YMMV / Friends

• Abandon Shipping:
  • Richard/Monica and Chandler/Kathy were pretty popular, but vanished almost the minute Monica popped up from under Chandler's covers and the entire fandom jumped on the Chandler/Monica ship, which sailed strongly into the end of the series.
  • Ross and Rachel was undoubtedly the biggest ship in the first seasons but from Season 4 and onward it steadily became less and less popular. The writers and producers continued to love the pairing and believed them to be a lot more popular than they were, making a great many fans frustrated with how the show insisted on focusing on them which in turn made more people abandon the ship. Many found it frustrating that so much focus went to Ross and Rachel and their numerous get-togethers and break-ups while less focus came to Chandler and Monica who were a steady couple for more than half the show's run, with even Chandler and Monica's wedding episode ending on a Ross and Rachel cliffhanger.
• Actor Shipping: Matthew Perry/Courteney Cox have a pretty big fanbase due to their chemistry and close friendship. The shipping wasn't as prevalent during the actual show as Courteney was Happily Married to David Arquette, but after the couple split up 'Matteney' fans grew exponentially and were regularly fueled by Cox guest starring on Perry's show, their habit of crashing each others interviews (in Courtney's case to kiss Matthew on stage) and Matthew throwing around comments like "I just wanted to make her laugh all the time" and "she's a very beautiful woman" and making sexual jokes about their relationship: "would Courteney be the bike?" and even a skit on Ellen joking that they're a couple. Not to mention Courteney posting on Twitter that, on a scale from 1 - 10, she loves Matthew '13.6'. When Courteney guest starred on Matthew's show there were photos of them practically snuggling during breaks. Tumblr exploded.
• Adorkable:
  • Chandler often wears vests and suits. He makes awkward jokes and is very insecure. He makes up for a fight with Monica by expressing his feelings for her through a dictionary definition. When she asks him how he got so cute, he says his grandfather was Swedish and his grandmother was a tiny little bunny, which gives him bonus points in cuteness.
  • Ross is a major dinosaur and science geek and swoops in with dazzling lines like "would you rather burn or freeze to death?" Sometimes it works and ladies like it, but at times he strikes out.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation:
  • Due to the show's usage of Unrequited Love Switcheroo and general treatment of Ross, it's easily possible to argue that the show has an anti-Nice Guy message. The only times the show seems to reward his behavior is when he tries to get over Rachel, if only because that's when Rachel suddenly decides she likes him and the other four buy into the Nice Guy narrative just as much as he does.
  • In "TOW the Ball," Rachel spends $1,000 on a purebred show cat because she's determined to have the same breed her grandma had, despite the others pointing out how "free cats" and "regular cats" are available for the same purpose and less money. It turns out to be a living nightmare of a pet. Adopt, don't shop!
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Depending on how you look at things, Chandler and Joey are potentially responsible for every major thing that went wrong over Ross and Rachel's relationship over the first three seasons:
    • Them convincing Ross to move past Rachel at the end of the first season, leading to him getting together with Julie and Rachel pining for him.
    • They wind up convincing Ross to make the infamous list, and proceed to start it up for him. Then when Rachel finds it and gets upset, neither guy takes the fall for Ross by taking credit for it and absolving him, instead letting him take the full blame.
    • When Ross was already starting to get jealous over Mark, they make him even more paranoid.
    • During Ross and Rachel's break they urge him to call her back on the phone when Ross preferred to just let it blow over for a bit, leading him to hear Mark on the phone and falsely believe that she's moved on beyond him.
    • Then in the following episode, Ross is already in hot water after his affair with the copy girl and initially decided to just come clean to Rachel, only for the two to convince him to try to cover it up, which just made things even worse for him when she did find out.
  • After Hours argued here that all of the main characters are spectacularly nasty, cruel, stupid, selfish, homophobic, lecherous people, but unlike in Seinfeld, the show doesn't end with them getting their comeuppance and the audience is supposed to sympathize with them, given that the tone is much lighter than in Seinfeld.
  • According to this Cracked article, Gunther is basically an Audience Surrogate, desperately wanting to be part of the main characters' lives and is instead used as a punchline.
  • Charles Bing/Helena Handbasket is actually a transgender woman or at least a full-time cross-dresser as opposed to being just a Drag Queen. Whenever Charles/Helena is brought up, he is always referred to as being in full drag even when he is not performing, such as when he came dressed as Carmen Miranda for Chandler's grade school swim meet, or when he attends Chandler's wedding in full drag. This seems to identify a person who is more comfortable in portraying themselves as a full-time woman as opposed to a gay man who wears drag sometimes for work or fun. One of the co-creators at least considers her a trans woman, and regrets the jokes in hindsight. Kathleen Turner also seems to view the character as trans, and states that if the series were made today, a trans actress should have played the role instead.
  • Chandler is a repressed bisexual, many characters have stated that he has a (gay) 'quality' to him, and Chandler often tends to get overly defensive whenever his sexuality is brought up. It is possible he was written as a character who may have latent homosexual desires, but was terrified to ever admit to them because of the depraved actions of his father scarring him since childhood.
    • Comic author Magdalene Visaggio postulated that Chandler is actually a repressed transgender lesbian, which could explain the disconnect between his 'quality' and his attraction to women (though this is less likely to have been an intentional writing decision).
    • There's also some evidence Joey may have been written to be secretly bisexual but only dates women due to his career (which could be very detrimental to an actor in the '90s). This included telling Chandler quite openly that he had 'no problem with the gay thing' (when he assumed Chandler was gay), seeming rather sexually relaxed in general, and when interviewed for a Soap Magazine about being homosexual, Joey considers the questions for quite longer than one normally should (due to said episode being a Clip Show) before finally rather defensively claiming he's straight.
    • Word of God has said that they debated "making Chandler gay" and there are hints they considered this for Joey, too.
  • The guy who stole Ross' sandwich. On the face of it, his actions seem unintentionally thoughtless, maybe a bit absent-minded, but nothing too drastic. However:
    • The sandwich was both distinctive (it had a third piece of gravy-soaked bread in the middle), and labelled with a lame but memorable 'knock knock' joke that clearly identified it as belonging to Ross. The guy cops to having noticed and read the note.
    • So, he's an admitted thief. But there's more. Considering he opened the fridge, picked up a sandwich, identified it as someone else's, but still ate it, it begs the question of why he opened the fridge at all. If he had his own sandwich in there, he surely would have kept searching for it after realising Ross' wasn't his.
    • Thus, we are forced to conclude that he had no food of his own in there, and instead opened the fridge with the express intention of taking someone else's lunch. Not only that, he clearly wasn't planning to replace or reimburse whoever's lunch he took. Perhaps Ross didn't need to scream at him, but he definitely deserved a chewing out.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees:
  • Remember Mockolate (fake chocolate made from suspicious substances)? Disgusting and potentially hazardous? Well, so does anyone who grew up in the Soviet Bloc. Hershey's and other American chocolate companies are doing this now, replacing cocoa butter in their "chocolate" with vegetable oils. Critics have taken to using the "Mockolate" term coined by Friends to describe it.
  • In "TOW the Fertility Test," Monica and Chandler run into the ever-present Janice at the fertility clinic, saying she and her husband are having trouble conceiving again despite already successfully having one child together (Janice's second, in fact). Outlandish, far-fetched excuse being used by the universe bending over backwards to torture the Bings? Not at all — it's called "secondary infertility," a sadly not uncommon problem. Once upon a time, it was even more common, before the discovery of the rhesus factor; the +/- part of blood type wherein an Rh- woman and an Rh+ can easily have a child and then, thanks to her body encountering the "foreign" blood antigens and developing antibodies, not having any more.
  • Many Friends fans outside of America are shocked to find that Days of Our Lives is an actual program, thinking it was an intentionally silly Soap Within a Show. Similarly, Amazing Discoveries (where Joey tries out the Milk Master 2000) was also a real show. A syndicated As Seen on TV weekly informercial, it was hosted by Mike Levey (and his famously loud sweaters), who also appeared in the episode.
  • Alternate Universe Joey claims he's delivering twins but only one of them is his on "Days Of Our Lives". This is actually a rare occurrence called heteropaternal superfecundation where fraternal twins have separate fathers.
