Friends

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05/18/2004 4:50 PM

With “Friends” Like These …

To date, Kaitlyn, many words have been written about the end of the hit series “Friends”. Which will likely be yet another grainy TV show from the early 2000 to you in your uncertain future, Kaitlyn.

So grandmother must too weigh in on the Friends demise and really, I don’t have all that much to say. But for posterity, Kaitlyn, for you, I’ll try to unearth an opinion. I do have one.

Which is, specifically, that Friends was really a nothing show about four people alleged to be “friends”. TADA! Whatta plot!

Now the show was mildly entertaining as a form of background noise for other activities then upon. For grandmother, it was never the sort of show deserving of my undivided attention as if a drama of the highest order. And grandmother never did get all that involved with the characters, their quirks and depth. On a purely surface level, none of that cast ever impressed the hell out of me. Or the story line either.

After a few years the relationship of the characters began to confuse me. Of course there was always the interesting, and stupid, saga of Ross and Rachel. Rachel was Ross’ true love but for some reason she got mad at him and the relationship had never been cemented. Oh it had been brought to some sort of fruition as I could swear those two had a baby together. But they never got together as a couple until the last episode, I’ve never been sure why. At one point the Ross character married another woman! And get this, Kaitlyn, Ross had been married to a woman, the mother of his son, who turned out to be a lesbian.

One night I tuned in and lo and behold, Chandler and Monica were suddenly item. And desperate to conceive a baby in the episode I watched.

Phoebe was the only interesting character of the bunch, a dizzy blond who was worth a laugh or two. Joey was the ignoramus of the bunch but with that proverbial soft heart of gold. In some fashion Joey was once involved with Rachel but that sub-plot is vague to me.
The characters in Friends were representatives of the current “X” generation, the thirty somethings of this day that present themselves as cynical, canny and all knowing.

Sex was always on their minds.

Okay, sex is often on a lot of young minds. The Jerry Seinfeld show, a “Friends” pre-cursor, once had an episode where each character joined in a challenge to see who could go the longest without “pleasuring” themselves, may you be old enough to understand this at the reading, Kaitlyn.

Sheesh.

Seriously, I do not have now and have never had any group of friends, colleagues or acquaintances that would ever publicly join in such a “challenge”. How on earth would one prove such a thing even if one were to admit to it?

Grandmother is not a prude, Kaitlyn, and shows such as Friends with its sexy undertone provide some juvenile yuks.

The other day I began watching “Laverne and Shirley” on Lifetime TV, Kaitlyn. This show takes place in an earlier and much more innocent era. Sure, there’s references to sex but somehow on Laverne and Shirley one gets the feeling it’s more about making out that actually doing the deed.

At any rate, I laughed out loud at the exploits of Laverne and Shirley. The comedy is a slapstick affair after all and yet I have never laughed out loud at the Friends show. If Laverne and Shirley aren’t desperately trying to fight their way out of a bed that insists on folding itself upright and neatly into a wall unit, then they are struggling to free themselves from the hooks they hang upon, both characters lifted and placed there by a crooked thug, once Shirley’s heart throb.

Okay, corny but I’d argue it’s as funny as a fart and by me farts get entirely too much yuk time in today’s comedy.

So the whole entertainment establishment interviewed the cast of Friends and the wisdom of Jennifer Aniston, mostly famous for her hair, was rained upon us. Perky Katie Courac gushed over the foursome when they appeared on the Today show. Jay Leno laughed it up and asked for their secrets. Ross still looks like a retard and Rachel still appears to have never had a serious thought enter her head.

But someday you shall re-visit the Friends, Kaitlyn, and likely there will be at least one Friends’ reunion a year.

Consider your grandmother unimpressed.