Friends - General Discussion

[LexieLily]

Not sure if this one counts (it hasn't been mentioned) but didn't the gang hum Whistle While You Work while they were all in Monica's apartment putting together Rachel's resumes? (Where one of her skills was excellent compuper skills, but Joey assured her the Xerox machine caught some of them, lol.)

[Bort]

16 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

Not sure if this one counts (it hasn't been mentioned) but didn't the gang hum Whistle While You Work while they were all in Monica's apartment putting together Rachel's resumes? (Where one of her skills was excellent compuper skills, but Joey assured her the Xerox machine caught some of them, lol.)

It was the Colonel Bogey March, which wouldn’t be a music rights issue, it’s public domain.

[Ms Blue Jay]

The Xanadu theme song is in my notes too.  LOL

Chandler (about Phoebe):  "She's one of us now."

Edited March 21, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[peacheslatour]

I don't know if this has been mentioned but at one point they all start singing the theme song from The Odd Couple? And then of course they all sang The Lion Sleeps tonight in L.A.

[andidante]

Monica, Joey and Phoebe also sang Top of the World by the Carpenters when Ross was getting attacked by that cat on the balcony. 

[bluegirl147]

3 hours ago, andidante said:

Monica, Joey and Phoebe also sang Top of the World by the Carpenters when Ross was getting attacked by that cat on the balcony. 

That is hands down one of the funniest scenes ever.  It's up there with Phoebe seeing Chandler and Monica together through the window screaming my eyes.

[Ms Blue Jay]

Janice clip here where she mentions some songs:

And this:

And this:

 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[mojoween]

Can’t forget a snippet of “Tomorrow” when Chandler and Monica are going through the CD’s.  They were just giving them away…for money.

Also I cannot sing that anymore without giving a death metal growl to “there’ll be SUN”.

[Mr. Meatball Man]

Wasn't Friends the first show to license a Led Zeppelin song? Before that, their music had never been used on television. 

I know the show was huge back then, but looking at this thread, their music budget must have been enormous. Some sitcoms that use licensed music have to replace it for streaming because of how much it would cost to clear it now. It's like how hip hop in the 80s used to have hundreds of samples on an album which would be impossible to clear now. I know The Adventures of Pete & Pete wasn't on DVD or streaming for a long time because of how much money it would cost to clear the music they used on the show. 

[Bort]

Friends powers that be were willing to pay for keeping the music intact. And it was money well spent, the show has been a gold mine in syndication and streaming.

[Nellise]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Meatball Man said:

Some sitcoms that use licensed music have to replace it for streaming because of how much it would cost to clear it now....I know The Adventures of Pete & Pete wasn't on DVD or streaming for a long time because of how much money it would cost to clear the music they used on the show. 

The show Ed with Tom Cavanaugh and Julie Bowen ran during the last seasons of Friends and has never even been on DVD and I don't think it's ever been on a streaming service (other than poor versions on YT) partly because of music rights issues. It was a fairly popular show too.

[peacheslatour]

2 hours ago, Mr. Meatball Man said:

Wasn't Friends the first show to license a Led Zeppelin song? Before that, their music had never been used on television. 

I know the show was huge back then, but looking at this thread, their music budget must have been enormous. Some sitcoms that use licensed music have to replace it for streaming because of how much it would cost to clear it now. It's like how hip hop in the 80s used to have hundreds of samples on an album which would be impossible to clear now. I know The Adventures of Pete & Pete wasn't on DVD or streaming for a long time because of how much money it would cost to clear the music they used on the show. 

Do you remember the episode where they used a LZ song?

[Bort]

3 hours ago, Mr. Meatball Man said:

Wasn't Friends the first show to license a Led Zeppelin song? Before that, their music had never been used on television. 

37 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Do you remember the episode where they used a LZ song?

Not Friends, Led Zeppelin allowed the indie film The Friend to use their music. As far as I can recall, I’ve never heard a LZ song in Friends.

[peacheslatour]

25 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Not Friends, Led Zeppelin allowed the indie film The Friend to use their music. As far as I can recall, I’ve never heard a LZ song in Friends.

As a huge Zep fan, I was pretty sure I'd remember something like that. Thanks!

[Ms Blue Jay]

5 hours ago, Nellise said:

The show Ed with Tom Cavanaugh and Julie Bowen ran during the last seasons of Friends and has never even been on DVD and I don't think it's ever been on a streaming service (other than poor versions on YT) partly because of music rights issues. It was a fairly popular show too.