• Americans Hate Tingle: "TOW Ross's Wedding" is considered by many fans to be one of the series' classic episodes. However, fans in Britain despise it for being a stereotypical and patronizing caricature of London and its people. Many of them dismissively call it "The One Where They Insult the English"
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Despite having had what most would consider a traumatic life, Phoebe in is usually very throwaway about it, even using her mother's suicide to get the last muffin. Lamp Shaded in an episode where she's writing a song and says she can't think of anything sad to draw inspiration from, Rachel suggests her mothers death or living in the street, Phoebe decides to use a bad hair day. Lisa Kudrow says she was inspired by a friend of hers^note Who was forced to drop out of college because her strict parents thought it was making her irreligious and had to work in a nursing home to pay the bills. According to Lisa, she remained The Pollyanna throughout the whole thing. and realised that the humour would come from Phoebe acting as if she was just like everybody else.
  • Monica and Chandler aren't quite as bad, but seem blasé about their absolutely horrible childhoods (both involving Parental Neglect and borderline Abusive Parents). Then again, she is a Control Freak and he a Stepford Snarker, so their responses are subconsciously present.
  • When Joey and Chandler are robbed — a major blow for Joey in particular since he's perpetually broke at the time — most of the other characters seem very unconcerned about it, with Monica only offering a mere "What happened?" before telling Rachel about her bad date with Chip.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The infamous Ross and Rachel Will They or Won't They? relationship, which lasted throughout the entirety of the show's 10 seasons. After a few seasons, it got to a point where many believed that these two being around one another in a relationship just wasn't going to be healthy for either one of them. This went explained by the producers of the show that Monica & Chandler extended the show's longevity by 3 years. Indeed aside from the brief marriage and annulment, seasons 5, 6, and 7 had the least development of their relationship whereas Monica & Chandler took up the majority of the screentime.
  • Even though fans generally liked Monica and Chandler as a couple, some of the plot arcs dealing with their relationship made many viewers feel they were being stretched too thin. After the two first hook up, they decide to keep their affair a secret from others. Even after Monica and Chandler realize they're actually in a serious relationship, for some inexplicable reason they still don't want to tell their closest friends about it. This whole arc is stretched over 14 episodes of the fifth season before it finally gets resolved. Compared to that, their proposal arc is relatively short, taking only the last four episodes of Season 6. But after the proposal, the entire seventh season is spent dealing with various dramas and shenanigans leading up to the wedding: Who will pay for it? Will it be fancy or modest? Who will be the maid of honor? Will the engagement photo look good? What about Monica's wedding dress? What band will play at the wedding? Will Chandler's dad be there? Will Chandler get cold feet due to the failure of his parents' marriage?
• Award Snub:
  • Poor Courteney Cox is the only Friend to not be nominated for an Emmy, something critics are still scratching their heads about and viewers will complain about a decade later. The writers have also expressed their utter confusion, as they admit Cox provided the energy and rock that kept the rest of the cast together.
  • The show itself didn't win 'Best Comedy Series' until the eighth season. (Which, admittedly, was one of the stronger seasons of the show in the eyes of many at the time, but extremely late in the game considering the strength of the early and mid-seasons).
  • Given his popularity in playing one of the more dynamic characters, some take issue with Matthew Perry being unable to win an Emmy (and only getting one nomination for his run in the show, in Season 8, which he lost to Ray Romano for Everybody Loves Raymond).
• Awesome Music: "I'll Be There For You" by The Rembrandts. Expect clapping after the first line if you sing near fans of the show.
• Base-Breaking Character: All the main characters except Chandler fall into this trope, with the worst anyone ever says about him is his homophobia; which, considering his homelife growing up, is somewhat understandable, and he's eventually shown reconciling with his father. In many of the cases, the broken bases involve liking the original characters and disliking the later, Flanderized versions, as the disliked traits in question become much more pronounced as time went on.
  • Rachel: Charming and sophisticated yet sweet woman who should be considered a role model or a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who downright abuses The Unfair Sex to treat Ross horribly and get away with it to Karma Houdini levels.
  • Monica: Charmingly quirky Woobie thanks to her status as The Unfavorite and supportive Team Mom, or militant Control Freak who runs roughshod over her friends and treats her partner so bad it borders on emotional abuse.
  • Ross: A sympathetic, relatable, Adorkable and hilarious Butt-Monkey, or a pedantic know-it-all loser, who refuses to take responsibility for his actions, and should stop whining and get over his unhealthy obsession with Rachel. Either way he's the most authentic New Yorker of the main cast.
  • Joey: A lovable Kindhearted Simpleton who is still able to be charming and funny, or a perverted moron who treats women as sexual conquests and is just plain Too Dumb to Live.
  • Phoebe: Crazy Is Cool and hilarious kook with an interesting and tragic backstory, or a horrible jerkass who treats her friends Ross and Chandler terribly. Depending on who you ask, she's either a textbook example of kindness and Incorruptible Pure Pureness or the meanest of the main characters.
• Better on DVD: The DVD sets not only made it easier to binge through the series, but also had additional scenes in the episodes that add in several more jokes and even a few extra story scenes that were cut from the broadcast releases for time (for instance, some TV broadcasts cut out the final two minutes of "TOW The Football"). In an inverse of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!, the fact that the HD remasters of the episodes, such as on Netflix and Blu-Ray, have lacked these scenes because of technical issues making it impossible to convert them to HD hasn't been well-received.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Robin Williams and Billy Crystal's guest appearance at the beginning of the episode "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion" has no relevance to the plot and is never mentioned again. It wasn't even in the original script; they coincidentally just happened to be in the same building where the show was filmed and the writers asked if they wanted to make a guest appearance. Lampshaded by the gang when it's over.
  [cut to the gang; they’re all stunned]
  Phoebe: So, Monica, what were you gonna tell us?
  Monica: (pause) I have no idea.
• Broken Base:
  • Did Ross sleeping with the copy girl after Rachel told him they needed "to take a break from us" count as cheating? And what does "on a break" mean, for that matter? It's worth noting that Ross had at first assumed Rachel wanted to take a break from the argument which he agreed with until she clarified what she meant, and she only started insisting that they weren't on a break after she found out what he did. Ross walked into the bar and greeted Joey and Chandler with "we broke up". The next morning, Rachel tells Monica that they never made it to dinner because "we broke up instead".
  • The entire Ross/Rachel relationship. Some love it for being a great Will They or Won't They?, Opposites Attract plot and believe it's an epic love story. Others think it's an unrealistic and unrewarding Masochism Tango of two unsuited people who treat each other horribly. The split is probably highlighted by the younger, newer fans who, thanks to Once Original, Now Common, find Will They or Won't They? plots over-used in TV and the Give Geeks a Chance mantra cliché. The relationships also draws ire from Monica/Chandler fans, who find the 'Lobsters' reputation as the 'greatest couple ever' undeserving when the Mondler relationship lasted six times as long, worked far better together and had a greater impact on the group dynamic.
    • In the end, the Ross/Rachel dynamic got as much play as it did because the show's writers loved conflict a lot more than they loved happiness. They wrote so much Ross and Rachel because it didn't work and they had fun with it, whereas they found Monica and Chandler sweet but boring to write.
  • In a much less serious example, the fans can't seem to agree on whose reaction (Joey's, Rachel's, Phoebe's, or Ross's) to finding out about Monica and Chandler's affair is the funniest.
  • There's a big debate about the show's attitude towards Ross and Carol's divorce. Some fans are annoyed that Carol was not called out enough for having an affair before the show started - as opposed to how bad Ross is shown to look after having a one night stand with Chloe. Other fans argue that Carol being confused about her sexuality justifies it somewhat, especially since she and Ross seem to have become Amicable Exes.
• Character Perception Evolution: When the show first premiered, Ross was usually perceived as a Lovable Nerd in a Give Geeks a Chance type relationship with Rachel. He is thought of by younger generations as far too much of a Crazy Jealous Guy and Manchild to actually be likable, and many find his On-Again, Off-Again Relationship with Rachel more toxic than romantic.
• Crazy Is Cool: Phoebe. Case in point, Monica and Phoebe were supposed to plan Rachel's surprise birthday party together. Monica naturally makes all the decisions about the way the party will go, leaving Phoebe with only cups and ice. Phoebe ends up making cups and ice the dominant theme of the party, to the point where Monica's finger food is dismissed over Phoebe's snow cones.
• Crack Pairing: Chandler/Rachel and Ross/Phoebe are quite popular, though not as much as the canon pairs or the obvious Joey/Phoebe. Both were also canonically almost possible, as shown during flashback episodes that showed Ross and Phoebe did almost get together and Chandler and Rachel did fantasise about getting together.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Phoebe's flashbacks to her past lives in "The One with All the Thanksgivings." Getting her arm blown off would normally be horrifying anywhere else, but the way she casually mutters "oh no," like it happens all the time quickly sends it to this territory.
