Who doesn't love the TV serie Friends? I LOVE IT. It is one of my favorites.
So, here's a look back at the TV serie that changed my life.
The show was originally called Insomnia Café.
After NBC bought the pilot, the title became Friends Like Us. NBC president Warren Littlefield came up with another title that was also considered, Across the Hall. By the time they shot it, the title had switched again to Six of One. When the show premiered on September 22, 1994, they had finally landed on simply Friends.The opening credits were shot at Warner Bros. studio, not in New York.
Although the fountain looks a lot like Pulitzer Fountain in Central Park, the actual shoot occurred on a Warner Bros. lot.Lisa Kudrow hated playing guitar at first.
She decided that Phoebe would only know a handful of chords anyway... And thank God, because “Smelly Cat” is perfect just the way it is.The role of Ross was written for David Schwimmer.
Executive producer Kevin Bright had worked with Schwimmer before, so the writers were already developing Ross’s character in Schwimmer’s voice and surprise, surprise... David was the first person cast on the show.They were the first TV cast to negotiate as a group.
By the second season, each actor had a slightly different salary. In 1997, all six cast members refused to work until they all earned an equal salary of $100,000 per episode. The New York Times reported: “Stars of hit shows often threaten to boycott their series in pursuit of higher salaries. What is unusual is this cast’s effort to use solidarity as leverage.”Kudrow’s pregnancy was written into the show, but Cox’s was not.
Kudrow got pregnant with her son, Julian Murray, in 1997. Kudrow was dubious about Phoebe getting pregnant too, but the writers decided to have Phoebe act as a surrogate for her brother’s triplets. On the other hand, in the final season, Cox was pregnant with her daughter, Coco Arquette. This was not written into the show for an obvious reason: the series had already established that Chandler and Monica couldn’t have kids. So, they hid Cox’s pregnancy to the best of their abilities with costumes and props.Bruce Willis appeared on the show for free after losing a bet to Matthew Perry.
Apparently Perry was quite the gambler. He got into a debate with Willis while the two were making The Whole Nine Yards. Perry believed that the film would be number one in the box office on its opening weekend, but Willis disagreed. In February 2000, the film was number one.
As a result of the bet, he had to donate his earnings for the guest stint to charity.For the opening credits in “The One After Vegas,” everyone was given the last name “Arquette.”
This episode was the sixth season premiere. It was also the first episode after Courteney Cox married David Arquette. In the credits, her name was switched to “Courteney Cox Arquette.”
The episode is dedicated: “For Courteney and David, who did get married.”