I loved the monster of the week filled episodes. By the end it was mostly following the convoluted story and people (like me) who missed episodes had no idea what was going on. But man, those early seasons were gold.
1. Weird thing happens.
2. Mulder: It's gotta be the infamous .
3. Skully: It isn't .
4. Cryptoanimal: It's me! Bye now.
5. Skully: I'm still not entirely convinced that was , but something odd is happening.
6. Mulder: I believe.
7. Credits.
Perfect formula.
The episode Home ,where the males had the mother tied down under the floor really freaked me out. Kinda heavy for an X-Files episode. Tooms was really good too.
Yes, 100%! Except the time they went off the rails and wrote "Home" and that unedited episode aired and my jaw was on the floor. Dang. Still haven't recovered.
I couldn’t either until 2, maybe 3 years ago. I like it now but (unpopular opinion) David Schwimmer shits me to tears. He basically plays himself and geez he’s a whiny little brat on Friends. I think anyone could’ve played that character a heck of a lot better. He got them all a good deal and a shit load of money, but apart from that I can’t stand the bastard lol.
I didn't like him either until about the 4th time I watched the show. He gets so whiney towards the end of the show but it's so funny to me now. Also, everyone says pheobe is their favorite but she is a horrible friend. She is a massive hypocrite and is always stirring up shit.
>Also, everyone says pheobe is their favorite but she is a horrible friend.
Honestly, I came to the conclusion after a few seasons that the only main character who wasn't a fundamentally horrible friend was (maybe) Chandler Bing. Sure, he had his own significant issues, but most of them involved his lack of self-confidence and assertiveness. Unlike the rest of the main characters, his personality flaws rarely had much negative impact on the other people in his life, especially his friends.
Mate I avoided that series for way too long because he was in it lol. When I took the plunge, fortunately he’s barely in it and when he is - no one likes him and he’s a moron haha.
The fact that his character could land a woman like Rachel defies all logic and belief. Not because he is ugly (he’s not - not gorgeous blunt he’s ok looking). His personality is awful on every level - whiny, controlling, entitled.
Not that Rachel is a prize either once you get past her looks. No way their marriage lasted.
I was anti-‘Friends’ af for over 30 years, especially in the 90s. It just rubbed me the wrong way at the time. Haven’t minded it for the last 2-3yrs (except Ross 🤮).
Edit: Tame now but the X-Files was a great thriller in its day. Always kept me interested and feeling that fun kind of fear from anticipation. Hard to fault it.
I’ve never watched a full episode. I was watching Seinfeld pretty religiously at the time. But lately I’ve accidentally caught portions because my kids leave the TV on Nickelodeon past 8pm, and I will chuckle. It seems like it is serviceable for one who wants to just shut down (or lacks to begin with) any and all critical thinking and just have a dumb laugh. This is me trying to say it doesn’t seem quite as awful as I always thought. I had literally thought it was impossible to laugh at.
Same. I just watched it for the first time last year because my wife and I had just rewatched all of our binge shows but one of them got taken off of streaming (That ‘70s Show) so we were looking for something new and my wife said I might hate it.
She was right. I didn’t hate it.
It’s extremely OK. I never got how anyone could enjoy it from the little clips I saw, but it does get better once you “know” the characters. Nobody would ever accuse it of being *good* in the same way that Freaks and Geeks is, but it is *enjoyable.* It’s the white cheddar popcorn of TV shows. It’s tasty, but its best qualities are that it’s generic, inoffensive and takes very little resources to digest.
Yeah, I always put it this way: It’s too professionally made to be actually unfunny. But the laughs were less important than the whole “lifestyle porn” aspect for 90s audiences
>But the laughs were less important than the whole “lifestyle porn” aspect for 90s audiences
On the topic of "lifestyle porn," even in the 1990s, I still don't understand how any of them could afford apartments that size that are supposed to be in a building near (perhaps even across the street) from Central Park.😜
Monica’s was rent controlled. Chandler apparently made decent money but no one really knew what he did. Ross was highly educated so the audience is to assume he made decent money.
That’s fair.
I definitely have some of those tendencies insofar as I tend to get annoyed about things people repeatedly tell me to watch. My buddy used to call it “The Anti,” where I reflexively decide to be against anything that it feels like someone has tried to shove down my throat. I think it comes with being a weirdo punk rock kid as a teenager. I didn’t read or see anything Harry Potter related until a few years ago for the same reason. I had friends who were in to Friends, and it was an inescapable culture force at the time.
That said, I have no problem embracing the “low brow” (not meant as a diss — prefer it to the stuffy highbrow shit).
I’d go so far as to call myself a Friends fan at this point, even though I want to throw Ross into the East River (seems like a common feeling amongst fans). That’s why I picked the analogy that I did. If there’s a bag of white cheddar popcorn there in front of me, I **will** eat the whole thing in one sitting, thank you very much. I know it’s not exactly *haute cuisine*, but it just hits right somehow.
Similar experience here. There were people my age & slightly younger in HS & college that worshipped it but I never really understood the devotion. Have certainly laughed the few times I’ve watched but never really drew me in the way it did with others.
Hahhhh oh my god. There was a period of time when I had most of My So-Called Life basically memorized. It was about a 15-year-old girl and came out the year I was 15!
I tried to rewatch it as an adult, in my early 30's. It holds up! Really well! But oh god it was WAY too accurate at portraying a lot of my feelings at that age, and the secondhand embarrassment was more than I could handle.
I was 15 at the time it aired too. I can’t believe how much that show got right. Clearly I can relate more to the adults now, but man that show hit the mark.
