Do Go On - 145 - Friends (the TV Show, not the concept)

Episode Date: August 1, 2018

So no one told you life was gonna be this way. Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A. It's like you're always stuck in second gear. When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, but we'll be there for you with a podcast about popular 90s sitcom, Friends! Could we BE any more fun than that?!Tickets to our just announced Melbourne Live Show on October 13 at Howler: https://www.moshtix.com.au/v2/event/do-go-on-live/105917?&skin=4406&ref=hwlrSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSubmit a topic idea directly to the hat: https://dogoonpod.com/submit-a-topic/Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out Matt's new podcast Prime Mates : https://www.planetbroadcasting.com/our-shows/prime-matesMatt's Tour dates: mattstewartcomedy.com/gigs Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This episode of Do Go On is brought to you by Do Go On live at the Giant Dwarf in Sydney on the 24th of August. And as well as being at the Giant Dwarf in Sydney, we're also excited to announce that we're going to be doing a live show in Melbourne, Australia, the town that we're actually from.

And in right now at Howler in Brunswick on the 13th of October, that's a Saturday afternoon. Details for all this will be in the description for this episode. Come down. Buy tickets. Calm down. I know you're excited. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

Hello and welcome to another. Oh God, the voice is gone already. Dave, can you do one where you rap it? Hello, everybody. My name is Dave. Dave, can you not do that? I won't do that. Hello.

Welcome to another episode off to go on. My name is Dave Warnock and I'm here with two people that I hold dear. That's a rap? No, it wasn't. Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart, hello. Hello. Thank you so much, Jess, for making it impossible for me to edit out that mistake. Yes, at the top.

But if Matt did edit it out, she asked me to do a rap version of the intro, and Matt said, don't do it, and I kind of half did it. You didn't half do it. You said, I'm here with people I hold dear. That's the opening line of many slim, slim, shady LPs. LP. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. See, I'm down.

The real Slim Shady? Yes, stand him up. And then sit him back down. It's my time to talk. Not you. The real Slim Shady. Stand him up. Stand him up.

On a date. That'll show him. Yeah, that'll put him back in the corner. What's that mean? Nobody puts Slim in the corner. That's what they've said in the past and continue to do so. Oh, hello. everyone. Hello, Bopper. Hello, Davy Boy. Hello, Maddie Stu. Are you

DJ Maddie Stu? Do you're ready to podcast? I am ready to pop. What are you doing over there? We were rapping. What are you doing over there? I'm just chomping at the bit. Champing at the bit. That's right, isn't it? I'm champing at the bit. Some people say chump. Some people say champ. I think you're fine other way. Context wise, we get it. Well, the rules of the shady champ the bit. Yeah. The champ is here. And I'm, I'm keen to get into my report. Dave, do you want to give us a little explanation of what this shows all this. It's always on me and then I get bullied for not doing a good job.

I'm on it. I'm on it. Thank you, Jack. Thank you. Doge one was created in 2015 when Matt Stewart, Dave Warnke and Jess Perkins created a podcast. And what they do? I mean, I don't go to this much detail admittedly. Excuse me.

And on that podcast, what they do is one of them chooses a topic. does report on that topic. The other two, well, they don't know what the topic is, do they? That actually, it does sound a lot easy to explain. I mean,

you said it in a weird brooded voice, but apart from that, the words were very simple, Dave. I'm sorry, well, I didn't claim that I did a good job. I just got given the job. And then, as I said,

I often get bullied for not doing a good job. It's Jessus to lose now. Great. Jess is in your job. Love it. And the way we get on the topic is by the report giver asking a question.

So this week it's my turn to do a report and Jess and Dave do not know what the report is on. I just said that. The question today is that trying to steal your job? Just a quick recap. He's mansplaining. Yes, a podcast is audio-based. What?

Question this week is, which American sitcom was going to be called Insomnia Cafe during its development? Frazier. No. Friends. Yes. Yay!

Really? Yeah, because they're always at the cafe. Insomnia Cafe. Insomnia Cafe. I don't like that at all. That's a terrible name for a sitcom. See, I'll tell you that's a terrible name, but if we were sitting here and it was called Insomnia Cafe, which sitcom was going to be called Friends?

You'd be like, that's the latest name I've ever heard. Friends is lame. Thinking about that a lot, like it just, yeah, it's one of those things where everything would sound a bit dumb at first. Coca-Cola. Whoa. Do go on. No, that always sounded great.

That's great. Three syllables. This topic was suggested. by Will Barron. And I went back to, he suggested this quite, this was quite a while back in the hat. So it's the original hat? Yeah, in the old original hat.

And then in brackets he said, the TV show, not the concept of friends. I remember reading that really on. Not the concept of friendship or something. He really made me laugh. But then I've gone back to his Twitter account and there are zero tweets. He's like he's wiped it down. He's wiped it down.

Wipe it clean. Got a pino clean. the antitheptic wipe. Like it's some sort of burner account. Yeah, that's right. That's what it feels like. It feels like a crime's been committed. He's just been wiped from the internet.

Did you Google him and it said this man never existed? There hasn't been a wheeled baron around these parts for 70 years. This Twitter account is a goddamn ghost town. Why am I doing here? I'm just chewing some hay. Is that the sheriff again? No, this is an entirely different character. This is a nuanced.

character with a thick back story thick thick and thick butt and thick butt and and when I say thick backstory I'm talking about his butt oh that's a thick backside well let's talk about friends the concept

the TV show are you guys are you a big fan man I didn't know if you were no not really great love that enthusiasm several people tweeted in saying love the Pantera episode could feel how passion that Matt was for the topic.

Oh look. I mean, I like, I love TV comedy and I, I think, I think Friends is a good show. I just, it's not,

I just don't love it. I think it was, you know, it feels, it's like a, it's like a comfort TV. Yeah. Yeah.

Jess, you were a watcher? Yeah, I reckon I've seen all of Friends. I realized, uh, writing this report that I, I haven't even seen the last episode.

I'm like, oh, that's how it ended. Dave, were you a fan? I don't know how it ends and I rarely watched it. But bits and pieces. Yeah, so I know the concept, know all the characters and they're sort of their vague quirks. Yeah.

But I'm interested to hear how it came about. I did. So the episode three of my great new podcast, Primates, is about an episode of friends from season one where Ross gets a monkey. So I've been thinking about friends a bit lately. The concept. The concept. And that's why I count you two. amongst my friends.

Get out. Yeah, I do. We're not just like co-workers. We're amongst. You're amongst them. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, when my friends are around, you're amongst my friends. Oh, wow.

Oh, no. What has he done? Brutal! And during that episode, I was with Alastair Trombo Virtual was on with me, and we were talking about maybe how like, I can't remember if he agreed or not, but Friends is maybe like something like the Beatles and Seinfelders like Rolling Stones and vice versa. They were like the two big ones. Yeah, I do hear people say, I'm not a friends person.

I'm more of a Seinfeld. Yeah, a lot of people are one or the other. And I'd say I'm a Seinfeld person. I do love Seinfeld, but I don't only love Seinfeld because I don't like friends. Yeah. I think you can totally like both. I'd say I'm friends because I never really watched much of Seinfeld. Right. Interesting.

Well, Jess, you have just been excommunicated from this podcast. Really? Because it's serious to me. You're going to do that. You're going to ruin the pod over Seinfeld. Yeah, it's a great show. What's Seinfeld ever done for you, though? Maybe laugh.

Okay. Have I not done that? How do you? Yeah, you have. Probably not as much as George Costanza's father. Man, he's one of the funniest characters I've ever seen. Gary Stiller. He's so funny. Serenity.

Serenity now. The good times we've had. Well, we're not talking about that. We're talking about friends, the concept on the show. But I'm really glad to hear that you're a fan, Jess. I'd say I'm probably halfway between. between you and Dave. Perfect.

We've got the whole bloody spectrum here. Friends creative duo. Well, that's a good start. The first sentence doesn't make sense. The Friends Creative Duo was made up of Marta Kaufman and David Crane. So it gives you see those names at the... Yeah, I remember the names. Before even said, they just came to my mind.

Maybe I've seen more than I thought. Who had previously had some success with a sitcom on HBO called Dream On. which I don't recall it all, starring Brian Ben Ben, who plays Martin. Is that a dog? No, that's not a super dog? Someone's come up with that as a name for a character, Brian Ben Ben, who plays Martin Tapper. Tapper.

A book editor who had watched a lot of TV as a child in the 1950s, and he expresses his thoughts through snippets of old TV dramas in black and white. This ran for six seasons from 1990 to 1996. Wow. That sounds like a pretty good. crazy concept. Yeah. They also created an NBC sitcom called The Powers That Be.

And I've clipped out a little summary from the Wikipedia page. It's about witches. Oh, good guess, but no. Wizards. Are they working at a power plant? No, neither are those. Oh, they are bees. No.

They get this. It's a double whammy. Here we go. Their last name is power. Yes. Yes. Oh, wow. And they are bees.

And they're at the centre of the series is US Senator William Powers. So they work in politics. Okay. A parody of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Margaret, the senator's status-hungry wife treats Charlotte they're made with comedic disdain. Camedic. Caitlin, the senator's daughter, has an eating disorder and is married to Representative of Theodore Van Horn, who is suicidal.

Their son Pierce is mature beyond his years from having to care for his unbalanced parents. Sophie Lipkin, the Senator Zilla Junta, mid-daughter, is a loud, crass New Jerseyan who surprises a family when she moves to Washington and begins to bond with her father. The senator's staff includes an intelligent and beautiful aide, Jordan Miller, who is also Powell's mistress, and the feckless aide, Bradley Chris. So is this a comedy? It's a comedy. There is so much going on.

Too much going on. What was the elevator pitch for? with that. All right. The senators, and it's pretty fucked. So there's a suicidal character that someone's got... Eating disorder? It's an illegitimate daughter.

There's a mistress. There's so much going on. Anyway, it lasted from 92 to 93. That one didn't last so long. I wonder why. Look, I don't know that for sure, but that did, like, that paragraph makes it sound like my head's about to explode. How do they fit?

Yeah. Even all of those people in the same episode. Then again, I think when you... Yeah, the credits run for 8. If you try to explain, like, friends in a paragraph, but also trying to fit everything in, it sounds insane. So, spread out. I'm sure it's not episode one. Here's the illegitimate daughter.

He's suicidal. This kid's cool. We get to that, and then it's first ad break. Yeah. And then it just peters out from there. They also created a sitcom called Family Album, which is another one that's not a great sounding. Their surname is Album. The term

is family They are all records No they are Yes They're a family of records So that was in 1999 Which centered around The learner family

Who moved from California To Philadelphia To be closer to their family But according to their poster They didn't realize How close They've stapled themselves To their parents' backs

I kind of made me I think It was maybe like An everybody Loves Raymond kind of idea The series was cancelled after six episodes. Oh dear.

