Friends: The Re-runs Return

Could I have been any more gutted? At the start of September, after a 16-year run, the like, totally awesome sitcom Friends finally ended its cycle on E4 and Channel 4. Teatimes at the imaginary Central Perk of my kitchen table would never be the same again. Hello? I mean, goodbye? Was I to be left staring at the clock and scratching my head, considering finally buying the DVDs that I obviously thought I would never need?

Some may have scoffed, but I wasn't alone. “friends is going what next???” ran one of many comments on E4's Friends page. I knew what they meant, the country had to gone the dogs. Or to The Inbetweeners.

However, as of Saturday 1 October, Friends returns on Comedy Central and, even though I have to shift my viewing portals around a bit, from the lounge to the kitchen, normal service is resumed after what has been a difficult month.

Here are ten reasons, of many, why Friends will always be close to our hearts:

They are always there for you

In the 1990s Friends, along with Frasier, helped Channel 4 pretty much sew up Friday nights for the twenty and thirtysomething demographic. Since then the continuous repeats of Friends have earnt the show a“default viewing” status, with many of those who saw the original series adopting as part of the rhythm of their daily lives.

While the gang built their own alternative family they were also, in turn, a surrogate family for many who watched them. And there were many. Let's do the math; the 10 seasons totaling 236 episodes, have been syndicated around the world and in the UK the show's repeats accounted for 23 hours of E4's programme schedule (as of February this year) and 14 hours on Channel 4, pulling in an average of over 300,000 viewers, while in its heyday on Channel 4 it pulled in an average of 5.4 million viewers (2.3m on E4), with the last ever episode in 2004 notching up 8.6 million viewers on Channel 4. This year, by way of comparison, the highest rated show on Channel 4 was their record-breaking documentary Big Fat Gypsy Weddings that had an average of 9.1m for the series meanwhile over on E4 Glee has a series average of 2.6m viewers.

The last great gathering of 20-somethings near a TV?

The US figures for big series finales make interesting reading. M*A*S*H (1972 - 1983), Cheers (1982 – 1993), Seinfeld (1989 – 1998), won 105, 80 and 76million people respectively. Friends (1994 - 2004) won 53million. The decline in the sitcom, particularly from the 90s onwards, when cable TV started fragmenting the picture as it would over here, means that Friends is likely to be on of the last occasions where 20 and 30-somethings will share a small screen happening en masse. The internet, rarely mentioned in the series, except as the cause of one of Chandler and “Jaaaanice”'s reunions, was a waking beast when Friends began and now social networking, gaming, digital TV and, er, DVD box sets have splintered those watercooler moments just in time for the invention of that very phrase.

Life and Art, Art and Life and Hair



I frequently use the phrase “That reminds me of the episode when...” as, of course, everything that happens in life has a Friends episode that echoes it. Except, perhaps, war, pestilence and wanton urban looting.

Use of such a phrase is unsurprising given that American sitcoms are like the zodiac, all personality traits and predicaments are covered. In this case there are six signs rather than twelve: Monica; the anally-retentive and competitive chef, Ross; her geeky and marriage–prone older brother, Rachel; the spoilt but sassy waitress-cum-fashionista, Joey; the dim but loveable actor and ladies man, the kooky and flaky hippy Phoebe and, of course Chandler; the court jester with an anonymous job and no real track record with women.

One of the first groups of people to notice Chandler’s attributes were the actor friends of Matthew Perry who told him they’d all been to an audition for the part of a guy exactly like him. When Perry appeared on screen as Chandler my friends remarked to me how much like him I was. I was not alone in the discovery that certain qualities, hitherto regarded as niche, had found a very public mirror.

Still not convinced of the art-life symbiosis? What about Jennifer “Poor Jen” Aniston? The former Mrs Brad Pitt recently joked that her love life is mirrored by her film titles such as ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ but her dating track record in Friends was no picnic either. When Rachel wasn't rebounding off Ross, she was desperately throwing herself at Josh (Tate Donovan, another real life ex) and shopping in the junior section with Tag who she eventually dumped for being too childish, an ending that arguably foretells of the demise of her relationship with musician John Mayer who she left because of his obsession with Twitter.

All this his is not to mention that hairdo of course, “The Rachel”,ordered in hair salons up and down the country as If it was some kind of follicular cocktail. The popularity of it was referred to in the series when, in the face of her mother's desire to divorce her father and have a footloose and fancy free life like her daughter's, Rachel protests: “Why can't she just copy my hairstyle?”

Arrested development

Generation X never looked this good. Don't worry about getting married, don't worry if the number of notches on your bed post reach triple figures, don't worry about that dream career until you're in your thirties and whatever you do, don't worry about digs because your grandmother has an incredible rent-controlled apartment with enough room to permanently entertain six people who will become your new family.