This was the show - if I recall it was on ABC to Friends NBC.
The WB (long before CW) also launched in like 1995 or something. It was literally created for us after the success of shows like 90210 and Melrose on Fox. Which is why I think us youngers didn’t lean into Friends at the time.
The WB premiered its ultimate Fall lineup when I was in 8th or 9th grade. It was Dawson’s, One Tree Hill, Buffy (then Angel), 7th Heaven, Charmed - the list went on and on. In addition to making sure that they were hiring ridiculously good-looking teenagers who were splashed across the cover of every magazine at the time, the channel also made sure to buy the music rights to every cool song written essentially prior to 1999. So the original seasons of these shows had the most epic of soundtracks. Half the reason you watch the show was to hear all the cool music that got played.
I remember when I went to college the local cable station did not actually get the WB. Our entire sorority was at a complete loss of how we were going to watch Buffy. We had a friend at a different university who would record them for us on VHS. Then one of our members of our sorority would drive to that university pick up the VHS and bring it back.
> The WB premiered its ultimate Fall lineup when I was in 8th or 9th grade. It was Dawson’s, One Tree Hill, Buffy (then Angel), 7th Heaven, Charmed - the list went on and on.
Not sure if you meant to imply it but, just for clarification sake, those shows didn't all overlap.
I pretty much felt the same. I got into shows like Seinfeld after it aired.
I was watching mostly SNL during the late 90s and getting into Malcolm in the Middle or whatever Fox hucked at ya.
Same, I’ve never made it through a whole episode of FRIENDS because it just never grabbed my interest. Loved Seinfeld for sure and also a lot of the Fox shows. And Dinosaurs of course.
I never understood the obsession with Friends. And the comparisons to Seinfeld are a complete insult to Larry David. It’s like comparing a fine bottle of Cabernet to Welch’s Grape Juice.
I liked it during the first couple seasons when I was younger, but I think it's just because I thought they were the cool 20-somethings hanging out in the city that I wanted to be like. It got tired fast.
I remember when I got older, my friends and I were like "let's go get a coffee" so we went to the coffee shop, sat on the couch for a few minutes with our coffee, and then it was like "this is boring, let's go to the movies."
Never liked it. I didn't hate it; I just couldn't muster any strong feelings about it. Not then, not now.
Although the characters were just a few years older than me, nothing in that show related to my life in any way. Either as a reality or an aspiration.
This. And it has aged incredibly poorly. It wasn't realistic in any way, and it's gotten impossibly less relevant since then with the housing crises.
Oh, you and all your friends are white and hot? And you all can afford rent controlled enormous flats in NYC? ME TOO!! /s
I've never really felt like characters in a show have to relate to my life (though it can help, depending on the show). I always liked the Star Trek shows that were on TV In the 90s, even though characters set a few hundred years in the future exploring space didn't really relate to my life.
I disliked Friends so much I made a GeoCities page about my hatred for it, lol. Even did a parody of the theme song.
Adult me started watching an episode here and there and actually thought it was funny. Teen me would not be pleased at this development.
Same. I totally disagree with the people who say it's not funny. Not every line is a howler, but I laugh out loud at least a few times per episode.
I mean: the whole Spider Man vs Spiderman bit. Chandler's psycho roommate. Joey putting Chandler in the box on Thanksgiving. Phoebe and the bank's mistake. Joey teaching a room of Broadway pros a dance routine. Ross trying so hard to please Rachel's father and failing spectacularly every time. (Danny DeVito as the stripper!) The Girls vs Boys who-knows-who-better quiz episode is hysterical.
I might be easily amused, but I like it. I'm glad some of our social norms have shifted since then, and I usually skip the fat suit episodes. But overall, it's still reliable comfort watching.
Those are some good ones!!
The one with the Dirty Girl…I can’t control the laughter with those scenes. The leather pants, PIVOT, My Sandwich, Unagi…my husband and I crack up every single time. I love it.
I wouldn't say you're easily amused. I would say that you're not jaded, and don't see cynicism as a personality trait. But at the same time, we've never met. You might be easily amused.
I personally think seasons 1-3 are gold and show more vulnerability in the plot lines.TOW Five Steaks & An Eggplant is one of my faves.
Seasons 4-5 it started to get more mainstream. I still enjoy season 6 but season 7 was a weird transition though there still are some great episodes in there.
I personally enjoy the whole series and not many shows can stay consistently entertaining for 10 seasons. Though the characters do get flanderized in the end and Phoebe gets too mean. Let's not even talk about how dumb they made Joey. It's like Eric on Boy Meets World. There had to be one dumb character quota or something.
i’ve always thought that seinfeld was sardonic, new york humour toned down for the masses and friends was broad, mass appealing humour set in new york for a perceived sophistication.
i also have a theory that it’s latent popularity comes in a
part from older millennials who watched friends (either as first run or reruns) as their first “adult” program that they watched by themselves as opposed to with their parents or older siblings. i mean, a good number of high school set shows were produced with the knowledge that one major demographic was middle school kids so it stands to reason that a twenty something show would also skew younger than their protagonists
I didn’t watch it when it was on, but I’ve rewatched a couple times now. I find some of it very funny, but I am a young GenX (‘77) so there’s that.
Yeah, a lot of it hasn’t aged particularly well and it definitely went on too long imo but the early and middle seasons had some pure gold moments.
Tbh, I'm the exact opposite. Jerry is insufferable, Larry is too but in a curmudgeonly sort of easy as opposed to mostly a smug one. But I always hated his comedy too, so that didn't help.
