♪♪
-It's not very often an event comes along
that brings everyone together.
[ Camera shutter clicks ] -Even insiders are surprised
when it becomes one of the most popular
and profitable shows in TV history.
-We didn't know it was going to be as big as it was.
-Skipping "Friends" is almost a crime in the '90s.
-You couldn't escape it.
-At one point, the cast's on basically
every single magazine.
-We all crave to have friends
who will really be there for everything.
-But not all friends are created equal.
-The cast are not being given the same paychecks.
They're all out for themselves.
-And production on the show
becomes increasingly filled with drama.
-It's just a sausage factory.
-The show's stars are singed by the glaring spotlight.
-It's just a very, very strange thing to go through.
-They are under the vicious microscope
of late '90s tabloid media.
-And then the cast of the world's favorite comedy...
It can be a lot to manage.
-...is touched by tragedy.
-Particularly, if you're hiding a secret.
-I'm doing great.
I'm doing great. Couldn't be better.
Yeah.
♪♪
-How you doin'?
[ Dial-up modems screeching ]
♪♪
[ Indistinct chatter ]
-In the '90s, America stops on Thursday nights
as The Rembrandts sing 10 words, punctuated by four claps.
[ "I'll Be There For You" plays ]
-♪ So no one told you life was gonna be this way ♪
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
-The sitcom about 20-somethings
living in New York is impossible to ignore.
-Everybody watched "Friends"
unless you were living under a rock.
-Fans are soon asking each other, which "Friend" are you?
The spoiled runaway bride?
-[Scoffs] Well, maybe I don't need your money.
[ Phone call ends ] Wait, wait, I said maybe.
-A smart, obsessive compulsive?
The science nerd?
Maybe the charming, dumb hot guy?
-How you doin'?
-Or eccentric musician?
How about the funny one?
-I'm not great at the advice.
Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?
[ Laughter ]
-It's really very hard
to overstate what an exceptional hit it was.
-How good of friends are you?
-Not just in the States,
but really all over the world.
-30 years after its debut,
the series continues to make friends
with new generations of viewers.
-I find it amazing that its continued to have such,
uh, love and such an audience.
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
-It wasn't that they were just beautiful people.
It's that they created something so magical together.
-But the show's bright, happy exterior
hides shadowy secrets behind the scenes.
-We think the story of "Friends" is going to end happy,
but unfortunately it ends with a surprise twist.
[ Ambulance sirens wailing ] -Requesting two additional units
and a supervisor, respond to Blue Sail Drive.
-♪ Must See TV ♪
Thursday, "Must See TV" means no more repeats.
-Get out!
-"Friends."is born at the height of NBC's dominance
as America's number one network,
anchored by a Thursday night lineup
of hit comedies including "Seinfeld"
"Mad About You" and "Frasier."
It's all new comedy, all night long.
-Whoo!
-We just related to television
very differently in the 1980s,
in the early 1990s than we do now.
My name is Saul Austerlitz,
and I'm the author of "Generation Friends."
That we would just, you know, turn the TV on at 8:00
and turn it off at 10:00 or 11:00
and not change the channel.
It seems very alien now, but NBC in particular
became a real master of evenings like this.
[ Ceiling clattering ]
-But the shows on primetime are not being cast
for audiences of all ages.
-There were shows about middle-aged people,
doctors and lawyers, kind of professional shows.
And then there were shows about families
with mom and dad and the kids.
Television, even in the early '90s,
really wasn't about young people.
-The president of NBC wants desperately for that to change.
-Warren Littlefield said he started wondering about
those people and that age group and, you know.
Where was the show about that and for them?
I'm Kelsey Miller,
and I am the author of the book,
"I'll Be There for You: the One About Friends."
Some would say it was the right moment for a Gen-X comedy.
-Enter writers and real life friends
Marta Kauffman and David Crane.
Along with their producing partner Kevin Bright,
Kauffman and Crane create "Dream On," a hit for HBO,
but they stumbled,
trying to repeat that success on network TV.
♪♪
-They're kind of wondering,
is it worth it for us to keep at it
in terms of trying to get a network series?
-But they do.
Pitching a new sitcom to NBC
they call "Friends Like Us."
The story draws upon the writer's own experiences
as 20-somethings living in New York.
-It's a show about a time in your life
and your friends or your family,
there is a sort of inherent romance to that.
