Every show that ever existed seems to be getting a reboot or a reunion: What about mega-hit “Friends“?
Not a chance, says the show’s co-creator Marta Kauffman.
Talking to Rolling Stone, she said, “There are several reasons [not to do a reunion.] One, the show is about a time in your life when your friends are your family. It’s not that time anymore. All we’d be doing is putting those six actors back together, but the heart of the show would be gone. Two, I don’t know what good it does us. The show is doing just fine, people love it. [A reunion] could only disappoint: ‘The One Where Everyone’s Disappointed.’”
She is thrilled, however, that people are still discovering the show. When the show first showed up on streaming four years ago, Kauffman says her teenaged daughter’s friends thought it was a new show! “They thought it was a period piece,” she shared. As if!
Why is it still such a big hit, 20+years later? “It’s a comfort-food show,” she said. “These are trying times, and certain people want the comfort food rather than the difficult, mean-spirited kind of show. It’s warm, it’s cozy, [the characters] love each other. What’s not to love about that?”
She may not have appeared in the scene herself when “Friends” first aired, but Courteney Cox got a real-life re-do of a classic moment from the sitcom while moving furniture at her home over the weekend.
In a video shared on her Instagram page, Cox, who played Monica Geller on the hit series, channeled her onscreen brother, Ross (David Schwimmer), by helpfully — or perhaps not so helpfully — shouting “Pivot!” to a group of guys relocating a desk to a different room in her house.
Devoted “Friends” fans should immediately get the reference, which aired during the episode “The One With the Cop,” a season five installment that just celebrated its 20th anniversary last month. (We’re going to pause for a moment to feel old as hell.) In the scene, an increasingly frustrated Ross repeatedly shouts “Pivot!” at his pals Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) while the trio try — and fail — to carry a couch upstairs.
Watch the original scene here (the action starts around the 1:00 mark):
Cox had much better luck than Ross, since her movers were able to successfully get her piece of furniture to its destination (and without having to cut it in half, either). We just wish one of her helpers had retorted with Chandler’s “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Next time, Courteney.
Fans can take a break (for now) from freaking out over “Friends” leaving Netflix.
Ted Sarandos, Netflix Chief Content Officer, has denied that the sitcom will be removed from the streaming service, telling The Hollywood Reporter that its “departure is a rumor.” According to THR, the note on the show’s Netflix page saying that it would be leaving on January 1, 2019 has also been removed.
THR also says, however, that departure dates frequently appear and disappear from Netflix, most likely due to contracts expiring and/or going through renegotiations. Netflix itself didn’t have a comment outside of Sarandos’s remarks, and Warner Bros., which produces “Friends,” did not comment.
While it seems that the original January date is no longer accurate, all signs still point to “Friends” leaving Netflix sometime in the next year, thanks to parent company WarnerMedia launching its own streaming service. That’s set to happen in late 2019.
Our original report about fans’ distress over the loss of streaming “Friends” is below. Stay tuned to see if/when we get a more concrete departure date.
ORIGINAL REPORT:
No one told “Friends” fans life was gonna be this way: The sitcom favorite is leaving Netflix next month.
Over the weekend, Netflix subscribers began noticing warnings from the streaming service that “Friends” was due to be removed from the company’s library on January 1, 2019. As you can imagine, the news elicited a collective horrified gasp of “Oh. My. GAWD!”
“Friends” first landed on Netflix back in 2015, and immediately became one of the most-watched series on the streaming service, especially appealing to younger audiences that were in diapers during the show’s original run. But as Collider points out, Netflix paid a hefty price to acquire the “Friends” rights, and with its pivot (“PI-VOT!”) to more and more original programming, it makes more financial sense to take a break from the sitcom. (Though it seems that fans are even less forgiving than Rachel about this whole “break” situation.)
Another likely factor in this change is the impending launch of “Friends” producer WarnerMedia’s own streaming service, of which “Friends” would obviously be a cornerstone. It remains to be seen, however, if fans will really shell out for yet another standalone service, or just hope to catch a “Friends” rerun on one of the many cable channels in which it airs in syndication.
While you mull over whether or not to make yet another withdrawal from your bank account, catch “Friends” on Netflix now, while it’s still there for you.
An alleged thief in the UK who bears a striking resemblance to “Friends” star David Schwimmer has been arrested, and local authorities are thanking the actor for helping to assist in their search for the lookalike criminal.
A Facebook post (which has since been removed) from the Blackpool Police in Lancashire, England went viral last month, thanks to the pictured suspect’s uncanny resemblance to Schwimmer. Followers immediately latched on to the similarity, and thousands of people chimed with with “Friends”-related jokes about the identity of the culprit.
Schwimmer eventually caught wind of the story, and shared his own security camera-style video, insisting he was at home in New York City at the time of the incident.
Despite all the silliness that the original post generated, the “Friends”-adjacent attention ended up helping authorities after all: They revealed this week that they arrested a 36-year-old man in connection with the theft.
Following the appeal we posted looking for a man who resembles a well-known actor, we now have an update. Thanks to our colleagues @MetPoliceUK, a 36-year-old man was arrested in Southall last night on suspicion of theft. Thank you for the support, especially @DavidSchwimmer! pic.twitter.com/nOgF1KQb0X
“Thank you for the support, especially @DavidSchwimmer!” the Lancashire Police tweeted on Tuesday.
The moral of the story? The internet will always be there for you, whether it’s cracking jokes about Ross from “Friends” or helping to crack a police case.