So when Kaufman and Crane started pitching the idea of friends, they had some sort of runs on the board. They had, you know, varying degrees of success, but they had some successes. I think they're also both involved in Veronica's closet or something. I read that very late, but after I'd finished the report. According to Crane, it was just another pilot to them, and after Family album was cancelled,

he remembers that they were scrambling in a panic, wondering if they would ever let us back on the air again. They were nervous that they'd maybe mucked up their last chance. Right. The other sitcoms they had put together were all based around blood-related families to different degrees with a central lead character. So they were keen to try an ensemble comedy. And according to Kaufman, the idea of friends was close to their hearts because they had lived it.

They had friends. They had friends. But they'd never had a family. So that's why the family stuff didn't work. Yeah. They just couldn't relate. Wow. Now imagine having friends, firstly, just as a concept.

They really bring a niche perspective. But then, being able to then use that life experience to influence your art. Right what you know. Wow. Wow. That's why everything I write is about loneliness. That's what I know. But it works.

It works. It works every time. Yeah, people love it. The senator, he's lonely. And he's suicidal. daughter's maid is also his mistress and also his daughter. And a rabbit.

That talks. And imaginary. How many million can I get for the pilot? Of course I've got a talking rabbit. They pitched the idea to the NBC president at the time, obviously. Weird. I'd wrote at the time, but obviously that is implied. The future NBC president.

So they went to the mail room. They saw someone said in 10 years, you're going to be big, son. So I'm pitching to you. Let's make it happen. I lost a lot of mail. You're going to be big, kid. Oh, I've set the mail on fire again. Oh, no.

Oh, no. What friends? I don't know what they are. We're playing a really lonely character. Jess, this could be you. You should write a sick of about male. And that's how King of Queens came about. Because the main character is a delivery guy.

Oh, that's a very guy, yeah. I didn't realize that I just think you built some random sitcom and you're like, and that's how that up. That's where Will and Grace started. So the president's name was Warren Littleford, and they pitched to him in his office, and he loved the pitch. Going to Littlefield. I'm just, oh, just the pitching the idea of friends.

We've based it on ourselves. I love it Well, he was talking about He's like their idea of friends And the characters Were so well developed Because it sounds like they were in the They were in the market for this kind of idea

They wanted something like this A youngish ensemble cast comedy show And they'd had a few people pitching similar ideas And then these guys came in, they were like, according to him anyway I've read a lot of Warren Littleford in interviews and stuff. And he does sound like, you know, he's painting probably a rose, you know, everything.

Of course. I knew it was going to be huge. Yeah, that sort of stuff. If the show had done terribly and in interviews he would have been like, I mean, we took a chance. Yeah. I was the one fighting against this. I wanted a hit. There are so many flops as well.

Yeah. I think I've read that pilots like a less than a one in three chance. I was surprised that were even that high, but yeah. So that was interesting. I'm trying to find there was this one quote that I really loved from him. He was talking about afterwards, and he was putting together a book with interviews of different people he's worked with in TV. And just sort of everything's kind of bigging himself up a little bit,

but this one felt really funny to me. Maybe it's not. But this is what he said. I did all the interviews myself. I met LeBlanc at the Matt LeBlanc, who's in one of the members of friends, plays Joey Tribiani. Correct.

So I met LeBlanc at the Mulholland Grill and he insisted he pay for lunch. He looked at me and said, do you have any idea how much you changed my life? There is no way you're picking up this check. And I finally let him pay for it. Just like a lot of those. I finally let him pay.

I was going to pay. He's just got the best of everything. I'm not just saying, yeah, you definitely pay. I want to pay. But he's telling me that I'm the best. And eventually I agreed and high five Tim. It's just, yeah, a bunch of that sort of stuff.

So I ordered one of each dessert. Suck that, LeBlanc. That would have been fun if he, like he never sounded like he ever had any that kind of level of fun to him. Anyway, sorry about that. Warren, if you're listening, you sound like a great guy. So their one line pitch was, it's that special time in your life when your friends are your family.

Which I like that I never really thought about that But that is that makes After you know You move out of home Before you start your own family That period You know

What we would maybe call The now time In your life Jess Fuck I'm supposed The golden years Oh is it It doesn't get better

What? I was I mean I know you're joking I was genuinely banking on it Getting better Your friends are your family now. Oh, fuck. I've got to get some friends.

Yeah, you've got to get some family. I've got to spend time with my friends. According to an article on AV Hub, friends changed the sitcom landscape by breaking from many typical formats. The show did not revolve around a family, home or workplace, but a makeshift clan. The 620 something stars were so young that the network execs initially suggested an older mentor type to give the show's opinions more weight.

It's safe to say that before Friends, the youth sitcom was far from as prevalent as it is today. But then they make the point in the same article that Living Single, a comedy sitcom, about six African-American friends living in Brooklyn, preceded Friends by a year. A sitcom based in New York City about six friends in their 20s. Right. But Friends really broke the mold. Yeah, I know. That same article going on about six friends.

out of it broke up and then they go obviously there was this other show so i hadn't heard of this i can't remember it being played in australia obviously we they have way more channels and shows than we can fit over here even though especially back then and play a lot of american tv here um but uh so i've looked it up and you know that description like that does sound like a rip-off of friends um and it was uh one of the stars queen latifa no yeah um and and she was on a chat show hosted by Andy Cohen, and it was one of those chat shows where there's multiple guests. She was also on there with Jason Sidicus, Sidicus, Suddicus. I love Jason Suducus. Suducus. Suducus. No. So she was on this show and the host, Andy Cohen, asked her if there would ever be

a living single reboot. And then Jason Suducus chipped in. He goes, I thought Friends was the reboot. Oh, very good. Nice. That's obviously, it's relatively well known over there. That's what happened. Queen Latifah agreed that Friends was a rip-off basically saying We knew we had already been doing that It was a guy named Warren Littlefield Who had just been talking about They used to run NBC.

Field or Ford? Field. Okay. It's written field. We can pronounce it Ford if you like. No, that's how you've said it twice now. Good. Littleford.

That's how I think of him. Okay, fair. It's a little joke that me and was I have. Sorry, I didn't mean to get between a couple of friends. It must be nice to have friends where you have. Yeah, they have these little... In jokes. But don't worry about it.

I'll call him Watson. Really is the golden years of your life. Yeah. Fuck. We'll look back on these days fondly. And they asked him... They... Okay.

I'm coming back into the middle of this Queen Lativa quote. So it was a guy named Warren Littleford that used to run NBC. And they asked him when all the new shows came out if there was any show he could have which would it be? He said living single and then he created friends. Apparently that was on record according to Queen Latifah that he was, he loved it.

He loved it, he wanted it. So he just sort of made a version of it. Well, I wonder how long it ran for? Yeah, do you know? Quite a few years. And they're talking about it being rebooted genuinely. So they would have overlapped and been running at the same time. Yeah, yeah, they were running at the same time.

And is it the reason that Queen Latifah, is that maybe her big break? Is that true? Yes. Let's say no. Okay. A bit of both. I'm just one of in America. Is she known for that show?

But we just never got it. Yeah, she is known for that, but she's known for a lot of stuff. Of course. She's a multi-threat. She's Queen Latifah. Yeah. She then clarified that she thought Friends was so good. So it's not like we hated on it or anything.

It was just like, you know. Yeah. They rip. I mean, she doesn't say it. You know, they stole our idea. Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah, I didn't know that either.

But that's pretty fascinating because people do talk about it, like friends changed everything. The other show that is talked about as being like a proto friends that was also overlapped with it was Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld comedian and co-founder, co-creator and star of Seinfeld, is accused friends of ripping him off too. In one interview in 2003, Seinfeld was asked if he thought his show would have been given time to succeed if it was to premiere today instead of his.

in 1990, because it actually had a few years where it built before it got huge Seinfeld. And Seinfeld responded by asking, has friends been on too in this scenario? And the interviewer Bob Costas replies, yeah, friends has been on. And Seinfeld says, really? So they managed to steal it without seeing it, which is a pretty good line. Wow. How can a man that successful be bitter?

How? Also, how many people, like how many friends are there in Seinfeld? Yeah, it's a different number. It's a different number, Jerry. Living singles, six to six. Yeah, that's quite clear. Seinfeld's got three guys, sure. Maybe they stole the three guy element.

And let's remember, you can't like Seinfeld and friends, apparently. How can they be the same thing? The two different things, Jerry! He's caught later on, he called it, he called Friends Seinfeld with good-looking people. A bit of a backhander to buddy Jason Alexander, huh? Yeah, Jason Alexander's like, well, Fuck you, Jerry. Julia Louis Dreyfus?

Yeah. Babe. Babe. No doubt about that. Look at her now. She's like a fine wine. She's gotten better with age. How has she gotten better?

It's amazing. It's amazing. She was the, and she's the one who broke the, the Seinfeld curse, which said that none of them would ever. Like all that, they all release sitcoms afterwards that failed pretty quickly. And she's had a few successes since then. I like when someone asked Larry David about the Seinfeld curse. And he was like, it's ridiculous. It's just very.

very hard to have a successful sitcom. Right, of course, right, okay. Whether or not anyone else has the same chance. Yeah, it's not, it's not a curse. That's fair. Anyway, back to Friends. Many of whom. Was I starting to sound like I was passionate about the topic?

But back to Friends. Have any of them broken the Friends curse? No. I mean, they've all had different levels of success after, but we should get to the success before we talk about post-success. While they were developing the Friends pilot, Crane and Coughman also had another podcast. pilot on the go during the same pilot season.

The other one was tentatively titled... Enemies. Reality check. Similar. Similar. Which is enemies are always a reality check. What kind of check? Oh, yeah.

Oh, it was C-H-E-Q-U-E. Or C-Z-E-C-H. Reality Czech Republic. That's it. It was about a high school student from the Czech Republic named Jamie. Oh, I love it. Who frequently lapses into elaborate fantasies. Apparently Fox made them do a gazillion rewrites.

Gazillion is a quote there. And they kept wanting the show to be more risque. Fox were like, more risque. Whereas they were finding with friends, it was quite a smooth ride, if anything, they were saying a little bit safer. But Fox were like, can we make this more risque? It's this show about a high school kid with fantasies. Oh, okay.

What do they want? Well, apparently Crane later said that they kept wanting Jamie to be older, the main character, Jamie to be older. They wanted him to be driving and already having sex. Sounds like a different show. Okay. They wanted him to be 35. Can we still set it into school? Of course.

Amy here, this is kids. He's 35 and he can drive. Oh. Double threat. And he's a millionaire. Oh. And he, and he, Rob's back. This is dangerous.

Yeah, he's cool. I tried to find a Sydney-Shaenberg link to all of these, but I couldn't. It feels like his fingerprints are on at some way. Yeah, it does sound like, make him older. Make him crazy. I like danger. Give him a chip. Give the chip a gun.

Ask my corn chips. I ask for corn chips. Why is somebody's asking for just plain unsalted corn chips? I've already got salsa, you fool? Oh, I was going to say nothing to do, but he's got salsa. That's good. in crane's words reality check was terrible that's crane's words

and that's yeah it's his show but it was it was changed so much by the network that he's like it was no good but he said on the other hand the process developing friends just seemed to flow every step of the way and was easy to write crane and Kaufman were worried that the dud show would be picked up and said

don't pick this one it's but of course history shows that their fears were well founded as friends was picked up. No, good on a little... And reality check. I took a bit a sec to get it. The show was to be based around the lives of six people. Oh.