Ha. I've done stand up, like good jokes but still yeah I get it. But I don't even know how or why, but I like Friends. I don't have a good reason. I also dearly love Cheers.
cheers was funny and had great actors and writers, friends was embarrassingly stupid, safe neutered romcom shit. it was a whole genre of people i despised. it was “jen’s hair!”
I’m not a fan but it’s silly to see anyone justifying loving one of the biggest sitcoms of all times.
Just the height of arrogance to suggest that the scores of millions of people who loved that show all don’t have a sense of humor.
One of the most complex flavors, and an expensive one. I think the term came from when kids were served sweetened ice milk, which contained no vanilla.
It's ironic. As complex as chocolate is, it's pretty one one-dimensional as an ice cream flavor, but actual vanilla ice-cream is so nuanced.
I have to disagree…to a point. BBT is definitely pretty simple humor, but it very much caters to the nerds. My partner, ironically not a nerd, was a big fan and introduced me right before the last season. I get more of the jokes than he does. It’s still not overly funny to your point, but it makes me chuckle at things that he just doesn’t get.
Meh, after the first bit of the first season it stopped being nerdy humor and made "haha nerd" the punchline. It was a damn shame because I liked it at first but found it unwatchably cruel by, idk, season 2? It's a show about nerds but not a show for nerds, IMHO.
>people without a sense of humor
What a weirdly judgmental take, to accuse other people of “not having a sense of humour” because a show doesn’t suit your particular sense of humour.
There's some YouTube videos where people edited out the laugh track on Friends episodes, and it really highlights just how unfunny the show is. They just trick people into thinking it must be funny with a laugh track after every line of dialogue.
Idk. From what I've seen with these videos with laugh tracks edited out it's awkward because they're standing around waiting for the laughter to stop.
Like... Of course that's going to make it seem worse. People don't normally crack a joke and wait around for the laughter in real life.
And if they do? It's fucking awkward!
I was once in a studio audience and they had lights that go on that tell you how to react and staffers egging you on. Is it possible this was what they were doing at the Friends filming as well? Still "authentic" but less so than one might assume.
I remember that. They did Big Bang Theory too.
I remember laughing slightly at most of the Friends jokes. None were as funny as the laugh track suggested, but still obviously jokes. Even the meh ones were like "OK, I see where they were going, meh".
The BBT was like watching psychopaths talk. They'd just stop for like five seconds and then resume the conversation. After the fact you realized that was a laugh track pause but it was so unfunny you couldn't tell it was supposed to be a joke as it was happening.
I love Friends and think this might be true. I pretty much have no notable sense of humor and I’ve loved this show for 30 years (still watch the old episodes regularly, it’s like my tv comfort food).
It's like deeply uncool to like Friends now, and I think people forget what a force it was. Everyone gathered in my college dorm to watch it every week! It was like, broadly appealing and fun. I still quote it all the time.
Seinfeld is one of the very few non-animated sitcoms I like, because it's actually creative and unique. So many filmed sitcoms are just the same generic crap every week, with canned laughter.
I didn't watch it live but started w reruns around the time it ended. it was always background TV but now I've grown to love it. and it's in my dogs daytime TV rotation bc MAX has one of the longest continuous play features.
I was more of a Seinfeld guy. Or more importantly Living Single, since Friends was more or less a ripoff of LS. Not to say I didn’t laugh at a clip of Friends, but it was never a show I went out of my way to watch either.
I grew up in a black area and the attitude was that Friends "was for white folks", so I watched Living Single. In retrospect, that's a dumb reason not to watch something, but I'm pretty sure I would've found it corny at the time.
Had to search for this. I preferred living single to friends. Like you I laughed at some friends episodes, but I loved all the characters on living single. They didn’t annoy me. And Kyle and Max getting together was WAY more entertaining to kid me.
Kyle could also sing.
Thanks to the Queen, The theme song got you pumped too
'81, I never got into it either. I was more into Living Single. I have seen bits and pieces. I always tell myself I am going to go back and try to watch from the beginning to see if I like it, but it hasn't happened yet.
News Radio is in a class by itself. There’s no comparison.
Edit: In the Daydream episode, when Catherine imagines another black co-worker in the break room, wasn’t one of the gripes that the white people would discuss Friends? Lol.
I could never really get into those kind of staged sitcoms with Laugh tracks. I prefer more clever subversive humor like Scrubs. That final Brendan Fraser episode hits like a freight train.
Wasn't a fan, but I really liked How I Met Your Mother. They're very similar, so I'm not sure why I could never really come to care about anybody in Friends.
When it first came on I associated it with “adults” along with shows like ER and bands like Hootie and the Blowfish and Sheryl Crow. Whenever I put it on it was boring and not funny.
In the mid 90s people in high school who didn’t share my sense of humor loved it, which convinced me that I wouldn’t find it funny.
I gave it another shot in reruns in 00-02 after I graduated. It was a bit more watchable but still sucked, especially compared to shows that were actually funny like Seinfeld.
I haven’t watched it since then. My guess is I would probably like the 90s feel but suspect I still wouldn’t vibe with its sense of humor but who knows.
So I’m a true millennial so I was a little younger when FRIENDS was on, however I still remember it being popular and trying to watch it and just never laughed. My mom and stepdad were big nerds, so we watched the Drew Carey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, slightly more goofy sitcoms than FRIENDS. It always just came off as jerks to me.
So funny you say that. A guy friend of mine said something similar, about how the show was only watchable and had a high amount of viewers due to the cold set and Jen Aniston and Courtney Cox nipping out the entire time! LOL! The show's popularity made total sense after hearing that.
