Trivia / Friends

• Acting for Two:
  • Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe and her twin sister Ursula. This was brought about because she was starring as Ursula in Mad About You and, according to Lisa, they wrote them as identical twins and had a crossover in order to 'explain' why she was on two shows. This forced something of a change of characterisation as Ursula was originally not that different from Phoebe, more of a Cloud Cuckoolander with an Innocently Insensitive side, which was changed to her being an Evil Twin who openly uses and manipulates the people around her.
  • David Schwimmer appears for a one-off as "Russ", a Ross-esque guy Rachel briefly dated (without noticing the similarities, such as profession and the, uh,... u-NIQUE manner of speaking). He is credited as "Snaro" for the role, which apparently is an homage to one of Schwimmer's friends.
  • June Gable was originally cast as Estelle for "The One With The Butt" but her only scene was cut from the episode. Gable would appear later in the season during "The One With The Birth" as a nurse attending to Carol during labor. During the second season the writers decided to use Estelle again and brought Gable back to play her.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Lisa Kudrow decided that Phoebe would be The Pollyanna - basing her off a friend who acted as such when going through a tough time. In her mind, Phoebe felt her traumatic childhood was just like everyone else's and the dissonance was what made it funny.
  • The famous white dog of Joey's was a gift to Jennifer Aniston from a friend. She offered to lend it to the show for the episode where Joey becomes rich and buys a lot of stuff. They loved it and decided to keep it for the rest of the series.
  • In the episode where Ross and Rachel got married in Vegas, Chandler's original line when they saw them leaving the chapel was along the lines of "I don't think they are so much dating as they are drunk" which was just not getting a big enough laugh. After passing around a few ideas, they went to Matthew Perry for his input and he came up with "They're not so much dating as they are two bottles of vodka walking around in human form."
  • Chandler's famous Mad Libs Catchphrase "Could X be more Y?" was thought up by Matthew Perry and his two best friends when they were kids.
• Actor-Inspired Heroism:
  • The writers conceived Joey as far more of a jerkish lech, which he appears as in the pilot episode. However, they quickly admitted that Matt Le Blanc gave Joey heart and he was turned into a lovable doofus who was more of a charmer.
  • Monica's Team Mom quality came entirely from Courteney Cox's characterization - which resulted in the planned Monica/Joey relationship being changed to Chandler, who Monica was now more suited with.
• Actor-Shared Background: Lisa Kudrow is vegetarian, like Phoebe.
  • David Schwimmer is Jewish, like Ross.
  • Matt LeBlanc is of Italian descent, like Joey, though the other parentage between the two are different, as LeBlanc is of French Canadian descent, while Joey is one-sixteenth Portuguese, in addition to that LeBlanc is Italian from his mother's side and Joey is Italian from his father's side.
• Adored by the Network:
  • ViacomCBS loves airing reruns of the show across its' various networks (mainly TV Land, Paramount Network and Nick At Nite), usually scheduling episodes to run in blocks that last two hours or more. TBS also airs reruns every weekday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. unless interrupted for live sports.
  • By the end of 2022, the show comprises all but the final hours of the Nick at Nite lineup (excluding movie presentations), despite attempts to complement it with Seinfeld, Mom, Young Sheldon and Mike & Molly throughout the year. The former three would leave the network entirely by year's end, with the Mike and Molly block shunted to a 3 a.m. start time (by comparison, Friends begins airing at 10 p.m.). It airs even more than SpongeBob does on Nickelodeon.
  • In the UK, (many, many) episodes of Friends have aired every single day since the last episode aired in 2004 (current year 2022).
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Reese Witherspoon was a big fan of the show and jumped at the chance to play Rachel's sister, even if her film career was on the rise, saying she felt like she'd "won the lottery" when she was asked.
• Baby Name Trend Starter: Emma's birth led to her given name, which was already ranked 13th among American girl names in 2001, claiming the top spot and remaining in the top five ever since.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: Thought it by no means overshadowed the series, The Rembrandts' theme song for the show, "I'll Be There For You", became a modest crossover pop/rock hit in its own right.
• California Doubling:
  • The show was mostly filmed in the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, even if the setting is New York. Days of Our Lives is also filmed in Burbank (at what was then known as NBC Studios^note (the facility was renamed The Burbank Studios after NBC’s 2014 sale of the facility to Worthe Real Estate Group)), though in the Friends universe it is produced in New York given Joey never moved when he was part of the soap's cast. ^note Another World was the only Real Life New York-filmed serial among the four NBC soap operas that aired during Friends' run. AW, which trailed Days in the ratings for the 4½ years it shared NBC’s lineup with Friends (and as a whole, since the early 1980s), ended its 35-year run in June 1999, shortly after the sitcom’s fifth season ended.