• Designated Villain: Emily is treated as a villain due to trying to forbid Ross from seeing Rachel, breaking up with him when he wouldn't, getting engaged again within the same season and then in "The One with the Ride-Along" Monica calls her controlling and unstable for thinking of running out on her wedding. Except she only became paranoid and distrusting of Ross when he said Rachel's name during their vows, meaning her actions are very much justified especially after catching Ross about to leave on their honeymoon with Rachel. However "The One with the Ride-Along" does bring up the hypocrisy by pointing out that many of Monica's accusations about Emily apply to herself and Rachel.
• Dry Docking: People of both sexes did not want Ross and Rachel to be together, so they could have that couple for themselves.
• Escapist Character: Rachel Green seems to be this in a lot of circles: an attractive woman who grew up in a rich family, has friends who drop everything to get her out of the jams she gets herself into, manages to land a high-paying career in which she's passionate before she's 30, is the pride of her parents, and has no shortage of attractive well-off guys interested in her.
• Fair for Its Day:
  • Chandler's Dad is played by a woman. It's not really clear whether Chandler's Dad is supposed to be a drag queen, a male crossdresser, or a transgender woman. At the time the show was written, the differences between these categories were not obvious to the mainstream viewer. With hindsight, however, this can seem a bit awkward to the modern viewer now that transgender people are better understood and more accepted. One of the creators, Martha Kaufman, has gone on record saying she regrets the jokes in hindsight (and clarified that she was meant to be a trans woman). While the character is still referred to with male pronouns, episodes do revolve around Chandler learning to be accepting and include her in his life (she's arguably portrayed more sympathetically than Chandler's mother Nora).
  • Ross' wife leaving him for a woman is portrayed as inherently humiliating to a quite eyebrow-raising level these days, but the way he largely accepts it (under the laws of the time, he easily could have gotten her barred from ever seeing their son rather than letting her raise him) and we even see a lesbian wedding being portrayed as completely legitimate is quite impressive for the time.
  • By modern standards, Carol and Susan's relationship reeks of Hide Your Lesbians - namely the fact that other characters are reluctant to refer to them as a couple, they rarely refer to themselves as a couple, and not once do they ever kiss on-screen, not even at their wedding. The way that their lesbianism is often the butt of the joke can also come across as homophobic. However, at the time it was considered groundbreaking for a mainstream TV show to have a (relatively) positive portrayal of a same-sex couple, and a lot of these things (namely never kissing) were because the censors would not have allowed it. The characters are also shown to be loving and caring parents, and often play the more level-headed role in comparison to the main cast.
  • Frank and Alice's relationship in the modern age would reek of grooming, but give how Teacher/Student Romance was depicted in the '90s ^note  Even the show itself fell into this in Season 6 , it was nuanced by comparison. The show made it clear than Frank and Alice waited till after Frank's graduation to start dating, and the group is quite uncomfortable and try to talk Frank and Alice out of it. Alice is the one who tries to break it off at first because it would be wrong, but ultimately decides not to. The two end up being Happily Married with a family through the end of the series showing that despite the highly questionable circumstances, the two had genuinely fallen in love and this was not a Dirty Old Woman who went in with the intent of preying on her students. The relationship even proves to be good for Frank as it gives him stability and direction in his life, and he acquires a good job and is a loving father to his triplets.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Unfortunately, the show is constantly mentioned in the same breath as Living Single which, on the surface, seems like an easy comparison, but the only real similarity is just single working adults with sitcom shenanigans. Both shows widely depart in what material is covered and in the personalities of the protagonists. However, some of the rivalry got turned up to eleven when David Schwimmer proposed an all-black spinoff of Friends in a 2020 interview, Living Single fans quite angrily told him that there was one already (Schwimmer claimed he'd never heard of this show, but apologized for his ignorance nonetheless).
  • The greater rivalry is with Seinfeld. "Seinfeld fan or Friends fan" was the Jets and Sharks of the late '90s. Either you loved a show about nothing or a show about everything.
• Fanon:
  • One common interpretation for the disappearance of Terry, Central Perk's owner and manager for the first two seasons, is that he retired, leaving Gunther to run the coffee house in his place.
  • Ross and Rachel hook up in the last episode but they don't end up married. However many fans and shippers like to think that they are now Happily Married (or better, remarried). Even the show's official wiki lists Rachel as Ross's current wife.
  • Many fans believe Monica's middle initial 'E' stands for Elizabeth.
  • Another popular theory is that Monica and Chandler who adopted twins at the end of the show later managed to have a child naturally. (It was 'unlikely' not impossible'). Although their adoption storyline was popular fans found it hard to see the one committed couple who had worked so hard for a family struggle with infertility so this is a reassuring comfort. It also matches Monica's mother who was thought to be barren before having her and Ross.
  • While on the subject of Monica and Chandler's "trying to have a baby" storyline, there's a theory out there that it's only Monica that has a problem. The reason being that when the gynecologist called to inform Chandler what their issue is, the doctor specifically asked for Monica rather than wanting to inform both the trying parents. As a result, it leaves you wondering if Chandler was informed that Monica's inhospitable uterus is the problem, but Chandler chose to lie to Monica about having lazy sperm as well in order to protect her from blaming herself.
  • As hated as the spin-off Joey was, a lot of fans like to think he married Alex, his Love Interest in that show, so he could also have a happy ending. (And of course, that he moved back to New York to be with the Friends again.)
  • Fans also try to shoehorn the opening credits sequence of the six friends dancing in the fountain with the couch, lamp, and lights strung up everywhere as canon by saying it was a photo shoot that Joey did early on in his career, and when they needed a handful of good-looking people on short notice, Joey called the others.
  • The unnamed character played by Hugh Laurie flying to London next to Rachel. By coincidence, the personality and dialogue are a super close match to Laurie's future character Dr. Gregory House from Princeton, NJ (although he has Laurie's natural English accent rather than House's American one).
  • Earl is probably just suffering from seasonal depression. After all, he was so happy during the Summer of George!
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Many fans (and even the actors themselves!) would have liked to see Joey and Phoebe get together in the end. Sadly the writers thought it would be too cliche (not to mention the fact that they had to free Joey up for the spin-off that Matt LeBlanc signed on for that Lisa Kudrow didn't.)
  • While Chandler ends up with Monica, and that ship remains popular, there is a large portion of the fanbase that ships him with Joey due to the Ho Yay between them. It got to the point where co-creator David Crane had to make clear that Chandler was straight because he was a character and had no choice in the matter. It still has the most fanfiction for any Friends pairing on AO3.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • While the show is still regarded as a great sitcom in America, it definitely becoming more and more a case of Once Original, Now Common. But in Europe, the show is still remembered as an all-time classic, long after it has ended. A common comment among Europeans is that the characters were "universal", and even timeless, hence why they could smash cultural barriers with stunning ease. That's a pretty strong contrast with many of its American detractors, who accuse the show of being nothing but trendy dribble and a Arc Fatigue ridden show that overstayed its welcome.
  • Broadcasting U.S.-friendly newscasts into Saudi Arabia has been unsuccessful in dissuading anti-Americanism there. Broadcasting Friends, on the other hand, proved quite helpful. This is ironic, considering the ensemble tend to fornicate regularly and wear revealing clothes (of course, that's also probably why it was successful there...).
  • Gunther was popular abroad despite being only a minor character. James Michael Tyler (Gunther) was so popular in Dubai that he got offered to be the spokesman for a local coffee brand but NBC botched the deal (they wanted more money).
  • Friends was very popular in the UK ^note  To the point where Prince Harry himself described himself (in his memoir Spare) as being a "Chandler" after binging on the show during his agoraphobic periods, although quite a few British fans took exception to "TOW Ross's Wedding" due to its stereotypical and patronising portrayal of Britain/London - Channel 4 couldn't get enough of it, to the point where it was joked that the ending of the show would potentially lead to Channel 4's demise. Even years after the show ended, Channel 4's digital channel E4 showed rerun episodes several times a day, earning it the nickname "E-Friends" ^note  since the channel lost the rights to the show in 2011, its content has become more varied although it seemingly attracts fewer viewers. Meanwhile, Comedy Central continues to run the show endlessly. The enduring popularity of Friends in the UK is the main reason for all of the following:
    • Matthew Perry's first play getting a worldwide premier in a West End theatre ^note  called The End of Longing, it received mixed reviews, with the New York Times calling it "a synthetic play that mostly points out just how much better Friends was written".
    • The very existence of Episodes, or at the very least Matt Le Blanc playing a Joey-like, Jerkass version of himself in that show, plus cameos by David Schwimmer and James Michael Tyler (Gunther).
    • Matt Le Blanc becoming a host of Top Gear after Jeremy Clarkson got fired.