-It's also a show NBC's Warren Littlefield
hopes can lure young adults to NBC.
So in 1993, he orders a pilot.
But casting six actors, all in their 20s,
all trying to figure it out,
proves to be an unexpected challenge.
-I read the script and I was thrilled.
It just seemed like fun.
My name is Ellie Kanner and I cast the pilot
and the first season of "Friends."
And we were towards the end of pilot season,
so the pool was limited.
It was frustrating because a lot of actors were unavailable.
-Kauffman and Crane already have two performers in mind.
28-year-old David Schwimmer to play Ross
and 30-year-old Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe.
But neither actor is an easy yes.
Schwimmer had been on a really short-lived Fox sitcom
called "Monty."
-I'm going to be a chef.
-Oh, really? I want to be a jazz singer.
[ Laughter ]
-Schwimmer found it to be kind of a dispiriting
and unpleasant experience.
-He really resisted going back to television.
Kauffman and Crane, when they wrote "Friends,"
they had him in mind,
him and only him.
And they had to really woo him to get him back.
-I think once he read the script and heard
that it was written for him, he probably felt like,
oh yeah, oh yeah, I can do this.
-Casting Kudrow as Phoebe presents a different problem.
She's already got a small part on the NBC
Thursday night show "Mad About You"
as the waitress Ursula.
-Do you think that this boy should call his wife?
-Yeah, maybe he could tell her about
that blonde girl he's always bringing in here.
-That's my wife.
[ Laughter ]
-Oh.
[ Laughter ]
-They worked it out so Ursula could actually be sisters
with Phoebe, twin sisters.
-For the role of aspiring actor Joey Tribbiani,
Producers spot 26-year-old Matt LeBlanc,
a relatively unknown actor starring in
a "Married with Children" spinoff.
-He's on a show called "Top of the Heap" on Fox,
and, you know, "Top of the Heap" is not a particularly good show.
[ Laughter ] -Can't resist that nutty cat.
[ Laughter ]
-That Garfield is some actor.
-Matt LeBlanc,
he had the least amount of experience,
but he came in and was funny
and he just kept getting better and better.
-Unlike LeBlanc, 26-year-old Courteney Cox
is a seasoned sitcom star
known for her recurring role on another NBC hit,
"Family Ties."
-And more recently,
she had been in "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective"
with Jim Carrey.
So they knew that they wanted to cast
Courteney Cox as Rachel.
-That's right, she slotted to play Rachel Green,
the romantic lead of the ensemble cast.
Cox suggests she's better suited to play Monica,
Rachel's career and cleanliness obsessed roommate.
Producers pretend to agree.
-We said to ourselves, okay, we'll let her read
and test to the network for Monica,
but then we'll offer her Rachel.
Then she was so good when she was testing for Monica
at the network, we were like, oh, wait a second.
-Cox gets the role she wanted,
but producers are stuck trying to cast
the show's most critical role
out of an increasingly shrinking talent pool.
-The challenge in casting Rachel
was that we needed someone who was gorgeous
and could play this princess,
and yet be likable and warm and funny.
-Then Ellie sees an up-and-coming actress
who seems like the perfect fit.
-When you look at Jennifer Aniston,
she's funny and you love her.
We've seen hundreds of people,
but not quite like this.
-The 25-year-old Aniston nails her audition.
There's just one problem.
-Jennifer Aniston was committed to another show
called "Muddling Through,"
which was with a different network.
CBS, which we heard was...
not great.
-The rival networks cut a deal.
NBC gets Aniston for six episodes of "Friends Like Us,"
but if CBS picks up "Muddling Through,"
Aniston will be forced to leave the NBC show.
-It was a very risky move.
-Equally risky is the producers gamble
on 26-year-old Matthew Perry,
who wins them over with his charming take on Chandler,
Joey's wisecracking roommate.
-Matthew Perry was also cast on another show,
a show on Fox called "LAX 2194."
It was a futuristic show about baggage handlers at LAX.
-Enjoy Los Angeles.
-Oh! -By the way,
Griffith Park has the best picnic areas.
-We're all sitting around praying that the pilot
that Matthew Perry did doesn't get picked up.
There were a lot of actors that just weren't available,
so we had to take that risk.
-With the cast, tenuously assembled,
producers recruit veteran sitcom director
James Burrows to direct the pilot.