  • Averted by the "The One With Ross's Wedding" two-parter which was almost entirely shot on location in London. Phoebe's scenes in these episodes were shot in Burbank as Lisa Kudrow was in the late stages of her pregnancy and couldn't fly to England.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Jennifer Aniston originally read for Monica, while Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow read for Rachel.
  • June Gable was cast as Estelle the talent agent in an episode, but her scenes in the episode were cut. To make up for it, they cast her as a nurse who appears in a different scene. They then brought Estelle back later, with her playing the original part.
  • Hank Azaria auditioned several times for the role of Joey, but the producers liked what Matt Le Blanc brought to a character who wasn't heavily fleshed out at the time. He was later written in as Phoebe's scientist boyfriend David.
  • Louis Mandylor made it to the last round of auditions for Joey, with Matt Le Blanc ultimately winning the part. Mandylor was later cast as the fake twin Joey hires when he's trying to get a payday from a medical study about identical twins.
  • Leah Remini first auditioned for the role of Monica, which went to Courteney Cox. She got to appear as Lydia in a Season 1 episode.
  • Jessica Hecht — cast in a recurring role as Susan, girlfriend (and eventual wife) of Ross's ex Carol — was turned down for the part of Rachel.
  • For years, it was rumoured that Maggie Wheeler auditioned for Monica but ended up playing Chandler's on-off girlfriend Janice instead, but Wheeler denies this, saying Janice was the only part she was ever up for right from the start.
  • Jon Favreau auditioned for Chandler. He would later appear in the series as Pete Becker, Monica's super-rich boyfriend and wannabe cage fighter.
• Channel Hop:
  • In the UK, the first two seasons debuted on Channel 4, before Sky One took over the first-run rights in late 1996 with the following four seasons debuting on the channel along with Channel 4 airing the episodes a month later until regaining the first-run rights from Sky in late 1999, thus the last four seasons debuted on the terrestrial channel and allowed the channel to launch E4 as a result. Repeats of the show continued to air on Channel 4 and E4 after the show's end until Paramount Global took over the rights in 2011, allowing the show to air on Comedy Central and Channel 5, the latter of which aired its spinoff back in 2005, while the reunion special aired on Sky One instead of either the Viacom channels or Netflix due to HBO Max currently unavailable in the country as a result of an existing deal between Sky and Warner Bros.
  • In Malaysia, the show originally aired on RTM-TV2, who dropped the show after a three seasons. NTV7 then picked it up and ran it starting back at Season one, to completion.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Bruce Willis appeared on the show because he lost a bet against Matthew Perry on the set of The Whole Nine Yards. However, he admitted that the had lots of fun and would have been glad to have made a return. Also, although he was paid a good deal of money for his appearances, he happily donated every single earning from the show to a number of different charities. He didn't walk away completely empty-handed: he won an Emmy for his performance.
• Costume Backlash: Jennifer Aniston despised the famous haircut she had during the second season. Despite it being named "The Rachel" and becoming a popular fashion with young women at the time, she says it only came about because the hairdresser made a mistake and tried to correct it. (Allegedly, he was drunk/high and accidentally cut too much off one side and simply evened out the front rather than completely restyling her hair. Other sources say he just got overenthusiastic.) She had grown it out by the next season.
• Corpsing:
  • In the scenes where Ross is playing music in the apartment (his keyboard, and then later in the show, his bagpipes), Jennifer Aniston is visibly trying to hold it together, putting her hand over her mouth as casually as she can. In the bagpipes scene, she has a tougher time once Phoebe "joins in" with her rendition of "Celebration" ("EEEEEE! EE-EEEE! EEE! EEE!....E-E-EEEEE!")
  • In TOW The Worst Best Man Ever, in the scene where Ross confronts the stripper and alleged ring thief in Chandler's office, Matt LeBlanc can briefly be seen ducking behind David Schwimmer to hide his laughter.
• Creator Backlash:
  • The writers openly acknowledge in one of the season eight commentaries that they don't like the Chandler/Monica subplot in "The One With The Truth About London", where Monica reveals that she went up to the hotel room in London to sleep with Joey, but ended up sleeping with Chandler because Joey wasn't there.
  • They also have same disdain for season six, feeling they were simply going through the motions during that time period. Not surprising, given that this was when a lot of the backstage drama with issues like Matthew Perry's drug addictions really began to hinder the series.
  • Matthew Perry has a hard time watching any season three episodes, the year he was extremely skinny due to health issues.
  • Even when the show was airing, Matt Le Blanc was not happy with Joey's more perverted moments, feeling that there was no way the women would want to be friends with a guy like that.