    • The fact that David Schwimmer still appears in adverts on British TV.
  • A large portion of its international fanbase comes from it being used as a teaching tool to learn English.^note So much so that Ana de Armas joked during her SNL monologue that she, like most immigrants, learned English from watching it. English teachers recommend it because of the plethora of episodes that portray everyday situations and colloquial conversation.
  • As of 2013, Friends and Seinfeld are the two most rerun shows on the Israeli broadcast networks, in terms of cumulative airtime over the past 45 years (i.e. since the first Israeli television broadcasts). Each of them easily outranks any other foreign or local show in terms of total rerun airtime. Geeking out over "Friends" is probably the one thing an Israeli and Arab could bond over (Friends is popular all over the Middle East).
  • It was very popular in the Czech Republic among the young and the older when it first aired in The '90s, and in The New '10s, chances are that one of the TV channels is airing its reruns.
  • It also was and continues to be popular in India, due to being one of the few American shows broadcast in the early 1990s.
  • China loves Friends so much that one Beijing fan did a Defictionalization of the Central Perk.
  • The show was always popular in Canada during its run, and it still continues to be- but its popularity there outright boomed once it became available on Netflix, with it breaking streaming records every year. When news broke of the show leaving Netflix in 2020, Primetime channel Much (formerly known as Much Music) announced a marathon that started on December 19 that would run all the way through to January 2nd, 2021, and Crave (Canada's HBO Max equivalent) bought its streaming rights, making the entire show available to stream starting on December 31st.
• Growing the Beard: While the first season isn't considered bad, it had a lot of '80s-ish styles and fashions (particularly in hairstyles), and was quite a bit more wholesome, family-friendly, and episodic than the other seasons, with some critics regarding it as an inferior clone of Seinfeld. It started to grow some stubble with "The One With All The Poker", the first episode to really show what it can do with its Gender-Equal Ensemble by pitting Rachel, Monica, and Phoebe against Joey, Chandler, and Ross in a friendly game of poker. However, it doesn't really find its stride until the second season, after that the styles and fashions match the proper decade much more, the writing improves, it finds its own consistent humor and voice, the character's personalities begin to gel more, and there are more ongoing story arcs. It had also set itself apart from many other sitcoms of the time by ending most of their seasons in soap opera style cliffhangers, a trend that 3rd Rock from the Sun soon followed. By the end of Season 2, it was already competing with Seinfeld as the ultimate sitcom of the '90s.
• Ham and Cheese : "TOW Mac and CHEESE" was all over this trope, from Phoebe's Bad "Bad Acting" while reading lines with Joey to the Stylistic Suck of the show and flashbacks of Joey's acting jobs. The episode also has some Hilarious in Hindsight, as it's a robot-human cop show. Cue 2013...
• Harsher in Hindsight: Has its own page.
• He Really Can Act:
  • Even though she played arguably the silliest character, Lisa Kudrow had the most Emmy nominations out of the cast, nominated six times and winning once (for the season of Phoebe giving birth).
  • While the overall arc of Joey being in love with Rachel was not greatly received, it also brought Matt LeBlanc his three Emmy nominations for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy over the final three seasons.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: A great deal of Monica and Chandler's interactions throughout the series become this once they become a couple:
  • In 'The One With the Girl who Hits Joey' Chandler goes overboard and proposes to Monica at the end, even though he isn't ready. They're in the same location and positions they are when the real proposal happens.
  • A flashback reveals Chandler and Monica almost have sex when he calls her "the most beautiful woman I've ever known [in real life]." In Season 5, when they have sex for real what does he say that sparks it? "You're the most beautiful woman in most rooms". Clearly that line works on her.
  • In Season 1, Chandler offers to get together with Monica and raise a family together if they're both still single at forty. Turns out he doesn't wait until they're forty.
  • In 'The One Where Heckles Dies' Chandler freaks out that his commitment phobia will prevent him from finding the one, and he'll be left alone when the others settle down. Flash forward to later seasons, and he has found the one, (she was living across the hall the whole time), and he and Monica are the first to get married (and stay married) and start a family.
  • 'The One With All the Flashbacks' when pre-series Chandler comforts Monica over not having a boyfriend and tells her she'll find someone. Of course, she does find someone: Him.
  • Chandler and Monica's conversation at Ross's wedding in the Season 4 finale. Monica confides her fears that she's "Never going to get married" and Chandler responds with: "Who wouldn't want you?". Three seasons later, the finale is all about their wedding.
  • In TOW The Jam, Joey talks Monica out of becoming a single mother through sperm donors, because he always thought she'd marry a great guy and they'd have a whole, proper family together. The great guy she finds? His best friend. (Who Joey himself had to reassure he wouldn't die alone).
  • In Season 1, Chandler explains he hates Thanksgiving because it's the day his parents split up. By the end of the series, Thanksgiving is the day he met the love of his life (shown in flashbacks) and the day they found out they were getting a baby. For him it stops being about his parents' family falling apart, and about his own family coming together.
  • More like Heartwarming with Oversight, but Chandler's Season 7 promise to Monica that he'll love her no matter her size, is even sweeter when you remember the Season 6 episode 'TO That Could Have Been'. Because the viewers know, even if the characters don't, that had Monica been fat Chandler would have fallen in love with her even when no one else did, adding a whole new level of fuzzies to the scene.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Has its own page.
• Hollywood Homely:
  • Ross and Chandler are definitely this. Especially Chandler in the first few seasons where all women seem to treat him like he's repulsive when actually he's quite cute and very funny. It gets better when the writing focuses on how he's socially awkward rather than unattractive.
  • On a more notable level, Fat Monica. While she's notably larger than average (although not really that big), she has a cute face and those winning blue eyes, and she's absolutely adorable. It is however shown in a What If? episode that she would have a boyfriend if she remained fat, and Chandler would still fall for her.
  • Ross's girlfriend Bonnie, after Rachel convinces her to shave her head. Everybody is really creeped out by it, and Rachel deliberately encouraged her to do it to sabotage Ross's relationship with her because it would creep him out, even though it's the same stunningly gorgeous Christine Taylor. It's especially strange since, even though the friends are assumed to be pretty milquetoast about such things, you would assume six twenty-something New Yorkers would have seen stranger things than a bald woman. On the other hand, Joey did ask who Ross was going to choose in his dilemma to see if Bonnie was gonna be available, so it might have simply been surprised at the abrupt change.
• Hollywood Pudgy:
  • Chandler. In one episode, several members of the group comment that he has put on weight. Phoebe even mockingly pretends that she can't put her arms around him to give him a hug. A particularly glaring example of this trope, as not only does Chandler look exactly the same as he always does, until the rest of the group point it out, he is completely unaware of having put on any weight.
  • Also Fat Monica. From the way everybody on the show talks, you'd think she was a two ton blimp. But she's just 7/10 on the weight scale, at most. Though it's worth remembering that Friends was set in the early nineties, and the lower obesity rate would have made her stand out more. Still, the way everyone goes on and on about it, one would expect her to get stuck in doors or something like that.
• Informed Wrongness:
  • Ross generally ends up on the receiving end of this, most infamously in "The One With The Cat", where Phoebe thinks a stray cat is her reincarnated mother. After learning the cat belongs to a little girl, Phoebe decides to keep the cat, claiming she has to respect her mother's wish to be with her. Everyone looks like they're going to accept it, and only Ross insists on putting an end to this. For this, Ross gets chewed out for being a bad friend, because he wasn't supportive of Phoebe, like the others were. He ends up apologizing and, embarrassed for his attitude, momentarily drops his point altogether. The problem with that is that Ross was supportive of Phoebe, and only stopped humoring her when he found out about the little girl. The only real difference between Ross and the others was that he was unwilling to let Phoebe keep the cat at the little girl's expense. And then, despite having made him out to be completely wrong for insisting on giving the cat back, Phoebe does a complete 180-degree turn and decides to return it as though that was what she planned to do all along rather than as the result of Ross insisting she give her back. It was later revealed the rest of the show's crew hated the script and the only reason it made it into the show was that the writer actually had recently lost her mother and was clearly working some things out.
  • Another Ross example is in the Season 4 finale, where Emily wants to call off the wedding and move it to a later date because the venue has undergone sudden construction work. Ross is portrayed as a jerk because he wants to keep the date as is and just find a new place, and Monica tries to explain to Ross about how Emily has been dreaming of her wedding her entire life and thus her wishes come first. Except Ross, Joey, Monica, Chandler and Ross's parents had flown all the way from America to England and they had already spent a fortune on planning the wedding so Emily's wanting to move the wedding last minute comes across as pretty impractical.
