My own Moon

My favourite TV shows #1: Friends July 25, 2010

Where do I even start? I love a lot of TV shows and each of them makes me chortle or cry, because I like extremes- both emotional and hilarious. Also, if a show has great music in it, consider me a fan already! This is the first episode of this series.

Friends

This show makes me laugh every time! Who can ever forget Joey’s “How you doin’?” catch phrase? I once saw a medley of him saying that and, boy, was it funny! Each Friends character is unique in its own way and they need one another to mentain the amuzing situations. Monica is obsessed with cleaning, Ross is known as the nerdy divorcer, Rachel is the spoiled popular girl, Pheobe is the psyhic musician, Joey the Casanova doofus and Chandler is the one who cracks jokes when he’s unconfortable.

Friends aired for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004 and it guarantees 20 to 22 minutes of laughter for every episode. The show isn’t only funny, but very relatable. If you’re in your 20s or 30s, there is certainly a Friends character you can see yourself in. I, for one, see myself as Chandler Bing, the one with a messed up family and a satirical sense of humour who makes jokes in akward situations. One of my best friends relates more to Joey Tribbiani, with her love for food, acting and the abuse of the “How you doin’?” line. In the show, Joey and Chandler were roomates and also best friends, so I can understand how she and I clicked.

There isn’t a Friends character I don’t love. I love Rachel Green for her her evolution throughout the show. In the beginning, she was the spoiled “daddy’s girl”, but till the end of the show she made a career in fashion, had a baby with Ross, the one she had an on/off relationship for the entire 10 seasons. Ross has had a crush on Rachel during her high school days, when he was in college and Rachel was Monica’s best friend. Ross was married to Carol, who turned out to be a lesbian. The two had a son named Ben. Ross never got over Rachel. Therefore, in season 4, Ross marries Emily, his British girlfriend.  At the ceremony, however, Ross says Rachel’s name instead of Emily’s during the vows. And there you have divorce number two! The third divorce occured after marying Rachel while both of them were drunk in Vegas.

Monica Geller is Ross’s little sister and Chandler’s wife as of season 7. Monica used to be overweight during her teenage years and she was constantly made fun of for that. She often felt neglected by her family. Her parents never thought she would end up getting married, so the “Monica Wedding Fund” was spent on the family beach house, even though her mother always nagged her about getting married. In the group, she is known as the Mother Hen and her apartment is one of the six friends’  main gathering places. Her husband-to-be suggested that she should become a chef, and that was her job until the season finale. Monica always wanted a family and children, but both her and Chandler were infertile so they decided to adopt. They eventually adopted twins- Erica and Jack Bing. The girl was named after the birth mother and the boy after Monica’s father.

One of the funnies moments of the pre-couple Monica and Chandler that made me chortle:

One of the sweetest people on this show was Pheobe. I say sweet because she seems to be like a kid that never wants to grow up, but she also has her moments of wisdom. She had a rough childhood and lived on the streets until the age of 13 when her mother had killed herself. Pheobe also has a twin sister, Ursula and a half brother, Frank. Her relationship with her twin sister was never really close. On the other hand, she gets to bond more with little brother Frank when she accepts to be the surrogate mother for his and his wife’s triplets: Chandler, Frank Jr Jr and Leslie. While pregnant, she enjoyed seeing people’s reactions after telling them, “I’m having my brother’s children”. Pheobe is a masseuse and a self taught musician. Her hit song on the show was “Smelly cat”, that becomes both a jingle for a kitty litter commercial (performed by another singer) and a serious commercial release (also not sung by her). Pheobe is a vegetarian and  does not eat “food with a face”. She is also against wearing fur coats, though she believes to look good in them. In season 10 she marries Mike Hannigan, whom she was introduced to by Joey in season 9.

Joey Tribbiani is a simple minded actor who played Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days of Our Lives and always reminded people about that role when he wanted to get noticed or impress someone. Joey comes fron an Italian American family of 8, of which he was the only male. Joey is a “stereotypical” actor: oversexed, under-educated and constantly looking for work. He was ordained as a minister in The One with the Truth About London, and officiated at both Monica and Chandler and Phoebe and Mike’s weddings. Joey was Chandler’s roomate until Chandler moved in with Monica. While living together, they bought a chick and a duck together, whom Chandler had named Yasmine and Dick, respectively. Joey had a one week fling with Rachel, but they decided to be just friends at the end. Joey’s famous pickup line was “How you doin’?” that worked almost every time on the ladies he was flirting with. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on Chandler:

He was the only one of the 6 friends that remained unmarried and he had his own show “Joey” where he pursues his acting career in Hollywood.

Now it’s time to talk in more detail about Chandler Bing, my personal favourite character of the show. I relate to him the most because I also try to make a joke when I’m unconfortable and I also hate social situations when I have nothing to say. Chandler comes from a disfunctional family. His dad was a transvestite who slept with a servant when Chandler was a kid. The fact that Charles Bing became gay led to Chandler’s parents divorcing. Chandler’s famous catchphrase is  “Could I be more…?” with emphasys on the “be”. Throughout the show, Chandler claims he started using humor as a defense mechanism when his parents broke up, and tends to make jokes when he is nervous. Chandler’s middle name is Muriel and he often got picked on because of it. He claimed it was a family name coming from his father’s part of the family.

This is one of the best Chandler Bing moments ever, in my opinion:

All in all, Friends is one of the best shows that had ever aired. It made me realize that humour is a great way to get trough life and that friends are the ones who make your life worth wile. I dedicate this post to all my real friends!