Perky New York and Giuliani's new age (even if it was filmed in California)

Ah New York, New York! Well, Burbank, California, actually. Nevertheless, these six young, hot, Manhattanites are referenced as the embodiment of Rudy Giuliani's buffed up and sanitised Big Apple.“Before Friends,” opined the LA Times in 2004, “certain parts of New York were like exciting, if roach-infested, refuges for young, alienated, creative types seeking some sort of bohemian cultural experience. After Friends, then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani did what he could to make the city resemble a Warner Bros. back lot. Those parts of New York that had once been roach-infested refuges for young oddballs wound up yielding some exciting retail opportunities.”

Flaws are fun: a sitcom that got its retaliation in first

Essentially Friends were a group of nice, polite but self-obsessed and selfish Manhattanites who weren't afraid to show their inadequacies and were quick to point out those of each other. It was survival of the fittest – and luckily enough, they were all fit.

The writers were well-aware of how the sappy the group might be perceived and got their retaliation in early with a stroke of sitcom genius: the cameo character of Roger the Psychiatrist who Phoebe dates. On breaking up with Phoebe, Roger berates: “this kind of dysfunctional group dynamic...this kind of co-dependent, emotionally stunted, sitting in your stupid coffee house with your stupid big cups which, I'm sorry, might as well have nipples on them, and you're like all 'Oh, define me! Define me! Love me, I need love!'.”

Cameo Heaven

Although it was seen as a bit of of a gimmick, Friends was awash with celebrity cameos. Tom Selleck gained a new lease of life and an Emmy nomination for the character of Richard, Monica's cigar-smoking older boyfriend, while the fabulous Elliot Gould had a recurring role as Monica and Ross' dad. Perhaps Gould's most famous moment came during a row over the cost of the marriage of Ross to “British chippy” Emily (Helen Baxendale) and telling Tom Conti, Emily's father, he was a “thieving, would-be-speaking-German-if-it-wasn't-for-us little man.” Along with Conti, Jennifer Saunders, June Whitfield, Olivia Williams and Hugh Laurie were among some of the cameos in the episodes based in London (baby). Back home Bruce Willis, Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, Sean Penn, Jon Favreau and Alec Baldwin were among other well-known names enlisted to join the party. One of the best cameos came from Brad Pitt as Will, the schoolfriend of Monica and Ross who hated Rachel but who was married to Aniston at the time. One of the worst? Robin Williams and Billy Crystal who had a short scene in Central Perk as forgettable as Chandler's job.

Making Clean Cool

Along with the Crane boys in Frasier, Monica Geller was a pin up for the OCD generation; setting the rules to control the fun with an unerving capacity to be always right. Although her high-maintenance ways could drive the group doolally (especially free-spirited Phoebe), Monica pulled the strings and was often the glue that bound the Friends together. Proving that clean could be cool and sexy, Monica Geller was the 1950s housewife for the 1990s. "I'd be great in a war" she once said of her organisational ability, and it's highly likely that she would be good in a post-riot clean-up situation too.

Language and catchphrases

As with any good comedy enduring catchphrases are a badge of achievement. Friends went further than most utilising numerous terms that would enter popular usage including:

How YOU doin'? The chat up line only guaranteed to work for Joey Tribbiani.

The incredulous and sarcastic “Hello?” used by all the gang to show frustration with each other and proving infectious to a number of young people other than valley girls.

Chandler's signature “Could I BE any more...?” Just add your own adjective here.

Meanwhile, the use of the word “so” to replace other adverbs such as “very”and “really” was the subject of an academic study no less. Score.

The new Friends?

With Friends ending at the same time as Frasier, in 2004, there was a panic on about the future of the genre. Studio sitcoms were looking particularly shaky, ironically because of sitcoms that used shaky or naturalistic camera techniques, both in the US and in the UK. A remake of the UK sitcom Coupling (our attempt at a carbon copy) and, more recently How I Met Your Mother, were two direct responses to the end of Friends in the US; the latter much more successful than the former that lasted one season only. Meanwhile, the spin-off Joey, where our intellectually-challenged actor friend goes off to LA, just about managed to get two seasons chalked up before being pulled.

Despite the varying degrees of success in either imitating or extending the Friends dynamic, the series has a legacy to aspire to and the idea of“the new Friends”, is still as much a shorthand for desired success as “the new Buffy” or “the new The Wire”.

And if there is no new Friends?  Well, there's always the repeats on Comedy Central.