  • The very quick drop of Rachel/Joey after over a year of build-up was due to just about everyone not liking the pairing, from the writers to the actors to the fans.
  • The writers, in 2019, admitted that "TOW The Jam" was the episode they most regretted in hindsight. The reason being how poorly Phoebe's subplot (where she's obsessively stalked by a guy named Malcolm - who was originally stalking her twin sister - and just plays it off as cute/adorable) has aged after #MeToo, etc.
  • None of the cast members liked the theme song at all. Ironically, Rachel can be seen mouthing the words in select shots during certain versions of the opening credits; this is actually because she got a sheet with the proposed lyrics to see what the lyrics might be, as the song hadn't been recorded at the time of filming the sequence.
  • Lisa Kudrow admitted in an NPR interview towards the end of the show's run that she missed how Phoebe had started out as being unreasonably optimistic about everything, after her later character development into more of a snarker. But she also said that the one thing she really wouldn't miss about playing her was her clothes, which she really disliked as being unflattering and uncomfortable.
  • Elle Macpherson would not have played Joey's roommate and girlfriend Janine Lecroix had she known how popular the series was at the time in America or (especially) would remain in the future (given that her own son Cy and his friends always talk about his mom being on Friends and call her "Janine Lecroix").
  • David Schwimmer was not a fan of Ross getting divorced multiple times as a Running Gag, believing that it made the character seem irresponsible and absurd.
  • Jennifer Aniston has this towards 'The Rachel' haircut. She hated it and grew it out as quickly as she could.
  • Marta Kauffman regrets the portrayal of Chandler's Drag Queen parent, as well as several other jokes that seem horribly transphobic in hindsight. She's also said that she regrets not pushing for a greater racial diversity in the cast, and that had the show been made today, it definitely would not have had white actors in all six lead roles. Kathleen Turner has also regretted her portrayal of Chandler's dad, saying that if she was offered the role today she would have turned it down, saying that it should have been played by a trans woman.
• Creator Breakdown: The One With the Cat, an episode where Phoebe thinks her dead mother has been reincarnated as a cat, was written by co-creator Marta Kauffman, who lost her own mother at the time (the episode is dedicated to her). The episode got a mostly negative reception from the fanbase at the time of its airing, mainly due to Phoebe successfully making Ross out to be the bad guy for his insistence that she'd return the cat to her child owner (adding to the ridiculousness, Phoebe had just met her biological mother). One of the other writers mentioned in an interview years later that the episode being written to take Phoebe's inane side would've been shot down at the table read had it not been for the circumstances surrounding it; they would've felt bad going against Kauffman on this issue.
• Creator Couple: In one episode, Ross' old friend from high school comes to visit. Turns out he was the president (and only current member) of the "I Hate Rachel Green" club. He was played by Jennifer Aniston's then-husband Brad Pitt.
• Creator's Favourite Episode:
  • "The One with the Halloween Party" is Lisa Kudrow's favourite.
  • "The One with the Embryos" is Courteney Cox and Matt Le Blanc's favourite.
• Dawson Casting:
  • In a flashback camcorder video, high-school- and college-aged Ross, Rachel, Chandler and Monica are played by their extant actors. This is largely Played for Laughs, with the show deliberately not bothering to attempt to age them down.
  • The characters were all meant to be in their mid-twenties at the beginning of the show, but Lisa Kudrow and Courteney Cox were already in their thirties.
  • Frank Jr is also meant to be eighteen when he first appears on the show. Giovanni Ribisi was twenty-two.
  • Ethan, the lover of Monica's who turns out to be seventeen, was played by Stan Kirsch, who was twenty-six! Of course he is meant to be Younger Than They Look.
• Defictionalization: You can buy the famous glass-less mirror frame in Monica's apartment to hang around the peephole on your door.
• Deleted Scene:
  • The extended episodes on DVD not only include scenes cut for syndication, but also scenes that were never aired due to time constraints and/or content. One example is when Joey is angry at Chandler for making fun of the bracelet he gave him; when Chandler says he should focus on the fact Chandler wore it even though he hated it, Joey tells him to "focus on this," and grabs his junk while the camera cuts behind Joey. Another extra sequence, in "TOW The Cheap Wedding Dress," seems to be an ad-lib from Matt LeBlanc: After a love interest ditches both Ross and Joey at a restaurant, Ross asks if Joey is hungry, to which Joey replies, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"
  • "TOW Where Rachel Tells..." initially featured an entirely different subplot for Monica and Chandler, where they get detained by airport security on the way to their honeymoon because Chandler makes a joke about bombs. This was cut after the September 11th attacks and replaced with a new story, where another couple ahead of them also on their honeymoon receives perks like a first-class flight upgrade and a nicer hotel room, much to the pair's annoyance. The original version did air overseas, however and later surfaced online before finally being officially released on the complete series box set on Blu-Ray.