Which we've already discussed, who were friendly with each other. Okay? And I'll talk more about these friends soon. Friendly, but not too friendly. Yeah. They were acquaintances. But first, they needed a place for these titular friends to hang out.

Hmm. They knew they couldn't use a bar or pub because of Cheers. Cheers has been a massively successful sitcom that ran from 82 to 93. And of course they copyrighted the concept of a bar. Of a bar. No one could ever enter a bar on TV. They generally said that Cheers ruled out a bar as an idea. It just was too synonymous with Cheers at that stage.

And it just wrapped up Cheers. So it would have seemed like, you know, they just wanted to avoid that. They also wanted to avoid. doing it in a sort of a diner like Tom's diner in Seinfeld. Monk's diner. Monk's diner. The real diner is called Tom's Day. Right.

I think, or if I got that wrong. Anyway, so their options were already narrowed down a bit, which maybe worked as a bit of an advantage. So then one day during development, Kaufman and Crane walked past a cafe, and they thought, and this is a direct quote from Kaufman, oh, that would be a cool place to put these people. A cafe.

Yeah. Previously, when they were listing a bar, a diner, they didn't make the link to a cafe. Not until I saw one in the flesh. Wow. And I don't have friends, but I would think of a cafe. But hey, that's me, Melbourne, you know. I think cafe before diner.

Cafe culture here. I'm a coffee snob. They also, they did, I did read amongst it that at that at that stage, cafes weren't a place you went and hung out at. It was like the Littlefield. called it a bit of a head scratcher, the idea of setting it, have them. Who's Littlefield? Is he the same as Littleford?

Yes. Have we not? He did flip back to Littleford earlier. Damn it. What if I've written it down that way? Littlefield, he thought it was, he was like, love the concept. They're like, it's at a cafe. What?

What is that? Scratch my head? What do you mean? That's a quote from him. He called it a bit of a head scratcher. I don't know. Tell me more. I don't know.

Good act out. Thank you. He literally scratched his head. Oh yeah, I can hear it. Well, I had a bit of an itch there. Oh, now they're popping up everywhere. No, he's going crazy. No, don't.

You'll make me itchyy. But he also said that they were completely ahead of the curve in what a coffee shop meant in a young adult person's life. They knew that they were this generation's new living room. Crane and Kaufman downplay that, though. They just were like, no, we just sort of. a cool place to put them and we walked past one. Yeah.

We needed a spot. We weren't. No, it was a social commentary. Yeah. And also, like we weren't capturing, we didn't mean to capture the zeitgas or whatever. Nah, take it. Take the credit. And they don't want it to be like Seinfeld, which is a diner, which is a cafe diner.

Yeah. It's exactly the same thing. And they talk openly on the show about where four people that never eat a meal at home. Yeah. So it is basically their living room. Yeah. But they're like, this is cutting edge. Yeah.

I know. It's interesting. But that, I mean, this is all through. was a Littleford, little fold. So the title, I was saying before, that it was potentially

going to be called Insomnia Cafe. I hate it. You know that cafe they walk past, what its name was? Cafe. Insomnia Cafe. Friends. Right.

So they, I mean, they were. It was called Friends. Sorry. Insomnia Cafe, which is, to be honest, a pretty rubbish name for a cafe. Are they open 24-7?

I guess it was, Is that just about caffeine keeping you up? Well, it's stupid regardless. It's like talking out one of the side effects of your biggest selling product. Yeah, that's dumb. Not a good thing. It's sort of like calling a bar, regret bar, hangover bar, lots of money gone, you sad, pub. Casino.

We're rich. You're not so rich, casino. You think you're rich, but we will soon change that casino. It wasn't the only suggested. name they had. Others what else they got. Included. At one point it was called six of one. No. Six of one? Yeah.

Six of one. I don't like it. Was that another option? Half a dozen of the other? Yeah. Right. I don't know that's that same. Six and one. Half a dozen. That basically says same difference. Yeah. Across the hall, I think it was on a Littlefids. Don't hate that, but no. And friends

like us, which I guess was shortened to friends. Yes. Yeah. Six one. Yeah. I'm happy with friends, but at the time, someone who was involved in the thing were like, that sounds like a yawn or something. What a yawn friends. Yeah, it is like if you, like, name a few other shows that are famous with a similar kind of name, just a real basic description.

MASH. So that would be called Army Doctor. Army Doctors, I guess, right? Or even less than that, it'd probably be called Friends. Cheers. And you could call it Alcoholics. Sad people. Wings.

Wings. Plain men. Jag. Navy lawyer. That's good. Welcome to Navy lawyer. NCIS. You could call it NCRS.

Nickers. I don't know why I enjoyed that. It's ridiculous. So I think it was someone at the network who wanted to shorten friends like us to friends. I bet Littleford took questions. credit for it. I was at a cafe trying to buy everyone a meal because I'm a great guy.

They all insisted. I looked out with 18 muffins. What are we going to do with 18 muffins? I threw them out. threw him out into a homeless man's open arms because I'm a great guy. And then I thought, friends like us, you know what? I'm just a friendly kind of guy. Friends.

And then one day that homeless guy became a billionaire. He bought me a helicopter. I couldn't say no. It would have been rude. Which I'm not. Sounds like a great guy. If one of you ever offered an helicopter, I'm going to play this back and be like,

I can't say no. It'd be rude. I'm just putting that out there now. So when it's on the record, I will edit that out, just in case. Fingers crossed. So someone suggested friends from the network.

And apparently they told them that that's what they wanted to call it at the same time. Friends from the network. Just friends, sorry. Someone from the network said, we want to call it friends. And they also said it on the same day. And we want to offer you the Thursday night slot between Seinfeld and mad about you.

Right. Okay. Which is a dream spot. For about the Seinfeld influence. Yeah, yeah. And apparently executive producer Kevin Bright replied, if you put us on Thursday nights, you can call us Kavorkin for all I care. Oh.

Oh, very good. See, that's the kind of line that gets remembered 20 years later in an interview. They go, that is it. That would have been tossing that around for a bit. Oh, very quaint. I had a little of sugar before. Can you tell? I could tell.

And Dave had a beer. That's why it's party time in here. You're both crashing, guys. Could you pick it up a bit, please? Give me a beer. Peep up, please, all right? You're doing a lot of the heavy lifting. here, Matthew.

Okay, now let's talk about these titular friends characters. Okay. We're 30 minutes in. Quote, unquote, friends. And we're just getting to the characters. I love it. Detailed. And also how they were cast.

Auditions. Yes. No. I can skip right beyond that part. Catwalk. Mall search. Wow. They were like, that guy looks like a Ross.

He's such a. Ross, they said. Which are you, Dave? I don't know. Is that up to me? Wow, great question. Very self-aware, Dave. Very good. And who's that? Is that Chandler? I don't know. I think Jess is Chandler. You're probably...

So can you explain what you mean when you say Chandler for myself? Dave is Ross? Yeah, Dave's Ross. So he's a bit of a mess? And I'm Phoebe, I reckon. Do you reckon? Yeah. I've no idea. Okay, you don't know.

So what's the Ross trade? Tweet in. I would say, I would say, I'm. I'm a combination of Chandler and Rachel. Rachel gets funnier. Like she starts off a bit, they sort of make her a bit of a dits. What are you saying? I'm confused. What are you saying they're, you're getting funnier that means?

No. Or that she gets funny, which makes her more like you. Thank you, yes. I'm saying it, Rachel's peak funny. That's when she's sort of getting towards you. She's getting close, but no in here, obviously. That makes sense to me. She's also a fashionista.

She works in fashion. Like me. Yeah. Whereas Dave's just a. boring sad sack called Ross. All right. So Ross. Paleontologist.

Oh, look, those. That's cool. Shut up, Ross. Yeah, you would think that, Ross. So, yeah, he's... I'm Ross. Why would I choose his career if I didn't think it was good? That is something that came up a lot in friends, apparently, and has copped a bit of

criticism in more recent times was that they were very kind of anti-intellectual. Any, like, super smart character was normally viewed pretty unfavorably on it, especially Ross and his friends. It's like, shut up egghead. was kind of like a lot of jokes were different versions of that. I would argue it hasn't really aged all that well. No, I don't think it has. Seinfeld still great, guys.

So here are the characters. Ross Geller, the part of Ross, the paleontologist, the Dave character. They had David Schwimmer in mind as Kaufman and Kramer were fans of his, but Schwimmer at the time was keen to get back into theatre work. Apparently his agent convinced him to read for the part, though, And although others also read for the part, Schwimmer was the first actor cast for the show.

Oh, nice. Schwimmer locked in. Say Schwimmer again. Swimmer. Thank you. Monica Geller. His sister. Yes, that's true. The casting of, it wasn't a coincidence.

Imagine they'd written a cast of six, and two of them had the same surname by coincidence. They could make up literally any names. They're like, are these two related? Oh, yes. We better make a couple of quick edits. Why are they kissing in the first scene? It's the new culture.

Kids these days. Gen X is what Gen X is do. So the casting of Monica, who was a chef with a competitive personality, was much tighter. Apparently it was a real line ball call between Nancy McEwen and Courtney Cox. Apparently they wanted Cox for another character, Rachel, at one point. No. But Cox found the Monica character to be more into it. In the end, the decision was left up to Kaufman, Crane and also the EP Bright, and they went with Cox.

It was probably the most famous of the cast when the show started. None of them were huge names at all, but she had some sort of profile. She had a recognisable face as she was in Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark film clip, where he pulled her up on stage and they danced together. In the dark? Yeah, you know, in a dimly lit arena. I can rename the song, Bruce. Dancing in the Timmy Litterina.

I love it. That's my autobiography. She also had a stint as Michael J. Fox's girlfriend on family ties. Oh, that's right. She was in an episode of Seinfeld where I think she pretended to be Jerry's wife to get, what was it, a discount on something or something? Classic Seinfelds of Sorrel. And she was also in Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura Pet Detective. Oh.

When you started with the, she appeared in a music clip, I thought it was going to end there. I was like the others really had zero profile if that was the best bit. But she had done a bit. She had done a bit, yeah. I mean, everyone had done a bit, but hers were probably the highest profile things. And that dancing in the dark film club is genuinely like a very well-known classic. Dancing and a dimly bit. People, it's got its own dance, you know, that one where you sort of do the swing and arm click.

God, you're cool. Joey Tribiani Joey a sleazy A sleazy dim-witted aspiring actor was played by Matt LeBlanc And according to Littlefield When Matt LeBlanc came into audition He was just Joey

He owned it It was undeniable in the room He was delightful There was no nail biting on that one That was an easy Casting We had Chandler Bing The Half Jess

Chandler was the Goofie goofy, wise crack and business executive. And when it came to Kaskin, the team thought it couldn't be any easier. I enjoyed that too much. No, just enough. But it turned out to be more complicated than they first thought.

They saw John Favreau and John Cryer for the part. And they were also interested in a guy called Craig Bjorko, Matthew Perry actually. Oh, Bjurko. So Jess seemed to really interest by the other people. So I thought I'd try and... Throw a burqo a bone. Try and give him something.

