26 Interesting Facts You Should Know About FRIENDS Before You Call Yourself A Superfan!

26 years ago on this date, FRIENDS came into our lives. On Sep 22, 1994, Rachel Green barged into Central Perk wearing a beautiful wedding gown after she left d-bag Barry at the altar. She kickstarted a comical journey of six friends that will remain etched in our hearts until the end of time. It made us laugh, showed us the realities of adulting and also taught us many things like - Joey doesn't share food and that you should never eat Ross' sandwich.

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On the 26th anniversary of the first episode of FRIENDS, here are 26 facts about the show that you should know before calling yourself a superfan:

1. The show wasn't called FRIENDS initially. Co-creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman had initially pitched it as Insomnia Cafe. There were many other titles under consideration before they zeroed it down to Friends.

2. All the characters were named after characters from 1970 show All My Children. Ross Geller was named after All My Children star Ross Chandler. Joey Tribbiani was inspired by Dr Joe Martin. Monica came from Monique and so on.

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3. Courteney Cox was originally supposed to play Rachel but she rejected it. Why? Because she liked the strong character of Monica better.

4. Ellen DeGeneres rejected to play Phoebe. Jane Lynch and Kathy Griffin were also being considered.

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5. Bruce Willis starred in a guest appearance because he lost a bet to Matthew Perry and ended up winning an Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor. What was the bet? Perry believed that their movie The Whole Nine Yards would be number one at the box office on its opening weekend. Willis had disagreed with this.

6. Shooting the fountain scene was no fun. The cast members were in a miserable condition while they were trying to show as if they were having fun. It was shot at 4 in the morning when it was really cold. They were exhausted and drenched in water as they were trying to splash around in the park.

7. Friends co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane were the one who wrote the theme song I'll Be There For You. It eventually became a hit. It was not only number one on the US top 40, but it was also was an international hit.

8. Before the show aired, all the cast members took a trip to Las Vegas together. It was director James Burrows' idea. Why he did do that? Because he "had a feeling about the show". Burrows told them, "Once the show comes on the air, you guys will never be able to go anywhere without being hounded."

9. FRIENDS was filmed in front of a live audience consisting of 300 fans, beside cliffhangers. It was a sort of test to see whether the jokes and story etc. worked or not.

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10. Lisa Kudrow and many others thought Chandler was gay. When she first read the script, Lisa thought Chandler was supposed to be gay. Well, a lot of fans speculated the same especially in the first few seasons.

11. In 1997, the cast members protested for equal pay. In the first season, they were earning 22,000 USD per episode. In the second one, they had slightly different salaries. They negotiated because they wanted equal salaries for everyone.

12. Ross remained 29 years old for a couple of seasons. There were quite a few goof-ups like this.

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13. Jennifer Aniston had almost left the show mid-way. She was committed to another sitcom called Muddling Through. Had that picked up, she would left FRIENDS.

14. There was supposed to be a seventh FRIEND. NBC originally thought the cast was too young. It even suggested the makers to add some adult characters who would advise the twentysomethings. They suggested to add Pat the Cop or Coffee Joe to attract older audience.

15. There was a connection between FRIENDS and Home Alone. How? Monica and Chandler bought the house owned by the McCallisters in the movie.

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16. NBC also had a problem with Monica sleeping with a man on their first date. President Don Ohlmeyer had objected to that scene.

17. Jon Favreau, who played Monica¡¯s boyfriend Pete Becker in season three, auditioned for Chandler's role when the pilot was being shot.

18. Matthew Perry struggled with alcohol addiction throughout the filming of show. He would often arrive on the sets with a terrible hangover. In an interview, he said that he had no memories of shooting three seasons of FRIENDS at all.

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19. Believe it or not, Joey and Monica were supposed to be the central couple. ¡°Initially we thought the big love interest was Joey-Monica. This is before we wrote the script, when we were just pitching the series,¡± Kauffman told NBC in 2004.

20. James Michael Tyler was cast as Gunther because he was the only extra artiste who knew how to operate an espresso machine.

21. On an average, one FRIENDS episode took five hours to shoot.

22. Joey¡¯s huge white dog belonged to Jennifer Aniston. Her friend had bought it for her.

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23. Matt LeBlanc was dangerously broke before he was cast on FRIENDS. He just had 11 USD. He even didn't have the money to visit a dentist so he bought emery boards and filed his uneven tooth himself.

24. NBC didn't quite like the show at first. It described the pilot as "not very entertaining, clever, or original".

25. Kudrow's pregnancy was written into the show, but Cox's couldn't be written. When Kudrow got pregnant, writers made her a surrogate for her brother. But when Monica got pregnant, she was dressed in baggy clothing. Why? Because the show had already established that Chandler and Monica couldn¡¯t have kids.

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26. None of the actors actually liked the theme song. "No one was really a big fan of that theme song. I don't mean to say that. We felt it was a little, I don't know. Dancing in a fountain felt sort of odd, but we did it," Aniston had revealed earlier.

It's been 26 years since the show aired and it continues to entertain new generations. Do you know generation of FRIENDS fans confuse Matt LeBlanc for Joeys' Dad and he shoos them away?