The one where no one notices we've gone

It is the 3 week anniversary. Did you notice? I bet you didn’t.

It has been 3 weeks and 1 day that situation comedy Friends has been removed from Free-to-View television in the UK. And you haven’t even given it a second thought. Not even a glance in at the reduced single season Friends' DVD from the petrol station mesh bin on your way home tonight. And you expect dinner on the table? You unthinking cretin.

Now I don’t want to give my age away, but I was younger when Friends first was aired on Channel 4, in 1994. It would end up becoming a piece of television that helped to define the zeitgeist of the 90’s. This, when you think about it, is quite a feat for a strangely safe, genial and quaintly set situation comedy. And, warming to my theme here, looking back on it from the lofty position of our post-Friends revisionist citadel - How on earth did this happen?

It didn't usher in the era of high concept situation comedies. With it's situation revolving around 6 friends interacting with each other almost exclusively so either in one of their 3 apartments or at the local coffee house, it was far from being boundary pushing. It was no My Two Dad's. Now that was high concept. I will leave it to the show's intro to sumarise:

Yes, that's right - 1 daughter, two guys who could be the father and a judge who orders them to live together. In the Judge's sub-let.

It wasn't even as conceptual as the situation comedy where a short, hairy space alien came to live with a human family and the jokes were based all on his childlike understanding of humanity and surprisingly witty barbs. Yes, of course, I am referring to ALF. What else?


The highest concept that they asked the viewers to accept was that such a dystopian group would be friends in the first place. If they are all such good guys to be around - where were the others? Answer me that Chandler Bing, how come you could all spend all your time together in the coffee house or at home? 2 of you are blood relatives, another is a friend from school then 2 more are friends from college - apparently one was picked up by accident and the other one (the least pretty girl) is a proto-violent eccentric who must know something about one of you because she doesn't seem to fit in your social sphere frankly at all - and you couldn't get just one more friend between you? To be fair, I don't know anyone who would want to spend that much time with any of you quite honestly.

Friends may have had an ensemble cast, each sharing the screen and laughs, but then so did Seinfeld. And Seinfeld remains almost cultish in the UK, despite it being seen as inordinately better than Friends.

Friends made an issue of the fact it was filmed in front of a "live studio audience" and should a joke or one-liner not hit the mark and get the big reaction expected, the writers were on hand to redraft and try a different one. But Happy Days not only did this, but also made a specific feature of it with a member of cast making a voice-over announcement at the beginning that "Happy Days is filmed before a live studio audience" and that show was made in... assessing the fashion... my guess is anywhere between 1953 and 1962.

Friends didn't even leave a great legacy with a decent spin-off. Cheers served us the superior Frasier. Friends dolloped up Joey. And the cast went on to be in some films I forget the names of but were generally awful. Apart from Lost in Space - that was alright. I'll give them that one.

So Friends was not groundbreaking, the cast was not individually comically talented, it didn't feature a space alien at any point and the characters were so unlikeable that no one could write a fictional character to like them for more than half a season - not even that monkey hung about for long. Which brings me back to my question - how did it become arguably one of the defining aspects of the 1990's.

It did something that I don't think any other comedy managed. It became a lifestyle choice for most of the young, hip, generation.

Girls asked for the "Rachel cut" at salons and would sit on their beds filling in magazine questionnaires about who their secret crush was most alike out of Joey, Ross and Chandler and squealing. Boys started saying "How you doin'" to everyone with no irony and would admit to watching a sit-com on a Friday night instead of being threatening at a bus stop. Relationships would stand and fall on the "On a Break" theory - and people would know exactly what this meant. Groups of friends would demand coffee houses be established with plush furniture. Coffee drinking from oversized cups became the height of youthful sophistication. It was simply hardwired into daily life.

The most important hair in the last 17 years

I even bought the damned Rembrandts' LP under the illusion that it was the favourite band of the characters so must be good. Not just bought it, but taped it [don't tape music, kids, it is killing the music industry] to play in the Volvo. As if that would make me a cool, young professional coffee drinker who had female friends with outstanding hair. I didn't even have a job.

So the anniversary is important. Because for all that, for all the relentless syndication of it's 236 episodes, that it got me to listen to tepid middle of the road rock at a time when Nirvana were happening, for all the arguments on public transport about who we would rather go on a date with: Rachel "Scientifically proven best legs of all time " Green or Monica "Because she's boarderline OCD at least you'll have a well structured evening ahead" - Geller as if it actually mattered - for all that, just like you, I don't miss it.

I have Big Bang Theory now. I'll put the kettle on.