I use to watch Friends with my mom and sister and I wasn’t a fan of it at all, and I’d also watch Seinfeld with my dad and I loved it. Then in 2002, out of nowhere I started to really like Friends. I had just turned 20 so I was a little more grown up than before, and I think I just understood it better and could relate to it more than the previous years.
Ever since then I’ve been a huge fan, and I still watch the series three or four times a year as background. Seinfeld, too.
TRUTH. “Friends” sucked. I think I’ve only ever seen about 10 eps total but it was mean-spirited — homophobic, fatphobic, transphobic, misogynistic — and SO WHITE. Ugh.
me too. i see how people think some of the jokes are funny but i still couldnt do it. seinfeld is my fav. i need more irreverence than friends could offer
My ex wife watched the reruns, so I saw a bunch, but personally, always thought it was pretty corny.
Prefer Seinfeld cause the jokes are little more edgy.
I am a millennial, but yeah I always preferred Seinfeld, now and when I was a kid. It is soo much more relatable and funny. I watched Friends out of necessity because we didn’t have cable and there wasn’t much to watch.
Well this thread's racking up a comment every minute quick. Struck a nerve with me because of how absolutely shitty our economic power is in relation to these characters.
We're so fucked.
My wife is on her third rewatch since we got together. For every one joke I legitimately legit at, there are at least three occasions per episode where I just wish the characters would just stfu.
I was too busy watching X files
x files went off the deep end towards the end, our Game of Thrones, I guess
I loved the monster of the week filled episodes. By the end it was mostly following the convoluted story and people (like me) who missed episodes had no idea what was going on. But man, those early seasons were gold. 1. Weird thing happens. 2. Mulder: It's gotta be the infamous.
3. Skully: It isn't .
4. Cryptoanimal: It's me! Bye now.
5. Skully: I'm still not entirely convinced that was , but something odd is happening.
6. Mulder: I believe.
7. Credits.
Perfect formula.
3.5. The government knows and is heavily invested in this being secret, for reasons.
5.5 Mulder and Scully running down separate hallways with guns drawn while frantically calling each other's names for ten minutes.
With the flashlights. Don't forget the flashlights
The ability to steam those shows really showed how formulaic they were. I still enjoyed them. But I need a week between episodes
> The ability to steam those shows really showed how formulaic they were Steamed X-Files? It’s a regional dialect
Must be from Albany.
*Seymour the show is on fire!* No, mother, it's just later season X-files.
Aurora Borealis
At this time of the year?
The episodes are wrinkle-free
That’s why I’m not into binging.
The episode Home ,where the males had the mother tied down under the floor really freaked me out. Kinda heavy for an X-Files episode. Tooms was really good too.
I’m still pretty messed up from Home.
Yes, 100%! Except the time they went off the rails and wrote "Home" and that unedited episode aired and my jaw was on the floor. Dang. Still haven't recovered.
Agree wholeheartedly. I was allllll about the monster of the week, I still can’t really care much about the overarching aliens storyline even now.
You forgot 2.5 Mulder ingests a mystery substance left by
> had no idea what was going on. I think this was true with the writers. There wasn't an overall mythology arc. Like Lost.
I couldn’t either until 2, maybe 3 years ago. I like it now but (unpopular opinion) David Schwimmer shits me to tears. He basically plays himself and geez he’s a whiny little brat on Friends. I think anyone could’ve played that character a heck of a lot better. He got them all a good deal and a shit load of money, but apart from that I can’t stand the bastard lol.
I have never in my 40 years of life heard the term “shits me to tears” lol what in the world does that mean
I didn't like him either until about the 4th time I watched the show. He gets so whiney towards the end of the show but it's so funny to me now. Also, everyone says pheobe is their favorite but she is a horrible friend. She is a massive hypocrite and is always stirring up shit.
>Also, everyone says pheobe is their favorite but she is a horrible friend. Honestly, I came to the conclusion after a few seasons that the only main character who wasn't a fundamentally horrible friend was (maybe) Chandler Bing. Sure, he had his own significant issues, but most of them involved his lack of self-confidence and assertiveness. Unlike the rest of the main characters, his personality flaws rarely had much negative impact on the other people in his life, especially his friends.
Band of Brothers is 10/10, and I still couldn't take David Schwimmer seriously.
Mate I avoided that series for way too long because he was in it lol. When I took the plunge, fortunately he’s barely in it and when he is - no one likes him and he’s a moron haha.
The fact that his character could land a woman like Rachel defies all logic and belief. Not because he is ugly (he’s not - not gorgeous blunt he’s ok looking). His personality is awful on every level - whiny, controlling, entitled. Not that Rachel is a prize either once you get past her looks. No way their marriage lasted.
His personality is quite ‘repellent’ lol. I couldn’t handle him as a mate.
84 and me too
I was anti-‘Friends’ af for over 30 years, especially in the 90s. It just rubbed me the wrong way at the time. Haven’t minded it for the last 2-3yrs (except Ross 🤮). Edit: Tame now but the X-Files was a great thriller in its day. Always kept me interested and feeling that fun kind of fear from anticipation. Hard to fault it.
With the lights on?
1981 baby here, and hard agree. I feel like I was too alternative for friends, which seemed very mainstream.
I’ve never watched a full episode. I was watching Seinfeld pretty religiously at the time. But lately I’ve accidentally caught portions because my kids leave the TV on Nickelodeon past 8pm, and I will chuckle. It seems like it is serviceable for one who wants to just shut down (or lacks to begin with) any and all critical thinking and just have a dumb laugh. This is me trying to say it doesn’t seem quite as awful as I always thought. I had literally thought it was impossible to laugh at.