Time Out's 100 Best Comedy Movies

 

Julian Hall

Julian Hall is a freelance comedy writer and comedy critic for The Independent. His book ‘The Rough Guide to British Cult Comedy’ was published in October 2006.

 

1. Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)

2. Planes, Trains & Automobiles (John Hughes, 1987)               

3. The Man With Two Brains (Carl Reiner, 1983)

4. Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks, 1974)               

5. Beverley Hills Cop (Martin Brest, 1984)

6. Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994)

7. Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, 1992)               

8. Pretty In Pink (Howard Deutch (1986)

9. Crimes and Misdemeanours (Woody Allen, 1989)               

10. Carry On Cleo (Gerald Thomas, 1964)               

I can watch ‘Groundhog Day’ over and over again, funnily enough. I especially like the scene where Phil backtracks on his dismissive attitude towards French poetry. I think he got it right first time myself, but I now grudgingly admit that there are lovely Ritas out there worth ‘selling out’ and getting happy for. In the spirit of hedging one’s bets I was also interested to hear that Nancy makes chipmunk noises when she gets real excited.

Full survey: http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/1502/100-best-comedy-movies-the-full-list

An LA Story: Episodes in Fandom

Welcome to a piece that is part travelogue, part essay, part meander...but all heart.

When tourists, like me, come to LA we probably expect to see some stars, other than the ones embedded in Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame. Though celebrity spots are by no means guaranteed they are highly probable; more likely than staying at home but less likely than being in an episode of Entourage. Meanwhile, what is guaranteed is that, other than private clubs, the playground of the rich and famous is open for Joe and Josephine Shmo to frolic on and pretend on by recreating scenes from various movies that have either been shot in and around Hollywood or cannibalised the Hollywood scene itself.

Chateau Marmont seems like a good place to start such a trail. However, this famous location whose string of celebrity credits include its status as a Greta Garbo hideaway to the setting for Sophia Coppola's 2010 film Somewhere, was actually my last stop on my LA stay. Although sitings of Idris Elba, Milla Jovic and Adam Brody there were pretty cool I'd already seen what I came for and, short of perhaps Sarah Michelle Gellar, Courtney Cox Michael C Hall and, well, Idris Elba pulling up chairs next to me, what I had seen may make a more lasting impression on me than glances of the stars. My foray to LA was a long time coming and it had definite mission statements.

As a kid I was exposed to numerous television shows and films from which the California sun bled into my eyes like some kind of SAD lamp regulated by the TV Times. ChiPs was one of my earliest favourites and I distinctly remember the sadness I felt when it ended at 6.25pm on a Saturday, partly due to the fact that my bed-time was not far away.

California was, thus, logged as an escape route to the sun in the back of my mind, which seems so appropriate given that a corner of it is devoted to pumping out all levels of escapist entertainment. In the intervening years I have to admit that the apparent sun-drenched vacuity of California was usurped by trips to Europe and my fondness for focused-cities over sprawl made me much more anxious to visit New York which I did and I loved. Besides, I'd listened to various folks I knew who had visited LA and come back disappointed. It didn't seem like I was missing much.


Warner Brothers and Friends

Still, LA cache  never went away, it was still the birthplace of so many things I loved and still love. Take Friends. It's an interesting example because it is set in New York but filmed at the Warner Brothers studios in Burbank. I remember looking at the location one day on IMDB, I think I was thinking to myself how great it would have been to have watched an episode being filmed. I had no concept of where Burbank was in relation to Hollywood and how much it would mean anything to me to be there when the series was over. The secrets behind the camera, if I wanted access to them, were there though and not in New York the backdrop that gets such a fleeting role in the show. Most of the time the New York that is shown us on Friends is the Warner Brothers mock city set. Somewhat ironically I only caught a glimpse of when I visited the Warner Brothers studios.

The Warner lot is, to the visitor, quite a calm place, full of pastel-shaded buildings, well-scrubbed to almost sterile, a bit like some of the studios output. That's not to say some mammoth films and TV shows haven't come out of WB and I am partial to some of its more saccharine treats too, such as The Gilmore Girls.

Though Friends was what I was here for, sight of the Warner village is a boon to the GG fan and sight of Merlotte's bar from True Blood another bonus of the visit.

The Friends aspects of the tour are literally scrappy but something to be cherished nonetheless. For example, remember the patch if grass where Ross plays that unlikely and unorthodox game if rugby?

Or the scene in "Central Park" where Phoebe shows off her equally unorthodox running style?