  • In "The One with Ross's Sandwich," Ross is depicted as being crazy, unstable, and overreacting to his boss eating his sandwich to the point where he gets suspended from his job and eventually loses it. Even though it's just a sandwich, it's completely understandable that Ross would be upset by this, especially considering he put his name on it and the boss stole it anyway and the sandwich meant a lot to Ross. It's not like he hit his boss. Many fans feel like his anger was justified and the punishment was too severe.
  • Yet another Ross example: In "The One Where Heckles Dies", Ross tries to convince Phoebe that evolution is a scientific fact, only for Phoebe to remark that smart people were wrong before and might be wrong in this case. Ross admits he might be wrong, and Phoebe acts as if she has won by making him admit that. Only, any scientist worth their title will tell you that everything in science can be proven to be wrong and/or incomplete: in fact, without this idea, science would not advance - after all, one of the purposes of an experiment is to determine whether a hypothesis is correct or not by comparing the results to the ones said hypothesis predicts. Thus, Ross acts like it would be expected of him by admitting he might be wrong.
  • Monica is treated as in the wrong for not wanting Phoebe to play guitar in front of her restaurant. The show seems to portray it as Monica being snobbish and thinking Phoebe isn't classy enough. Except a customer explicitly told Monica that Phoebe was being disruptive and killing the vibe and multiple customers had less than flattering things to say about her music. From a customer standpoint, it would be perfectly understandable that they wouldn't want to hear unpleasant music. And from Monica's perspective, she obviously would be concerned about how her business is affected by Phoebe bothering her customers. When Monica tries to gently let Phoebe down, Phoebe instead insults her restaurant's food. The whole plot is resolved with Monica offering Phoebe a free meal instead of acknowledging the issue.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Emily. She turned into a Control Freak and Clingy Jealous Girl only after Ross humiliated her in front of her family and friends at her wedding, the most important day of her life and when she went to the airport for the honeymoon having decided to forgive him saw him getting on the plane with Rachel. No wonder she couldn't trust him.
  • Ross can also be this sometimes; in many of his relationships he becomes irrationally jealous and sometimes clingy (from being convinced Mark was pursuing Rachel, to thinking Emily will cheat on him with Susan because of how much fun she was having with Susan). As Monica actually points out, though, Ross was fine in relationships until his marriage with Carol ended by her discovering she was a lesbian (and doing so by cheating on him with Susan, possibly repeatedly). Now he's just terrified that the same kind of thing will happen again. A lot of Ross's more Jerkass behavior also comes in the later seasons after he's had several humiliating experiences, both in his love life ("three divorces") and elsewhere.
  • Phoebe. She already has a Dark and Troubled Past (living on the street, a mother who killed herself) and apparently became more of a bitch by the end of the series because of the revelations about her family. Makes perfect sense when you realize that she found out she had a brother her father didn't bother telling her about, her grandmother didn't tell her how to get in touch with her father, she lost a year when she found out she's a year older than she thought, doesn't even know her full name because her sister sold her birth certificate, and found out her mom isn't her mom, but her mom's girlfriend. She probably started being such a bitch when she realized her entire family lied to her almost all of her life.
• Less Disturbing in Context: Imagine someone channel hopping and finding "TOW Phoebe's Uterus" and not knowing or recognizing it and hearing Frank Jr. say "My sister's going to have my baby!" without realizing that he's talking about surrogacy not incest. Rachel even says that she's going to miss watching Phoebe freak people out with that.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Laminated list, also known as freebie list. ^explanationA list of your top 5 people, usually famous celebrities with whom you can have sex if you have a chance to score, regardless whether you are in a relationship or not, and your significant other must comply. It was first mentioned by Chandler when he dated Janice, and Ross spent the entire episode trying to figure out the very best selection of ladies possible, and when he was finished, he had his list printed and laminated.
  • "The Rachel" was a very popular women's hairstyle in the '90s.
  • The "double fist bump" that the gang uses as the equivalent of flipping off someone.
  • "Ross Without The Laugh Track" videos showing how creepy Ross could be sometimes without laughter.
  • The scene from "The One With All the Poker" of Marcel playing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" on Ross's CD player got some attention when people started replacing the song with something else, notably Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road".
  • The scene of Phoebe trying to teach Joey French has gained traction as an exploitable to mock people (both fictional◊ and real◊) who just don't get it.
  • The bit from "The One with the Two Parties" where Joey and Chandler pause, look at each other, and burst into laughter◊ is popular to post as a reaction image in response to people saying something foolish.
  • Joey's delayed reaction^ExplanationJoey's expression as he realizes that Ross is the father of Rachel's baby is used in memes about someone suddely realizing something discomforting.
  • "THAT IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION!"^ExplanationPhoebe's Blatant Lies reaction to Ross telling her that Rachel is pregnant with his baby, which Phoebe already knew. The gif of her shouting the line became a popular reaction to "news" that's incredibly obvious.
  • "JOEY DOESN'T SHARE FOOD!" has become the default response to a romantic partner or family member taking food off your plate. Any comments section to such a story shared online will be flooded with repeats of the quote as well, sometimes accompanied by Joey's following "garden salad" speech.
  • "Pivot! Pivot!"^Explanation In "The One With The Cop", Ross has Rachel and Chandler help him move a couch upstairs when it gets stuck in the staircase, so he shouts "Pivot!" to try to tell them to adjust the couch before Chandler yells "Shut up!". Many fans will admit to saying "Pivot!" whenever they try to move furniture themselves.
• Misaimed Fandom: Joey and Rachel have become a lot more popular in recent years due to the increasing scrutiny surrounding Ross and Rachel. These fans tend to ignore the fact that while Joey was genuinely attracted to Rachel, Rachel was only attracted to Dr. Drake Ramoray and couldn't bring herself to be attracted to the real Joey.
• Moe: Phoebe. Quirky, sweet (usually), cute, extremely naive, and always cheerful and optimistic despite her sad backstory. Many fans find her adorable.
• More Popular Replacement: Amy was intended to be an even bigger Hate Sink than Jill, but Christina Applegate's performance, being hilariously stupid and not being able to realize when she's insulted someone, and having a few Pet the Dog moments that even Jill didn't have, many fans prefer her to Jill.
• Narm Charm: The cast dancing in the fountain. Ridiculously cheesy, obviously not the characters and proves the show as unabashedly '90s, but they're all young, cute and having fun, and it's hard not to be endeared.
• Nightmare Fuel: "The One with all the Thanksgivings": The flashback where Chandler gets his toe accidentally chopped off. Granted, we don't actually see the gory result, but we do see the knife falling in slow motion with the Psycho theme playing, before it quickly cuts to Chandler being rushed to the hospital on a gurney. Sweet nightmares, folks...
• Once Original, Now Common: While it is still regarded as funny, and a benchmark that other sitcoms try to reach, the impact it had is largely forgotten after the slew of other shows that followed.
  • At the time, it was unique for a show to have a cast of young people who could be romantically paired up in many different ways. Pretty much every heterosexual combination between the main cast was explored during the series (even Ross and Monica had an accidental kiss in their background). This type of series premise has since become the norm.
  • Friends was, at the time, also unique for delving into the trials and tribulations of 20-something life. A demographic that had, until then, been mostly ignored by television and was just gaining cinematic recognition through movies like Reality Bites. Whereas, today, at least half of all prime time sitcoms are about 20 and early-30 something life.
  • Things like the coffee house, now a cliché, were actually considered 'too hip' by the executives, and they had to be talked into accepting it.
  • When the Pilot was filmed, NBC actually screened audiences to see if they thought Monica having sex with Paul on a first date would make her seem slutty. Given what women on network television get away with these days, it's hard to believe such a thing was cause for concern among network executives in 1994.
  • Ross and Rachel. As mentioned above, thanks to a combination of Values Dissonance and this trope, a lot of younger fans who got on board after the show ended watch their relationship pan out and question what made it so popular. While it's easy now to pinpoint everything that was wrong with them as a couple (pettiness, having very little in common, jealousy issues, etc.), during the mid-'90s, such a relationship was seen as fresh and unique. As, until then, the Give Geeks a Chance trope was rarely (if ever) represented in television. While, in film, it was still seen as a refreshing break from the predictable "pretty boy gets the hot girl" trope so prevalent until the mid-'80s. Today, with the Give Geeks a Chance trope being more-or-less played out and the culture as a whole taking a much more cynical view of the Dogged Nice Guy, it might be hard for younger fans to really appreciate how significant the Ross and Rachel romance was nearly 20 years ago.
