Board 8 > Nominate stuff from the TV show Friends and I'll rank it

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I've been wanting to do some sort of rankings project, but I also wanted it to be relatively low effort since I don't have a lot of free time these days. I was trying to think of something non-video game related I'd feel confident I could talk about at length, and Friends rose to the top of the list for me. It's a show where I've seen most of the episodes many times, and I figure it's popular enough (whether you love it or hate it) that I could get decent participation. Plus, just ranking the characters or episodes would be boring, so hopefully this will be fun for everyone.

The Moistmaker freakout

Why Ross, the largest friend, does not simply eat the other five

Top 5 Worst Episodes

Pivot!
PIVOT!

Chandler's roommate Eddie

The theme song

what Mario isn't telling you...

Criticism at the lack of black characters

Gunter

Mboscodictiasaur

Chandler's goatee

Chandler's impression of Shelley Winters in the Poseidon Adventure

chanandler bong

paget brewster's character

The outtakes of Ross playing the bagpipes

Joey being unable to speak French

Joey buying only the V volume of the encyclopedia

Ross without the laugh track

I'll start working on these tonight

The plot to Shutter Speed

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

The Moistmaker freakout

One of Ross's best comedic bits and worthy of the memetic status it has achieved over the years. Gotta be honest, I kinda sympathize with Ross here despite his outsized reaction. He's recently divorced from Emily, so he's in a bad place. He even says that the Moistmaker sandwich was the only thing he had to look forward to in life at the time. However, the thing that would've set me off like Ross is the sheer glee his boss seems to take in admitting he stole his sandwich and the additional audacity of saying he threw most of it away, to boot. Total jerk move.

Hbthebattle posted...

Why Ross, the largest friend, does not simply eat the other five

Well, Lrrr, it's because Ross isn't actually the largest Friend. That would be Joey, which is why that joke doesn't really land for me (you can argue Ross is the tallest, I guess, but he's definitely not the "alpha male" of the group). He probably wouldn't be able to take Monica based on all indications of her surprising strength either. Now I wouldn't put it past Joey to eat the other five if it came down to it.

Menji posted...

Top 5 Worst Episodes

I said in the opening post I didn't want to simply rank episodes...! Plus, I don't know what I'd say are the worst episodes off of the top of my head, so let's see what the worst ranked episodes are on IMDB. Hmm...Looks like it's all clip shows. I guess people really don't like those, but I get it since they're kinda lazy by design. Probably the biggest travesty of these clip shows doesn't actually take place in the episode itself. In The One with the Vows, Chandler supposedly writes these hilarious vows, but when the wedding gets here, he doesn't use them. It's a shame we never got to hear them!

The lowest rated episode that isn't a clip show is The One with the Donor, and I'd probably agree that's one of the worst. Chandler and Monica grilling John Stamos's character Zack on his entire family history to see if he'd be a good sperm donor is awkward more often in a bad way than a good way.

_PandaMaster_ posted...

Pivot!
PIVOT!

Another great Ross meme and something anyone can relate to if you've ever had to carry bulky furniture up a flight of stairs. It's probably for the best that Rachel couldn't find Joey to help and had to bring Chandler along instead because he's great here, too. He nearly gets thrown over the railing as the couch rolls over top of him, and he counters Ross's PIVOT chant with a SHUT UP retort. Also, at some point, you gotta bite the bullet and pay for the store's movers to carry the couch, man. It's money well spent.

MZero posted...

Chandler's roommate Eddie

Perhaps the creepiest and most discomforting character in the series, but in a good way, at least for me. Chandler plays off of Eddie so well. Probably my favorite interaction is when Chandler wakes up to find Eddie watching him and yells at him to move out. Eddie's incredulous response of, "What about all the other nights when you didn't see me, huh?" like Chandler shouldn't be bothered by it is fantastic.

MarkS2222222222 posted...

The theme song

One of my all-time favorite television theme songs, it just fits the show so well. It's super catchy, too. I'm always disappointed when I'm watching the episode and it has the abridged title sequence instead of the full version. Some channels who run the show in syndication skip it entirely by putting it in a small window at the bottom of the screen, which I guess is meant to save time so they can play more of the episode. That just means your commercial breaks are too long!

Current rankings:

How You Doin?

Ill Be There For You
The Moistmaker Freakout
PIVOT

Miss Chanandiler Bong

--

Kick-You-in-the-Crotch Spit-on-Your-Neck Fantastic

Eddie

It Sucks. Youre Gonna Love It.