• Development Gag: In the tenth episode, "TOW The Monkey", the background song at the party is R.E.M.'s "Shiny Happy People". This was the proposed theme song the creators wanted for the show, an offer the band declined.
• Directed by Cast Member: David Schwimmer directed ten episodes in the later seasons.
• Distanced from Current Events: "TOW Rachel Tells...", originally had a subplot where Monica and Chandler are interrogated by airport security after Chandler makes a joke about explosives. As it unfortunately coincided with 9/11, the subplot was hastily changed to Monica and Chandler competing with another couple for honeymoon perks, with the original scene later resurfacing online and then finally getting officially released on the complete series Blu-Ray set.
• Dueling Shows: With Living Single.
• Dye Hard: Matt Le Blanc says that he started going gray early in the show's run and had to dye his hair for the 12 years he played Joey. He initially had it done by Friends' hair department but started doing it by himself to save time.
• Edited for Syndication: Because of the show's network-mandated longer runtimes in later seasons (especially season 10), syndicated airings trying to jam said episodes into a 30-minute block with commercials results in some heavy edits, including cut jokes and abrupt, jarring transitions to the next scene in the middle of the previous one. Some episodes also tend to get passed over in syndicated blocks completely: good luck finding "TOW The List" or "TOW Chandler Doesn't Like Dogs" among a few others in the daily marathons on TBS and Nick at Nite that are otherwise presented in episodic order.
• Executive Meddling:
  • The opening credits originally just had the shots of the friends in the fountain. Producer Don Meyer ordered it to be changed — "It says, we're young, we're hip, we're dancing in a fountain and you can't dance with us" — and replaced with a montage of episode clips. They compromised by having clips intercut with the fountain material.
  • The episode where Monica and Rachel argue over the last condom was censored by the network. They weren't allowed to physically show a condom on screen — and could only show the box.
  • The Season Six episode "The One With The Proposal" was subjected to this. Originally, the episode was supposed to depict a Big Showdown between Chandler and Richard, ultimately ending in a cliffhanger with Monica deciding who to marry. However, there was last-minute speculation that Season Six would be the final season of Friends. Thus, the writers were forced to retool the episode to end with Monica and Chandler proposing, so that if the series was cancelled, there would be no cliffhanger left dangling. The writers also changed the 'showdown' ending because they realized it would be obvious that Monica was going to pick Chandler. They didn't like playing the proposal for cheap laughs and drama, so changed it to the more private, romantic proposal we see.
  • NBC execs forced Marcel on the show, because apparently Friends needed a monkey for comic relief. Both cast and crew found it to be a pain in the ass and give it a Take That! in season 6. They also attempted numerous spin-offs and crossovers with the show to try to piggyback off the show's success.
  • "The One With the Blackout" was part of a crossover event pushed by NBC, "Blackout Thursday", in which the titular blackout was caused in an episode of Mad About You, "Pandora's Box" and carried over into NBC's other New York sitcoms (Seinfeld aired a regular episode, "The Gymnast", that night because its production schedule made it impossible to add such an episode).
• Fandom Life Cycle: One of the rare shows that along with becoming a massive hit never saw its popularity decline, gaining new fans through reruns and streaming, and 17 years after the finale, just getting the six stars together for a talk in an HBO Max special was a huge deal.
• Friendship on the Set: The cast all insisted on equal pay and if they were nominated for awards, you could not nominate one of the cast for Best Lead and another for Best Supporting Cast Member. Many guest stars have mentioned being surprised by just how close the six of them were behind the scenes.
• Hide Your Pregnancy:
  • Courteney Cox during Season 10. Especially since Monica's infertility was a plot point.
  • Helen Baxendale, which resulted in her being written out sooner than originally planned. For Emily's last couple of appearances, the bump was hidden by bed sheets or by only having her voice heard over the phone.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • David Schwimmer did not get along with the monkeys (there were two) who played Marcel. As noted elsewhere, the idea of Ross having a pet monkey in the first place had been forced on the showrunners by the network, and the monkeys were not particularly obedient and did not take direction very well. The trainer also refused to let the cast bond with the monkeys as they had to consider their human castmates "props" as opposed to their friends in order to perform (a policy which, as noted, had decidedly mixed results). With the passage of time, the other actors were able to remember "Marcel" more fondly, but Schwimmer (who shared the most scenes with the monkeys) continued to badmouth them, even during the Reunion Show in 2021, which irked their trainer enough to complain about Schwimmer to the press, as by the time of the reunion show one of the two monkeys had recently died of cancer.