On May 4, 1994,
The first episode of the show, now simply called "Friends,"
is filmed in front of a live studio audience.
-Hey everybody, this is Rachel,
another Lincoln High survivor.
-This is everybody.
This is Chandler and Phoebe and Joey.
And you remember my brother Ross?
-Sure. -Hey.
-Hi. Oh!
[ Laughter ]
-It just felt like magic.
James Burrows really helped them bond together
and form this chemistry that just came alive.
-I just feel like someone reached down my throat,
grabbed my small intestine,
pulled it out of my mouth and tied it around my neck.
-Cookie.
[ Laughter ]
-When news cameras are invited to set,
they capture the real life camaraderie
that's already developing.
-They're just such hams. That's the problem.
They're doing a little skit right now,
pretending they're going to do commentary.
They just want to be on TV.
-We're getting along great.
We're having a great time.
We hope to do this for 6 or 7 years...
or eight.
-We didn't know it was going to be
as big as it was.
You know, like, I don't think anyone really knew.
Maybe James Burrows knew.
[ Airplane engine rumbling ]
-He definitely seems to know something,
because after shooting the pilot,
Burrows charters a jet
and flies the six actors to Las Vegas to celebrate.
During dinner, the director makes a prophetic statement.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
-He says, "Enjoy this weekend
it maybe the last time
you'll be able to be out in public
without people recognizing you."
[ Indistinct chatter ]
I think it's a kind of reminder
that there's something amazing about knowing
that you're on the cusp of this success,
and also maybe something a little bit terrifying about it.
-But that success is soon threatened
by the producer's risky move in casting Aniston
knowing she had a possible prior commitment at CBS.
-On vacation, I found out.
"Oh, by the way, just so you know, when you come back,
you're gonna have to recast Jennifer Aniston,
because they picked up 'Muddling Through.'"
And I was like, "What?!"
So we spent another month
trying to recast Jennifer Aniston,
which we obviously could not do.
And then at some point they just said, "Okay.
she'll do both shows and let's see what happens."
-But NBC's Warren Littlefield isn't going to wait and see
if "Muddling through" muddles through.
He actively tries to sink the show using counterprogramming.
-NBC had this unused cache of movie adaptations
of Danielle Steel novels that they had never put on the air.
-Once in a lifetime"... -Jeffrey!
a tragedy took her husband, now a single mother,
afraid to love,
is torn between two men.
-And decided that they would run
a whole bunch of them in the slot
that "Muddling Through" was on on CBS
to kind of kill off the show.
-"Once in a lifetime"... -It works.
CBS cancels the sitcom for low ratings.
Aniston is now on the set of "Friends" exclusively
understanding it's the cast's big break.
-All the elements are in place, so...
if we -- if we blow it, [laughs]
it'll be really sad.
-After hundreds of auditions,
dozens of rewrites and months of shooting,
"Friends" debuts on September 22, 1994,
as part of NBC's can't miss Thursday night lineup.
And then it kind of misses.
-It wasn't that big of a hit.
It was just, you know, it was finding its audience.
-It did well, not amazing.
-And then I'd say at the beginning of the summer,
everyone was talking about it.
♪♪
-It was the summer rerun effect.
And by the time they came back for their second season,
it had gone from pretty good, successful,
doing well show to something closer to a phenomenon.
-But the show's days in the sun will be short lived.
By the middle of the second season,
clouds form as controversy brews.
-Everybody was so afraid
that people would come bearing torches to NBC.
♪♪
-In the early '90s,
a new generation is coming of age.
These former latchkey kids, raised on MTV
and now wearing flannel and listening to grunge,
are getting a bad rap in the media.
-They are angst ridden, a bit bitter,
and their chief talent seems to be the ironic aside.
-The title of Douglas Copeland's 1991 novel
becomes the shorthand name for these young adults.
-Generation X or the X generation,
it is, I suppose you call it a splinter generation
from the baby boom at large.
-It's these 20-somethings
that help make "Friends" a ratings sensation.
But in an interview on the "Today Show,"
the cast seemed reluctant to be the voice of Gen X.
-Between all of you, you know, a lot of people say
this is a hot show for generation X.
-Oh! -I know, I know.
-[Laughing] I know. I know. -Oh!