Well, as you can see, they are just bits of grass on the "village green" area in a settlement that has been used for Westerns and TV shows including The Gilmore Girls. As I discovered, individual houses on the block have a similar stories for example one was used for The Shootist and the Friends episode where a moustachioed Ross comes agonisingly close to taking Rachel to the prom. Yes indeed I saw the stairs down which Elliot Gould (Ross's dad) descends saying "here comes your knight in shining...", cut-off as he sees the re-united unit of Rachel and Chip leave with Monica and Roy.

Of course, the much anticipated moment for me was seeing Central Perk. I'd heard that you were able to get your photos taken on the couch but no such luck. The set enjoys the honour of being the only one belonging to a decommissioned show that is still preserved, but having said that it is unceremoniously housed in a "cupboard" and you can't sit on the couch. Admittedly, there would not have been much more room when it was laid out as a proper set but it was only til we made our last surprise visit - to the set of Two-and-a-Half Men - that you could get an idea of how the Friends experience would have fit together.

The Two-and-a-Half Men set was draped with sheets (no pics allowed, sadly). Not as a mark of mourning for the lead star Charlie Sheen who had committed career suicide only days earlier, but because the series had yet to resume (and would wait a lot longer to do so). Our tour guide, Wes, explained what we could expect if we came to a filming session and I at least got to imagine it from a front row seat for Friends. I wonder if there will ever be another studio show that will make me want to make the trip over. At least I know free pizza awaits if there is.



Buffy Love

Ultimately it was my love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that had really brought me to California and set me on a pilgrimage that few tourists make to Torrence, in the South Bay area of LA. It's almost as unreal to think of me being there now as it was when I was looking up Buffy locations and wondering if I would ever see them. This might sound melodramatic but when I posted up my pilgrimage plan on a Buffy forum, to find out if there was anyone LA-based who would drive me around them, one girl from Sweden said pretty much the same thing, asking me to send the photos because she doubted she would necessarily make the journey over.

The lure of the hellmouth was just too much for me in the end. A bargain flight was booked, a friend agreed to put me up, other friends of friends agreed to drive me around. The Buffy tour was pencilled in for about half-way through my stay, I didn't want to peak too early but I didn't want to wait too long.

On the day, the morning and the evening were in reverse in the sense that I visited the cemetery first (The Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, 1831 W.Washington Boulevard, south of Koreatown in LA) when it was too light for vampires and because it was a handy stop on the way to Torrence, out from where I was staying.

You might say that once you have seen one cemetery you have seen them all and why see more? Well, I'd understand that. That said when, as a Buffy fan, you see the familiar shapes of certain headstones and statues used in shots of the show (when they weren't using the Mutant Enemy backlot as a makeshift graveyard) there's obviously something even more special about the place than there already is.

I've seen the cemetery used in quite a few things now and I almost feel a bit sorry for the, er, residents but then again you could argue that they provide a solid supporting cast. I doubt they would all get IMDB status but a number of the residents are indeed pretty famous in their own right including Oscar-winning actress Hattie McDaniel, Horror-director Tod Browning and Raputin's daughter Maria among them. Incidentally there is one tombstone with the surname of Summers, a pretty eerie coincidence.

Buffy's move from cemetery to studio backlot was rumoured to be partly due to Sarah Michelle Gellar's, understandable, dislike of burial grounds. More likely it was down to budget but, even so, this tombstone must have been spotted and it would have sent a chill up the spine, it certainly had that effect on me.

Inevitably, given it subject matter, Six Feet Under is said to be one of the shows filmed here. During my visit I spotted one of the smart silver funeral cars operating out of the cemetery and it did make me think of Claire Fisher's car in the series, albeit less colourful. It was like a cross-over moment between the two shows.

A Six Feet Under Segue

I'd visited the Six Feet Under house in nearby [2302 West 25th St. ~ West Adams ~ Los Angeles, CA 90018] only the day before and it was my first brush with “location fame awe”. It's a bit of a segue from the Buff stuff but it's worth a mention here as it puts into context a feeling that I would experience again soon the next day. Getting out of the car to see it and have photos taken outside of it felt almost as if I was going to meet one of the actors in the show, a bit like the feeling Justin Lee Collins must have had when he was busy tracking down ex-cast members of Fame and whatnot.

What struck me was that the house is as nice as it is looks in the show
without being located is a neighbourhood that is as nice or as spacious as the one
depicted, butt then the house borders South Central LA and not North Hollywood
where the show is set. Despite the context I felt like I had connected with
the show somehow, partly because many of the Fisher family group moments were
when they were gathered on the porch. I'd just finished re-watching the series before I came out and I haven't seen it since but I know I
will get a buzz when I see the house again, something along the lines of “Omfg” as 
some of my Facebook friends observed when they saw these photos of me posing outside.

And we are back to Buffy love...