  • Jennifer Aniston's real-life fiancé Tate Donovan was cast as Rachel's boyfriend Joshua, but their relationship deteriorated during his run and they broke up both on the show and in real life. Donovan outright said the experience was awful.
  • In a rumoured case, Reese Witherspoon didn't get along with Aniston, and thus Jill never returned... when in fact things were quite the opposite (Aniston even hugged Reese after she panicked following a flub), and both actresses developed a good friendship (eventually doing The Morning Show just to star in something together). It was later suggested Witherspoon couldn't fit the time in with her very busy film career (Jill's appearance coincided with Witherspoon's film career flourishing, and she accepted the role in the first place only because she really wanted to be on the show, being a fan of it.)
  • As a general rule, although the six main cast members got along phenomenally well and became Real Life True Companions, they were so close-knit that many guest actors over the years have reported feeling shut out of the clique they formed, and that little attempt was ever made by any of them to make the outsiders feel welcomed or part of the team. Some more specific examples:
    • Tom Selleck (who had a recurring role on the show in its second season) was the first of many to comment on the clique that had formed among the main cast and how he often felt like an outsider looking in.
    • Though not outright hostile, David Schwimmer and Matt Le Blanc revealed that Helen Baxendale (Emily) was very aloof towards the main cast. Despite their reported attempts to make her feel welcome (though Baxendale claims they shut her out, as other guest stars have consistently said), she chose to keep her distance and gave the impression she viewed the job as beneath her, and wanted nothing to do with the ensemble or the show. Baxendale later revealed she was uncomfortable with the level of attention the role brought her.
    • Kathleen Turner, who played Chandler's transgender father, said that she found the main cast not welcoming, calling them a "clique". She recalled one time when she was wearing a difficult gown and her high heels were "killing" her, and found it odd that none of them thought to offer her a seat, before one of the older crew members did so. She credited it on them being "such a tight little group that nobody from the outside mattered", though she did however "respect the camaraderie they had."
    • Lastly, Paul Rudd, being brought in very late in the series to be Phoebe's final romantic interest, admitted much later that he felt out of place on the show. This was best exemplified when, in the Grand Finale, he tried to be funny by saying things like "We made it guys!", but since everyone else was emotionally distraught with the ending of the show, it didn't go over very well.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • The original DVD boxsets feature extended versions of many episodes. However, these versions were not included in the HD versions found on Blu-ray and streaming, much to the dismay of fans.
  • Also The European exclusive VHS/VCD release "The One With The Entire London Wedding" that features even longer versions of the London episodes then the ones on the DVD set has never been re-released.
• Life Imitates Art:
  • The cast became especially famous for how close they became, every bit as good of friends as the main characters. It was said the first season was rough due to the general anxiety of a new show, but once its popularity exploded they linked all their agents together ensuring that everyone got paid the same, was credited equally and had roughly equal screentime. They even ensured that when it came to award recognition, the cast would only be eligible for either "lead" or "supporting", but not one actor in one category and another in the latter, preventing any sense of hierarchy.
  • In the reunion special, both Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer admitted to genuine feelings for each other during the early seasons of the show, but much like Ross and Rachel in the first season and a half, a relationship for one or the other with someone else would get in the way of acting on it.
  • In The One Where Joey Dates Rachel, Chandler played so much Ms. Pac-Man, he had trouble unbending his fingers for the remainder of the episode. Years later, Matthew Perry was reported to get a case of carpal tunnel syndrome from playing too much Fallout 3.
• Money, Dear Boy: Matt Le Blanc was down to his last few dollars and needed any sort of paying job when this show was in development. He says the first thing he bought with his first paycheck was a hot meal.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: Nobody in the cast or crew enjoyed having Marcel the monkey as part of the show in Season 1. The network executives forced it onto them in an effort to make the show popular. Once the show proved to be a massive hit anyway, the writers quickly wrote the character out.
• No Export for You: In the U.K. and other there was a VHS release called "The One With The Complete London Wedding" which is a director's cut of all of the London episodes that's even longer then the ones on the DVD sets(it also came out on VCD in some other European territories). Unfortunately those directors cuts have never been officially released outside of Europe.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In the second episode, Ross's ex-wife Carol was played by Anita Barone, whose look and style were nothing like those of Jane Sibbett, who replaced her for the rest of the series. Reportedly, Barone relinquished the role of her own accord, deciding she wanted to pursue a more regular job rather than a recurring gig.
  • Rachel's friend Mindy, who eventually married her ex-fiancé, was first played by Jennifer Grey and later by Jana Marie Hupp.
