Friends: The Poll

Big Fat Orange ftw

my favorite Chandler was early Chandler (but I'm indie like that)

i saw the thanksgiving episode with rachel's meat trifle the other day and it was still funny and I surprised myself by remembering everything about it, despite having not seen it in years.

I wonder what became of Joey's daft leather waistcoat.

It got a pilot but the network didn't think it had enough potential

fave ep 4 sure

We should poll funniest Chandler: normal Chandler, big fat orange Chandler, back to kinda normal Chandler with glasses?

You forgot ultra-skinny from too much drugs Chandler

that chandler's just upsetting

never got past the fucking theme song!

was thinking today, the theme tunes kind of a riff upon 'pleasant valley sunday', no?

Crust Punk Chandler

kathleen turner as chandlers transexual dad is the only sensible answer here

rachael because she is annoying. i mean wasnt that the point? annoying, neurotic, single manhattanites fucking up their jobs and relationships because they are annoying and neurotic? and she looks good in a mini skirt + mock turtleneck + boots.

Ross because he was on fire for the last couple of seasons.

Joey a close second for consistent greatness.

I love this show.

Ross' playing the keyboard is the best moment of the whole show.

I have to mute the tv for the duration of the theme tune if I ever watch Friends.

she looks good in a mini skirt + mock turtleneck + bootbs.

the theme song makes me embarrassed for wisconsin

wait are you thinking of "That 70's Show"?

Early cynical IT-skivvy Chandler kind of "spoke" to me at the time. And again when he took up smoking. So, him then.

Several shark-jumps over the years - but an equal number were in reverse, so I kept getting pulled back into it. Give it another four or five years, and I suspect it'll be viewed as a canonical consensus classic.

How I Met Your Mother is like a FRIENDS that is funny and awesome. This show bores me. That said, I voted Phoebe because I liked that character.. didn't her character date one played by Paul Rudd at some point? The last few years of Apatow movies have made me love him.

Phoebe eventually married the Paul Rudd guy. But she was also married to Steve Zahn, and dated Michael Rapaport until he shot a bird.

HIMYM is charming but so very minor

How I Met Your Mother is like a FRIENDS that is funny and awesome

hmm, i've must've been watching the wrong episodes. US sitcoms are DEAD to me now tho.

but i do like Paul Rudd

HIMYM is odd in that the writing is often good but the execution is really flat and uninvolving. I've enjoyed it when I've watched it but gotten many more genuine laughs out of "The Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men".

are these all very zingcentric? i need more surreal bait and switch

HIMYM can be awesome.

the band that did the friends theme is from waukesha, wi.

embed me a funny HIMYM clip dudez

I can't video at work, but I hear you on thinking HIMYM is a snoozefest, once I finally gave it a shot though it hooked me fully and completely. Some great episodes: Slutty Pumpkin, Slapsgiving, the Pineapple Incident, and Wait For It are all great episodes. Little Minesota from this season is great if you are Canadian or a northern American. I guess you have to have enjoyed Pineapple Express, Dr. Horrible's sing-a-long blog, Freaks & Geeks or Forgetting Sarah Marshall because it's essentially the Jason Segal & Friends happy hour. Josh Radnor (lead guy) is okay but outshined by his supporting actors..

Phoebe is the least annoying.

― redmond, Tuesday, January 6, 2009 9:53 AM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how someone could think this is such a gigantic mystery to me that it kind of reawakens my sense of wonder at the incredible diversity of life on this planet

― dugong.jpg (jabba hands), Monday, 5 January 2009 23:43 (Yesterday) Permalink

this is too hilarious

Lisa Kudrow RIP

Unless you hold a gun to my head, I ain't playing this game. They are all pretty appalling when considered as people. They are only slightly less vomitous when considered as largish hand puppets.

That particular argument never really made sense to me; why do you have to like the "Friends" characters to find them funny? Since when is likability a necessary component of being funny?

Are we supposed to take the question of who is best as meaning who is funniest? This is easier, but easier still would be to take best as meaning the most inane, which rather twists the word "best" unduly hard.

they don't have to be likeable to be funny but it helps?

voted for Joey anyway because he has to be the only character on tv who became more enjoyable the stupider he got.

the band that did the friends theme is from waukesha, wi.

― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan)

wait waht? at least one of them is a prodigal son of MN.

barney is CRUCIAL to himym. it would be an absolute bore otherwise.

no wai, robin is everything. barney used to be amazing but there are only so many inane 'this week the writers tried to think of a clever way of saying something about how to sleep with a girl' episodes i can take.

friends sucks. voted phoebe because she's the least evil.

Grotesque characters can be funniest of all, but I'm pretty sure that's not what Friends was aiming for

a hoy hoy: you can't deny dirty Lily though, I think I find her least predictable on the show and love it.

Since when is likability a necessary component of being funny?

Better to laugh with than laugh at imo, or at least balance it so characters redeem themselves well while still bringing lols. Friends characters were never downright hateful tho, just an acceptable level of routinely annoying.

The Seinfeld characters were downright hateful yet still all managed to be really, really funny!

I put some HIMYM quotes into i know i'm one of the only people on ilx who watches *how i met your mother* on a regular basis, but did anyone else see the robin sparkles episode? where robin didn't want people to know that she had so as to not totally spam this thread with How I Met Your Mother stuff, but what scene is above? (still at work)

If you mean the YouTube embed above, it's Adam & Joe's parody of Friends, using stuffed toys instead of actors.

ah cool cool, I'll check it out at home

Ross was insufferable boring whiney "straight guy" character in the first few series esp with that whole Rachel storyline. I think you were supposed to like him or identify with him though. The later episodes where they just let him be a bit of an arse and took the piss out of him for it were way better and actually made me think he was a decent comedy actor.

Rachel also got better later on.

Paul Rudd ftw...

really i never forgave this show for the London/Baxendale episodes

i liked how Baxendale clearly was hating it as much as the viewers.

Since when is likability a necessary component of being funny?

It depends on the style of humour that is being aimed for. I don't buy Friends as some kind of nihilistic 'people are cunts, haha' thing (which, BTW, many comedies I enjoy are going for, Curb or The Thick of It, for example). The programme makers were always intending the audience to sympathise with the characters to some extent, IMHO. This is why I've always found Chandler and Joey the most successful characters in the context of the show, because I can generally relate to them even if supposed to be laughing at rather than with them.