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Friends [split topic]

Started by Utter Shit, July 17, 2019, 04:36:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Utter Shit

Big old bump, but I feel like it's relevant and frankly I would feel like a bit of an oddball making another Friends thread without a proper reason for doing so.

I recently got into a podcast about Friends, called Friends With Friends, and apart from recommending it to you all because it's really good, it touches on a lot of what was discussed in this thread with regard to viewing it from a modern day perspective.

There are way more examples than I remembered of the characters behaving appallingly according to contemporary values, and the podcast does a good job of digging into various bad episodes of the show, whereas I'd always sort of considered most of them to be roughly the same standard with very few exceptions.

Side note: I watched an episode last night and there was a fabulous bit of silliness at the end of the episode. Rachel tires of being told off by her dad over the phone (having just told him she is pregnant) and walks off to leave him shouting to no one. Joey comes out and picks up the phone, hears the shouting and just immediately begins shouting back before hanging up angrily. Then quietly says "stupid guy on my phone". It absolutely did me in, the fact that he didn't question why someone would be screaming down the phone at him, he was just annoyed that it had happened.


magval

Quote from: Utter Shit on July 17, 2019, 04:36:05 PM
Side note: I watched an episode last night and there was a fabulous bit of silliness at the end of the episode. Rachel tires of being told off by her dad over the phone (having just told him she is pregnant) and walks off to leave him shouting to no one. Joey comes out and picks up the phone, hears the shouting and just immediately begins shouting back before hanging up angrily. Then quietly says "stupid guy on my phone". It absolutely did me in, the fact that he didn't question why someone would be screaming down the phone at him, he was just annoyed that it had happened.

For anyone who wants to see it (as I did - thanks!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFAnKge6ioA

mojo filters

Quote from: magval on July 17, 2019, 09:02:03 PM
For anyone who wants to see it (as I did - thanks!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFAnKge6ioA

Despite reading all 15 pages in one go and reliving many fond memories (got some time to kill) I'd forgotten about that scene. Lovely stuff!

Sometimes the dialogue in Friends could be really smartly written, cleverly using the interplay between all the characters to produce quite clever poetic repetition. Sadly the writers seemed to more frequently prefer taking the cheap and hackneyed easy laughs.

The penultimate scene in The One With The Box really stands out, as for 20+ years now I've always attempted to slip threefold reasons in to any conversation where it's not too obviously contrived.

Oddly it seems to get recognised less and less over the years. It once got completely wasted on a colleague, who was literally inviting me to riff on the entire scene when they asked "why have you got a box?" (I happened to have an unusually large box on my desk.)

Yet recently I've been reading how the popularity of Friends on streaming services is so big, it's created a whole merchandise industry for the new audience. I don't recall any of that from the original broadcast era, yet "we were on a break!" seems destined for a t-shirt or whatever - not one I'd wear though, just to be clear.

Icehaven

#3
Quote from: mojo filters on July 18, 2019, 01:34:48 AM

Yet recently I've been reading how the popularity of Friends on streaming services is so big, it's created a whole merchandise industry for the new audience. I don't recall any of that from the original broadcast era, yet "we were on a break!" seems destined for a t-shirt or whatever - not one I'd wear though, just to be clear.

Apparently TV show Tshirts (and other merchandise) are the new band Tshirts these days.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/jul/04/why-tv-t-shirts-have-become-the-new-band-tees

Basically says people don't align their identities with bands/music the way they used to, but they do with TV shows like Friends, GOT, Stranger Things etc.

Edit; There's even crap like this


And this


Utter Shit

Quote from: magval on July 17, 2019, 09:02:03 PM
For anyone who wants to see it (as I did - thanks!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFAnKge6ioA

So bloody good isn't it! Just watched it again from your link and there's so much good stuff in it - Matt Le Blanc's expression when he realises what's being said to 'him', and then the subsequent look he gives the phone once he's hung up...amazing.

pigamus

I can't think of any other show that has consistently made me laugh without ever making me like it all that much. It's just... there.

SavageHedgehog

I guess I'm similar, I wouldn't say I didn't like the show, but I never cared about what happened to any of the characters, certainly not the Ross/Rachel or Monica/Chandler dynamics. The only thing I recall finding affecting was the Joey/Chandler/Kathy love triangle. I guess it may not have helped that I saw most of it in fairly random order.

Utter Shit

I suppose I agree with that, although I'd never really thought about it - wasn't particularly invested in the characters (maybe Joey a little?) but it was so consistently funny with so few weak episodes. My wife and I have started watching How I Met Your Mother as it seems to be the closest in style to Friends and is generally well-regarded compared to most modern sitcoms, but even that is just miles off the standard Friends set.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on July 18, 2019, 10:20:46 AM
The only thing I recall finding affecting was the Joey/Chandler/Kathy love triangle.

That was a really great storyline, and pretty brutal. Similarly, the bottle episode with Ross and Rachel after she finds out Ross kinda cheated but not really, it felt very raw for a multi-camera sitcom. The really heavy stuff disappeared as the show went on, they went for more standard sitcom pathos.

Gerald Fjord

Yeah i do think there's something in the earlier seasons, up to around season 5, which feels a lot truer, a lot more character-based and a lot smarter in terms of letting that character interplay mentioned upthread drive the humour. I think once the characters start to seriously flanderise from 5 onwards the show becomes a lot broader, and the laughs a little cheaper, albeit still consistently funny.