  • Joey's sister Gina is played by KJ Steinberg in "TOW Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister," but Drea de Matteo in a later lead role in the spinoff Joey. Similarly, Dina is played by Lisa Melilli in that same episode, and later in "TOW Monica's Boots" (where she actually has a significant part as opposed to being essentially an extra) she is played by Marla Sokoloff.
  • Happens to Ben and Emma too, but it's less noticeable since they were both babies when this happened.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: This show spawned several.
  • James Michael Tyler getting the role of Gunther because he was the only one who knew how to work the coffee machine. In the book The One With All 10 Years, and in other interviews, Tyler has stated that this isn't really true, since the coffee machine on set was just a prop, and even if it did work, nobody would be able to see it due to being in the background. Tyler believes the rumor got started because of him admitting to working as an actual coffeeshop worker before breaking into acting.
  • Rachel's sister Jill had her arc in season six reduced and stopped appearing thereafter because Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon didn't get along. They actually have always been good friends, and the real reason for Jill's disappearance was because Witherspoon was only contracted for the original two-episode arc and had trouble scheduling appearances due to her film commitments.
  • It was long speculated among fans that Matt LeBlanc's shoulder injury in season 3 happened on personal time (usually cited as a skiing accident). The reunion special revealed that he dislocated it while filming "TOW No One's Ready" when Joey and Chandler dive for the empty chair. The special even included the footage of the injury in which after jamming his shoulder, LeBlanc immediately headed off set (through the door that led to Monica's room) in pain while the audience awkwardly realized he wasn't doing a bit. On-set personnel helped him reset his shoulder and filming was shut down to take him to the hospital. The next episode in production, "TOW The Jam", has LeBlanc sporting his sling.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Matthew Perry's father, John Bennett Perry, played Joshua's (Tate Donovan) father in one episode, complete with Chandler-like snarking.
  • Julia Roberts guest-starred from dating Matthew Perry, and her sister played her assistant.
  • Susan Sarandon appears as a soap actress in Season 7. Her real-life daughter Eva Amurri plays her soap opera daughter.
  • David Arquette, who would later marry Courteney Cox, appears in season 3 as Phoebe's stalker. David's sister Alexis, who by then was Cox's sister-in-law, appears in "TOW Chandler's Dad" as a cocktail waitress.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle:
  • The subplot in the Season 2 involving Phoebe cutting Joey, Chandler and Monica's hair was because the actors had changed theirs in between seasons.
  • Lisa Kudrow actually had shorter, shoulder-length hair for Season 6, and is wearing a wig because it was felt that Phoebe wouldn't cut hers that short. In the alternate reality "The One That Could Have Been", where Phoebe is working in stocks, that's Lisa's actual hair.
  • In "TOW Where Monica and Richard are Just Friends", Monica points out that Richard no longer has his moustache, because Tom Selleck had shaved it off to film In & Out.
• Reality Subtext:
  • When Phoebe changes her name to Princess Consuela Bannahammock and says "my friends can call me Valerie"; Valerie is Lisa Kudrow's middle name.
  • One episode deals with Joey encountering a Loony Fan who thinks he actually is Dr. Drake. James Michael Taylor (Gunther) had such an encounter with a fan who angrily yelled at him for his character telling Rachel that Ross cheated on her.
  • Years later, David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston admitted that they had a mutual attraction that never progressed anywhere because they were always with other people. As a result, Ross and Rachel's Big Damn Kiss in Season 2 had them channeling a lot of real emotions.
• The Red Stapler:
  • The "Rachel" cut, the flat, straight, and square-layered hairstyle worn by Jennifer Aniston in the first couple of seasons, was so popular with women that it came to be associated with '90s Hair the same way that frizzy, voluminous hair defined the preceding decade. The funny thing is that this was unintentional. The stylist originally wanted Aniston to have even-length hair, but accidentally cut off a bit too much on the front right; instead of matching all the rest of her hair to it, he just cut off a bit on the other side to make it symmetrical. In an interview, Aniston claimed that she hated the haircut and didn't get what the "big deal" was.
  • The series helped popularize coffeehouse culture in the U.S.
• Romance on the Set:
  • The writers wrote in a recurring character for Tate Donovan and he and Jennifer Aniston were dating around the same time. This backfired as they had a painful break-up, which forced the show to hastily just drop the entire arc.
  • A later episode, her then-husband Brad Pitt guested as a former classmate, who ironically hated Rachel.
  • In a form of Life Imitates Art, Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer confessed on the reunion special that they had a massive crush on each other during the first few seasons but never got together, on the set Everyone Can See It but one of them was always with someone else when the other was single. The feelings behind their first kiss in the show were very much real.
