What you may not know about Friends’ very first episode
You may think it’s impossible to dig up any new information about Friends considering it’s barely left the pop-culture conversation over the past 25 years.
But with Netflix recently helping to introduce the show to a new generation, and keeping it easily re-watchable for the rest of us, a recently-spotted continuity error, plot hole or Easter egg appears to go viral pretty much every day.
First screened in the US in 1994, the pilot episode certainly contains its fair share of bloopers.
Here’s a look at 10 of the lesser-known tidbits about ‘The One Where It All Began’.
Chandler and Rachel’s ‘first’ meeting
The show repeatedly changed ages, names and general character histories throughout its ten seasons, and the first episode contains several nuggets of information that would later be contradicted.
Perhaps the most glaring is the scene in which Rachel is apparently introduced to Chandler for the very first time.
And yet several flashbacks shown in future episodes reveal that the pair had in fact talked to each other on several occasions beforehand and, as revealed in ‘The One Where The Stripper Cries’, even shared a drunken kiss.
The two Phoebes
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The Friends team must have thought they’d got away with the pilot’s biggest visual gaffe, but a quarter of a century on one particularly observant viewer finally brought it to everyone’s attention.
In the offending scene, Phoebe is telling Rachel the riveting story of how she’s pulled four eyelashes out as the pair stand in the dining area of Monica’s flat. But in another shot just seconds later, Phoebe can also be seen sitting in the lounge alongside Paul the Wine guy apparently listening to her own anecdote.
However, some more forgiving fans have argued that this could have been Phoebe’s rather mean-spirited twin sister Ursula making a random and entirely implausible blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance.
NBC worried about how Monica would be perceived
After watching the episode rehearsal, Don Ohlmeyer, the NBC West Coast President, charmingly expressed fears that the audience would immediately perceive Monica as a ‘slut’.
Unfortunately, we’re not joking.
The neat freak’s first storyline saw her being charmed into bed by Paul the Wine Guy, a man who claimed he’d been impotent the previous two years, only to later discover that her co-worker had fallen for the exact same routine.
Executives believed that Monica didn’t feel anything particularly strong about Paul in the initial script and could therefore be perceived as promiscuous if she slept with him regardless.
After much to-ing and fro-ing, writers Marta Kauffman and David Crane agreed to make Monica more smitten with the womaniser and justify her putting the ‘snap back in his turtle’.
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Right.
The apartment block’s mysterious layout
Related: Friends’ Matthew Perry reveals the surprising thing he did with the show’s LEGO set
It obviously took some time for the Friends team to get to grips with how the main apartment block should be designed.
After being led out of Monica’s the morning after, Paul the Wine Guy walks off to his right. Unless he lived in the same building on a higher floor or simply fancied a nosey around, the womaniser should, of course, have headed for his left.
The numbers of Chandler and Joey’s, and also Monica’s, flats also change from 4 and 5 in the pilot episode to 19 and 20 later on in the season.
It has four different titles
As in the grand tradition of most American sitcoms, Friends’ very first episode was known as the simple and rather boring ‘The Pilot’.
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However, by the time it hit the DVD market, its name had been changed to ‘The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate’.
To make matters even more confusing, it’s also been listed on various TV showings as ‘The One Where It All Began’ and ‘The First One’.
Jasmine makes a cameo
Cynthia Mann made four Friends appearances as Jasmine, most notably in ‘The One with Frank Jr’ when Phoebe’s brother mistakes her for a prostitute.
But the actress also shows up in the very first episode as the barista who asks for Rachel’s order when she first shows up at Central Perk in a rain-soaked wedding dress.
However, credited only as The Waitress, it’s not known whether this character is supposed to be Jasmine or a different person entirely.