Utter Shit

In my head I sort of separate the show into seasons 1-4 and seasons 5-10, as two of the characters (Chandler and Ross) have huge character changes around that time thanks to Monica and Chandler getting together, and Ross having his breakdown. It's quite a neat changeover actually, as Chandler turns into a boring drip at the exact point that Ross stops being a boring drip. Ross from series 5 on is the best character by a mile.

up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Utter Shit on July 18, 2019, 12:46:09 PM
Ross from series 5 on is the best character by a mile.

I might have mentioned this before, but drunk Ross is one of the funniest things in the series. One of my favourite little jokes is when he goes to sit down in this scene https://youtu.be/DtHTiiny9u4?t=63

mojo filters

Quote from: icehaven on July 18, 2019, 08:24:22 AMThere's even crap like this

Wow...those t-shirts are truly timelessly offensive!

dr_christian_troy

Quote from: phantom_power on March 27, 2018, 09:08:52 PM
Seconded. Amazing film. Any collaboration with Robert Altman really.

Thirded.

paruses

Quote from: mojo filters on July 18, 2019, 01:43:17 PM
Wow...those t-shirts are truly timelessly offensive!

The market for that second one seems restricted to the passive-aggressive aggrieved.

mojo filters

Quote from: paruses on July 18, 2019, 02:27:30 PM
The market for that second one seems restricted to the passive-aggressive aggrieved.


Specifically passive-aggressive aggrieved people with shapely female upper torso form factors.

gilbertharding

Quote from: icehaven on July 18, 2019, 08:24:22 AM
Apparently TV show Tshirts (and other merchandise) are the new band Tshirts these days.


I have a sort-of hankering for the crossover band/tv show t shirt here:


Utter Shit

Quote from: up_the_hampipe on July 18, 2019, 01:09:19 PM
I might have mentioned this before, but drunk Ross is one of the funniest things in the series. One of my favourite little jokes is when he goes to sit down in this scene https://youtu.be/DtHTiiny9u4?t=63

Ahahaha brilliant. He's great at physical comedy, the bit where he has to hide under the bed to escape Bruce Willis is amazing. His whole body just folds in on itself. Right at the start of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us1gRCZhShI

Icehaven

Quote from: paruses on July 18, 2019, 02:27:30 PM
The market for that second one seems restricted to the passive-aggressive aggrieved.

It's a Stranger Things 3 reference, without any attempt to be catchy or smart, just selected purely as it contains the word 'Friends'.

paruses

#19
Ah. Fair dos.

I spent week with a friend who wore a t-shirt with "I watch birds and know things. It's what I do" as a stylised slogan but with no reference to Game of Thrones on it.

Not being a GoT person I judged everyone to be simpleton who came up and said it was a brilliant t-shirt.

MiddleRabbit

I've never seen 'Friends' I was going to watch it when it was broadcast first time around but after seeing what a set of cunts they were during the credits, dicking around in the fountain, I didn't bother.

In case this seems like an anti-American thing, I also can't be arsed with Dad's Army.  Big pile of shit.

Icehaven

I've just had the most inane though, the Stranger Things kids and the Friends would be about the same age.

Chollis

Eleven grows up to be Phoebe now that her powers are gone. Grim.

Jockice

Quote from: paruses on July 18, 2019, 03:57:46 PM
Ah. Fair dos.

I spent week with a friend who wore a t-shirt with "I watch birds and know things. It's what I do" as a stylised slogan but with no reference to Game of Thrones on it.

Not being a GoT person I judged everyone to be simpleton who came up and said it was a brilliant t-shirt.

I famously (well not that famously. Because I'm not famous) never saw Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? until I was forced to while visiting relatives on the evening that woman (the queen's cousin or whatever she was) won a million. So all references to 'phone a friend' etc just totally puzzled me. I'm still pissed off that I never saw the last episode of One Foot In The Grave because of that. And I've still never seen it either. The moment had passed.


Friends? It's okay. The first time I ever saw it was when I spent in a night in a houseboat on the Florida Keys you know. It was quite stormy outside. I'd very occasionally watch it while lying on the couch and flicking channels a few years ago. Haven't done that for a while though.


Utter Shit

Nice one whoever split the topic, I didn't have the confidence to start a new one. Mad that there are still things to say about it after fifteen years (!!!).

gilbertharding

I wonder how long it will be before this Friends [split topic] thread becomes a de facto Seinfeld Chat.

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,73696.60.html

JamesTC

Do people who watch Stranger Things think Friends is from the 80s?

Barry Admin

Quote from: Utter Shit on July 19, 2019, 11:16:52 AM
Nice one whoever split the topic, I didn't have the confidence to start a new one. Mad that there are still things to say about it after fifteen years (!!!).

Wouldn't worry about it, I just always split them anyway, most times. As Gilbert points out, I could also have merged this with the other split thread on Friends from last month, but we'll see how it goes for now.

Icehaven

Quote from: JamesTC on July 19, 2019, 12:31:01 PM
Do people who watch Stranger Things think Friends is from the 80s?

If any of them do, which I doubt, they're probably wondering why Stranger Things doesn't reference it. We'd better drop this line of thought right now before Richard Curtis starts getting ideas.

gilbertharding

Enjoyed a couple of episodes of the old CoffeeFriends over the weekend, and was actually laughing at Unhinged Ross (it was a late episode - Mike was in it) as per other posters... until he reminded me why everyone hates him by 'accidentally' telling Rachel that he'd withheld a message from someone she met in a bar, like he owns her or something.