I think there's another show I know about like that, but of course my memory is terrible.  

[Bort]

Cold Case was held up for years over music rights but that eventually got worked out apparently, because it streams on HBO Max now. There was still demand for that show, people watch it. Ed, not so much. I’m pretty sure if there were enough of a demand for it, it would be available. Music rights aren’t holding it up anymore, it’s lack of demand. There’s no point to paying for music rights if only 12 people watch it.

Shows pay for the music rights if there’s demand, Friends and Cold Case are a prime example of it.

[peacheslatour]

2 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Cold Case was held up for years over music rights but that eventually got worked out apparently, because it streams on HBO Max now. There was still demand for that show, people watch it. Ed, not so much. I’m pretty sure if there were enough of a demand for it, it would be available. Music rights aren’t holding it up anymore, it’s lack of demand. There’s no point to paying for music rights if only 12 people watch it.

Shows pay for the music rights if there’s demand, Friends and Cold Case are a prime example of it.

Same with WKRP in Cinicinatti and Northern Exposure (which I would love to see again).

[WendyCR72]

28 minutes ago, peacheslatour said:

Same with WKRP in Cinicinatti and Northern Exposure (which I would love to see again).

WKRP had two releases on DVD. The first was with cut scenes and/or replaced music and it completely bombed in sales. However, and I forget which company, but a bigger one re-released the series after re-clearing about 85% to 90% of the music used, and I read the re-release sold well.

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 3/20/2023 at 6:47 PM, tracyscott76 said:

Not only does Chandler sing Space Oddity, Joey also sings it when he's on the road trip with Phoebe and she gets mad at him. "That's not fair, you know I can't resist that beautiful voice!"

He also sings "I Wanna Rock N Roll All Night"

 

[Mr. Meatball Man]

23 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

Do you remember the episode where they used a LZ song?

 

23 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Not Friends, Led Zeppelin allowed the indie film The Friend to use their music. As far as I can recall, I’ve never heard a LZ song in Friends.

 

22 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

As a huge Zep fan, I was pretty sure I'd remember something like that. Thanks!

Yeah, I mixed them up with Pearl Jam. Friends was the first show to license a Pearl Jam song, not Led Zeppelin. All the producers had to do was ask the band.

You know why I thought it was Led Zeppelin? Because The Sopranos was the first show to license their music. 

13 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

He also sings "I Wanna Rock N Roll All Night"

 

I never liked this plot. Why couldn't Phoebe let Joey sleep? He could have killed them both if he didn't stay awake.

[Ms Blue Jay]

Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter is in my notes.  I assume that's the finale song, but honestly, I don't remember it because I probably have seen the finale once, maybe twice.

[Bort]

Ride With Me by Nelly was playing in the episode that played earlier today where Rachel and Ross are driving the Porsche around. And by the way, I love that Ross got a ticket for going too slow. 37 MPH on the freeway? Is he actually trying to kill people?

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

37 MPH on the freeway? Is he actually trying to kill people?

I heard Chandler's voice as I read this.

[mojoween]

I happily paid almost 130 bucks for the one singular spectacular season of Freaks and Geeks on DVD because it cost him a lot of money to get the music rights.  I bought only one season on DVD of Tour of Duty because if they shelled out the money to buy all those songs from the 60’s, it would cost a zillion dollars (the show was just not the same with generic music).

On another note, has anyone checked out Matt’s feet to see if they really are a size 7?

Edited March 23, 2023 by mojoween

[Mr. Meatball Man]

1 hour ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

Pearl Jam's Yellow Ledbetter is in my notes.  I assume that's the finale song, but honestly, I don't remember it because I probably have seen the finale once, maybe twice.

Yeah, that's the one. It plays when Rachel's boarding the plane. I keep thinking it's the song that plays at the end of the episode, but that's a Jefferson Airplane song.

The finale was pretty good. I wouldn't call it one of the best episodes of the series, but it was a respectable way to wrap everything up. Maybe a few things that bothered me (they really tried hard with the stupid Joey jokes), but not enough to ruin the episode. 

Actually, that got me thinking. When Joey asked if the apartment has always been purple, was that just another stupid joke or was it a meta joke? Like one of those things fans would wonder about for years and the show's making fun of itself?

[mojoween]

Honestly I never noticed it was purple until he said it, heh.  Now that’s all I see.