  • Matthew Perry briefly dated Julia Roberts between 1995-96, which was why she appeared as Susan Moss in "The One After The Super Bowl: Part 2".
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: Producers took advantage of the resemblance between Lisa Kudrow and Teri Garr to make the latter Phoebe's mom.
• Star-Making Role: Pretty much everyone in the cast, except for Courteney Cox, who was already reasonably known for Family Ties. This is especially notable for Jennifer Aniston, who beforehand starred in failed pilots and shows that were cancelled after one season (with friggin Leprechaun being her most notable credit) and getting catapulted to A-list status.
• Subbing Versus Dubbing: Believe it or not, when Friends was first broadcast in Portugal there was there in The '90s a brief fad of doubling foreign media^note born from Disney releasing The Lion King dubbed in European Portuguese in August 1994; this was the first ever animated dubbing in said language - before, all foreign media was usually subtitled or, if meant for children, the Brazilian Portuguese dubbing was used and this show was no stranger to it: Friends was first broadcast dubbed under the title "Amigos" (a literal translation of the title) when it premiered in 27 August 1998. However, given that dubbing has never been popular in Portugal aside from children's media, ratings tanked so hard the show had to be taken from air and come back later in subbed form. The dubbing - which was only made for part of season 1 - has never been broadcast again and is now forgotten,^note how hard so? HBO Portugal always uses European Portuguese dubs when they are available... except for Friends although someone on YouTube posted a promo for the original premier where we can hear bits of the dubbed show.
  • How later did it come back? Only on 10 October 2005, exactly one year, 5 months and 14 days after the original run ended in the United States. In-between, it gained a reputation as a cheapo Venezuelan soap opera-style show that threw it to Americans Hate Tingle territory. A reputation it would fortunately ditch the second time.
  • By contrast, in Portugal's formerly colony Brazil, the show was always a hit subbed on pay TV (first on Sony Channel, then on Warner), but not so much dubbed on broadcast TV, lasting only three seasons in the latter and taking the dub down with it. That cast only returned to dub the tenth season on its DVD release - specially because by The New '10s, where dubbed programming was taking prevalence in pay TV, Warner Channel ordered the remaining six seasons to get localized with a whole new cast (in São Paulo while the originals were done in Rio).
• Technology Marches On: In "The One With the List", Chandler marvels at his brand new computer: "Twelve megabytes of RAM, five hundred megabyte hard drive, with built-in spreadsheet capabilities and a modem that transmits at over 28,000 bps!", which was quite high tech for 1995. Nowadays there are cellphones running faster than that. Ross is also mentioned several times as having a beeper and one episode even revolves around him getting beeped by people looking for a male prostitute.
  • The characters watch a lot of VHS videos in earlier episodes, a technology that nowadays barely exists.
  • One early episode has Ross mentioning going over to a friend's place to watch a movie on his Laserdisc player. A few years later the Laserdisc format would become defunct and replaced with DVD.
  • The season one episode TOW All the Poker has Joey go to order pizza using Monica and Rachel’s apartment phone and Rachel stopping him because she’s waiting for a call about a job application. Nowadays both characters would more than likely use their cell phones for both tasks.
  • One of the subplots in "TOW No One's Ready" centers around Monica accessing Richard's answering machine because she remembers his code, culminating in her new embarrassing message for him being somehow accidentally saved as his outgoing message. With landline answering machines all but nonexistent by the 2020s, every new posting of this scene online is followed by a slew of comments from viewers asking what in the world is going on and what Monica's doing.
• Throw It In!:
  • The golden frame around the peephole on the apartment door was a mirror originally. But a crew member accidentally smashed the glass. They found it looked good anyway and left it in.
  • Janice's Annoying Laugh was improvised by Maggie Wheeler, who found Matthew Perry so funny she had to come up with something to avoid Corpsing.
  • The episode "The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant" dealt with a woman calling Chandler and Joey believing she's calling a guy named Bob, and Chandler picks up, pretends to be Bob, sets up a meeting with her and then shows up to win her over when she's "stood up". The tag scene for that episode had the woman calling again, looking for Bob, this time with Joey hearing the message. The script called for Joey to pick up and say "Bob here", but Matt LeBlanc tripped and fell, desperately trying to grab the phone as he went down. This ended up a lot funnier than the scripted version and was kept for the episode.
  • In the episode "The One With Phoebe's Uterus", Joey walks into the apartment wearing a blue blazer. Matthew Perry (Chandler), while making a joke, accidentally said "black" instead of "back", but the actors' reactions to the mistake were so funny, they decided to put it in the episode:
    Joey: Guess what job I just got?
