| The Hit Show Friends!! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Some History On The Friendliest Show Around... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Friends creators, Marta Kauffmann and David Crane, were friends and partners since they were students at Brendeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. After they graduated, the two moved to New York to work with the off-Broadway mucials A..My Name is Alice and Personals. It was quite a bit later that they broke into the wide world of television with the very popular, but underrated HBO comedy series, Dream On and it was while working on the pilot in 1989 that they met their third friend and partner Kevin Bright. Together the three worked on Dream On, creating one of the funniest adult comedies on television! They also put they're thoughts and talents together fot the less successful The Powers That Be for NBC and Family Albums for CBS. Then after meeting with executives from Warner Bros. Television, they pitched three new sitcom ideas to the networks for their fall 1994 season. Two didn't pass, but NBC eventually did sign on a show called Friends Like Us (almost called Insomnia Cafe, Six of One or Across The Hall). A story about six people in their twenites and there lives and problems while living in New York City. It was a year before the pilot itself that the three imagined the show, and lent their own experiences of living in New York at the age to their creative vision. Once the idea was in place, their was the task of finding the rights actors and actresses to bring their ideas to life. Casting director Ellie Kanner and the three creators worked hard to find the actors to breathe life into their characters- Monica, Rachel, Pheobe, Ross, Chandler and Joey. For each role, the Friends team saw close to one hundred actors, but were searching for the special qualities they knew would send their show over the top. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Some Brief History On Each Of The Characters... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Courtney Cox (Monica Geller): For Monica, they decided to go with Courtney Cox. Courtney, was better known for her stint as Alex P. Keaton's girlfriend on Family Ties, was also quite recognizable as the gal Bruce Springsteen pulled on stage to groove with at the end of his Dancing In The Dark video. She then starred in the series The Trouble With Larry with Bronson Pinchot and in the 1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective with Jim Carrey, just before her Friends gig came to be. Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green): The role of Rachel which eventually went to Jennifer Aniston, wnded out becoming the breakout character in the series. From the pilot episode, where a drenched Rachel ends up at the gang's hangout, Central Perk, wearing her wedding gown and veil and talking about how much she didn't realize that her fiance loked like Mr. Potato Head unitl their wedding day, everyone fell in love with her...well I don't know if everyone fell in love with her...but I sure did. Jennifer is the daughter of long-time show business actor (and Days of Our Lives villain) John Aniston and the goddaughter of television's Kojak, Telly Savalas. She chose from a young age to be an actress and even attend the High School for Performing Arts in New York. After graduation, she won parts on the series Molloy, Ferris Bueller, Herman's Head and the comedy show The Edge. She was also in the thriller The Leprechaun. Lisa Kudrow: (Pheobe Buffay) Lisas Kudrow who was chosen to play Pheobe, was selected early on in casting. Aside from her comedy training, she worked with her father, Dr. Lee Kudrow, a world-famous headasche specialist. She was later a member of the sensational theater group, The Groundlings in 1989 and was soon turning up on shows like Cheers, Newhart and Coach. She also played the ditsy waitress Ursual on Mad About You, a role she continued to keep throughout several of her first weeks on Friends. Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani): Speaking of Joey, his portrayer Matt LeBlanc, was always a familiar face to television viewers, but you just couldn't recall his name!! Matt made a living in commercials and soon, we saw him on Married With Children and the spin-off that soon followed, Top Of The Heap. When Top didn't take off, the show was revised and renamed Vinnie and Bobby, but fortunately that too also did poorly. After Matt won a role on the very saucy Red Show Diaries, where he acted in a very memorable elevator scene, and later made the feature film Lookin Italian, never released in the U.S.A While Matt has mada a living out of playing a character that always seems to have misplaced his marbles, in real-life, he is a very smart man with varied interests. Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing): Joey's best friend on the show and companion, Chandler, is brought to life by the talented Matthew Perry. Fuuny by nature, Matt got his start in show business at a young age in the series Charles In Charge, Second Chance, Boys Will be Boys, Beverly Hills 90210, Growing Pains and Sydney. Matt also made apperences in the movies A Night In The Life Of Jimmy Reardon and She's Out Of Control. A highly ranked tennis player in his native Ottawa, Canada, Matthew came to Los Angeles to initially be a tennis star, until he realized that everyone in California played tennis. David Schwimmer (Ross Geller): Finally, to round out the best of Friends, was the character of Ross played by David Schwimmer. Not thinking this type of guy would ever generate the kind of publicity and adultation from the show's female fans, the writers created Ross to be every-guy, with the problems to spare. Apparently that took off with fans, who found Ross to be charming and the character soon became the show's heartthrob. David is the son of two laywers and surprised his folks with his choice to act. He attended Northeastern University in Chicago and earned his degree in speech/theater. David starred on the short-lived series Monty and returned to Chicago shortly after. It took the persuing of the producers to get him to return to California to try his hand at a sitcom again. That was just some of the history on the 6 characters of the hit show Friends!! | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Some quotes from a couple of the shows of the first season... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The pilot epsiode | Monica: Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You're gonna love it. "The One With The Blackout" Chandler (voice-over): What the hell was that? Mental note: If Jill Goodacre offers you gum, you take it. If she offers you mangled animal carcass, you take it "The One With The Blackout" Chandler: (voice-over) Oh my God, it's that Victoria's Secret model. Something...something Goodacre. Jill: (on phone) Hi Mom, it's Jill Chandler: (voice-over) She's right it's Jill. Jill Goodacre. Oh my God. I am trapped in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre! (pause) Is it a vestibule? Maybe it's an atrium. Oh, yeah, that is the part to focus on, you idiot! "The One With the Stoned Guy" Joey: Well, if you can't talk dirty to me, how are you going to talk dirty to her? Now tell me you want to caress my butt. "The one with the Ick Factor" Rachel: What are you playing with? Ross: It's my new beeper. Joey: What the hell's a paleontologist need a beeper for? Monica: Is it for, like, dinosaur emergencies? "Help! Come quick! They're still extinct" "The One With All The Poker" Monica: Alright, here we go. We've got salmon roulettes and assorted crudites. Rachel and Pheobe: OOoooo. Joey: Whoa, whoa, whoa, Monica, what're you doin? This is a poker game. You can't serve food with more than one syllable. It's gotta be like chips, or dip, or pretz--(look of realization) "The One With The Boobies" Chandler: I don't know why you were so embarassed. They were very nice boobies. Rachel: (To Chandler) "Nice"? They were "nice"? I mean that's it? I mean, mittens are "nice." Chandler: (Illustrating) Okay. Rock. Hard Place. Me. "The One With The Boobies" Roger: What's wrong, sweetie? Pheobe: Nothing. Nothing. I'm fine. It's just, um...it's my friends. They have a "liking" problem with you. In that, um, they don't.
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