-Generation X, I guess, implies that we're all aimless
and we're just kind of hanging out listening to,
you know, music and watching
"The Brady Bunch" or something, I don't know.
-But as the "Friends" audience grows,
it's clear the show's appeal crosses demographics.
-David Crane has this experience
where he's walking through LAX
and sees the cast of his show on
basically every single magazine.
-It's the beginning of "Friends" mania,
and the cast and creators Kevin Bright,
David Crane and Marta Kauffman are intent on cashing in.
-It's a great thing, on one hand,
when your show kind of becomes a name brand
and you can stamp it on anything and people want to buy it.
-The cast are not being given the same paychecks,
they're all for themselves.
They're trying to strike while the iron is hot.
They're trying to make deals
with different brands to do commercials.
Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston
did an infamous Microsoft Windows informational video.
-And you are?
-Uh, this Jennifer Aniston. I'm Matthew Perry.
We're here to see Mr. Bill Gates.
There is this massive, massive tie-in
with Diet Coke.
-Match the name under the cap
with the "Friends" character who drinks the Diet Coke
in the Diet Coke commercial each week,
and you're a winner.
-"Friends" is popular enough
to turn Aniston's '90s hairstyle into the hottest thing
since Farrah Fawcett's '70s feathered blowout.
-It's a look that launches a wave of Rachel clones.
-Yeah. You couldn't escape it.
You saw Rachel coming out of every door
all across the country.
But the haircut was part of the pile-on effect
that pushed "Friends" into the realm of great overexposure.
-One of the things that Crane comes to realize in particular
is they kind of have to forget about all of that.
They just need to concentrate
on making the best possible version of the show.
-And for Crane and Kauffman, that means writing storylines
in the show's second season,
not usually seen on a network sitcom.
-David Crane is himself gay
and is interested in telling stories
of gay and lesbian characters,
and the thought that they have is that
it would be appealing to tell this story
involving Ross's ex-wife getting remarried.
-Carol, Ross's ex-wife,
she's recently divorced him and come out as gay,
and is now partnered with a woman named Susan.
-Actress Anita Barone plays Ross's pregnant ex-wife.
[ Laughter ]
-Ross.
That opens my cervix.
[ Object clatters ]
-But she quits the show
after just one episode.
-She has said that she went off to pursue
another job or she wanted something more.
-Barone is replaced by a 28-year-old actress
who just had her own real life baby.
-I am Jane Sibbett and I play Carol on "Friends."
I have just gotten home from the hospital
after delivering my son after a 24-hour labor.
[ Telephone rings ] And I got a phone call
and it's my agent and they said,
"They would like you to play the pregnant lesbian.
I'm like, [gasps], "That's awesome."
Like, yeah, but they'd like you to start tomorrow.
And I just went, "Uh, wow.
Um...I'm kind of sore. That was a big labor."
and they're like, "Look, they'll make it super easy.
It's just two weeks."
I just knew that I had to do it.
-[Gasps] Did you just feel that?
-I did. -Well, does it always...?
-No, no. That was the first.
-One year before Ellen DeGeneres
comes out on her own sitcom...
-I'm Gay.
-...and almost 20 years before gay marriage is legal
in all 50 states,
"Friends" shoots an episode around
Carol's same-sex nuptials.
-We're, uh...
We're getting married.
[ Laughter ]
-You didn't see a lot in the way of gay and lesbian
characters on television,
and there had never been
a lesbian wedding on TV of any kind prior to this.
-Nothing makes God happier than when two people,
any two people, come together in love.
-But NBC executives are worried
not everyone will be happy.
-There was a very large fear
they would lose all their audience
and people would come bearing torches to NBC.
-We'd heard that a couple of the affiliates
were going to block out the show.
-What do you think about certain stations
not running the episode?
-I just think it's -- it's sort of absurd.
-NBC put a whole bunch of hotline operators on,
you know, to be able to handle calls.
-I don't really know how they did it.
-In the end, I think it was two local
NBC affiliates wouldn't carry it.
And I think they got maybe one call that night.
But essentially the reaction was --
So what? What's the big deal.
-For the queer community in 1996,
representation on a network sitcom is a very big deal,
and "Friends" wins a GLAAD Award
from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
But some still see the episode as an assault
on their religious beliefs,
something Jane Seibert experiences firsthand.