No one guess about Beirko. Don't try to be as cool as me. Perry had already, and Matthew Perry, who ended up being on the part. Spoiler of them. Matthew Perry apparently coached Craig Bjorko and that's probably not. Sabotaged. Coached him, like Little League Soccer. No, they coached him.

He said this is how I'd play it and he and because of that they really like Bjorker, but they found that out later. So he was helping him. That's really strange. I'm going for this part. I don't feel it either. But I think in part it was for this reason. I'm guessing they were friends on one hand.

But in the end, they wanted Perry. But unfortunately for them, he was signed on to a competing pilot, right? So I guess maybe that's why he did because he thought he was attached to this other thing. That pilot was called, you know about this? I didn't heard about this. Enemies. LAX-2194. I don't like that.

Which was about baggage handlers who sorted aliens luggage at Los Angeles International Airport in the year. 2194. Oh, get fuck. That is greenlit from me. That's a yes from me. Give that 10 seasons. That is a hard note. Did that ever make it?

I've seen a clip from it. No, I didn't get past the pilot, luckily for Chandler. You could argue, maybe not. But he was one of the main lead characters. He would have been, yeah, he would have been right. He would have been in that and he was locked in for that. Then there was Phoebe buffet. Kathy Griffin and Jane Lynch both went for the part of Phoebe.

the ditsy hippie masseuse and they actually met each other at the audition and became real life friends Oh that's cute The three of them At the audition No just Kathy and Jane

Oh right But the team were keen For Lisa Cudreau to play the part But she was already occasionally Playing the character of Ursula A Waitress on Mad About You And according to Littlefield Star and EP of Mad About You

Paul Reiser Was exceptional about letting her move to friends He loved that she was He loved what she was doing on Mad About You But it wasn't a series Regular character And then they brilliantly came up with the notion That Phoebe and Ursula were sisters

And she could pop up again on Mad About You Brilliant Isn't that brilliant? That is He doesn't like he'll throw out praise They figured out that they could just be sisters That is brilliant Brilliant

Brilliant This opens up a fun little Shared universe thing between friends So I didn't know about this, yeah. Also, more surprisingly, potentially, it's a shared universe between friends, mad about you, and Seinfeld, which might be surprising,

seeing as Seinfeld has called Friends a rip-off of Seinfeld, how he would let that happen, but it sort of happened in a bit of a backdoor way via Mound About You. This is what happened. So Mout About You ran from 92 to 99, Friends from 94 to 2004, and Seinfeld from 89 to 98.

So they're all on air at the same time in 94 to 98. Ursula, who works at, as a waitress on Mad About You becomes the sister of Phoebe from Friends. So that links those two shows. Also one time Helen Hunt, who starred as Jamie alongside Paul Reiser on Mound About You, was once on Friends in character as Jamie,

and at the coffee shop, she confused Phoebe for Ursula. Oh. She's, you know, like, oh, what are you doing? A crossover rep. Yeah, just a little nod there. Love it. Then on an episode of Mad About You, Kramer,

character played by Michael Richards on Seinfeld. I can't handle these crossovers. I can't remember exactly what happened. He either took over Paul Reiser's old apartment or he was Paul Rises' tenant or something. And Paul in that scene even references the comedian from across the hall named Jerry. Right.

So this links friends to Matt About You and Matt about you to Seinfeld, meaning that they all share a universe. One thing that mucks this up, though, a bit, is that in an episode of Seinfeld, George, who's played by Jason, Alexander and Susan played by Heidi Swedberg, watch an episode of Mad About You in bed.

So how can they be in the same universe if one of them is still a TV show in that universe? And also Courtney Cox was Jerry's girlfriend. But I mean, that's an actor thing. I think that's, you can explain that away. Sure. But I tend not to overthink things like this. But them actually watching a TV show. I mean, you said you didn't overthink it, but you were the one who brought that up.

You asked a really complicated question. Wow. Okay. Matt, I'm sorry about him. No, that's fine. I didn't think you'd turn on me like that for that. And I, I apologize. Dave, you never know when we're going to turn.

I know. Sass Twins. I know, sometimes you just freak out. And then at the end of the day, I really don't care for shared universes. Couldn't get a fuck. I did my, when I was on the weekly planet on the Planet Broadcasting Network, I went on to talk about shared universes,

and I talked about this shared universes. It's one of my real passions. Wow, you're a real expert then. Bordeline. I don't want to, I don't want to, Warren, what's his name myself? Little Fear. Who knows what his name is?

Little Proud. A little proud. I'm feeling a little Warren Little Proud. Rachel Green's another one of the characters. Tell us I'm green. Yeah. Every other name's like, you know, like pop culture wise, rung her bell.

I didn't know her last name was green. I just guess she's just Rachel. Yeah. She's like Cher. Yes. but for Is that my go-to example? I think Cher may now be a reference more on this show than The Simpsons.

Wow. But it's normally that one reference. Thank you. Thank you. No, thank you. Yes, you're welcome. Thank you for sharing. Very good.

Do you reckon anyone's ever noticed that before? That share sounds a bit like share? Oh, I don't know. They have. Yeah, well, that feels clever. How very droll. So of Jennifer Aniston, Littlefield has said, we loved her and wanted her.

The problem was she was tied to another series. So we took her in second position. When it was time to go, was that me? I think it's... You know you start missionary. Change. Second position. Second position.

I'll let you say that. You get a bit... Not me. I don't say it. Just implied. When it was time to go into production, and start shooting episodes, she was still under an option at CBS.

What does that mean? Sorry. And no one had been successful about getting her released. Dave, you're having to work pretty hard for some of these now. If you're finding innuendo in that, I was told that we had to replace her. This is a little... There was too much risk, but I said,

no, we're not going to do that. I have a boner. So, yeah, no, I can see that last one I can see. Yeah, I won't do that. I do it for love. I have a bono. So they asked Littlefield, they said, will you personally guarantee that if she doesn't get released

that you'll finance the reshooting of these episodes? So they're shooting these episodes and it would It would cost them a lot of money to reshoot them If they had to swap her out Whoa, that had got heaps And he said he was like Well, no, but we'll figure something out That was enough

He said we were incredibly vulnerable And business affairs thought we were nuts Every time we shot another episode with Jennifer We put millions of dollars at risk But it all worked out Sounds like yeah Not just the pilot But they were starting to film season one

That sort of sounds like. They didn't legally have it. Wait, hang on. What did I say there? Yeah, another episode. Yeah, that's interesting. He said, we also took Matthew Perry in second position to a futuristic hour series at LAX, but we didn't think that was much of a threat.

Brutal, but also accurate. Matt, we watched the pilot and read the summary, and it's not going to happen. I don't think Perry's been super nice about that show either. It sounds stupid. I saw her a little clip out of it, and I'm like, Like, oh, yeah, I kind of get... Why, it's so stupid. What's the tall guy from Drew Carey show and from...

Ron Stiles, from whose line? That's him, and he's like playing a robot. Oh, he's so funny. Sort of guy with a weird voice. You won me over. I'm back in. Yeah, no, that's what I was watching. I'm like, this could be something, but...

Ten seasons, I've told you. A bit of it... The clips I saw were a bit corny, but it could have... It could have grown into something, maybe. If either of those projects or both of them went forwards and friends could have been, like, in a lot of... trouble. Before the show aired, the co-creator of Cheers, man named James Burroughs, had a good feeling about the show. So he brought the six stars to Vegas to party, telling them to enjoy themselves

as, quote, this is your last shot at anonymity. Once the show comes on the air, you guys will never be able to go anywhere without being hounded. Have fun. You'd be like, oh, okay. That is an amazing prediction. Yeah. And this guy, he's like a TV legend. He's, he's, uh, he's, direct. directed over a thousand episodes of TV sitcoms. And did he have a, so what was his position with Friends? He did, he went on to direct some episodes. So maybe that's how he was connected there. But some, he'd obviously seen some of it.

Maybe he directed some first season episodes. And he was like, but it had all been shot, but he hadn't, uh, hadn't aired. And he's like, this is, he just knew it was going to be big. On September the 22nd, 1994 at 8.30 p.m., friends premiered between Matt about you at 8 and Seinfeld at 9. In testing, the pilot rated as a high week. I don't know what that scale is, but I'm like... I think that's me in general.

Yeah, you're a high week. Yeah, I'm on the cusp of average. I mean, is a low week better or worse than a high week? I read it as a high week's better than a low week. You're better at being weak. I think it's a... No, yeah. Low week, high week.

Medium week, high week. Low good. Medium good, high good. So it's pretty low. I think it's pretty low. But if caught in a little field, that's okay. Things don't always test great, but we were hopeful. So why do you test?

Yeah, that's confusing. Have you just ignored it? Yeah, that is confusing. Have you ever seen a pilot of a show and gone, oh, this is great? Yeah. Like, pilots are always a bit shit. They've got to get through all the exposition and all that sort of stuff. You've got to give everything three episodes.

Which is unfortunate because in pilot season they don't really do that. But I guess then some of them get, get, get picked up and it must be such a frustrating thing. It takes like the chance of getting to a pilot's a huge effort. To get beyond that is huge. And then to get to the end of the first season and into multiple seasons. It just so few would make it. It's like turtles' eggs at a beach.

Yeah, the chances of actually making it to be another turtle that drops off other eggs. It really makes you think. Sometimes I just like to have a deep thought. About second position That turtle's in second position He said it was not an instant hit But there was this slow, wonderful build

I looked up the ratings And the first episode had 20 million viewers Isn't it a hit? I think that's a good That's not seen as a blinder hit But that is a really good At the time that would have been Australia's whole population Yeah, that's a high week

Would you guys be happy if an episode of our podcast got 20 million listens. What are we dropping down? Yeah, Jess, that would mean less than everyone in the country's heard it. Yeah. We're required listening. Yeah, you're right. That was a stupid question on my part.

You never know what will turn on you. So 20 million, they're like, oh yeah? But it was, I think that's still very good. But according to him, so billed, the ratings did build. But I suppose you were right when you see. said it's a great slot. Mad about you in time? Yeah, like, peak.

Yeah. They're killing it. So people like, I'm going to watch those two. Should I? I'll give the first. I'm going to bother finding the remote. Yeah. And often the first one's higher, isn't it?

And then people drop off. Yes. Then they find the actual audience. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But the rating is built in this case. And even by the end of the first season, they were regularly cracking 30 million, which is seen as being like.

Bonus. Cracking 30 million bonus. And that's just the men watching. Yeah. By the second season, they moved it to the 8pm time slot, and they never looked back. It was the Thursday night anchor for the rest of its run. But were the quote-unquote friends actually friends in real life? Oh, wow.

Drama! I'm really hoping for some sweet drama. I live for it. According to Rolling Sets 9095 cover story about the show, the actors all got together to watch every show on Thursday nights. That's lame. Like real friends. Really? Yeah.

And the three male leads travelled to Europe together after the first season wrapped. Also down the line, Jennifer Anderson became Cox's daughter's grodmother. Grodmother. What was that losing my wife? I don't even realize I'm mispronouncing these words.

