.
• Grammar Nazi: He was often this kind of Nazi or at least his irritated friends had the opinion that he was. He had a habit of correcting people when they misused "who" for "whom" and could occasionally become quite irate when confronted with bad grammar (or he would get angry about something else but still feel compelled to nitpick).
• Hair-Trigger Temper: In later seasons, starting with "The One With Ross' Sandwich", he becomes quick to anger and prone to overreaction, if you press his Berserk Button.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: By the middle of season five, Ross suffers from poor self-esteem; he has two divorces (later three) in a short span, he is suspended from his job and he still gets a lot of bad luck.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Chandler during their college years. By the time the shows starts, his place has been taken by Joey (though Chandler calls both of them his best friend), but it's clear they were very close early on including making life-long pacts and spending holidays together. By the end of the series, the three guys are more-or-less a Heterosexual Life-Partners unit, with Chandler in the center.
• Hidden Depths: Can turn erotic cakes into woodland creatures. Note that this was an ability he didn't know he had until he had to fix Emma's birthday cake.
• Honor Before Reason: Ross never wants to admit he is wrong or that he did something wrong (unless an extreme circumstance forces him to). For example, when Monica threatened to expose Ross' secret to his parents about smoking pot in college, Ross kept coming up with excuses and lies on how he was tricked or how it wasn't really him that smoked. After Ross got married to Rachel while drunk, he knows that he has to get a divorce because Rachel would never agree to it. However, in order to save his pride and not get divorced for a 3rd time, he tries to convince Rachel to stay married to him and then lies about getting the marriage annulled.
• Hot-Blooded: In one episode, Ross turns into "Red Ross". His hotbloodedness becomes more apparent when Rachel challenges him to poker.
• Informed Judaism: Subverted during his turn as the Holiday armadillo in season 7, but otherwise there's not much indication of the Gellers' religious beliefs over the course of the show.
• In-Series Nickname: Discussed several times: He likes "Ross-A-Tron" and "Red Ross" but they never catch on, "Wet Pants" Geller and "Crazy" Geller however do. He and Phoebe also debate between "Divorco" "Ross the Divorcer", and "The Divorce Force".
• Insufferable Genius: He tends to be right on many subjects and he always has to prove that he is right whenever someone says something grammatically incorrect or states a wrong fact. His friends naturally get annoyed by this.
  Rachel: God, I hate it when Ross is right!
  Chandler: You know, I think for once Ross might actually be wrong...
  Rachel: [delighted] Really?!
  Chandler: Nah, he's right.
• I Was Quite a Fashion Victim: Ross' 80's curly 'fro and mustache from his school days.
• Jerkass Ball: He can be nice, but a lot of the time he can be selfish, possessive, self-centered and incredibly entitled, even in the early seasons.
• Jewish and Nerdy: He's Jewish (especially seen in "The One with the Holiday Armadillo") other than being a brainy paleontologist, and the most socially awkward Friend.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Not as bad as some other examples of this trope, but he definitely doesn't know quite as much as he thinks he does.
• Large Ham: Everyone has these moments, but Ross really ran with this trope as the Holiday Armadillo.
• Last Het Romance: His wife turns out to be a lesbian and leaves him for another woman, while she was pregnant with his child.
• Likes Older Women: Sometimes. It's revealed he made out with a 50-year-old woman in high school.
• Lost Food Grievance: MY SANDWICH?! [cue Astronomic Zoom]
• Lovable Nerd: Well, in early seasons he was supposed to be a geeky romantic nice guy.
• Manchild: Although he's pretty good with his job and looking after himself, and a good father to Ben, he can fall into this in some situations. In early seasons, both he and Rachel resort to petty revenge whenever they break up from their on again off again relationship. He also gets into childish fights with his sister, Monica, such as hogging the TV or calling her childish names. For the latter, he thought his squabbles with Monica as they grew up together was harmless fun and that is why he kept doing it well into adulthood until Monica confessed that she hated him when they were kids because of his bullying.
• Momma's Boy: He's clearly Judy's favorite. And then there's this quote:
  Chandler: I was so pissed at you that night that I wanted to get back at you. So I thought, "Who does Ross like the more than anybody?"
  Ross: [thinks about it for a few seconds] What did you do to my mom?
• Never My Fault:
  • Monica has called him out on never taking responsibility for how bad she was made to feel in childhood.
  • Chandler had to remind him that even though he may have thought he'd broken up with Rachel, he still slept with a girl three hours after the break and was a Crazy Jealous Guy over Mark, while Rachel points out that he would not have been quick to forgive if the situation had been reversed.
  • Despite his three divorces, Ross tries to argue that he is basically blameless for the failure of at least two of his marriages, arguing that Carol realizing she was gay isn't his fault and Nevada should be blamed for making it legal for him to get married while he was that drunk (although he is willing to concede that his second marriage failing was "a little [his] fault" after he said the wrong name at the altar).
• Non-Action Guy: While he and Chandler are both considered the more pathetic members of the group, this trait is played up more with Ross. Many of his physical activities tend to end in pain, humiliation, or getting overpowered. Joey is able to push him over the couch with one hand, while Rachel and Phoebe show themselves capable of easily overpowering him.