    Chandler: I don't know, but Donald Trump wants his blue blazer black. (pauses)
    Ross: What?
    Chandler: Blue blazer back. He wants it back.
    Rachel: But, you said "black". Why would he want his blue blazer black?
    Chandler: Well, you know what I meant.
    Monica: No, you messed it up. You're stupid.
    Chandler: (changing the subject) So what job did you get, Joe?
  • "TOW The Ultimate Fighting Champion" opens with the gang in Central Perk about to discuss something when they're interrupted by Robin Williams and Billy Crystal who ask to share the couch with them. Their appearance was completely unplanned, the pair just happened to be filming on a nearby set and the producers asked them to make an appearance. The resulting scene is a completely improvised conversation where Crystal's character reveals he's sleeping with Williams' wife while the gang awkwardly try not to listen in except for Joey, who asks for clarification and is told that this is a private matter and is none of his concern.
  • In "TOW The Cuffs", a cuffed Chandler swinging the file cabinet drawer into the back of his head was accidental, with Perry grimacing through the impact and Aniston's reaction holding her hands to her mouth being genuine.
  • In "TOW The Candy Hearts", Jane Sibbett genuinely began to cry as Ross and Carol have a heart-to-heart at the Japanese restaurant.
  • In "The Last One", the final exchange was the crew walking out after deciding to grab coffee; Matthew Perry improvised the "Where?" after a beat that winds up being the final line and joke of the series.
• Trans Character, Cis Actor: Chandler's estranged father, who the show during its time treated as a drag queen but who was confirmed as a transgender woman years later, is played by cisgender actress Kathleen Turner.
• Wag the Director:
  • Phoebe may have had a Hilariously Abusive Childhood, but Lisa Kudrow refused to do a joke involving being molested as a child.
  • The Season 5 finale was planned to have Chandler, feeling insecure about Monica having lunch with Richard, cheat on her with a member of the Las Vegas hotel staff. Matthew Perry put his foot down and refused to film it, telling the creators the audience would never forgive Chandler if he did it.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
• Word of God: In an interview, Kevin Bright revealed where he thought all the characters ended up: Joey's finally had his big break and is a star, Phoebe's still with Mike and has opened up a holistic spa chain, Ross and Rachel got married and have had another baby, Chandler and Monica managed to have a child naturally and are contently living in the suburbs with their three children as Chandler starts his own number-crunching business. So in Kevin's words, they're all living Happily Ever After.
• Working Title: Friends Like Us, Six of One, Across the Hall, and Insomnia Cafe.
• Written-In Infirmity:
  • Early in season three Joey hurts his shoulder while jumping on his bed. This was because Matt Le Blanc dislocated his shoulder while diving for the empty chair for "TOW Where No One Is Ready"^note the injury also resulted in the filming of this episode being halted and picked back up one LeBlanc's shoulder healed and needed to wear a sling for several weeks.
  • Phoebe is left back in New York for the London arc since Lisa Kudrow, like Phoebe, was too far along in her pregnancy to travel overseas; it also allowed Kudrow to mainly act while laying down or sitting.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Giovanni Ribisi played a teenager who accidentally dropped a condom in Phoebe's guitar case, about half a season before he was cast as Phoebe's half-brother. Though some fans theorize that this was an Early-Bird Cameo and that really was Frank Jr. even though he is credited as Condom Boy.
  • Jennifer Coolidge and Adam Goldberg guest-starred on Friends. Both ended up in regular roles on Joey; the latter, though, was more of a recurring role.
  • Brent Spiner appeared as one of Rachel's bosses in one episode. He turned up later in an episode of Joey, playing himself.
  • June Gable played a nurse in season 1, episode 23 before picking up a recurring role as Joey's agent Estelle. According to Word of God, she was already cast as Estelle but her scenes were cut. So they had her play the nurse to make it up to her, before bringing Estelle back.
  • There were also some one-off characters, e.g. Doug Looper played a fireman in 3.23 and a paramedic in 5.08.
  • Lisa Kudrow had played Ursula the waitress on Mad About You prior to joining Friends; this was subsequently played with by making Ursula Phoebe's Evil Twin and having Kudrow play both characters in episodes of the latter show.
  • In-universe example was when Phoebe became an extra on Days of Our Lives and noticed some of the extras would play more than one role, and that Joey slept with most of them.
  • In season 1, episode 23, Jonathan Silverman played the obstetrician Dr. Franzblau who delivers Ross's son Ben. In a later crossover, David Schwimmer made a guest appearance as Ross in The Single Guy, in which Silverman plays the main character Jonathan Eliot.

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