Grodmother. Can I say grodmother? Wow. That doesn't sound favourable. It's very Hollywood. Yeah, for sure. You've got a godmother than a grot mother. Yes.

Yes. Oh, yeah. What role does the Grodmother play? Oh, if you don't know. It's embarrassing to it. It's rude to ask. Oh. It really is.

I do apologize. Can I please shotgun Grodmother to all of your future children, both of you? Yes, you can. If you give them helicopters. Obviously, what kind of Grodmother would be if I wasn't giving them my Grodd children? I know it's rude to talk about, but that is obviously rule number one of being a Grodmother. Choppers. Choppers for all.

Get him to the chopper. Number one. For the christening, get him to the chopper. Yeah, that was, yeah, that's something people don't know. Arnold Schwarzenegger was whoever that person was Grodmother. Yeah. Is that even a real quote? Get him to the chopper.

The show is sometimes called the sitcom for Generation X. According to the AV Club article I was talking about before, Gen X's did not buy into the job for life corporations their parents did. Understanding the job. Jobs came and went, as did authority figures. On the show, symbolized... The man. And symbolized by a slew of unhelpful parents.

But Friends would always be there. Yeah, all their parents are pretty shit. Yeah. If I remember incorrectly. Yes, I am, as always. In this cultural landscape, the Friends theme song, partially penned by the series creators, made perfect sense. Well, no one told you life was going to be this way.

Your job's a joke. You're broke. Your love life's DOA. A far cry from turning the world on with a smile or celebrating the happy days that are yours and mine. This is all still a quote from that article. Waitress Rachel, who starts this season. Sorry, is this still the song?

No. I was like, I don't remember this verse. Gonna be this way, Rachel, the waitress. Is this the extended cut? When did you go from theme? It's like the full length of Prince of Bel Air. Yeah, like the full version. The full version.

No one knows the second verse. I thought I was singing the song and then I was I not singing? No, you didn't change tone at all. And then I thought, I'm not a fan, but this doesn't sound familiar. Your job's a joke you broke, your love life's D.O.A. End song. Right, because I was thinking, D-O-A! There you go.

Change of tone. Now he understands. Rachel, the waitress is a great character. Well, I got through a full sender. before that. No, but I was also confused. What was the next sentence? A far cry from turning the world on with a smile.

That could be, but don't you think that could be alone? Yes, Dave, I was on your side until he said Rachel, the waitress. I was like, oh, hang on. That's when I twigged as well. Or celebrating the happy days. I mean, they're quoting a couple of different

couple of different sitcom theme songs. So they're saying that the song is a little bit more gritty. it's in Happy Days theme or whatever the song that's the song about turning the world on with a smile Okay cool Waitress Rachel who starts the series off by walking away from a secure future

With author Donta's Barry Despairs early on What if it all doesn't come together Chandler's job is so boring No one can even remember what it is And most of Joey's income Initially comes from being a subject in medical studies Monica's message to Rachel

At the end of the pilot is Welcome to the Rowanour real world. It sucks. You're going to love it. So apparently that's, that all sums up Gen X. Right. But I vaguely remember reading about their lifestyle is impossible. No, the fact that they live in those, those apartments in a great location in New York is impossible to pay for on their way to the time. I think for Rachel might have been, but the Monica as a full-time chef, Chandler Bing as some sort of executive, business executive.

and Ross is a paleontologist at a museum. They, I believe, would have been fine. So I think I actually vaguely remember in my readings that that was talked about how they were almost subsidising the other three. Phoebe a masseuse, Rachel a waitress, and Joey are an out-of-work actor, getting medical. And there's like always long-running jokes or not really jokes, but it's like a subplot of Chandler, like lending Joey money or paying for things.

Right. That's sort of how they can spread away. Right. Do they explain how they all know each other? Yeah. So Monica and... Ross are siblings. So they went to school with Rachel.

Rachel and Monica were friends. They met in the womb. In school? No. Out of the room. They are different ages. I knew that. Just playing dumb for comedicabler.

It's not fun when you explain that. So that's how those are connection. Chandler went to those high school as well, I think. Or college. Okay. College with Ross. Chandler's College with Ross. So they all come out from Monica.

Monica was, if they're all, it's very even, but if anyone was initially slightly more of the star than anyone else, it was Monica and her role. Like everything kind of revolves around her to some extent. Like it all sort of fans out, the group fans out from her. But, and in those early episodes, she was the only one that had solo scenes or her friends outside of the group.

We only met her co-workers and stuff. stuff like that early on but apparently like very soon after that they made it all very even even screen time and stuff like that or whatever who gives a fuck all right um i do because you're giving this report and i asked because i had no idea great but i yeah i can't remember about phoebe me either and joey i don't remember where they came from yeah i mean chanler and joey are like bestmates yes but i don't i don't know when they met. By the end of the first season, even the theme song, I'll be there for you by the Rembrandt, so we were talking about this before, became a hit.

This was not expected. It was never written to be a hit song. It was written specifically as the show's theme. So did it go for a full? It went for less than a minute. And Kaufman and Crane are actually literally writers on the song. So I don't think they ever expect to write a hit song. but when a radio DJ looped it to make it closer to the length of a normal single,

it became so popular that they decided to add some verses and release it as a single. When they did, it was a hit around the world, charting the top 10 in countries like Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Norway and Belgium. Wow. And it topped the Canadian charts for five consecutive weeks. Holy shit. The cast were moving on. end quote on those

this is no longer the theme song do you have it I'm jumping around a little bit do you have any questions about the song there Dave no no they were a band for a little while before that

the Rembrandts and they I think it's one of those kind of cursed chalices would have made them a lot of money but it's they went from playing little underground clubs

apparently to play in huge shows but only people want to hear that one yeah so I don't know whether they'd take it back or not. It must be nice to live a comfortable life, but it must be a bit tedious

that no one gives a shit about the music you want to make or whatever. Anyway, so talking about money, how much you reckon they were paid per episode first season? First season. 10 gram. Per episode, yeah. I mean, it's not that fascinating. It was 22 grand, $22.5,000.

Per episode. It's pretty great, isn't it? Are you fucking joke? Yeah, it's amazing. I guess it's almost like actors you make no money, but you're buying a lottery ticket every time you go to an audition and you might just make it big. Oh, if you get picked up, yeah.

It's just like you go. Holy shit. 98% of people on zero dollars a year. Yeah. And other people was like, yeah, I made 400 grand last year. Yeah. And on a show that no one's even heard of yet. Yeah, that's right.

It's like, what? It could potentially not be seen, you know, not be a hit and you still get at least a really good year's wage. So everyone was on the same wage in season one. Season two, things changed a bit and different cast members started getting slightly different salaries. Really? Which makes no sense. I would be pissed off.

Unless I was richer than everyone else. But then that would make you feel weird in different ways, right? I think it's just an uncomfortable sort of scenario. And they agreed, according to the article on Emmys.com, which a lot of the quotes from Little Man and Coughman and Crane are from this. article, very interesting interview. So according to that article, it says prior to negotiating for season three, the cast decided to negotiate collectively, despite Warner Brothers' preference, who was obviously the studio,

their preference for individual deals. Salaries were up to $75,000 per episode in the third season, then $85,000 for season four. By season five, they were taking $100,000, then $125,000. I kept stepping up. To return for season 7 and 8, the six actors were paid $750,000 per show. I mean, it's the biggest show in the world. And then finally, the last two season,

one million per episode. Yeah, I knew they were doing a million. I thought it was just the last season, the last two. And they... Were we talking about 20 in a season, is it? Is it? Yeah, is that right? It's the $20 million.

And they... What the fuck? And so they... They all came together and negotiated as a group, basically a mini-union. Yeah, that's good. They threatened to walk off and they obviously they got a super good deal because of that sort of stuff. Well, I think that's fair because especially as you mentioned, like they get to a point where it's equal screen time and they're an ensemble. Like there isn't a lead actor and then like bit parts here and there where it makes sense.

So somebody's working five days a week, 12 hour days and somebody else is doing three days a week short. You know, like that makes sense that they'd get paid differently. But these are all equals. Yeah. How would you reason that they would get paid differently? And it just would just for camarader and all that sort of stuff as well. Yeah, it would be awful. According to Littlefield, from day one, Marta and David, who was, who's Kaufman and Crane,

put forth that this was truly an ensemble show. And very quickly, the actors said, we want to be treated all as equals. I think David Schwimmer knew exactly what would hold the cast together for many, many years to come. Everyone involved with friends made a tremendous amount of money, but it was really the wisdom of Schwimmer who said, I don't want to come to work in an environment where someone is making more. This is all our show and we should all be treated the same. The series ran for 10 years and during the time, okay, that was me. I thought I was on the same point, but I was a changing point there, so I can understand why you guys be confused as a jump around. You heard it this time. Yeah, I did hear it

Okay, yeah, great. That should be a, I should really. Normally my reports are it's one big flowing thing, but this is just jumping in and out of different things. Right. Mine are all dot points. Isn't that fun? Do you have,

is your reporting dot points? Because we never look at each other's reports. Yeah. You don't write it out. Yeah, right. I do it with paragraphs with headings on each sort of section so I can look back through if I need to. That would have saved me in this case.

Do you have any idea how much Crane and Kaufman made from the show? I'm not sure, but I imagine more. Do you reckon they're making even more? Even more, like creators. And do they write a lot of the show as well? I don't think they were, I'm not sure about that. But as creators, would they get cut of other things? Like merchandise?

Yeah, maybe. Well, I imagine that every time it's syndicated, so for example, if it's on Netflix or something, thing like that, and it keeps getting repeated, I think that's big money. Yeah. Whereas maybe the cast don't get. I think they'd get some. Would they get a slice of that?

Oof, yes. So all I need to do is land a TV show. Yes. And it has to be the biggest show of the generation. I don't think that's impossible. Not too much to ask? No, I don't think there's too much to ask. Do you think I could ever get to a place?

You were the wrong person to ask you, my biggest cheerleader. I was going to say, do you think I could get to a place where I could get paid a million dollars for an episode? Yeah. Yeah. See, I mean, I don't doubt about that. I'm surprised it's not happening already. Every year. He says this is your year.

Every year. Every year it's been a better year than the last. Every year he says this is the year you get paid $1 million in one single week. I think I think Crane and Kaufman did also write for the show. But that would make sense. Yeah. So that's, so that's sort of their background.

So we don't know how much, but it's safe to say they got a shit ton of money. And they're producing EP creators. Yeah. Like they had a few different roles. A few different hats. A few different hats. Yeah, because they had all that money. They could buy a few different hats.

You can buy a fancy hat, no problem. Go plated hat. No one's going to ask you any questions. when you walk around with a bit of a gold-plated hat, a fedor. Gold-plated for door. Oh, it's going to read that for sure. All right, new point. The series ran for 10 years, and during the time, many of the cast went through marriages and parenthood.