  • Also the Will They or Won't They? on/off nature of their relationship: At the time it was a innovative and relatively new way of setting up a couple. Nowadays, virtually every show has an Unresolved Sexual Tension pair and their initial Unrequited Love Switcheroo seems text-book form. (Especially as they first got together as early as Season 2, now writers drag it out much longer.) In fact, it's gotten to the stage where the creative approach is not to break up your main couple, so ironically, Monica and Chandler's relationship appears more unique.
  • The show was seen as very progressive in its handling of Carol and Susan as a gay couple. In fact, the Season 2 episode "TOW The Lesbian Wedding" almost never aired due to its content.
  • Most prior sitcoms centered around families, a particular job or the cast is otherwise unified in some fashion by being roommates, classmates or all visiting the Local Hangout. Friends was unique in that it was literally nothing more than the adventures of a group of friends, everyone had different history with each other, different career paths and different social circles outside their clique. Together with Seinfeld the show redefined the sitcom genre with the "a group of friends" premise.
  • As with Seinfeld, the show's willingness to disrupt its status quo often regarding relationships, jobs, roommates, etc. Where most shows of its day kept a relative status quo to make it easier to write episodes and air them in any order in syndication, Friends (and Seinfeld) relying heavily on serialization helped pave the way for future sitcoms to trust their audiences with such upheaval and evolve themselves beyond their initial premise (plus lay the groundwork for endless running gags and call-backs).
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The unidentified British passenger portrayed by Hugh Laurie in The One With Ross's Wedding Pt. 2 is surprisingly popular despite only appearing in two scenes. The factors which contribute to the passenger's popularity are his delightfully sardonic portrayal by Laurie, coupled with the fact that the passenger calls Rachel out for her selfish behaviour, namely her plan to meddle in Ross and Emily's impending nuptials, a sentiment which resonates with modern audiences. Being played by Hugh Laurie, who became a lot more well-known in the US after House, also helps.
  • Also Sarah Ferguson's cameo as herself - where Joey bumps into her while touring London. She compliments him on his hat.
  • And of course Isabella Rosselini casually walking into Central Perk - and Ross's disastrous attempts at hitting on her.
  • James Hong has two brief scenes in "The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion" and only has dialogue in the first, but manages to pretty memorable as Pete's trainer, who apparently turns out to be a former assassin and quickly has to shut Pete up before he blabs it to everyone else.
  • Alex Borstein doing the one-woman play "Why Don't You Like Me?" that Chandler gets stuck at and is forced to suffer through. She's in three short scenes that make up less than a minute a half, but they're hilarious.
  • Dan Castellaneta's wonderfully hammy performance as the conspiracy theorist who works at the zoo whom Ross encounters is also popular despite only showing up in two brief scenes.
  • Jim Rash's over-the-top Nervous Wreck character from the Grand Finale who falls for Phoebe's ridiculous story about Rachel's plane having a missing phalange and gets it grounded as a result is considered one of the most memorable parts of the episode.
  • Sarah Murdoch as the woman that was caught fooling around with Ross in "The One with Ross's Library Book." It's quite common to see people wishing that there were more episodes with her potentially dating Ross.
  • Robin Williams and Billy Crystal happened to be around and agreed to ad lib a scene. Glory! Glory! All glory!
• Retroactive Recognition: Quite a lot of it, due to the show's long run:
  • Another Plane example, fans of Community will be surprised to find out the man freaking out on the plane next to Rachel in the finale is Dean Pelton, with hair.
    • Chandler and Joey also both briefly dated Frankie.
  • Chandler and Joey briefly dated Emily Prentiss in Season 4.
  • Frank Jr. married Kitty Forman!
  • Melora Hardin (in the first season) and Craig Robinson (in the last season) both had guest spots on the show.
  • Phoebe had every right to be intimidated by her future husband Mike's parents, considering they are Angela Petrelli and President Logan.
  • Cole Sprouse played Ben in the later seasons.
  • Ellen Pompeo shows up in "The One Where the Stripper Cries."
  • In "The One Where Rachel Quits" Ross accidentally breaks the leg of a very young Mae Whitman.
  • In "The One with the Inappropriate Sister" Grumpy steals from Phoebe's charity bucket.
  • In "The One With the Lesbian Wedding" Big Boo hits on Phoebe.
  • "The One With the Birth Mother" has Jerry Gergich appearing as an adoption agent.
    • Joey flirts with Jessica Wicks while working at Central Perk in "The One With Rachel's Sister".
    • Barney Varmn, the accountant who keeps offering Ben jobs that he turns down, is the professor who gushes over Ross in "The One in Barbados, Part 2".
  • In "The One With the Baby on the Bus," a young Catherine Bell is one of the bus girls that Chandler and Joey try to hit on.
  • One for Rooster Teeth fans: In "The One In Vegas: Part 1," Joel Heyman can be seen sitting in the plane seat behind Ross and Rachel during their flight to Las Vegas, and in Part 2, he's among the crowd watching Monica and Chandler's successful craps streak.
  • In "The One With The Dirty Girl," Ross' date is played by Rebecca Romijn in one of her first roles.
  • In "The One With Ross's Teeth," the woman that Monica sets Ross up on a date with is a young Missi Pyle.
  • In "The One With the Birth," Joey helps out a pregnant Leah Remini when she goes into labor.
  • In "The One with Rachel's Inadvertent Kiss", Samantha Smith is Hot Girl.
  • John Eric Bentley appears briefly as a waiter in "The One with the Blind Dates," years before he was known for his voiceover work.
  • In "The One with the Sharks," Joey dated the model/actress Susan Ward.
  • In "The One with the Girl Who Hits Joey," one of the future hosts for Screen Junkies, Hal Rudnick, can be seen as one of the background Central Perk customers.
  • In "The One With The Pediatrician," Ross tries to hit on Meredith Blake.
  • FBI Special Agent Peter Burke shows up in "The One Where Rachel Has a Baby Pt. 1" as Mr. Disgustington.
  • In "The One With The Engagement Picture," Ross dated Julia Campbell. AKA, the 'sentence-finisher' girlfriend from Seinfeld.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • All the main characters get this nowadays, with many articles that point out how all the main characters are sociopathic assholes and horrible friends, exaggerating their flaws and questionable moments, even the unintentional ones. Even if they are all flawed in their own way, it's pretty clear they are not bad people, their friendship is genuine, and treat each other fairly well compared to many other sitcom characters. Despite that, some people compare them to the cast of Seinfeld and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, sadist shows where everyone is known for Lack of Empathy.
  • Of the main cast, Ross receives the most bile from modern viewers, perceiving him to represent the worst excesses of the Dogged Nice Guy who think's he's Entitled to Have You; Rachel/Joey is now ironically looked on more fondly by some as a result. However, most if not all of those flaws are addressed in the show and he frequently gets his comeuppance for them; he and Rachel were both jealous and possessive and equally at fault for a lot of things that went wrong in their relationship; and he often goes out of his way to do kind and supportive things for his friends (buying Phoebe the bike she never got to have, helping Chandler deal with his last-minute panic before his and Monica's wedding).
• The Scrappy:
  • Try to find any fan of the show who actually liked Mark. Though Ross and Rachel is somewhat a Broken Base, fans were relieved when Rachel and Mark never got together.
  • Marcel, Ross's pet monkey in Season 1, was so hated that, in a S6 episode, Ross himself wonders what he was thinking by getting him. The big reason for him being so hated isn't so much that he's a monkey, but for the fact that the show seemed to promote the illegal keeping of exotic animals.
  • Out of all the parents seen on the show, Judy was by far the most hated due to her constant criticism of Monica and unlike Jack never has a Heel Realization. Even before that it's pretty clear that she was the most vocal in praising Ross while dismissing her daughter, and despite her own mother having treated her the same way she never seems to realize this.
• Seasonal Rot: The show took on a Denser and Wackier tone towards the end of Season 3 and Flanderization kicks in sometime around Season 5. Common complaints are that flanderization was stretched beyond believability (to the point where the characters had basically become cartoon versions of their former selves), the plots were less creative and more outrageous (for example, one episode centered around Joey not even being able to successfully repeat basic French words), and the actors were very visibly bored with doing the show.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The incredibly obvious green-screen background when Rachel tries to teach Joey how to sail a boat in the third episode of Season 7, "The One With Phoebe's Cookies". The "boat" itself is also a pretty obvious stage piece that's just rocking back and forth.
  • In the Season 6 premiere, "The One After Vegas", when Phoebe and Joey are driving back in Phoebe's car, the high-definition version of the episode clearly shows the projection panels of the stock footage outside the stationary cab.
