Did You Know This About Friends?

You all know the sitcom Friends. You may think you learned quite a lot about it over the 10 years it aired. But did you know these facts about it?

Insomnia Cafe

Back on the very early 90s, Friends creators, David Crane and Martin Kauffman had written a 7 page pitch for a sitcom called "Insomnia Cafe". The relationships were going to be different in this original idea. Monica and Joey were going to get together. This means, Ross and Rachel weren't going to take a break as their relationship wasn't the centre of attention. NBS then bought the pilot episode and named the show "Friends Like Us". Then the NBS President came up with another title which was "Across the Hall". It then changed again to "Six of One". But when the show first aired on September 22 1994, they ended up calling it "Friends". Short and simple to keep it easy. Now that's a mix up!

Warner Brothers Studios Filming

Now you may not think it but, the opening titles to Friends was filmed at the Warner Brothers Studios. Not Central Park. People end up getting confused at this due to the fountain they're all dancing in. It may look similar to the one on Central Park, but it isn't! Seems strange.

Lisa Kudrow and her Guitar. First Thought - NO!

At first Lisa didn't want to play the guitar because she hated it. But Lisa didn't really get a say because the Friends crew hired a guitar teacher to teach Lisa how to play. Lisa only learned a few chords and decided, no that's it. But Phoebe being Phoebe, she wouldn't know many chords anyway, so Smelly Cat was on point.

Live Audience of 300 Fans!

Did you know Friends was filmed in front of a live audience of 300 people? If you were in the audience you would be watching for about 5 hours. The cast enjoyed doing this as they were testing the material to see if it works and the jokes were actually funny.

"It’s kind of like a test to see if the material works, if the jokes work, if the story tracks" - Matt LeBlanc

The only time filming didn't happen in front of the live audience was Cliffhangers. For examples when it was Ross' wedding and "accidentally" said Rachel's name at the alter. Whoops. They didn't want an audience because of spoilers. They didn't want the audience going out to say what was going to happen.

“We couldn’t have an audience for that. We always remove the audience for the cliffhangers because, obvious reasons, you don’t want to spoil it.” - Jennifer Aniston

Numbers Switching Around

Is this a maths lesson? Did you notice the apartment numbers switch round during the Series? I certainly didn't I'll tell you that. The crew had noticed that Monica's apartment was on a higher floor. So they changed the numbers over from 5 to 20. Chandlers apartment number also changed. It changed from 4 to 19. Now that makes sense.

Magna Doodle Was A Challenge

There was some awesome doodles on the board. You always see the doodle board on apartment 19s door. It was Joey's. Fans really enjoyed looking at the doodles to see if they had secret meanings. It was placed in the centre of the door to if someone walked in the apartment you would see the board. But in the later seasons, it was primarily a job for Paul Swain, who was the best boy on the electric crew.

Gather In, It's Huddle Time!

Before every episode of Friends, the cast had a little huddle together. Cute. When it came to the finale aired, David was dreading the huddle as he knew it would make him rather emotional.

“I started to lose it in this ritual that we had before the show. Which is just a group hug, kind of get in a little circle, right before we come out. And that was the moment I was dreading for a long time because I knew that moment of just looking at everyone in their eyes, and saying ‘Have a good show,’ and knowing that was the last time we were going to be able to be in our little circle.” - David Schwimmer

This is just a few! There are so many many more hidden facts out there!