Lisa Cudrow was the first to get pregnant, and they wrote this into the show in season four. Though Cudrow was unsure about Phoebe getting pregnant as well, the writers came up with a storyline where Phoebe would act as a surrogate for her. brothers triplets. So she was genuinely pregnant then? She was genuinely. Oh, that's cool. Did she genuinely have triplets?

No. No. Oh. She genuinely had a one son. A single. A single. Yeah, as we call them. A single.

In the final season, though, when Courtney Cox was pregnant, it was not written into the show. And this was because in the show, there had already been a storyline about how Chandler and Monica couldn't have kids. Instead, they used camera tricks, props and costumes to hide the pregnant. I love when they do that because it's so obvious, like really big bags. All of a sudden, they're wearing very baggy clothing. I was watching, I had like Will & Grace on.

I wasn't watching Will & Grace. I had the TV on and Will and Grace was on. I just wanted to make that very clear. I don't know why. And what room were you sitting in? I was in the Triple J Studio. I was trying to avoid saying that and I was on radio. Yeah, I knew that.

I knew you. You just wanted to talk about it. You're the Bob. Matt, you mentioned it. We don't have to finish the story now. I had the TV on and like no sound or anything. It's just like moving pictures. But Grace for the entire like five minutes scene was sitting on the couch and had a blanket pulled up way too high, like in a strange position

and a cushion on her because she was reading a book. But like it was so obvious. Why not just put her behind a bench? Yeah. There's a lot of that. Put her in a cardboard box or something. Yeah. Oh, we're moving again.

In Brooklyn. On 99, she just has this giant, one of the characters, the character is not pregnant, the actress is. And she just has this giant handbag that she sort of holds across her front. In a very natural way, the women hold handbags. On the X-Files, they wrote in Julian Anderson. Well, she was pregnant in real life, but Scully wasn't pregnant. So they just made her get abducted by aliens and they were performing like weird things that looked like they were suctioning her large stomach, which is just a pregnant belly. But for a non-pregnant woman, it looked weird.

What are these aliens doing? Weird. New thing. Friends is an interesting example of changing social standards. There were things in the show that caused a lot of controversy at the time. That probably wouldn't now and vice versa. I haven't gone into these heaps. But one instance, Kaufman remembered that there were groups that decided that things should not be represented on television.

The two I remember specifically were 1996 is the one with the lesbian wedding. So people didn't like that in the 90s, the lesbian. And you can't imagine that would cause a lot of controversy now. You'd hope not. And then there was one with condoms where there was one condom left, and Monica and Rachel were fighting over which I'd got it. We weren't even allowed to show the condom. It had to be in a box.

And you'd think that would be, I think that wouldn't be an issue. I think if you have a community. I think if you have a communal box of condoms with your house, mate. You're in a party house. Yeah, that's what I was getting to. I'll be like, good for you guys for pulling your money and buying a big box of diggers. Woo-hoo. Saving money, saving the environment, saving sexual health.

But I've only used four in this box and they're all empty. You've used eight. That's not fair. Economically, it doesn't work out. It tears people apart. Yeah. When sex is about bringing people together. I mean, he's right in so many ways.

But also, I hated that he said that. So both those shows did go to air, though. So they did have a show called the one with a lesbian wedding. Or did they a group? Yeah, no, so that was aired, but they caught a lot of flack for it. I thought they may have not been allowed to. No, but they were just caused an issue. They weren't allowed to show the condom that was true.

that to show the box. And I think those things would be fine now, but in recent years the show, especially, it feels like in the last six months, especially, show's been getting some retroactive controversy from the way they portray a range of issues. In recent times, I just went on a search trying to find articles about this, and there were so many. So just a few examples. There was an article called Millennials Watching Friends on Netflix, shocked by storylines.

still friends, the trouble with old sitcom, and probably my favorite, could friends be any more problematic? And these articles talk about how friends included fatphobic, homophobic, sexist, transphobic jokes. Also featured very few non-white characters, like very, very few, maybe two across the 10 years. There was also an English girlfriend.

Faw, diversity. Yeah, they talked about that a bit. They were, that was, yeah, they went over to. England and that was sort of that was why that was the storyline was written in as sort of a time because they were huge in England so they wanted to go out and apparently Richard Branson and Fergie did cameos in it and I think I read Kaufman saying that she kind of like looking back probably didn't need those sort of stunt yeah I mean it's already huge yeah so it's yeah an interesting one but didn't necessarily need Richard Branson to be on there yeah they really um they

like the they they joke hard about Ross's ex-wife being a lesbian. Yeah. And that's shameful to him. Right. Yeah. You know, it's really embarrassing for him or, yeah. And they're very uncomfortable around her relationship.

And there's that weird, weird storyline where their kid has a male nanny who was like Freddie Prince Jr. or something. And Ross was just like, I don't understand. how can you be a man? Yeah. And he was like, he felt really uncomfortable about it. And everything they showed, like, the nanny was like super good with his kids. But he like, in the end he said, I can't deal with it.

You've got to fire him. But is that maybe just a joke about how he's a weirder? Like, it was that weird at the time? Like, even people were watching like, who would act like that? Or is it more with like wives being upset if the nanny was too good looking? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It seems so bizarre.

Yeah, I saw it a couple years ago. Yeah, but it's hard when you're watching things out of context to understand if it's the time or if that was, you know, what the intention was even at the time. Some of them it's pretty clear. Like some of them are just clearly homophobic jokes. Yeah. It's funny that at the time, I reckon it was probably like kind of progressive.

Because I also read recently that I hadn't really noticed at the time you just sort of let it wash over you. But all three female characters have kids, but in, non-traditional ways. Right. So whether that's Phoebe is a surrogate, Rachel's a single mum, and Monica can't have kids so adopts. So like people are kind of praising it that way

for being quite progressive and showing, uh, representing that kind of like, that's a bit diverse. But then you look at so many other things and you're like, no, you fucked up a lot too or, or I don't know,

not fucked up, but it doesn't age that well now, I think. Yeah. It's tricky. Like how should you judge something like that? Yeah. If you, yeah, I don't know, it's a, it's a, it's a tricky one. I'm not smart enough to her.

Yeah, I can't quite figure it out. Dugan's probably not the place people come for such. Yeah, sure. Yeah, let's make more jokes about second position. Which is also a, what a ballet move. Yes. There's six positions? Sex or ballet?

Which one are you talking about? Sex. I only know of three. position sexually. And ballet. Standing, sitting, lying. Is that right? Yes.

And upside down. Four. Wow. The mythical fourth position. But you have to go to space to do it. It's very hard. It's expensive. It is very hard.

It's so hard. As the show blew up, so did the fame of the cast and the producers of the show accommodated their desires to head to Hollywood with flexible shooting schedules. During the Friends Run, for example, I'll list a few of the movies that the actors did. Lisa Cudrow was in movies like Rommi and Michelle's High School reunion. Fuck, it's good. Romy, it's Romy, isn't it? Romy.

Which is a, it's known as been a cracker of a movie. Cult classic. Analyze this, and she was also in Analyze That. Jennifer Aniston was in She's the One, Office Space, which is another classic, and Bruce Almighty. Courtney Cox was in Scream, Scream 2 and Scream 3. Matthew Perry was in Fools Rush in, 3 to tango and the whole nine yards. David Schwimmer was in six days and seven nights and picking up the pieces. And Matt LeBlanc was in Lookin' Italian and Ed.

And Ed is a movie where he played baseball with a chimp. And I cannot wait to do it on primates. Anyway. It sounds like did you list that in order of success to say? It sounded a little bit like it. And he played. He was in Ed. Yeah, he...

Tadda. His movie career, I don't... I think Ed was, you know, was like a big vehicle for him, but yeah. Even post friends. I feel like he's just sort of stuck to more television stuff. Yeah, but television is the new movies, babies. Babies.

Babies. Oh, ha, ha. Babies. Littlefield said, our cast was in demand as we watched their popularity sore. I haven't done an act. accent from until now, why now? Until halfway through that sentence.

We knew they had choices. Oh, God. And the one thing the producers were great about was that there be enough time during hiatus where they could do films. Matt, no. There was flexibility in when we would start back up. What are you doing?

That was great. Thank you, Doug. Two different takes, but I loved it. God you're good. Just didn't realize I was doing very, very specific dialect. Oh, I loved it. Yeah. Midwest.

Midwest. Midwest, Ohio, baby. Mid Midwest. Mid Midwest, yeah. Yeah. Not low, low, medium. Yeah. Whatever the scale was before.

It was a high week Midwest. High week. Movie schedules weren't the only obstacle for the producers. A few seasons into the series, Matthew Perry started a battle with addiction to prescription, drugs and alcohol. Little Field remembered notice. that Perry had become almost frail and realizing that there was a problem

he approached Perry's management and the producers of the show and they acknowledged that there was a problem. In 1997 Perry went to rehab. He again went to rehab in 2001 and years later when interviewed on the BBC he said that quote I don't remember three years of it

I was a little out of it at the time somewhere between season three and six. That sounds pretty out of it. You can't remember any of it. Yeah but he did stress that he was never high at work just painfully hung over. Oh, wow. Which in some ways is worse for your performance.

Yeah. Arguably. So the season did very well, rated high. The whole way through very consistently rated high. But the final, the finale, rated its bloody socks off, over 50 million viewers. Not a sound felt, but, you know, whatever. One of the main storylines that ran through the show

was the relationship between Ross and Rachel. On again, off again. We were on a break, etc. In the pilot, Ross asks Rachel, can I ask her out sometime? And she says, okay, but it's not for a year and a half before they finally go out. Crane saw one, all right, this is as I've written it. Crane saw one one of the biggest challenges. And that's what threw me.

He saw one one of the biggest. But then he saw one two. Crane saw one of the biggest challenges for them was keeping the audience, invested in the relationship. And when Friends finished up on May 6, 2004, with the episode the last one, the Ross and Rachel Ark came to a close with Ross confessing his love for Rachel,

and they lived happily ever after, we assume. It was almost like a cliche thing. I think he apparently had to run to the airport to stop her. He was at the wrong airport. What a bloody series of events. It's a real comedy of errors. In that episode, Monica and Chandler, and their adopted twins moved to the suburbs as well.

So there's a couple of big things there. I think Phoebe and Joey were also in the episode. They didn't end up together. No, they talked about they were like, we couldn't do that. That would be too neat. Littlefield was no longer at the network by this time. But his fantasy, he said,

was that Chandler and Joey having a spin-off together. But that wouldn't have made a lot of sense with Chandler and Monica having moved to the suburbs side of family. Instead, NBC made Joey, a spin-off series focusing on Matt LeBlanc's Joey character. Oh.

The titular, Joey. The series took over the time slot from friends, but failed to gain a big enough audience and was cancelled during the second season. Crane and Le Bonk. Oh, my God. Talking has been so difficult today. You're nearly there, mate.

Crane and Lebonk. Blanc. Lebonk. La Bonk. Crane had a Lebonk. Crane and LeBonk in second position later teamed up again in 2011 for a new comedy series called Episodes. He heard about this? Yes.

Yeah, it's good. This series found more success and it aired five seasons. In it, LeBlanc plays a version of himself, which scored him the 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series, Comedy or Musical. Do you know that? That's cool. And he was sort of critically acclaimed, but I didn't know how. Did he, but he won awards for playing himself? Yeah.