• No-Respect Guy: Despite being the most accomplished and successful member of the group, there is not a single moment in the entire series where the characters treat his (high-paying and well-respected) profession with anything other than mocking and derision. Granted, he is an Insufferable Genius about it, but the gang treats him like he unclogs toilets for a living instead of being a tenured college professor and key note speaker at conferences in his field.
• Not That Kind of Doctor: Ross has a PhD in paleontology, and loves to introduce himself as Dr. Geller. When he does it at a hospital, Rachel tells him: "Ross, stop it. That actually means something here."
• One-Hour Work Week: Though his profession does come into play every now and then.
• Only Sane Man: He likes to think he is, being the man of science and the only one with any kind of post-college education. Whilst he's arguably this early on, as the series progresses, he becomes such a neurotic mess that he can barely live up to this trope.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The overreacting Hot-Blooded Red to Chandler's Deadpan Snarker Blue.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: As close as a thirty-year-old man can do without any help. And it is brilliant.
• Self-Deprecation: Even Ross starts making jokes about his three failed marriages in the later seasons.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The nerdy Sensitive Guy to Joey's macho Manly Man. Mostly seen in later seasons, after Chandler starts spending more time with Monica, often leaving Joey and Ross as a Those Two Guys duo. Inverted in "The One with the Male Nanny" where Ross hates Sandy for being In Touch with His Feminine Side, while Joey appreciates Sandy's company.
• Serial Romeo: Sure, Rachel was always the one, but he falls in love with quite a few girls throughout the show.
• Serial Spouse: He had three ex-wives by the end of the series and is often mocked for it (sometimes by himself).
  Ross: I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but No Divorces in '99!
  Monica: Aren't you still married to Emily?
  Ross: Just The One Divorce in '99!
• Sibling Rivalry: With Monica. They clearly love each other and will defend one another when the chips are down, but they have a pretty typical sibling rivalry. They squabble, bicker, argue, fight, and don't always get along — and compete with each other on a lot of crap, especially when it comes to their parents' approval. Ross is the golden boy to their parents while Monica isn't.
• The Spock: Of the men. He's The Spock to Chandler's The Kirk and Joey's The McCoy.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: A sibling example. He is weak but the smartest of the group, while his sister Monica is stated to be "freakishly strong".
• Suckiness Is Painful: He's an even worse musician than Phoebe. His "music" is a basic song played by the keyboard itself while he presses keys to make random noises (like traffic or barnyard animals) come out. He also tries to learn to play the bagpipes for Monica's and Chandler's wedding, because Chandler has some Scot heritage. Both times, only Phoebe is impressed (she even sings along with the bagpipes. "EEEEEEEEE EEEEE EEEEEEE.").
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: The tallest out of the three guys.
• That Came Out Wrong: Ross was the Mayor of doing this on that show. In a late season, he's trying to convince Rachel's ex-boss to rehire her, and he learns that the man's son is into dinosaurs.
  Ross: How would [your son] like to come with me to the Museum of Natural History after everyone else has left, just the two of us, and he can touch anything he wants?
  Mr. Zelner: [looks horrified]
  Ross: I just heard it how you must have heard it and that's not good. Let me start again. I'm a paleontologist, you'll be there with us and the touching refers only to bones — Fossils!
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In one episode, out of depression from his breakup with Emily, he winds up dating Janice. However, his complaining winds up getting on Janice's nerves and she quickly ends things with him. The knowledge that he's managed to actually annoy her winds up cheering him up a little.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Ross was one of the most rational and serious members of the group in early seasons. By the end, he becomes more of a neurotic mess and a Manchild prone to overreacting, often acting foolish, making bad choices and regularly putting himself into ridiculous situations. It could be that he was Surrounded by Idiots from the start and simply became one of them.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: After his breakup with Emily, he gradually becomes more egotistical and obnoxious, if only to justify his Butt-Monkey role.
• Took a Level in Kindness: He was a Big Brother Bully and very mean to Monica when they were kids, but now he's mostly nice to her except for a few moments of Sibling Rivalry, and they are quite close.
• Trademark Favorite Food: While not as prominent as Joey or Monica's obsession with food, he also enjoys sandwiches. The most notable example is Monica's special Thanksgiving leftover sandwiches.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Several times with Rachel. S1: Ross —> Rachel. S2: Rachel —> Ross. S3: Ross —> Rachel then Rachel —> Ross. S4/5: Rachel —> Ross. S6: Ross —> Rachel. S8/9: They swap per episode. S10: Ross —> Rachel.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Rachel. They would resolve it once, then something will go wrong, cue angry break up, the UST will slowly build up again over time, over and over again.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: More in later seasons. Ross' characteristics of jealousy, arrogance, whininess and overall negative characteristics get played up more. At the same time, he's also the main Butt-Monkey of the group (even more than Chandler). The series pokes a lot of fun at his misfortunes, most notably being divorced three times over the course of the series.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Phoebe.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Has a great fear of spiders.
• Will They or Won't They?: He and Rachel are the king and the queen of this trope. For reference, the Ross/Rachel Unresolved Sexual Tension was introduced in the first five minutes of the pilot and lasts until the last five minutes of the finale, after ten years of Ship Tease. They don't fall into this trope only when they are actually dating, which is during the second half of season 2 and the first half of season 3.