[peacheslatour]

23 hours ago, WendyCR72 said:

WKRP had two releases on DVD. The first was with cut scenes and/or replaced music and it completely bombed in sales. However, and I forget which company, but a bigger one re-released the series after re-clearing about 85% to 90% of the music used, and I read the re-release sold well.

I remember there was a brief period in the aughts that they brought NE back. I was watching the piano flinging scene, waiting for Whiter Shade of Pale and they played something else. It was most disappointing.

[Mr. Meatball Man]

Does anyone else feel like it was ridiculous for Rachel to give Ross that letter and expect him to read it right then and there? It's 18 pages (front and back) and it was 5:30 in the morning. When the hell did Rachel even write that? On the same night? How much time passed between Ross breaking up with Bonnie and Rachel writing it?

It can take hours for the average person to reply to a text or a DM, it would literally take days for Ross to read that letter thoroughly, analyze every part of it, and come to a conclusion. I don't know, that whole episode was proof that Ross and Rachel no longer made sense as a couple. 

 

 

[peacheslatour]

Quote

It can take hours for the average person to reply to a text or a DM, it would literally take days for Ross to read that letter thoroughly, analyze every part of it, and come to a conclusion. I don't know, that whole episode was proof that Ross and Rachel no longer made sense as a couple. 

I never thought they made sense as a couple. Ross loved some old high school image in his mind of Rachel. Rachel just got worn down by him. I don't think their relationship had a chance long term.

[Crs97]

The part that never made sense was that Ross was able to move on from Rachel with pretty good relationships (see Julie, Emily, Mona, even Bonnie).  I don’t know why she couldn’t let go (other than the writers loving the angst).  In real life I think they would have gotten back to and just remained friends after the first breakup.

[andidante]

34 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

The part that never made sense was that Ross was able to move on from Rachel with pretty good relationships (see Julie, Emily, Mona, even Bonnie).  I don’t know why she couldn’t let go (other than the writers loving the angst).  In real life I think they would have gotten back to and just remained friends after the first breakup.

I really liked Julie! And I did like Emily also. But of course they had to make them keep getting together even though they were a very toxic couple. 

[Bort]

52 minutes ago, Crs97 said:

The part that never made sense was that Ross was able to move on from Rachel with pretty good relationships (see Julie, Emily, Mona, even Bonnie).  I don’t know why she couldn’t let go (other than the writers loving the angst).  In real life I think they would have gotten back to and just remained friends after the first breakup.

Well, that was writing. They gave Ross viable romantic love interests but what did Rachel get? The sister-lover, the guy who wasn’t even divorced yet and her assistant. None of them were remotely serious potential relationships. Their best effort was Joey, but they were afraid to actually pull the trigger on it.

[peacheslatour]

21 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Well, that was writing. They gave Ross viable romantic love interests but what did Rachel get? The sister-lover, the guy who wasn’t even divorced yet and her assistant. None of them were remotely serious potential relationships. Their best effort was Joey, but they were afraid to actually pull the trigger on it.

Although I loved Gavin.

 

[Ms Blue Jay]

Joshua could have been good, also the random hot guy she met at the coffee shop that she wore the yellow dress for, but all of these times, Rachel was hung up on Ross.  :(  Not fair.

Another bad love interest they gave Rachel and one of my favourite episodes - Ben Stiller as The Screamer.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[mojoween]

If everyone ordered wildly different things off the menu, Ross really shouldn’t have divided by six in the first place.

[FilmTVGeek80]

On 4/2/2023 at 11:24 AM, peacheslatour said:

I never thought they made sense as a couple. Ross loved some old high school image in his mind of Rachel. Rachel just got worn down by him. I don't think their relationship had a chance long term.

He had a crush on old Rachel from high school. By the time they got together, she had changed. And when did he wear her down? All of the first season was about how he didn’t tell her about his feelings. It was CHANDLER who spilled the beans. Then half of the second season was about her crush on him, with him being oblivious.

 

On 4/2/2023 at 11:45 AM, Crs97 said:

The part that never made sense was that Ross was able to move on from Rachel with pretty good relationships (see Julie, Emily, Mona, even Bonnie).  I don’t know why she couldn’t let go (other than the writers loving the angst).  In real life I think they would have gotten back to and just remained friends after the first breakup.

They were both able to let go at certain points, not just Ross.

It’s not real life though. It’s not even a realistic drama. It’s a sitcom. So what if they might not have made it in real life (which I’m not sure is even true.) Their biggest obstacle was the writers and their asinine insistence on not getting them together until the last second, so they would throw increasingly lame obstacles to keep them from getting back together.