I didn't realize that. either. I've seen some of it and I think it's pretty good from what I've seen. What a rave review. I've seen some of it and it's all right. I think. There is often discussion. It's no Ed, I assume. I can only assume that is.

Which one was up for Razzie's Ed. So he's won awards at either end of the spectrum. There is often discussion about some sort of reunion, but it doesn't sound like it will ever happen. According to Kaufman, one of the reasons there would never be a reunion is because the show was about that time in your life when your friends are your family. Stop pitching it to me, Kaufman. You got the pilot up already.

You got it. Yeah, now by this stage, like all their kids would be grown up and they don't see each other anymore. No. How old are their kids be? I saw that on... Mid-high school, wouldn't they? It depends on the kid.

I saw that on social media recently. It was like, Ben, would be this age. twins would be this age. Right. Well, the twins were right at the end, right? Yeah. When did I say the season finished? But Ross already had a kid, I think.

Oh, yeah. That was Ben, right? Yeah. Oh, I saw a great. I was watching a few. There was a little special film with Conan O'Brien asking him questions on set. And they were thrown like, what do you call things that go wrong on a thing? Bloopers?

Blupers. Thank you. Wow. That was a blooper. They had Ben, there was this one scene where Ross was determined to hear Ben's first. word. So he's going to him, Ben, say dadda. I'm going to tell your mom, you said it either way, so you may as well just say it. Say data. And he's meant to not say anything. And he kept going, Dadda. The baby. The actor. kept fucking him up.

That's so cute. And he said to Rachel and Jennifer Aniston every time. He's like, oh. The David Twin was just cracking the shit. Shut up. You're ruining my scene. I'm doing a swimmer. I've done it mid-quote again. So she said one of the reasons of all never be a reunion is because the show was about that time in your life when your friends are your family. And once you have your own family, it changes.

Once Rachel had a baby and Monica and Chandler had their babies, life changes. And the show is no longer the show. Wow. It's big, it's deep, I love it. It's beautiful. Courtney Cox has said that she had enough trouble trying to bring all six friends together

for a reunion dinner let alone getting them together to do any sort of reunion show. Though late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel had a mini-friends reunion with Aniston Codrow and Cox reprising their characters for a sketch. Fun! Didn't say it, but I imagine it would have been a lot of fun. Dave, disagree? No, no, no.

That silence is 100% yes. Wow. It's bad radio. Yeah, that is not great for us. Give us a little friction. Give us a little bit of light and shade. Oh, I hate Kimmel. That guy is a prick.

Wow. Is that good enough? Yes. Don't believe that at all. I have more of a felon guy. You're a fallon guy. Yeah, I think so. I don't care.

Neither do I, to be honest. I don't care either way. But if I had to pick one. Jay Leno, baby. Really? He's probably my least favorite. Wow, this is a... I cannot get a read on him.

Let us in, don't know. A long late night. But as soon as you go, really? is no no no they're stupid what do you think yeah me too they's like James Corny but now he seems pretty freaking annoying it is annoying who do you like I don't like any of them I was like Letterman growing up yeah you're big into Letterman aren't you yeah Craig Ferguson I thought it's great but he's they're both done now I think of the current ones probably Colbert

yeah I liked him more as a character yeah same Conan probably yeah I like Conan he seems like a cool guy but yeah I thought all those shows are a bit boring now maybe. And their interviews are no good. Stop the monologue. They're so bad. Monologues are dead. Topical humor is just so boring.

Did you see this? The news? You see this? No. And I work in the news. Craig Ferguson's monologues were great fun because he sort of, he fucked with them a little bit. He went right up and did it

down the barrel. He actually, I'm talking about it. He actually would shake the camera. Can you believe it? What? The crew must have to hate. I went to a taping and he and he sort of he fucked with it all like he they shot the first two things out of sequence.

So he'd he'd plan to call back. He'd do a something that we knew was going to be coming up. He'd call forward to it or something like it. It was real fun anyway. Wow. What a story. Will you be telling that on your late night appearance? Matt, that was so great.

Thank you for being so brave and vulnerable in the space. I just want to be present. And you are, and we are. Does anyone want to help me edit this episode? God, no. You know when I listed topical humor is my favourite? That kind of humor is way better. Get on with the report.

There was also a near full cast reunion when all but Matthew Perry appeared on a televised tribute to James Burroughs, the man who took him to Vegas. Perry couldn't be there because of an acting commitment. In the lead-up to- Bullshit. Fortune.com went through some of the show's achievements, including in the 10, we're very close to end, by the way, in the 10 seasons in which Friends aired,

it consistently ranked in the top 10 of the final season ratings, even in its first season. Its popularity never waned right up to the final episode, which pulled in an astronomical 5.5 million viewers. Astronomical is such a good word. In syndication, Friends continues to attract the same huge audiences that it did when it was hot off the presses. According to USA Today, Warner Brothers earns one billion,

billion dollars annually in syndication revenue. Wow. One billion. So they're all still getting paid heaps. When the cast renegotiated their deals, Jess has done a little bit of a Dr. Evil there. Yeah. Oh, I missed it.

Oh, I missed it. When the cast renegotiated their deals as a team, fortune.com says they received 2% of the show's syndication income. So every member of the core cast makes approximately $20 million a year ongoing. What the actual? You never need to work again. Why the fuck are they in movies? Well, they're not really.

And Jennifer Anderson's done quite a bit. Yeah, because she just loves working. Courtney Cox can fuck off. Cougatown. Fuck off Cougatown. Whoa. We're taking out of the big grotes here. What's Matthew Perry done lately?

He was in the... And Swimmer? The rebooted odd couple. All of you fuck off. Swimmer played Kardashians' dad. He was also Merman on that Madagascar series. Oh yeah, that's true. The sad giraffe.

I think that was his name. No, it's not. He was also, he was on a, he played, um, uh, someone in a podcast serial I listened to. Okay. So he's doing really well. No, it was like a big budget podcast. A big budget podcast. It was a budget podcast.

What are we? We're a budget podcast. That's sure. For sure. There's two types of budgets. Yeah, yeah. No, I heard the tone difference. Yeah.

The whole episode felt like a bit of a fact, fun fact episode rather than much of a story, right? But you have fun facts. But I do have some fun facts. Potentially. I will decide. You will decide. Here they are. The list of guest stars is pretty epic and includes.

This is on Friends. Brad Pitt. Yes. All right. Can you name any others? Magnum P.I. Yes. Tom Tellick.

Greg Kinnear. I don't have him on there, but he's definitely in it. I don't have one there. Yep. Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Robin Williams, Charlton Heston, Sean Penn. Holy shit. And Bruce Willis.

I remember Bruce Willis was dating Rachel. But I don't remember Julia Roberts. That's cool. I love Julia Roberts. One star who asked me on the show that was knockbacked was Juzzy T, Justin Timberlake. He asked. According to Crane, we had a meeting with him,

and he was lovely, but we didn't have a good part for him. Kaufman said, my kids were furious. They wanted to kill me. That feels weird. You feel like you'd... Right apart. They found a part for Fergie. I was thinking the same thing.

Timberl I can actually act. El MacPherson was in it. Yeah. She was no good. You can find a role for... Most of those cameos were bad. Right. Like Bruce Willis was not good in Friends.

Oh, right. Tom Selig was okay. He was a recurring character, though. Have you seen Bruce? Willis in the movie Die Hard? Because he's very good in that. He is. Yes.

So good in that Christmas film. Yeah. I love how the sleigh bells are jing jingling. Brad Pitt is terrible in friends. He sucks so bad. He's a good actor. Have you ever seen him in the movie? Die hard?

He saves the motherfucking day. Oh, does he? Brad Pitt. Bloody hell. Yeah. Very versatile. Anyway, my point is we all make mistakes. Yeah, by saying no to Justin Timberlowe.

Correct. Which we'll never do as a podcast. God. No, when he inevitably comes a knock, knock, knock on our door. We'll find a place for him. Speaking of knock, knock, knock, knocking on doors. At the beginning of this year, Monica's doors had the number five on it. The producers later realized that it didn't make sense as Monica lived on a higher floor.

They changed their apartment number to 20. The number on Chandler's apartment also changed from 4 to 19. God, that was fun. It's weird that they... Wow. It's... Matt, it's a weirder... People at home are going to notice more.

They changed the numbers? Yeah, that's crazy. The apartment stayed the same. Wow. Yes. That brings up way more questions for people at home. Yeah. Than not changing it.

But also, how could the people at home know what level they were up some stairs, but they could still have been number four or five? That's fine. I reckon they had a board meeting about this. Yeah, that's fucked. But thank you so much for that incredible. fun fact. Oh, thank you.

I'm going to choose to take that sincerely. Your two from two here. This is the final one. Not long before Bruce Willis did a stint on Friends, as we just mentioned. He made the whole nine yards with Matthew Perry. During the shoot, Perry bet with Willis that the film would be number one in the box office on the opening weekend. It was number one on the opening weekend.

Perry won the bet, meaning that Willis had to donate his fee for appearing on Friends to charity. Why would you bet against your film doing well? It sounds like Bruce Willis is a fucking badass, that's why. I think this film sucks. Yeah, that's what I'm picturing him. He's in his trailer going on this piece of shit. And Matthew Bruce is like, man, you're in it, I'm in it. It's going to be number one.

I bet you. I bet you. And he's like, right. Whatever. That's amazing. It's just money. He thought it was going to suck. Oh, that's fun.

Jess, do you think? Sure. Great. Not as fun as the one where they changed the numbers. Because of a layout. Oh, wacky. That is, yeah, that's what I should have probably called it. A wacky fact.

Wacky fact. Love it. You can get wacky fact. What? Sorry. That was great. Is that the end of your report, man? That is. That was great stuff.

Great stuff. I've got to say. Oh, wait, no, no, sorry. We should applaud him in an appropriate manner. For those who don't know, that's, that's, they clap in the theme song. Imagine if, yeah, you would have listened this far if you didn't. No, I, I, so no one told your life was gonna be this way. Now I, you say people that might not be fans, not a huge fan, did know too much about it, still really enjoyed that.

So thank you. Thanks, though. That's very nice. Yeah, well done. And I'd like to also thank the man who shall not be named that, uh, suggested this topic. It was been struck from the internet record. Yes. Will Barron.

Maybe that's what the Barron is. He's living on barren soil. That's what that is. His will is barren because he's not left anything to anyone. Because he doesn't exist? He's got no possessions. Wow. Do you think?

Love it. I love it so much. Hey, you know what we normally do with it? Geez, I feel like I'm carrying you guys tonight. You know what we normally do to finish off the show? It's our fun. called fact quote or question. Okay, now we're making jingles.

And it comes from someone. It comes from one of our Patreon supporters. If you want to give back to the show, if you just want to keep us going and you listen every week, you can go to patreon.com slash do go on pod. Check out all the rewards. You can get in exchange, including shoutouts.