-Almost all of my family embraced it.
There was no problem with it,
even though we come from
a very conservative Christian background.
But my dad and his --
and his new wife had a problem with it.
And so instead of watching "Friends,"
he and she had Bible study at their house
starting about 7:30 on Thursday nights every week.
-Merely playing a lesbian on TV
causes a deep rift between Jane and her father.
-I was not allowed really to be
near my father for a little while.
He didn't say that he was proud of me, um,
until he was on his deathbed many years later.
-But, um...
♪♪
It's fine. That one comes up.
You always want your -- your parents
to be proud of you.
[ Inhales deeply ]
And he eventually got to that.
♪♪
So we've made our peace.
-The lesbian wedding episode
isn't the only standout from season two.
The one with the Prom video was also a fan favorite,
introducing a recurring character
that hurt some feelings back then,
but would be labeled fat shaming today.
-Where's Monica? -Over here, Dad!
-Wait. How do you zoom out?
[ Laughter ]
There she is!
-Mm. Fat Monica.
[ Rapid footsteps approaching ]
[ Laughter ]
I mean, she's just a walking fat joke.
-Monica, why don't you finish off these pies?
I don't have any more room in the fridge.
[ Laughter ]
-When I was a younger person,
like, a small fat child, basically, and teen,
I looked at her and felt enormous shame
and probably laughed louder than anybody in the room.
You know?
Anytime you put a thin person in a fat suit,
you're already miles in the wrong direction.
-But for the cast, "Friends" launches their careers
in the right direction,
including lead roles in movies.
Although that's a mixed blessing.
Matt LeBlanc's role opposite a chimp in "Ed"
gets universally panned.
-Bad Monkey! -[ Ed chattering ]
-But Courteney Cox helps kickstart
the "Scream" franchise,
and Matthew Perry receives generally good reviews
for his role on the rom-com "Fools Rush In"
opposite Salma Hayek.
-Uh, how've you been?
-Pregnant. -Really?
-But Perry's jump to the big screen
comes at a cost.
During filming, he injures his back in a jet ski accident
and is prescribed a painkiller.
It leads to an opioid addiction
he will struggle with long after "Friends."
-"Friends" Matthew Perry
admitted an addiction to painkillers.
-When I heard about Matthew Perry's struggles,
I was heartbroken.
-As "Friends" continues its fast descent,
Matthew Perry is in the throes of a slow decline.
-Fame is a very dangerous substance.
If fame came in a bottle,
It would have to have all kinds of warnings on it.
[ Indistinct chatter ] [ Pills rattle ]
-The '90s ushered in a new golden age in Hollywood,
with celebrities earning record setting salaries.
-Cable guy!
-In 1995, after a string of hits,
Actor comedian Jim Carrey is paid $20 million
to star in a movie directed by Ben Stiller.
It's the most in history.
-$20 Million Man.
Everyone's wondering -- Is he worth the money?
-Studio executives whine about rising talent costs,
labeling it a "dangerous precedent."
It's against this backdrop that the cast of "Friends"
renegotiate their contracts with Warner Brothers,
the studio making the show.
A third season rides on them, making a deal.
-The actors weren't being paid equally at the time.
They all had their own separate deals
worked out by their own agents.
That's how it worked.
But their show
is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
They realized that the pay issue could so quickly
and almost inevitably would tear them apart
and pull the show out from under them.
Nobody wanted that to happen.
David Schwimmer comes in and says, "Hey,
I think we really need to make some decisions about
how we're going to operate as a team."
And they decide then and there
they're going to do all negotiations together.
They're going to speak as one voice.
It led to them getting enormous paychecks.
-And ownership in the show.
Their collective bargaining eventually nets
the six actors a percentage of the show's syndication profits,
and a per episode salary that will grow to over $1 million.
-It was unprecedented.
Certainly the biggest paychecks
that an ensemble cast had been getting.
-The group scored a huge win,
but for Matthew Perry,
there's one battle he's fighting alone.
[ Liquid sloshing ]
A struggling alcoholic since the age of 14,
Perry's new dependence on the prescription drug Vicodin
leads the actor to check himself into rehab.
After a 28-day stay, he gets back to work.
-Well, hello, Matthew. -Well. Hello there.
-How are you? -Good.
Perry even lands a dream gig hosting "SNL."