  • Also from "The One After Vegas" is the moment when Joey breaks down the door to Monica's apartment. When it switches to the viewpoint within the apartment the moment Joey runs into the door, you can tell that the door wasn't actually within the doorway. It was placed several inches forward to easily fall over once Matt Le Blanc bashes into it.
• Squick: In "The One with Joey's Big Break":
  Joey: [to Ross, as part of a rapid-fire question-and-answer game intended to help someone make a tough decision] So who would you rather sleep with, Monica or Rachel?
  Ross: Dude, you are sick!
  Joey: Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot you had that whole Rachel thing...
  • And then add in that Ross actually did kiss Monica once, in a dark bedroom at a college party, where he thought it was Rachel "under a pile of coats".
    Ross: You were my first kiss with Rachel?!
    Monica: You were my first kiss ever?!
    Chandler: [horrified] WHAT DID I MARRY INTO?!
  • Don't forget this line from Chandler in "The One With Ross' Tan" when Monica gets a spray-on tan:
    Chandler: "Dude, stop staring at my wife's legs! (beat) No, no. Stop staring at your sister's legs!"
  • In one Thanksgiving episode, Monica considers dating Richard's son. The two actually do get to this point in the end (to the point where Monica abruptly twitches), but by that point, the others have already been squicked out.
    "Are you sure you wanna be in a relationship where you can actually use the phrase, 'That's not how your dad used to do it?'"
    "Hey, y'know, Mon, if things work out between you and Richard’s son, you’d be able to tell your kids that you slept with their grandfather."
  • Danny and his sister.
  • The childbirth video, especially for Chandler and Monica.
  • There was a Running Gag of Monica saying intimate things to Chandler without realizing Ross's presence.
    Monica: *entering the apartment* Pants off, Bing!
    Ross: *makes his presence known with a squicked-out look*
    Monica: Didn't see you there, Geller...
  • Speaking of Ross, it wasn't just Monica for him. He also clearly had some feelings for his cousin, Cassie (played by Denise Richards), though this was definitely amplified by his lack of romantic life up to that point (not that revealing that helped things, as Ross quickly realized).
  • In "TOW Chandler's Dad" Chandler reveals that when he was a kid he used to take part in his dad's drag shows wearing nothing but yellow leather shorts that were way too short for a kid to wear.
  • Ross' Aunt Mille for some reason refuses to kiss him anywhere but on the lips, much to his own disgust.
    Ross: Why?! Why on the lips?!
  • The writers seemed to like the incest jokes. Chandler's offhand line about undressing his male cousin Glenn when he was younger was thankfully shhed by Monica before he could go into more detail.
  • When Phoebe's dollhouse catches fire and Monica's showering, Ross bursts into the bathroom and puts it out in the shower with her, prompting this response when they both emerge.
    Monica: By the way, I was just checking the shower massager.
• Strawman Has a Point: Joey not wanting to share food is portrayed as something that he does because he's selfish, and he later steals his date's entire dessert as a means of showing how hypocritical he is. Except in the episode the girl he doesn't share food with simply grabs it off his plate without even asking. And on the second date she orders a salad and then asks to eat some of his food as well. Joey has a right to be annoyed since if she wanted to eat his food, why didn't she order it for herself or ask to share? In other episodes he seems happy enough to let Phoebe have some of his food when she asks nicely whereas this girl simply looks at his food, asks "are those stuffed clams?" and then reaches out to grab one.
• Super Couple: Ross and Rachel. And although they didn't have as big a cultural impact, Monica and Chandler also qualify.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The climax to "The One Where Ross Finds Out" is set to a piece of music that sounds a lot like "With or Without You" by U2. The producers originally wanted to use the song but couldn't get the rights cleared in time for the episode and were forced to use a soundalike.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • In the extended version of "The One After I Do", Chandler's shoes wind up being too slippery for the dance floor, which causes him to accidentally rip most of Judy Geller's dress off as he falls in public for everyone to see, leaving her humiliated. As noted in The Scrappy section, Judy wasn't particularly well-liked due to her constant harsh criticism of Monica, and it feels especially rewarding to watch since just moments ago in the same episode she shrugged off Monica on her wedding day after learning that she wasn't pregnant.
  • Judy gets another moment in "The One After Ross Says Rachel." During the fallout of Ross's disastrous marriage to Emily, Judy wonders if things turned out the way they did because she was a bad parent. Emily's father walks by and instantly replies "YES."
  • Several years after Ross' monkey Marcel had thankfully left the show, he randomly says "Remember when I had a monkey? Yeah, what was I thinking?"
  • Rachel discovering that Joanna died midway through the fourth season. The smile on Rachel's co-worker, Sophie, who was bullied way worse than Rachel was, really hammers the point in.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!:
  • One of the most common criticisms directed at the show, particularly early in its run, was that it was a Seinfeld knockoff. Even though the two shows had very little in common except that they both took place in New York City. Actually, the show Friends most closely resembled was probably Cheers (arguably even more so than its spin-off).
  • A much harsher criticism of the show is that it's basically a race lifted version of Living Single which premiered a year earlier, ran concurrently with this show in the mid-'90s and lasted half as many seasons, not to mention the fact that both series were Warner Bros. Television productions (it didn't help that Living Single had been pitched to NBC first, making accusations of racial discrimination and white favoritism a bit more palatable).
  • Friends also inspired a lot of this in regards to other shows after it became such an unexpected smash hit. While there were a good handful of obvious knockoffs, critics were calling virtually any show that featured an ensemble cast of people who were friends with each other "a Friends clone". Drew Carey even mentioned that despite the fact that he liked the show himself, its theme song became a Berserk Button for him because of the constant claims that his very different show was a Friends imitation. His show was the Seinfeld knockoff, since Seinfeld created the template for all '90s sitcoms starring stand-up comedians. (Drew= Jerry; Kate= Elaine; Mimi= Newman; Lewis and Oswald= George and Kramer, etc.)
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • With the exception of Ross and Monica's parents, it's quite common to see people wishing that we got to see more interactions with some of the lesser seen family members of Chandler, Joey, Rachel and Phoebe. Joey's parents in particular only ever got to appear in one episode.
  • Ben stops appearing before Emma is born and the viewers never get to see how having a half-sister will affect Ben's relationship with his father.
  • Dr. Green's last appearance in "The One Where Joey Speaks French" left a lot to be desired. The story centers around Rachel going to the hospital due to her father having a heart attack, which seemed like the perfect set-up to see a bit of bonding between father and daughter. However, the episode never actually shows Rachel talking with her father, and is instead just a comedic scene with Ross accidentally waking Dr. Green up in his hospital bed (though the episode's uncut version shows her coming back into the room when he wakes up and she holds his hand and, apparently lying to her, he tells her that Ross has been of great comfort).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • In "The One with the Donor", David returns from Minsk and tries to resume his relationship with Phoebe, much to her delight. However, this plotline is instantly torpedoed in the following episode, which has Mike come back and win Phoebe over, with David's role being reduced to a few awkward jokes as he realizes he can't compete for her love.
  • The Chandler/Kathy arc. While early on it is shown that the two have a lot in common and clearly have strong feelings for each other, once she breaks up with Joey and he tells them he's okay with the relationship, Kathy becomes Out of Focus. She has a cameo in "The One with Phoebe' Uterus" before being permanently written off the show two episodes later.
  • Chandler's strained relationship with his parents and his background had a lot of good material, especially his mother who was a famous, erotic writer and his teen years at boarding school. However, his backstory was never delved into much and his parents only appeared in 2 episodes. And even when Chandler was forced to confront his strained relationship with his father in Season 7, the focus was entirely on Chandler's embarrassment with his father's sexuality, which is not treated particularly seriously.
  • Lisa Kudrow got in a lot of good acting with Phoebe's real family, but as soon as the father appeared (with a scene that ended with Phoebe still being uncomfortable around him) in Season 5 they dropped the plot and any more chances to work through her past issues. Similarly, her biological mother only showed up in three episodes before disappearing entirely, with the suggestion that Phoebe is spending time with her offscreen.
  • It was a missed opportunity that the show didn't play around with the idea of Chandler getting himself stuck in Yemen just to avoid Janice. Not one scene, or even a brief moment, of his adventure in Yemen. The most you get is a later reference when Janice believes that Chandler is still in Yemen during the episode that she dated Ross.
  • "TOW Ross Got High" has Ross' parents realizing despite his success Ross has made some major screw-ups in life. This would've been a perfect chance for Judy to have a Heel Realization and start to realize Monica turned out quite well and start to repair their relationship. This never comes to fruition and while Jack does have a genuine Heel Realization one season later, by Season 9, Judy has forgotten Monica even exists.
