I have an idea about an article about one of the most famous sitcoms of all time. This is how I would like to start the article. Feedback is welcome:
Love it or hate it, Friends was one cultural phenomenon that swept across the world with a "WOOPAH" (insert whipped sound effect ). One could argue that the quality of jokes went south as the series progressed... perhaps you found yourself screaming "Could this show BE any stupider?" when Joey proved himself too stupid to repeat a few French phrases or he thought he had become a millionaire by finding his hand twin. Or perhaps the more clever, well thought out hilarious plot lines when Rachel and Phoebe were sure that "Mondler" did not "know that we know that they know that we know" left you in stiches. Love it or hate it, Friends will go down as one of the better known sitcoms in history.
But it certainly did leave one question unanswered, which this author would like to explore. In one of the earlier seasons of Friends, Chandler and Joey take Ross's son, Ben out for a day in city. On the bus, in their immortal, everlasting quest to get laid again & again, they strike up a conversation with two attractive women. They hop off at the next stop with the aforementioned ladies, forgetting Ben behind. Hilarity ensues, but lets just stop and ask ourselves .... how hilarious is this situation? You have just lost a friends barely six month old baby that is not capable of uttering a single legible word let alone identify his fathers phone number, home address or anything that he could tell an authoritative figure to get him delivered into the right hands. Luckily our heroes, Chandler and Joey rush to the City of New York Department of Health Services and little Ben is rescued!!
Or is he?
Chandler & Joey are at odds between two babies since all babies at that age look rather similar. One baby has clowns while the other has ducks drawn on his diapers. They flip for the baby as Joey declares "heads is ducks because ducks have heads". At this point Chandler delivers one of his most classic jokes to date, "what kind of scary ass clowns came to your birthdays?" (Amazing how we can diffuse the gravity of the most serious situations with the right joke in the world of sitcoms).
They randomly choose one baby and head home. At this point they are still not sure if they have Ben or some other random baby with them. Relief & assurance comes to them when Monica picks Ben up and he starts to cry... something that he is known to do when Aunty Monica ever gets close to him. This is literally the ONLY evidence they have of Ben's identity. At no point is a DNA test ever performed and as Ben ages, bears no resemblance to either Ross or his mother, Carol.
So did Ross really end up raising Ben or some other kid?