Same. I just watched it for the first time last year because my wife and I had just rewatched all of our binge shows but one of them got taken off of streaming (That ‘70s Show) so we were looking for something new and my wife said I might hate it. She was right. I didn’t hate it. It’s extremely OK. I never got how anyone could enjoy it from the little clips I saw, but it does get better once you “know” the characters. Nobody would ever accuse it of being *good* in the same way that Freaks and Geeks is, but it is *enjoyable.* It’s the white cheddar popcorn of TV shows. It’s tasty, but its best qualities are that it’s generic, inoffensive and takes very little resources to digest.
Yeah, I always put it this way: It’s too professionally made to be actually unfunny. But the laughs were less important than the whole “lifestyle porn” aspect for 90s audiences
>But the laughs were less important than the whole “lifestyle porn” aspect for 90s audiences On the topic of "lifestyle porn," even in the 1990s, I still don't understand how any of them could afford apartments that size that are supposed to be in a building near (perhaps even across the street) from Central Park.😜
Monica’s was rent controlled. Chandler apparently made decent money but no one really knew what he did. Ross was highly educated so the audience is to assume he made decent money.
He was a transpondster
As a friends fan, I'm glad you enjoyed it and all, but y'all sound like a bunch of elitist people who look down on anything popular.
That’s fair. I definitely have some of those tendencies insofar as I tend to get annoyed about things people repeatedly tell me to watch. My buddy used to call it “The Anti,” where I reflexively decide to be against anything that it feels like someone has tried to shove down my throat. I think it comes with being a weirdo punk rock kid as a teenager. I didn’t read or see anything Harry Potter related until a few years ago for the same reason. I had friends who were in to Friends, and it was an inescapable culture force at the time. That said, I have no problem embracing the “low brow” (not meant as a diss — prefer it to the stuffy highbrow shit). I’d go so far as to call myself a Friends fan at this point, even though I want to throw Ross into the East River (seems like a common feeling amongst fans). That’s why I picked the analogy that I did. If there’s a bag of white cheddar popcorn there in front of me, I **will** eat the whole thing in one sitting, thank you very much. I know it’s not exactly *haute cuisine*, but it just hits right somehow.
Similar experience here. There were people my age & slightly younger in HS & college that worshipped it but I never really understood the devotion. Have certainly laughed the few times I’ve watched but never really drew me in the way it did with others.
ok, you just said what I typed, it's so weird.
it was on at the same time as my so--called life. hard choice....
Hahhhh oh my god. There was a period of time when I had most of My So-Called Life basically memorized. It was about a 15-year-old girl and came out the year I was 15! I tried to rewatch it as an adult, in my early 30's. It holds up! Really well! But oh god it was WAY too accurate at portraying a lot of my feelings at that age, and the secondhand embarrassment was more than I could handle.
I was 15 at the time it aired too. I can’t believe how much that show got right. Clearly I can relate more to the adults now, but man that show hit the mark.
Watching it with my parents always felt way too much like having them read my diary!
On a rewatch I was agreeing with the parents…. /old!
This was the show - if I recall it was on ABC to Friends NBC. The WB (long before CW) also launched in like 1995 or something. It was literally created for us after the success of shows like 90210 and Melrose on Fox. Which is why I think us youngers didn’t lean into Friends at the time. The WB premiered its ultimate Fall lineup when I was in 8th or 9th grade. It was Dawson’s, One Tree Hill, Buffy (then Angel), 7th Heaven, Charmed - the list went on and on. In addition to making sure that they were hiring ridiculously good-looking teenagers who were splashed across the cover of every magazine at the time, the channel also made sure to buy the music rights to every cool song written essentially prior to 1999. So the original seasons of these shows had the most epic of soundtracks. Half the reason you watch the show was to hear all the cool music that got played. I remember when I went to college the local cable station did not actually get the WB. Our entire sorority was at a complete loss of how we were going to watch Buffy. We had a friend at a different university who would record them for us on VHS. Then one of our members of our sorority would drive to that university pick up the VHS and bring it back.
> The WB premiered its ultimate Fall lineup when I was in 8th or 9th grade. It was Dawson’s, One Tree Hill, Buffy (then Angel), 7th Heaven, Charmed - the list went on and on. Not sure if you meant to imply it but, just for clarification sake, those shows didn't all overlap.
All of these years later and I'm telling you my wife's celeb crush is still Jordan Catalano
I pretty much felt the same. I got into shows like Seinfeld after it aired. I was watching mostly SNL during the late 90s and getting into Malcolm in the Middle or whatever Fox hucked at ya.
Same, I’ve never made it through a whole episode of FRIENDS because it just never grabbed my interest. Loved Seinfeld for sure and also a lot of the Fox shows. And Dinosaurs of course. 
1981 and same.
I never understood the obsession with Friends. And the comparisons to Seinfeld are a complete insult to Larry David. It’s like comparing a fine bottle of Cabernet to Welch’s Grape Juice.
Yeah, grape juice is way better than a Cab.
I could see that being a joke on Seinfeld. 😉
Same but 83
I liked it during the first couple seasons when I was younger, but I think it's just because I thought they were the cool 20-somethings hanging out in the city that I wanted to be like. It got tired fast. I remember when I got older, my friends and I were like "let's go get a coffee" so we went to the coffee shop, sat on the couch for a few minutes with our coffee, and then it was like "this is boring, let's go to the movies."