• Unconvincingly Unpopular Character: Chandler is smart, witty, good-looking, has a good job, and is generally a Nice Guy. But he's still treated as being unpopular due to his neuroses, is unsuccessful with women, and is considered lucky to get a woman like Monica who apparently "could do better than him" (according to Rachel and Phoebe, at least).
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Whilst not in itself very topical the show did manage to capture the burgeoning coffee shop scene of that era as well as the gentrification of New York's brownstones under Giuliani.
  • The fact Monica and Chandler could get such a nice house for under the asking price comes off as outright laughable after the housing market crash in 2008.
  • Many, many shots of the World Trade Center towers before September 11, 2001.
  • The entire plot of "The One Without The Ski Trip" hinges on everyone (except Ross) getting trapped at a restroom stop because Phoebe's car runs out of gas and they're unable to remember what location they're at when they try to call for a tow-truck on the payphone. These days, people usually have cell phones connected to the internet that would allow them to know their location so they could effectively call for help.
  • In several episodes characters are able to go all the way to a departure gate to watch another character leave or greet them when they return. Rachel and Ross even use meeting your partner at the gate as an example when Chandler asks for relationship advice. By the series finale, which aired in 2004, security is a lot tighter as Ross and Phoebe have to stop and buy tickets in order to catch up to Rachel who's already at her departure gate.
  • In Season 2's "TOW Five Steaks And An Eggplant", the gang loses their minds with excitement over a Hootie & the Blowfish concert. To be fair, Hootie was probably the biggest band in the country when the episode aired (their debut album Cracked Rear View had sold more than 10 million copies in the US by then, despite being released only one year prior). So it's easy to see why the writers assumed they would have more staying power than they did.
  • George Stephanopoulos is a pretty dated reference point (back then, he was Bill Clinton's campaign advisor, nowadays he's anchor at ABC News) but is mentioned a few times in a first-season episode (even complete with him in the title, though he never actually appears in the episode).
  • A subplot in a Season 10 episode features Joey as a celebrity guest on the short-lived revival of Pyramid that ran from 2002 to 2004, complete with a cameo by host Donny Osmond.
  • In "TOW The Hypnosis Tape", Pete Becker takes Monica to Italy where she pays for their dinner with Lira. Two years after the episode was aired the Lira was replaced with the Euro as national currency.
  • In "The One After The Super Bowl", Monica tells Jean-Claude Van Damme that Rachel would be up for a threesome with himself and Drew Barrymore ("Drew has some ground rules"). This aired when Barrymore's reputation was still Hollywood's tabloid-favorite "wild child", one that would dissolve soon after, beginning with her Career Resurrection sequence in Scream(amusingly, starring Monica herself) the next year, and followed with a string of hits that turned her into an America's Sweetheart-type of star.
  • In “TOT Could’ve Been”, Alternate Phoebe is a ruthless banking executive at Merrill Lynch. Merrill Lynch was one of several casualties in the 2008 Financial Crisis, resulting in it being purchased by Bank Of America and absorbed into Bank Of America Securities the following year (with the "Merrill Lynch" name completely dropped). Maybe AltPhoebe dodged a bullet by being fired?
  • In "TOW The Candies", Chandler takes a quick huff on a woman's cigarette, and Monica smells it on him. Chandler feebly tries to claim a neighbor blew her cigarette into his mouth. With the effects of second hand smoke better understood, Chandler nowadays could believably claim he accidentally inhaled the woman's secondhand smoke while trying to get into their apartment.
• Unpopular Popular Character:
  • Of the main cast, Chandler probably fits this role the best. In-series, he is the second biggest Butt-Monkey after Ross with some of the least amount of luck with women. His friends often find his jokes annoying and make fun of him from time to time as well. Among the fandom, he is frequently considered to be the best character and the least base-breaking among the cast.
  • In-series, Ross is an unlucky and often pathetic nerd who is frequently made fun of for his mishaps and terrible love life. However fans find him hilarious, especially in later seasons where his comedy manages to overshadow even Chandler.
  • Monica while fat is object of ridicule and no one respects her on the show. In the eyes of the fandom, she's an adorkable, funny Big Beautiful Woman.
  • The main characters find Janice annoying because of her voice and Annoying Laugh. However her over-the-top hamminess and Catchphrase make her one of the most memorable characters. Not to mention she's a sweet and well-meaning girl who does her best to get along with the group.
  • Amy is despised by the gang bar Rachel, who only barely tolerates her for being utterly clueless, Innocently Insensitive, and constantly butting her nose into others' business. She's one of the most beloved recurring characters, and Christina Applegate even won a Primetime Emmy for her portrayal of her.
• Values Dissonance: Has its own page.
• Values Resonance: In "TOW Rachel's Book", Monica decides that she and Chandler shouldn't spend all of his savings so she can have her dream wedding because she reasons that having a more stable financial future for their marriage and future children is more important. As the The New '20s has seen more and more couples spending all of their savings or even going into debt for extravagant weddings and having financial difficulties as a result, this episode comes across as even more relevant.
• Vindicated by History: Ironically the Joey/Rachel relationship has become more popular though it's not necessarily loved by fans who still wish Joey had ended up with Phoebe. This mainly has to do with how newer fans are far more critical of Ross and his toxic relationship with Rachel, while in comparison Rachel's relationship with Joey was shown to be far more mature and caring. This is despite older fans having found the pairing forced while the actors felt it didn't make sense for the characters.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: According to Lisa Kudrow, she has met kids claiming that their parents let them watch Friends. While the show is not particularly vulgar by modern standards, there are still way too many storylines revolving around sex to consider it appropriate for younger viewers. Netflix also has the series in the separate "Kids" section of their site for profiles set to "older kids" level, and HBO Max also classifies it as a kids' show.
• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: Charlie taking back Benjamin Hobart was an extremely poor decision for such an intelligent woman like Charlie. Early on she established she had broken up with him due to jealousy issues, however, the show never elaborated if they were any worse than how Ross acted about Mark (which to be fair the end of the series implied Ross and Rachel had decided to move past that once and for all). But she takes him back after he had extorted Ross and had committed an ethical violation that could've gotten him blacklisted in the community.
• The Woobie: Almost all the main characters, and some secondary ones.
  • Ross Geller, who is the "divorce" guy in the group. He is possibly the worst when it comes to relationships, sometimes, these relationships fail because of the actions of his friends, sometimes because of his own actions. Nonetheless, you can't help but feel a little bit sorry for him most of the time. The only reason he isn't any woobier is because he finally does hook up with the girl he has loved since the 9th grade by the end of the series.
  • Monica has been The Un-Favourite to her parents simply for being second-born and was also obese when she was young. She then becomes a Woobie again at one point during work, when the job she's dreamed of doing for years is ruined because the staff all hate and bully her. (Though this improves and she also becomes Head Chef at a different, very prestigious restaurant). She desperately longs to get married and have a happy home with children but her relationships keep failing and later finds out she's infertile.
  • Chandler is a Sad Clown who uses humor as a defense and has devastatingly low self esteem, which stems from his Hilariously Abusive Childhood. He's also terrified of ending up alone but struggles with Commitment Issues thanks to his dysfunctional parents, so has to watch Joey have multiple one nights stands and Ross several steady girlfriends while he's either rejected or cheated on. Thankfully, both he and Monica lose this status when they fall in love, as she gets him over his Commitment Issues and he gives her the love she's always wanted. And although they find out they're infertile decide to adopt (instead of surrogacy or sperm donorship) so they can give an unwanted baby a happy home. They end the series Happily Married with adopted twins.
  • Joey in Season 8, when he was in love with Rachel. Then he lost the only girl he ever loved and was the only friend who ended up without his soulmate.
  • Rachel in the early seasons. She grew up being coddled and by the time she realized she wanted to be her own person it was too late and she had to basically start from the bottom up. Then she falls in love with Ross and through no fault of her own loses him to Julie (though she would more be a Jerkass Woobie here to how she treated Julie who was nothing but nice to her). Then she learns her parents are divorcing and she's forced to be caught in the middle of their constant arguing. Too make matters even worse, she soon learns after that her entire upbringing was a lie and her parents never loved each other
  • Phoebe is the woobiest of all of them, with her Trauma Conga Line past: she grew up very poor (she mentions once that on Christmas, her stepdad would sell his blood to buy them food), her drug-dealer mother killed herself, she lived as a homeless person for a lot of her life and then found out that her real mother had given her away. No wonder she's so messed up.
  • Gunther is stuck in a dead end job at Central Perk and harboring a huge crush on Rachel for at least 9 years that's completely unreciprocated, and it's implied he doesn't really have that many friends either.

---