On 4/2/2023 at 12:41 PM, kariyaki said:

Well, that was writing. They gave Ross viable romantic love interests but what did Rachel get? The sister-lover, the guy who wasn’t even divorced yet and her assistant. None of them were remotely serious potential relationships. Their best effort was Joey, but they were afraid to actually pull the trigger on it.

Who was the sister lover? If you’re referring to Joshua as the guy who wasn’t even divorced yet, he was divorced. And he was just as viable as Emily. Tag was basically like Elizabeth, the student - younger lovers who Ross/Rachel ultimately decided they couldn’t have a serious future with.
 

I don’t think they were afraid to, they just had no desire to (thank God.) I think they liked the idea of Joey’s crush, but had no real desire to do them as a legit couple. I think the only reason they revisited it is they realized they had another season to go and needed another reason to keep R&R apart. So, they decided to be as lazy as possible and do a rehash of R&R’s season 2 storyline with the flip-flopped crush.

[Bort]

11 minutes ago, FilmTVGeek80 said:

Who was the sister lover? If you’re referring to Joshua as the guy who wasn’t even divorced yet, he was divorced.

The sister lover was Danny, the guy who looked like a yeti at first. Had a very touchy feely relationship with his sister. 

And Joshua wasn’t divorced yet. He said it still wasn’t final. But his non viability stems from the fact that his bad marriage left him with absolutely zero interest in a long term relationship, he said it repeatedly.

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, FilmTVGeek80 said:

Who was the sister lover?

Danny, who moved into their building. Rachel was convinced he liked her and was flirting with her, though he didn't actually seem that interested (even trying to set her up with one of his friends). Eventually they did start dating, but his very-close relationship with his sister (tickle-wrestling, licking food off her fingers, etc.) icked Rachel out and that was that.

[Mr. Meatball Man]

On 4/3/2023 at 12:14 PM, mojoween said:

If everyone ordered wildly different things off the menu, Ross really shouldn’t have divided by six in the first place.

I find it interesting that they did this episode and it never came up again. The only character that consistently had trouble paying for things was Joey, and Rachel and Phoebe rarely did (except for that episode where Joey got Phoebe a job on Days of Our Lives). Monica had issues with money in season two, but it wasn't like she was broke and couldn't afford to pay rent or take care of herself. Ross was unemployed for a year and not once did it ever come up that he was having issues with money. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

Well Chandler did quit his job in Season 10 right.  They definitely talked about money for those episodes and I think Joey was finally doing better than him.  That's how both Chandler and Mon asked Joey to borrow money.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Ms Blue Jay

[Crs97]

8 minutes ago, Mr. Meatball Man said:

Ross was unemployed for a year and not once did it ever come up that he was having issues with money.

That’s because Ross followed his dad’s instruction to put 10% of each paycheck in the bank.

[Bort]

Also, Ross was “on sabbatical” for a good portion of it, which means they were still paying him.

[Ms Blue Jay]

[Ms Blue Jay]

Lately every time I'm tired I think of Phoebe's words on gravity:

 

[Ms Blue Jay]

I never leave anything on my stove.  I always think of Phoebe saying "Well that's just kindling."  

[mojoween]

This is silly to be amused by, but here I am.

In TOW the Soap Opera Party, Monica says “have mercy” when the guy with the leather pants walked by her.  And then two eps later, here comes John Stamos.  Too bad they didn’t have him say it too.

[partofme]

2 hours ago, mojoween said:

This is silly to be amused by, but here I am.

In TOW the Soap Opera Party, Monica says “have mercy” when the guy with the leather pants walked by her.  And then two eps later, here comes John Stamos.  Too bad they didn’t have him say it too.

Was that his catch phrase?  I wouldn't have caught that.  I never liked Full House, I think i saw most of the first season but rarely watched it after that.

[peacheslatour]

29 minutes ago, partofme said:

Was that his catch phrase?  I wouldn't have caught that.  I never liked Full House, I think i saw most of the first season but rarely watched it after that.

Same. I'm not partial to shows with "cutesy" little kids in them.

[mojoween]

I was going on 14 when Full House premiered so it was right up my alley, heh.  Plus, DJ’s boyfriend was Aladdin! 

 

[partofme]

Based on IMDb I think we’re the same age and I thought I was too old for Full House, I’ve also never seen Aladdin.