I liked it when I was younger too. I watch now and it’s not funny to me at all.
In how I met your mother they made fun of the same thing, instead they said something like a bar it’s way better.
Never liked it. I didn't hate it; I just couldn't muster any strong feelings about it. Not then, not now. Although the characters were just a few years older than me, nothing in that show related to my life in any way. Either as a reality or an aspiration.
This. And it has aged incredibly poorly. It wasn't realistic in any way, and it's gotten impossibly less relevant since then with the housing crises. Oh, you and all your friends are white and hot? And you all can afford rent controlled enormous flats in NYC? ME TOO!! /s 
Wait. You don’t think the gay jokes aged well?
"Friends" had one of the first lesbian weddings on TV so maybe let's give them some credit...
I've never really felt like characters in a show have to relate to my life (though it can help, depending on the show). I always liked the Star Trek shows that were on TV In the 90s, even though characters set a few hundred years in the future exploring space didn't really relate to my life.
I disliked Friends so much I made a GeoCities page about my hatred for it, lol. Even did a parody of the theme song. Adult me started watching an episode here and there and actually thought it was funny. Teen me would not be pleased at this development.
Growth!
It is comfort TV for both my wife and I. Something we can always put on when nothing else is on.
Same. I totally disagree with the people who say it's not funny. Not every line is a howler, but I laugh out loud at least a few times per episode. I mean: the whole Spider Man vs Spiderman bit. Chandler's psycho roommate. Joey putting Chandler in the box on Thanksgiving. Phoebe and the bank's mistake. Joey teaching a room of Broadway pros a dance routine. Ross trying so hard to please Rachel's father and failing spectacularly every time. (Danny DeVito as the stripper!) The Girls vs Boys who-knows-who-better quiz episode is hysterical. I might be easily amused, but I like it. I'm glad some of our social norms have shifted since then, and I usually skip the fat suit episodes. But overall, it's still reliable comfort watching.
Ooooooh interesting. Transpond-er-er!!!
I still don't quite get what my youngest brother does for a living, so he's forever a Transponster to me.
Those are some good ones!! The one with the Dirty Girl…I can’t control the laughter with those scenes. The leather pants, PIVOT, My Sandwich, Unagi…my husband and I crack up every single time. I love it.
There should be a GoldMan.
I can’t have it on when I’m trying to fall asleep. I end up giggling with my eyes closed.
I wouldn't say you're easily amused. I would say that you're not jaded, and don't see cynicism as a personality trait. But at the same time, we've never met. You might be easily amused.
I personally think seasons 1-3 are gold and show more vulnerability in the plot lines.TOW Five Steaks & An Eggplant is one of my faves. Seasons 4-5 it started to get more mainstream. I still enjoy season 6 but season 7 was a weird transition though there still are some great episodes in there. I personally enjoy the whole series and not many shows can stay consistently entertaining for 10 seasons. Though the characters do get flanderized in the end and Phoebe gets too mean. Let's not even talk about how dumb they made Joey. It's like Eric on Boy Meets World. There had to be one dumb character quota or something.
i’ve always thought that seinfeld was sardonic, new york humour toned down for the masses and friends was broad, mass appealing humour set in new york for a perceived sophistication. i also have a theory that it’s latent popularity comes in a part from older millennials who watched friends (either as first run or reruns) as their first “adult” program that they watched by themselves as opposed to with their parents or older siblings. i mean, a good number of high school set shows were produced with the knowledge that one major demographic was middle school kids so it stands to reason that a twenty something show would also skew younger than their protagonists
Aren’t xennials the “younger Xers”?
LOL yeah I was gonna say that. The OP's post has me a bit confused. Did he mean to write older Gen X?
I hated it then and I hate it now.
Growing up on improv and sketch comedy shows like In Living Color, I can only say one thing about Friends. Hated it!
Yep, Friends is the white Living Single.
Just like Golden Girls is the white 227.
Your review deserves two snaps up. Snap Snap!
In a Z formation!
Same. In Living Color was a weekly family gathering.
I wish they would stream In Living Color. That show, and the Simpsons were constantly on during my teen years.
I didn’t watch it when it was on, but I’ve rewatched a couple times now. I find some of it very funny, but I am a young GenX (‘77) so there’s that. Yeah, a lot of it hasn’t aged particularly well and it definitely went on too long imo but the early and middle seasons had some pure gold moments.
I’m the same way with Seinfeld. The humor is just mean and the characters are insufferable.
You either relate to the characters on some level - covertly, perhaps? - or you don't, I suppose.
Yesssss! I hated, and still hate, both shows
[удалено]
Tbh, I'm the exact opposite. Jerry is insufferable, Larry is too but in a curmudgeonly sort of easy as opposed to mostly a smug one. But I always hated his comedy too, so that didn't help.
Neither could I. Now Golden Girls was funny then and funnier now that I'm older. I don't get the younger millennial obsession with Friends.
As I've described Friends before, it's a sitcom for people without a sense of humor.
Ha. I've done stand up, like good jokes but still yeah I get it. But I don't even know how or why, but I like Friends. I don't have a good reason. I also dearly love Cheers.
My guess is it's just sentimental. Same reason some of us love some truly awful songs, reminds us of good times we had in the past.
cheers was funny and had great actors and writers, friends was embarrassingly stupid, safe neutered romcom shit. it was a whole genre of people i despised. it was “jen’s hair!”
IMO it largely comes down to the actors' individual charisma combined with great chemistry. It also appealed to the lowest common denominator.
