NBC tones down praise of Friends
US TV network NBC has promised not to repeat trailers describing outgoing show Friends as the "best comedy ever".
The network had run the ads in anticipation of the show's last season, which ends in May.
"They were just trying to hype it and went overboard," NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said. "It ran once and it won't run again."
Frasier star Kelsey Grammer had complained about the ads, joking "we all know it's not true" to reporters.
Frasier, which is also on NBC, will also end its run a week after the final Friends show.
"It will be more of a social phenomenon for Friends to leave than it will for Frasier, so we will accept that," Grammer said.
Rivals
"We've always been creatively, I'd like to think, setting a very high bar. And we can go out saying that we continued that to the end," he added.
Frasier has won the Emmy winner for best comedy five times, while Friends has won the best comedy Emmy once.
But Friends has been the number one US TV comedy among adults aged 18-49 for five years in a row.
CBS chief Leslie Moonves also took a swipe at his NBC rivals.
"It takes a lot of chutzpah to call it the best comedy in television," Moonves said.
"The people who did All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Cheers, Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond, all those shows may have a little bit of a problem with that claim," he said.
Friends actor Matt LeBlanc is to have his own spin-off sitcom based on the character of Joey, the haphazard soap actor, later this year.
What exactly is the best comedy show ever?
― Rosie, Saturday, 24 January 2004 20:12 (twenty-two years ago)
one year passes...
three weeks pass...
Apparently they showed the last episode of the truly dire Friends last night on Channel 4. Does this mean we might see an end to the endless repeats of this shite, or am I being way too optimistic?
Oh and I may have changed my mind a little from up thread and now think that possibly Curb Your Enthusiasm is better than Seinfeld. Not sure yet. Father Ted still rules supreme over everything.
― Nick H (Nick H), Saturday, 14 May 2005 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)
You are crazy, or possibly dumb. Friends was much bigger than Seinfeld, on both sides of the Atlantic. And part of this is certainly the attractiveness of the relative casts. Julia's hair never stood a chance.
The other part of course, is that a smile is generally more popular than a sneer.
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Sunday, 15 May 2005 19:17 (twenty-one years ago)