In an interview backstage,
he reassures fans that this Friend is on the mend.
-I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
Couldn't be better. Yeah.
-Perry remains clean for 18 months
until he says one casual drink ends his sobriety.
Like all addicts, Perry is locked in a lifelong battle,
one he will lose.
-I think that being that celebrity
and struggling with addiction is its own challenge.
-At one point,
Perry is consuming a bottle of vodka
and 55 pills a day,
the effects of which he tries to hide
from the cast and crew on "Friends."
-When you see what happened to Matthew Perry,
the sequence of events of how he got into the trouble
he got into, it's all pretty understandable.
My name is Robert Thompson.
I'm a professor of television in popular culture.
For a guy who was having
the substance abuse problems that he had,
he retained a remarkable ability to do his job.
-Stop, stop, stop!
-Oh, sorry. Do you need a break?
-He was pretty clear
that he did not use or drink on the job.
He, you know, many times was profoundly hungover at work.
And that that affected his performance at times,
you know, having to put his hand on a table
before the you can see him shaking.
He's talked about cast members confronting him
and saying they could smell alcohol on him.
-He would have weight gains, alcohol use.
He would have then weight losses with his Vicodin use.
-By the end of the decade,
producers Kauffman, Crane, and Bright
have their own struggles,
namely overcoming a glaring lack of diversity
within the all-white cast.
-There are a couple
of non-white performers who come in.
Gabrielle Union plays a love interest.
-Hi.
Are you moving in or moving out?
-Moving in.
-Aisha Tyler comes in later on.
-Oh, hey, you guys, this is Charlie.
-As a woman who is interested in Ross,
but also interested in Joey,
but none of them stick around for very long.
-When people say that,
oh, you know, it was a product of its time.
I think you'd say, yes.
It was a product of its time,
which was a not very inclusive time.
"Friends" had the standing, I think, to make changes
and chose not to make some of them.
-That begins to change in the show's seventh season,
when NBC directs Warner Brothers to broaden the hiring pool.
-That year, NBC had started a diversity mandate.
They were encouraging their shows
to hire at least one person of color per writing staff.
I think that that was a big reason why I got called in,
you know, given that I hadn't ever written on a sitcom
and, you know, was not a joke writer at all.
I'm Patty Lin, and I was a writer on "Friends,"
and I am the author of
"End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood."
The word diversity higher wasn't really being used at that time,
but that's essentially what I was.
I was the only person of color in that room.
To my agent, this was a no brainer.
Like, of course you're going to take the job, you know?
It was the most popular show on TV.
-In July of 2000,
Patty Lin steps into "Friends" offices
for her first day on the job.
-The predominant emotion that I was feeling was just fear.
-What she faced is captured in a 1995 E! television special
that goes inside the show's writers room,
showing Kaufman and Crane's relentless refinement
of every episode.
-Say, it's Monica saying, I feel really bad,
you know, we -- we should all be together
and say, Ross says, look...
-Then it seems like Monica is the only one who's feeling bad.
-You create an outline.
The writer who was assigned that episode
would then go off with that outline
and write the episode by themselves.
Bring it back,
and then, the rest of the episode
was written by committee.
-Lin says when a writer takes a script
into the "Friends" writers' room,
it's likely neither of them will come out in one piece.
-The industry jargon for writing a script by committee
is called a "gangbang."
♪♪
To watch it just get picked apart and, you know,
rewritten right in front of me.
And to have to participate in that,
it's a certain brand of hell that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
-When cameras from the Discovery Channel
are permitted to film behind the scenes
during a live taping in season six,
it provides rare insights
into Crane and Kaufman's writing process,
one that the actors
and the writers experience differently.
-Oh, you don't think it's funny
to play that kind of bum. -Switch?
-Let's just get married, I guess.
-Let's get married. Married, I guess.
-It didn't feel funny.
-All of the writers
would go down to the soundstage
and, uh, and be there for the -- for the taping.
-What happens is you're doing the scene.
Audience reacts, director calls, "Cut!"
If a joke went well, you'd hear, "Moving on."
-If a joke fell flat,
we would then have to huddle on the side of the bleachers
and come up with a new joke.
-We cannot stay married.
-That process of rewriting the show in real time
is also captured by Discovery Channel's
on-set footage.
-Is there anything funnier
than stop saying the word marriage?