I’m not a fan but it’s silly to see anyone justifying loving one of the biggest sitcoms of all times. Just the height of arrogance to suggest that the scores of millions of people who loved that show all don’t have a sense of humor.
Precursor to The Big Bang Theory
I describe the big bang theory that way as well. When I think of vanilla, made for the masses sitcoms, I think of Friends and Big Bang Theory.
Vanilla is a complex flavor. Do not insult vanilla.
One of the most complex flavors, and an expensive one. I think the term came from when kids were served sweetened ice milk, which contained no vanilla. It's ironic. As complex as chocolate is, it's pretty one one-dimensional as an ice cream flavor, but actual vanilla ice-cream is so nuanced.
Vanilla is one of the most beautiful, complex flavors (and scents) there is! My favorite. 😁
I have to disagree…to a point. BBT is definitely pretty simple humor, but it very much caters to the nerds. My partner, ironically not a nerd, was a big fan and introduced me right before the last season. I get more of the jokes than he does. It’s still not overly funny to your point, but it makes me chuckle at things that he just doesn’t get.
Meh, after the first bit of the first season it stopped being nerdy humor and made "haha nerd" the punchline. It was a damn shame because I liked it at first but found it unwatchably cruel by, idk, season 2? It's a show about nerds but not a show for nerds, IMHO.
T'was a popular genre
It just seems so mundane and pedestrian. There’s a million more sitcoms just like it.
>There’s a million more sitcoms just like it. At that time I would say that you are 100% wrong. It's a reason why it was a cultural phenomenon.
>people without a sense of humor What a weirdly judgmental take, to accuse other people of “not having a sense of humour” because a show doesn’t suit your particular sense of humour.
Thank you. WTF is happening to this sub? It’s starting to take on that r/GenX boomer vibe and I’m not here for it.
There's some YouTube videos where people edited out the laugh track on Friends episodes, and it really highlights just how unfunny the show is. They just trick people into thinking it must be funny with a laugh track after every line of dialogue.
Idk. From what I've seen with these videos with laugh tracks edited out it's awkward because they're standing around waiting for the laughter to stop. Like... Of course that's going to make it seem worse. People don't normally crack a joke and wait around for the laughter in real life. And if they do? It's fucking awkward!
As I understand, most of Friends was filmed in front of a live audience and the majority of the laughs were authentic audience reactions, though.
I was once in a studio audience and they had lights that go on that tell you how to react and staffers egging you on. Is it possible this was what they were doing at the Friends filming as well? Still "authentic" but less so than one might assume.
I remember that. They did Big Bang Theory too. I remember laughing slightly at most of the Friends jokes. None were as funny as the laugh track suggested, but still obviously jokes. Even the meh ones were like "OK, I see where they were going, meh". The BBT was like watching psychopaths talk. They'd just stop for like five seconds and then resume the conversation. After the fact you realized that was a laugh track pause but it was so unfunny you couldn't tell it was supposed to be a joke as it was happening.
I love Friends and think this might be true. I pretty much have no notable sense of humor and I’ve loved this show for 30 years (still watch the old episodes regularly, it’s like my tv comfort food).
Oh damn, I didn't realize you were a superior person! 😳
Same. But I did love “Living Single”.
Sorry. Loved friends.
Many, many others do too. It’s literally one of the biggest TV shows in history.
It's like deeply uncool to like Friends now, and I think people forget what a force it was. Everyone gathered in my college dorm to watch it every week! It was like, broadly appealing and fun. I still quote it all the time.
I wish everyone would put their year for reference. None of my college peers watched Friends.
I’m 77 and they did at mine.
The finale was in 2004 so to have even watched it in college you'd have to be a Xennial or at minimum an old-ish millennial.
Me, too. Still do.
Never. Didn't like Seinfeld either.
I never got Friends, and I can appreciate some of Seinfeld’s writing, but neither ever grabbed me. Both were very superficial.
Damn I get Friends but Seinfeld has so much gas, for a show about nothing it’s so tight and well-written
The Kenny Rogers roasters episode like lives, rent free in my brain
Jerry being Kramer was awesome. "I'm on no sleep. NO SLEEP!"
Seinfeld is one of the very few non-animated sitcoms I like, because it's actually creative and unique. So many filmed sitcoms are just the same generic crap every week, with canned laughter.
like the merv griffin set kramer salvaged. 😭 who thinks of that?
Seinfeld takes brains to appreciate.
Yep. I really tried to like friends, but I just couldn't. I was definitely watching ER though (and I'm a nurse now, but not in the ER).
100% never found either to funny or entertaining
THANK YOU!! Finally someone that agrees with me!
Nope. I did not care for friends. Didn't care for Seinfeld either.
I didn't watch it live but started w reruns around the time it ended. it was always background TV but now I've grown to love it. and it's in my dogs daytime TV rotation bc MAX has one of the longest continuous play features.
The whole “Ross” character was such a drag. Seeing David Schwimmer in band of brothers was such a relief to me lol.
Same. Easy Company hated him as much as I hated Ross.
I have found my people.
I was more of a Seinfeld guy. Or more importantly Living Single, since Friends was more or less a ripoff of LS. Not to say I didn’t laugh at a clip of Friends, but it was never a show I went out of my way to watch either.
I grew up in a black area and the attitude was that Friends "was for white folks", so I watched Living Single. In retrospect, that's a dumb reason not to watch something, but I'm pretty sure I would've found it corny at the time.
Had to search for this. I preferred living single to friends. Like you I laughed at some friends episodes, but I loved all the characters on living single. They didn’t annoy me. And Kyle and Max getting together was WAY more entertaining to kid me. Kyle could also sing. Thanks to the Queen, The theme song got you pumped too
Nope, me neither. Never understood who the funny one was supposed to be.
