A cultural phenomenon when it first aired between 1994 and 2004, there had never been
a sitcom quite like Friends.
The series featured six, well, friends, living and loving in New York, but it didn't always
produce timeless comedy gold.
These are the Friends moments that make us cringe today.
For sitcom fans working their way through every episode of Friends and haven't finished
yet, spoiler alert: Monica winds up with Chandler.
But before that crucial pairing is locked down, Monica dates a lot of guys, the way
a woman in her twenties is wont to do.
One of her boyfriends is Ethan, a guy that seems younger than Monica.
How much younger?
Well, he tells Monica that he's a senior, which she takes to mean "senior in college."
Ethan also reveals that he's a virgin, but after they sleep together for the first time,
as in his actual first time, he admits that he's not a senior in college, but a senior
in high school.
"You know, you shouldn't even be here, it's a school night."
Having participated in an encounter that would make her, as Monica says, a felon in 48 states,
it's not surprising that the official title of this episode is "The One with the Ick Factor."
While it takes place in the Big Apple, the situations explored on Friends are generally
innocuous and between the friends themselves.
The six pals deal with awkward romantic situations, unfulfilling work prospects, and their interactions
with one another.
But on the rare occasion that the Central Perk crew does interfere with someone not
in their little clique, the results can be disastrous.
For example, there's the episode where Monica dates a gregarious guy named "Fun Bobby."
Everyone loves the guy...but then they realize that the reason Fun Bobby is so much "fun"
is because he's a heavy drinker, if not an alcoholic.
The good news: Fun Bobby quits drinking.
The bad news: Without booze to fuel him, he becomes extremely boring and Chandler rebrands
him as "Ridiculously Dull Bobby."
All of this leads to the episode's central dilemma...
"I mean, I can't break up with him, I'm the one that convinced him to quit drinking!
He's dull because of me."
Later in the show, Monica packs a bunch of booze for a weekend trip with Bobby to anesthetize
herself against what looks to be an incredibly boring time, only for him to dump her in order
to focus on his recovery.
So, basically, the gang spends an entire episode mocking an alcoholic who tries to get sober.
Of course, this nastiness is all relative.
It seems strange on a squeaky clean series like Friends but on a more edgy show, the
jokes about alcohol would be easier to swallow.
Chandler is famously awkward with women, but in one episode, he goes over the top by subjecting
an emotionally vulnerable woman to some elaborate manipulation and trickery.
"Oh, come on, I can never get a girl like with conventional methods."
After receiving an answering machine message from a woman named Jade, who's looking to
reconnect with a guy named Bob, Chandler picks up the phone and pretends to be the man in
question.
Jade mentions that she's an aerobics instructor and a leg model.
Chandler, still acting like Bob, asks her to meet him at his favorite cafe.
His plan is to lurk in the background and offer comfort to Jade when Bob doesn't show
up.
Of course, this is all despicable, and to his credit, Ross calls Chandler's ploy "pure
evil."
Chandler then takes a moment to reflect and weigh his options...
Indeed, the meeting goes according to plan.
Chandler spots Jade at Central Perk looking sad and swoops in.
Later, back at his apartment, Chandler proudly tells Ross he that he had just bedded Jade
and described his performance as awesome.
Then the phone rings, Chandler answers as Bob.
Jade tells him off for standing her up and confesses that she met someone else, but the
new guy is nothing compared to him.
Chandler is humiliated, which is hardly enough punishment for his extremely creepy behavior.
One of the best parts about having a circle of friends are the inside jokes, and one of
the best parts of city-living is observing and interacting with its many quirky characters.
Those two concepts perfectly converge in one of Friends' best-remembered running jokes:
the saga of "Ugly Naked Guy."
As Friends ran on network TV, viewers never actually saw a full image of Ugly Naked Guy:
Rather, he lives in a building across the way from Monica and Rachel's apartment, and
the whole group can't help but gather at the window to see what the unattractive, unclothed
man is getting up to.
"Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!"
"What?"
"Ugly Naked Guy got a thighmaster."
"Ewww."
Granted, the guy apparently doesn't use curtains, but it's his business to do what he wants
in the privacy of his own home.
Yet, for some reason, six conventionally good-looking people get their kicks by mocking him and,
in one instance, poking his body with a giant stick.
So, in a bunch of episodes across many seasons, The Central Perk gang are essentially peeping
toms and smug bullies all rolled into one.
And they seemed so sweet.
"We haven't seen him in so long."
"Oh, God, I really missed that fat bastard."
Up until the last five years or so, "gender-bending" was, unfortunately, an acceptable and common
source of humor in mainstream entertainment.
The '90s and early 2000s were the Stone Age as far as sensitivity to gender and sexual
identity went, and Friends had some moments that seem, in retrospect, extraordinarily
insensitive.
The parents of Matthew Perry's Chandler divorced when he was young, in part because his father,
Charles Bing, had a same-sex affair with the pool boy and embarked on a life as a gay man.
Later in the series, Chandler discusses his dad's personal life with Monica and delivers
a number of jokes that feel uncomfortably outdated today.
"He had sex with Mr. Garibaldi."
"Who's Mr. Garibaldi?"
"Does it matter?"
After years of estrangement, Chandler decides to reconnect with his father, now performing
in a Las Vegas drag revue under the stage name "Helena Handbasket."
And who starred as Chandler's father?
The deep-voiced female actor Kathleen Turner, who later talked to the Gay Times about Friends
and some of its depictions of queer and trans people.
Turner told the magazine,
"I don't think it's aged well."
This statement is especially true concerning the two Friends episodes that focus on Monica
and Chandler's wedding, where some of the guests couldn't help but comment about the
groom's father.
"What?
I've never seen one before."
"Dad, Dad there's Ross, why don't you go talk to him?"
"I didn't even have a chance to act as though I'm okay with it."
Friends, one could argue, is really the story of Rachel.
In the show's initial episodes, she flees her wedding and gets her first job as a waitress
at Central Perk.
By the end of Season 10, she's advanced so far in the world of fashion that Louis Vuitton
offers her a great job in Paris.
That's a happy ending for Rachel...but one that doesn't resolve her feelings for Ross.
As Rachel boards her flight to Paris, Ross realizes that he's finally ready to commit.
Then, surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, she shows up at his door, revealing that she
got off the plane.
Basically, Rachel gives up her dream job for what looks to be more relationship drama with
Ross.
That's not exactly a "woke" decision from today's perspective, especially since Ross
could have been more supportive and moved to Europe with her.
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