--

Smelly Cat

The Futurama Friends Joke

We Were on a Break!

Worst Episodes

More later.

jennifer aniston's nipples

People still arguing to this day if they were on a break

The logo

Central Perk

Red Ross.

Paul Stevens

Robbie Williams and Billy Crystal's improvised cameo

Ugly naked guy

KingButz posted...

what Mario isn't telling you...

Somehow this became the most pervasive ad campaign in New York City history. I can't even imagine being Joey in this situation, where everyone believes that you are the character you play, even your own family. They did make a lot of great jokes off of it though. That was one of the things early Friends was great at, finding one funny thing and then riffing off of it in multiple ways. It felt like something you'd do with your own friends in real life, which was cool.

changmas posted...

Criticism at the lack of black characters

It feels like this stuck to Friends more than other 90s sitcoms, for some reason, even though most of them had the same issue. I guess it's because Friends was the most popular show at the time. Although if you wanted Friends with black characters, there was always Living Single, which some people insist Friends ripped off! Seriously though, Friends generally operated with a small cast and big name guest stars (especially as it got more popular) that they'd date or that they were related to, so it kinda made sense to an extent the show was largely white. I think they tried to be a little more inclusive later in the show, with Gabrielle Union showing up for one episode and Aisha Tyler having a multi-episode run, but I'm not gonna act like that made up for the rest of the show.

Anagram posted...

Gunter

First off, R.I.P. James Michael Tyler. He took a literal background role and made it into the most frequent recurring minor character in the show. Gunther appears in all 10 seasons, but he doesn't even have a speaking role in all of season 1. He basically took the place of the owner, who just disappears without a trace after a few season 1 episodes. His defining feature is obviously his obsession with Rachel (and his subsequent disdain for Ross as a result), but they do drop in a few tidbits about him here and there, like how he was once a soap opera actor like Joey. At the same time, they don't let him become too familiar. On a related note, his last name is definitely not Central Perk.

tyder21 posted...

Mboscodictiasaur

I enjoy the running gag of Charlie's ex-boyfriend asking Ross to spell the name of this made-up dinosaur, and then Charlie successfully being able to spell it later on. That's the moment Ross should've known their relationship was doomed. On random notes, I loved dinosaurs as a kid, as I imagine many of us here did. I also finished 4th in a state spelling competition my senior year of high school, but I probably would've gotten this one wrong if it was one of the spelling words.

Current rankings:

How You Doin?

Ill Be There For You
The Moistmaker Freakout
PIVOT

Miss Chanandiler Bong

--

Kick-You-in-the-Crotch Spit-on-Your-Neck Fantastic

Gunther
Eddie

It Sucks. Youre Gonna Love It.

What Mario Isnt Telling You
Mboscodictiasaur

Smelly Cat

Criticism of Lack of Black Characters
The Futurama Friends Joke

We Were on a Break!

Worst Episodes

More tomorrow.

This joke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uN6i_-ELLw&t=1s

the storyline where joey fell in love with rachel

The Chick and the Duck
The Christmas Trifle

More later today

Chandler/Rachel chemistry/plot lines e.g. Rachel setting up Chandler with boss, cheesecake

seven seven seven

hank azaria

Whoops, got caught up watching the Super Bowl and didn't get to this.

I'll update the list tonight when I get home.

KommunistKoala posted...

Chandler's goatee

It didn't really fit the character. It made him look more serious and unfriendly than silly and charming, so I was glad it didn't stick around that long. I was fine with them using it for flashbacks though.

NBIceman posted...

Chandler's impression of Shelley Winters in the Poseidon Adventure

Fun Fact: Back in the day when we could do rotating sigs and imbedded GIFs, I had a GIF of this moment in my rotation. I've never seen The Poseidon Adventure, so I can't personally speak to the quality of the impression, but Ross claims to have understood what he was doing, so that's good enough for me. I feel like Chandler's antics got more outlandish the more awkward the situation was, and this is a prime example, considering this was the episode right after Ross and Rachel's (first) breakup, if I recall correctly.