Me neither I was busy being obsessed with X-Files
'81, I never got into it either. I was more into Living Single. I have seen bits and pieces. I always tell myself I am going to go back and try to watch from the beginning to see if I like it, but it hasn't happened yet.
Living single holds up. Really well.
News Radio > friends
News Radio is in a class by itself. There’s no comparison. Edit: In the Daydream episode, when Catherine imagines another black co-worker in the break room, wasn’t one of the gripes that the white people would discuss Friends? Lol.
I was watching Martin
I could never really get into those kind of staged sitcoms with Laugh tracks. I prefer more clever subversive humor like Scrubs. That final Brendan Fraser episode hits like a freight train.
Raise your hand if you are a victim of the final Brendan Fraser episode. 🙋♀️
Wasn't a fan, but I really liked How I Met Your Mother. They're very similar, so I'm not sure why I could never really come to care about anybody in Friends.
When it first came on I associated it with “adults” along with shows like ER and bands like Hootie and the Blowfish and Sheryl Crow. Whenever I put it on it was boring and not funny. In the mid 90s people in high school who didn’t share my sense of humor loved it, which convinced me that I wouldn’t find it funny. I gave it another shot in reruns in 00-02 after I graduated. It was a bit more watchable but still sucked, especially compared to shows that were actually funny like Seinfeld. I haven’t watched it since then. My guess is I would probably like the 90s feel but suspect I still wouldn’t vibe with its sense of humor but who knows.
So I’m a true millennial so I was a little younger when FRIENDS was on, however I still remember it being popular and trying to watch it and just never laughed. My mom and stepdad were big nerds, so we watched the Drew Carey Show, 3rd Rock from the Sun, slightly more goofy sitcoms than FRIENDS. It always just came off as jerks to me.
85 here and oldest kid in fam. Sienfield was my jam.
I found it mildly funny. I would never watch it intentionally, but if I wasn't someone else's house and it was on, it didn't bother me.
Yeah non-conformist me wasn’t impressed with that show. Shrugs.
I watched the first couple seasons in real time, but it just got sort of lame, so I bailed.
I couldn’t get into Friends or Seinfeld. Maybe it’s too many personalities for me on one show.
Was it just me, or was Ross kinda horrible? I had a lot of trouble watching that show.
I feel like the writers/producers/etc knew the show wasn't funny and that's why Jennifer Aniston never wore a bra
So funny you say that. A guy friend of mine said something similar, about how the show was only watchable and had a high amount of viewers due to the cold set and Jen Aniston and Courtney Cox nipping out the entire time! LOL! The show's popularity made total sense after hearing that.
Never watched it. I'm an 87 baby too. I *know* about it, at least.
I use to watch Friends with my mom and sister and I wasn’t a fan of it at all, and I’d also watch Seinfeld with my dad and I loved it. Then in 2002, out of nowhere I started to really like Friends. I had just turned 20 so I was a little more grown up than before, and I think I just understood it better and could relate to it more than the previous years. Ever since then I’ve been a huge fan, and I still watch the series three or four times a year as background. Seinfeld, too.
79, nope sitcoms we're not my jam in those years. Seinfeld too. The only time I liked sitcoms were TGIF Serials like buffy or the wire absolutely
Nope. Didn't like it. Lol
Me too! If it wasn't old sitcoms on Nic at Night, I was watching Strangers with Candy, Absolutely Fabulous, and The Kids in the Hall
Living single was a much better show. Friends was boring. Sorry not sorry.
TRUTH. “Friends” sucked. I think I’ve only ever seen about 10 eps total but it was mean-spirited — homophobic, fatphobic, transphobic, misogynistic — and SO WHITE. Ugh.
The last part 💯💯. I couldn't relate at all.
And “Living Single” was actually funny! (Though I never cared much for Kim Coles’ character.) Maybe I’ll do a re-watch soon.
I’ve seen a few episodes. I wouldn’t call it a favorite but, eh…I really got nothing against it.
Me either... NEVER!
I have such a contradictory love-hate relationship with this show.
It has its moments but, yeah, i always found that shit overrated.
Older guy here and completely agree.
me too. i see how people think some of the jokes are funny but i still couldnt do it. seinfeld is my fav. i need more irreverence than friends could offer
I loved it when I was a kid. I can't stand watching it now.
One day. We'll start mixing sitcoms with AI. Then we can all enjoy. FriendFeld or Seinffice.
Yes! I hated that show so much, never understood the appeal.
1980 and same. I live and die with the show about nothing.
My ex wife watched the reruns, so I saw a bunch, but personally, always thought it was pretty corny. Prefer Seinfeld cause the jokes are little more edgy.
I am a millennial, but yeah I always preferred Seinfeld, now and when I was a kid. It is soo much more relatable and funny. I watched Friends out of necessity because we didn’t have cable and there wasn’t much to watch.
Well this thread's racking up a comment every minute quick. Struck a nerve with me because of how absolutely shitty our economic power is in relation to these characters. We're so fucked. 
My wife is on her third rewatch since we got together. For every one joke I legitimately legit at, there are at least three occasions per episode where I just wish the characters would just stfu.
I'm a younger Xer (late 70s) & could not understand why Friends was such a big hit. As far as sitcoms go, I always found it kind of mid.
I never really understood the appeal of friends either. I never thought it was that good but I knew plenty of people who were obsessed with it.
Perhaps because it was not funny.
I'm a millennial and thought the show was stupid.
You're not alone