I felt the same way and then moreso the next day when, after a lunchtime stop in downtown LA I would later regret, I reached Torrence. Arriving in this neat and tidy suburb I had the sense of where the school was before reaching it but the first task on my list was to find Buffy's house. 1313 Cota Drive is the address that doubled for 1630 Revello Drive. I'd written to the owners before arriving in the US but I wasn't particularly surprised not to hear back. I expect they get a lot of requests like this. I was just happy to park up outside and have a few shots of the exterior, conscious of making my friendly intent obvious, knowing that I wasn't going to get invited in, like so many visitors in the show. I perched on the kerb while my companion took photos. I suppose because I never made it inside it remains a mystery to me but seeing it, as with the Fisher household, was a bit like greeting an old friend even if the experience wasn't as intimate as full disclosure.

While the house is without doubt one of the most important and constant real locations of the show, for me Sunnydale High School is the most iconic even though it was destroyed at the end of series three. As with the house, I contacted the school in advance of my visit and in this instance I had a reply and arranged with the school secretary to come out of school hours. We parked outside the front and therefore with the most iconic view. I took it in but wanted to spend more time with it at the end, besides, I didn't want to run out of time inside. After checking in at the school office I had a free run of the school grounds and one of my first stop offs was the courtyard where the “Scooby gang” often had lunch and where set pieces such as the scene with Buffy vaulting her way to Jonathan in the clock tower originate.

Meanwhile the foot of stairs always puts me in mind of Cordelia looking lost with or without Xander.

While at the top of the stairs and the walkway I can see Giles and the gang meeting up in between lessons.

It was while taking stock of all this at the foot of the stairs that a male teacher approached us and asked: “Is this a Buffy tour or a 90210 tour?” Clearly I wasn't the first. I explained it was a Buffy tour (incidentally the first incarnation of 90210 had been filmed here hence the question) and he said that his colleague in the English department was a huge Buffy fan. So we went with him to meet her.

There is something extremely liberating about meeting someone who shares your passion. Even though a TV show can play to millions of viewers it isn't always the case that you have someone to talk about it with in depth. Fan sites and forums have proved manna from heaven for geeks but nothing can replace the excited chatter of two or more people who have back history created for them, as if catching up on a kind of extended family but one that seems to resonate as much as a nuclear one. “You speak my language!” said Susana, my new “friend in Buffy”, a friend who had adorned her classroom with posters from the show and even stored post its that were handed out when the filming started there. Susana was already working at the school when the show started and so remembers various aspects of how school life was affected. She told me that they were careful to film it without getting any pupils in shot and somehow managed to choreograph their extras away from the main body of the school pupils with only the briefest cross-over involving one of the senior staff. A lot of the shooting was done in an outbuilding that was closed off when I was there. Susana also told me that the finale of series 3 where the school is destroyed and specifically the clocktower (that doesn't exist in real life) blown up caused consternation in the neighbourhood. The explosion was scheduled for the early evening but inevitably the shoot went on into the night and it only came at 2am.

Susana, myself, and my friend were joined by a pupil who had been staying behind on library duty (yes I saw the library, spacious, functional and not at all like Giles') and wanted to hear more about Buffy that pre-dated her school career (and make me feel old). While the various tales were told we strolled around some more of the school that was used for filming and I noted with pleasure the green space near the birch tree where Buffy and Willow would often sit and bare their souls to each other.

On screen the space looks much bigger of course but the wistful quality of it is still apparent and I can just imagine sitting under that tree and bleating about hormonal teenage woes, far less exciting than those of the Scoobies even if they seemed every bit as dramatic.

The locker corridor was a poignant view and made me a bit nostalgic for the US high school education I never had but once hankered for...

...but the the real “find”, however, was the semi-circular window that overlooks one of the foyer areas. Not unlike the Playschool collection of windows this portal is an icon of TV history. Among the pivotal moments of the show that occurred within its gaze was Angel's savage killing of the oh-so-hot Jenny Calendar...

The visit was full of wonderful moments and to be able to share them with real-life staff at the school was an added dimension. My parting souvenir hunt was a series of shots outside the front of the school. They are the only shots I had posted until now to which the reaction on Facebook was “wow you really are a fan aren't you?”

That night I had the most evil stomach upset. I think it was coincidental with a Mexican meal at lunch, but I wondered if either that was my payment to wandering too close to the Hellmouth? Or perhaps, more likely the delayed shock at touching base with a location that is so important to me. When I watch repeats of the first three seasons now I do feel an extra sense of connection with the show and a buzz as corridors, rooms and outside locations that I know are shown, almost as if travelling back in time and that is bound to make one feel queasy.