SeabassDebeste posted...

chanandler bong

Actually, it's Miss Chanandiler Bong. Seriously though, I'm not sure what the correct spelling is supposed to be. With Ross's particular enunciation, he makes it sound like there's an I in there somewhere. I can relate to this joke because I have a last name that is frequently misspelled. By the way, this was the name on the TV Guide. Remember TV Guide? This is one of those "kids these days will never understand" type of things. We used to subscribe to it when I was a teenager. I enjoyed doing the crossword in the back.

paget brewster's character

Out of all of Chandler's non-Monica relationships, Kathy was the best one. Not that there's much competition since he didn't have a ton of them and most of them were one-offs except for Janice. The Chandler/Kathy/Joey love triangle was fantastic though. Just the sheer anguish Chandler goes through while she dates Joey is something a lot of people can probably relate to, myself included. It's kind of a shame it ended so abruptly though, especially after how much Chandler goes through to end up with her.

XIII_Rocks posted...

The outtakes of Ross playing the bagpipes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0z18rM68D8

Here's the video if you've never seen it. Honestly, I'm kind of amazed they got even a halfway usable take from this scene because it's hard to watch Phoebe imitating the bagpipes (a funny instrument to begin with) without laughing, no matter how many times I watch it. Jennifer Aniston's inability to keep herself from breaking is great, too.

andylt posted...

Joey being unable to speak French

If you made me pick a least favorite episode, this one would be up there (or down there?). Joey's intelligence gets flanderized over the course of the show, and this might be the worst instance of it (this is a season 10 episode, after all). I know it's a comedy and you aren't supposed to take it seriously, but it's pretty hard for me to believe that Joey thinks he's perfectly repeating what Phoebe says to him. I don't think I've ever related to Phoebe more than in this episode.

hylianknight3 posted...

Joey buying only the V volume of the encyclopedia

This, on the other hand, is a more realistic depiction of Joey's relative lack of intelligence compared to the other friends and the frustration it causes him. It also subtly shows that Joey has a great knack for memorization (he IS an actor after all) because he's able to recall vivisection and the vas deferens like it's nothing. Perhaps my favorite exchange between Joey and Penn Gillette's character is when he asks Joey if he's ever had a hard time following a conversation, and it goes through a montage of him feeling left out of a conversation. Then it cuts back and Penn's character says, "You haven't said anything for about two minutes," indicating that Joey was recalling those memories in real time, which is great.

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

Ross without the laugh track

It was kind of wild to witness the slow demise of the laugh track in sitcoms (are there any sitcoms that still use them?), but they honestly never bothered me. I guess it's just because I grew up with them and got used to them. I think people try to use these "sitcoms without the laugh track" videos to "prove" that something isn't actually funny, but I feel like the Friends examples actually hold up fine without it.

Cavedweller2000 posted...

The plot to Shutter Speed

I didn't even realize the movie Joey went to Las Vegas to shoot actually had a name until I had to look up what Shutter Speed was. I also learned that the wrestler Sting starred in a movie called Shutter Speed with Daisy Fuentes, and it sadly isn't the same as the plot of the Friends version, which reads like an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" instead of an actual movie. Of course, we don't get any follow-up to what happens after Joey's character finds out that Betsy's been dead for ten years, which is a shame.

Current rankings:

How You Doin?

Ill Be There For You
The Moistmaker Freakout
PIVOT

Miss Chanandiler Bong

Outtakes of Ross Playing the Bagpipes
Chandlers Impression of Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure
Kathy

Kick-You-in-the-Crotch Spit-on-Your-Neck Fantastic

Gunther
Joey Only Buying the V Volume of the Encyclopedia
Eddie

It Sucks. Youre Gonna Love It.

What Mario Isnt Telling You
Mboscodictiasaur
Ross Without the Laugh Track
The Plot to Shutter Speed

Smelly Cat

Chandlers Goatee
Criticism of Lack of Black Characters
The Futurama Friends Joke

We Were on a Break!

Worst Episodes
The One Where Joey Cant Speak French

Jack Geller

That time where Ross struggled to remember all 50 states

LeonhartFour posted...

(are there any sitcoms that still use them?)

Yes, they are still very common, especially with shows aimed at the boomer audience.

Chandler's dramatic weight loss from the last episode of season 6 to the first episode of season 7 considering both episodes were set the same night

Unagi

the forever Friends vs Seinfeld debate

Janice Litman-Goralnik (ne Hosenstein)

Bamboozled

I'll get back to this tomorrow

Valentine's stuff tonight

LeonhartFour posted...

Valentine's stuff tonight

oh my