-And you see pencils scribbling and everybody's,
like, trying to throw out jokes.
It's amazing. The machine of comedy.
-It was the most stressful part of the job for me.
Just the -- the grind of having to produce this material.
It's just a sausage factory.
And I think that that's the sort of thing
that a lot of people don't want to hear.
-Two years later,
a member of the "Friends" writers' room
will accuse the producers
of NBC's most profitable sitcom
of shameful conduct.
-She complains and files a lawsuit.
-And she will find herself up against
some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
♪♪
-In the late '90s,
pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma
is turning its painkiller OxyContin
into a blockbuster drug
using a calculated campaign of disinformation.
-Some patients may be afraid of taking opioids
because they're perceived as too strong or addictive.
But that is far from actual fact.
-No, that's an actual fact.
The drug is highly addictive,
and while Purdue knows the truth,
it continues its fraudulent marketing
while producing sufficient pills
to meet the ever-growing demand of addicts.
-On a given day,
400 to 800 people are on the streets here
looking for their next high.
-With prescription drugs so readily available,
29-year-old Matthew Perry,
now in his seventh season of "Friends,"
is trapped in a revolving door of addiction and recovery.
-He would have been sick for about a week
if he stopped using Vicodin.
My name is Dr. Drew Pinsky. I'm a physician.
I'm an internist by specialization
and addiction medicine specialist.
Addicts delude themselves into thinking, well,
I can't stop right now because I'll get sick, which is true.
But the addict uses that as a reason to keep using.
And look, he stopped many times,
was completely off and went back.
That's addiction.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-Matthew, wave for us!
[ Indistinct chatter ]
It's not just being in the public eye.
It's like, how do you manage it and maintain it,
particularly if you're hiding a secret.
And that secret is -- I'm using.
They feel shame.
And that shame motivates more using.
-As the show progresses,
Matthew Perry increasingly has
a substance abuse problem.
-In the writers' room at "Friends,"
I think everybody was aware.
Clearly he was struggling.
-One of the concerns that Crane and Kauffman have is,
is it harming him to continue to be
in the public eye in this way?
-In spring of 2000,
after an awkward rehearsal where he's slurring his words,
Perry discovers the entire cast and crew
assembled in his dressing room.
-The opiate addiction is so dangerous,
and if you don't do something,
they die, they die.
-Marta Kauffman asked Perry to make a change,
but Perry continues to battle his substance abuse
for another year
before finally checking himself back into rehab.
And while no other cast member struggles so publicly
with personal demons, each feels the acute pressure
of being famous from "Friends."
-David Schwimmer,
he's been pretty open about the fact
that he's not in love with being a celebrity.
-I can totally see now why,
like, child stars, some child stars...
-Major problems. -...just have major problems
because, um, it's -- it's just a very,
very strange thing to go through.
-Schwimmer isn't the only one
withering in the spotlight.
-Lisa Kudrow talked about the fact
that she was larger in her body
than Jennifer Aniston and Courteney Cox were.
-Certainly, these women were all
put under the vicious microscope
of late '90s tabloid media.
Jennifer Aniston, to a massive degree,
was a target both because of "Friends" and because of,
of course, who she was married to
for a lot of that show's run.
-Hollywood's most camera-shy couple
went public Saturday night
as Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston
hit the town.
-The public's fascination with the cast
and the show continues well into the new millennium.
At the 2001 People's Choice Awards,
"Friends" wins the award for Favorite Comedy Program
for the second year in a row.
But the warmth from the fans is cold comfort
to the show's newest writer, Patty Lin.
-We finished the season and I got a call from my agent,
and he told me that they were not
going to pick up my option for the next year.
It was bittersweet because obviously working on that show
was great for my resume.
But on the other hand,
all of these late night rewrites
and all of these things
that were so stressful to me
to know that I didn't have to go back
for another year of that
was actually a relief in a lot of ways.
-A year later,
a woman who worked in the "Friends" writers' room
goes public to expose what she sees as the abuse
of work culture that Hollywood enables.
-Amaani Lyle was hired
as a writer's assistant on "Friends."
It's sort of like being a writer in training.
You're listening to many people talking at the same time
and shouting out jokes and just kind of jotting it all down.
And Amaani Lyle feels that the conversation
in the writer's room is inappropriate,
the kind of frank discussion
that often has to do with sex in particular,
and complains about it,
and ends up losing her job as a result.