You get to vote for the topics that we actually get to shape the show. And you also can get two bonus episodes per month. And as Matt is about to say, If you're at the Sydney-Shineberg level, we'll read out a fact-quota question of your choosing. And this week, our fact-quote or questioner is Kevin Ulysses-Packrad. What a name, Kevin Ulysses-Pacrad. And you also get to give yourself a title. And Kevin has given himself the title of Junior Vice President of Canolone Production.

I love Canalone. I think it maybe was, yeah, I'm guessing that was for your benefit. I mean, it goes down my weird esophagus quite nicely. And... Yes, I live with this. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. Your condition sickens me. Sorry, Dave.

Again, thank you for being brave and vulnerable in the space. Thank you so much. And thanks for cooking, well, Canalone, or overseeing production of Canalone, Kevin Ulysses. And Kevin has chosen to give us a fact. And here it is, it's a paragraph here. James Joyce's Ulysses is one of the hardest books to read in the English language, though it has a huge cult following and people every year dress up as the characters and read from the book on the day June 16th, which is the day the book takes place and also called Bloom's Day,

after the main character of Leopoldo Bloom. But why June 19th? Did you not just say June 16? You have sold me a puppy, Kevin. But why June 19th? It's not, or it is. Whichever date it is, Kevin, you son of a gun. We've got to say we don't fact check out of fact quota questions.

I have not read this yet. I wanted to learn with everyone. Joyce chose this day since it was the day he had his first date with his future wife. Nora Barnacle. I'm starting to wonder, is this a real fact, Kevin? Nora Barnacle?

That does sound from matter, but it does take place on Bloomsday, Heather. Bloomsday. June, something or other. Either the 16th, whichever one you can make, love. You can't come on the 16th,

all right, we'll do on the 19th. That all right? But why the 19th? Well. Is it a moment? The two actually had a pretty avid affair, showing so much affection in the letters they sent to each other. From one of the letters, Joyce wrote, which sold for millions of dollars at an auction. He says, the two parts of your body which do dirty things are the loveliest to me.

Oh, let's list our guesses at what they are. Which do dirty things? Which do dirty things. Well, like, poop. So your butt. It's one. One's got to be your butt. But what's the other one that does dirty things your mouth?

Yeah, thank you, yes. He's a buttoned mouth guy. Or a mouth and butt guy. You know, we've all got our top. He's a button mouth guy. Dave's the bloody. I'm an esophagus guy. Osoffs a soft side.

That is this week's fact, quote, or question. Thank you, Kevin, Ulysses, Pachrat. We've all learned a lot about James Dirty. boy Joyce. But imagine like the modern equivalent of like text messages between Justin Bieber and his fiance selling for millions. I love that as an idea. That's crazy.

One of what his favorite dirty places are. Yeah. And then we also like to thank some Patreon supporters. Normally Jess comes up with some sort of a game for us to. Yes. I was, I thought of this early. Great. And I was like, oh, I've got it.

And I think it's quite clear. All we need to do is give them the title of the sitcom they're in. Preferably, one word. A one-word sitcom. Oh, okay. Title. I like it. I like that a lot.

Do you like the one-word option or do you want to open it up a number? No, I like one word. One word, sitcom. Yeah. There's also six of these people. So are you thinking maybe, oh, fuck. Are you thinking give them a character? Could.

Oh, that's good too. to be upstaged, but that is good too. But we don't know them. That's true. But we know their names. That's true. Wow. Okay.

So maybe if this is the six, the characters in friends, based on their name, we give them a profession and a character trait. God, it's fun, isn't it? That's fun. So which, what do we do? All three. Okay, great. Well, so we get to tell them which of the six they are, a profession, a character trait and the name of their sitcom. Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. Okay. Maybe one of the options. What do you got, Davey Boy? I would like to kick off by thanking all the way from Blackman's Bay down in beautiful Tasmania. Well, Matt will be gigging in the month of August. Yes. What day did you say I'll be there on the Wednesday before we're...

The 22nd of August you'll be in Tasmania? Jokers. Don't have a map in front of me so I'm not sure how close Blackman's Bay is. But worth the drive, I would say. I'd like to thank Zach Llewellyn. Oh, that's good. Zach Llewellyn. Zach Llewellyn.

Zach with a C-H-E. I'm hoping that's not Zach. Zesh. Zesh. I think. Zay. You know how you have like home and away or neighbors. Yeah.

What do you got? I think I was going to say it was Blackman's Bay. What about Beach? Love it. Beach. Great. And he is Phoebe. He's such a Phoebe, the Phoebe of the show.

Yep. Thank you, Zach. Star of Beach. Yeah, that's great. I'd also like to thank from Royal Oaks in Michigan, the United States of America. Michigan. A brilliant three-word name.

It's a strong American name. John Cole Wilkinson. That is strong. John Cole Wilkinson. John Cole Wilkinson. Joey. Yeah, he's definitely a Joey. Oh, he's a Joey.

And he's a sitcom that he's a star of. Plain. Love it. spelt. N.E. It's not cruel. It's not about his looks. He's like, oh, he's a bit vanilla.

Not on like a plane, like a... And the theme song's on a plane by Nirvana. Yes. Yes. Or learn to fly. Food fighters. That's the credits. See?

Yeah. Old Dave Grohl versus New Dave Grohl. And it's all about a journey. God, we are just sitcom making machines. Thank you, John Cole Wilkinson, the Joey of Plain. J.C.W. I'd love to thank from Medford in OR, which is Oregon. Oregon.

I'd love to thank Connor Smith. Connor Smith. I reckon Connor might be our number one supporter name on Patreon. Yeah, true. We've got a lot of Connors. Love them. Keep them coming, Connor. Conners.

I think Conner's clearly the Rachel. Yeah, Rachel. I'm getting Rachel vibes as well. I totally am. What is Connor's show? Wall. Wall. Wall.

Oh, that is beautiful. Yes. And it takes place in a wall? Inside a wall, yes. Right, are they hiding out from something? Oh, I won't give too much away. Of course. But it is.

What's your elevator pitch? It is masterful. Your elevator pitch? It's masterful. Great. No, my elevator pitch is I can't give too much away. Oh, wow. I'm going to green light that.

Thank you for the millions of dollars. TV exec. And I'd also love to thank from California in. California From Yellowknife In Canada Mr Cole

Bouchard Oh Col Bouchard Jeannie I'll be Bouchard Jeannie Like you Jeannie Bouchard Correct

Oh that's good Jeannie But it's also a reboot of I Dream of Jeannie No My life is a genie Which was a spin-off Of My Dream of Gene

And Coles of course Say it with me Jess Ross Thank you Sorry to say it We're all Ross's Cole We're all Ross's I like some parts about Ross

He's fine Can I thank someone Schwimmer Is that a yes Yeah Sorry I don't say you I don't speak

You don't speak swimmer I don't speak shimmer Oh well it's very easy It's uh you say swimmer It's much like I'm Groot Schwimmer Right I mean, you're just look in my eyes and you know what I mean.

It's all about time. You nodded, so I'm going to say it's yes. Schwimmer. Great. I would like to thank from my favorite place in the world. My house. No. You never invite me over.

Your house was a dream. After the incident. I broke everything. Weed on the road. What did you say? Weed on the road. It means it's true. It's sad that that's believable.

I've heard the rumors. Island. Thank you. Ronan Michael Dermott O'Neill. What? What? That is a dream name. Dream name.

James Joyce couldn't think of that. Couldn't do it. And obviously, Jess, again, let's go together. Monica. And the show would be. The show would be called together now. Okay. Hey, babe.

What did you say? Hey, babe. Hey, bail. Hey, bail. One word? Yeah, half in. Hey, bail. Wait, wait, it's one more time.

Emerald. I'm trying to say Emerald. I think you're saying airport and you were saying burrito. Everie. Airport burrito. I didn't understand the game. That's a good title for a show. I'd watch Airport burrito.

I know you would. A lot of people are going to get sick. You basic bitch, I'd forget that to our marketing. Yeah, you got me hooked. Thank you so much. Ronan slash Monica. And I would also like to thank from Bloomington in Diana, Jacob, Alden, Miller. Another good strong name.

I love to giving us their full names. It's not just first and surname. Somehow on my Uber Eats account, it's now Jessica Ann instead of just Jess. So all my orders come as Jessica Ann, and I hate it. Anyway. Is your nickname ever been Jap? No. Because that is the inspector's name on Poirot.

That's correct. Inspector Jap. Oh. And also has offensive connotations. Yeah, that's why I generally don't. But Jacob's a jam. He's our jam. He's initials a jam.

So the show's called jam. And could he be any more, Chandler? Yes. Okay, you've made that reference many times without me getting it. It's just something Chandler says. Could I be any more, Chandler? Could I be? Yeah.

No, but it would be any more? Could you be anymore? I thought he's too. His trademark was, could I be any more Chandler? Yeah. And that would make me hate him. Wow. Okay.

I think Ross is the number one character. It's the number one banana. He's certainly got, yeah, he's definitely the most you. Which is I love me. Yeah. I mean, Ross. Which is me. Yep.

No, we got it. Big time. Also, Jam is a good title for a sitcom because it's j.a.m. Am I right? No. It's jam. Oh. One word.

And he works in a jam factory. Like in Melbourne, the cinemas? Oh, yes. It's very exciting. Great twist. We all thought he was just putting lids on jars. Turns out he works at the movie. He's ripping ticket stubs.

Oh, yeah. I got dizzy when I made that noise. It was a beautiful noise. I didn't like it. Thank you so much for everything you've done. And thanks everyone for joining us here today on the show. And as we always say, Dave, give us a review. Because we're worth it to you.

I actually, because we're on a new thing for like six months, Omni. And there's an easy way for us to see reviews from around the world. And I was reading a few the other day when I didn't even realize I needed it. But it made me feel so much better. There was so many lovely reviews. For a long time on this through iTunes, We can, whatever country and you can only see the reviews, so we could only see the Australian reviews.

But we have found a way, as Matt said, to see all the international ones. So, if you are anywhere around the world, you want to make us feel good, go on to iTunes, give us a nice review, and fill out the box and write something cool. But if you're some kind of sick fuck who thinks, I want to hurt these people, just don't listen. That does enough. You know, don't feel the need to be like,

oh, she's an idiot. I know. I don't need reminding Dad. I must say the hate is so little. It is. And I'm very sensitive to it. Small-minded people. No, people write such lovely things and it really is nice to read, isn't it?

But if you get the right bad, you can fuck off. As we always say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for everyone who has written a beautiful five-star review in the past. We really do appreciate that. You can also find us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. at do go on pod also our website is do go on pod.com our YouTube is YouTube.com slash do go on pod it'd be great for you to subscribe there. I was up to date now I've slipped a couple episodes

behind but I'm going to get back up to date there soon and I'll probably think I'll be releasing another one of our filmed live episodes soon. From the Melbourne Comedy Festival earlier this year. Our patrons have had it for quite a few months but you can see how beautiful we are. Yeah, I really came out of our own. Get lost in our eyes. In our ass. Yeah, get lost in our eyes.

Get lost in second position. I've lost it. All right, team. Until next week, we will say thank you for listening, and I will say goodbye. Later. Bye. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

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