-Lyle claims she's the victim of sexual harassment
and files a lawsuit against a number of her producers.
Her lawyer goes to the media to make her case.
-What she had a problem with
was the writers talking about their own
personal sexual stories, own personal fantasies.
They referred to women in the most degrading ways.
-But Lyle has few allies in the creative community.
In a letter to the court,
male comedy legends like Norman Lear,
"The Simpsons," James L Brooks,
and "Seinfeld's" Larry David
all come out in support of the writers on "Friends."
-There was this sense that
this would lead to mass censorship.
They were saying, if she's allowed
to get away with making these allegations,
then it's going to have a massive chilling effect
on creativity.
-Now, Warner Brothers argues this is freedom of speech
and it's protected by the Constitution.
-The legal battle drags on for years,
eventually landing in the California Supreme Court,
where Lyle loses.
♪♪
-The court said one of the reasons
that this wasn't harassment
was because it wasn't directed at her.
-It came at great cost to Amaani Lyle,
while who really lost her chance to build a career
in the television industry.
-There's just no way to know for sure.
It very well might have made it easier
for people to get away with all sorts of other abuses.
In 2017, we were in the throes of the early MeToo movement,
and I wonder if the case had gone the other way,
if things...
[sighs] if that particular reckoning
might have happened sooner.
-Lyle's case goes largely unnoticed in the media,
so it has little effect on the reputation
and the popularity of "Friends."
-It's not very often an event comes along
that brings everyone together.
-NBC relentlessly hypes the final season
as America's favorite sitcom.
On May 6th, 2004,
after a decade of being one of the most watched
and rewatched sitcoms on television,
"Friends" airs its final episode.
52 million viewers tune in to watch.
-So, I guess this is it.
-Yeah.
-I think that, "Friends" is a good example of a show
that does a series finale well.
-This is harder than I thought it would be.
-It understands what its audience wants,
that the audience feels like they are themselves
kind of included in this group of friends,
and wants to have that kind of bittersweet moment
of saying farewell.
-Should we get some coffee?
-[ Sniffles ] -Sure.
-Okay.
-Where?
[ Laughter ]
-It'll take over 15 years
before this beloved ensemble is seen together on TV.
In 2021, James Corden hosts a 2-hour reunion special.
-Look at this.
Look at all of you. -Hello!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-The following year, Matthew Perry,
now two and a half years in recovery,
releases "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing."
-Is everybody rolling?
His autobiography opens with a foreboding
couple of sentences about the big terrible thing.
Diane Sawyer reads it aloud
in her hour-long interview with the actor.
-First page.
"Hi, my name is Matthew.
Although you may know me by another name,
my friends call me Matty, and I should be dead."
-Yeah.
He seemed to have some very,
very serious, uh, uh, issues.
And he describes them and they're harrowing.
-I was actually on methadone, Xanax, cocaine,
and a full quart of vodka a day.
-But for all that, I don't think anybody saw it coming.
-Hollywood mourning the loss
of one of its "Friends."
-My heart sank.
-20 years after taking their final bow,
the cast of "Friends" continues to reap the benefits
from being on one of the biggest shows in television history,
including a piece of the global sales of the sitcom
that earns each actor an estimated $20 million a year.
That's a reward few TV actors will ever receive.
But on the press tour for his memoir,
Matthew Perry laments the unique price
he paid for their shared success.
-It's not fair. -It's not fair.
That I had to go through --
That I had to go through this disease
while the other five didn't.
They got everything that I got,
but I had to fight this thing.
-The book success feels like a victory lap for Perry.
Making the news one year later all the more shocking.
-Hollywood mourning the loss
of one of its "Friends."
-The beloved "Friends" star
was reportedly discovered dead
in the Jacuzzi of his L.A. area home this afternoon.
-Matthew Perry did die from acute effects of ketamine
and subsequent drowning.
-They've been leaving flowers.
We actually saw people crying out here today.
-My phone suddenly filled with texts.
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
♪♪
My heart sink.
-Perry's famous castmates,
his friends on screen and off,
are united in their grief over his passing.
-I certainly hope that Matthew Perry's legacy
will lead with his advocacy
on behalf of addiction awareness.
Certainly toward the end of his life,
he went all out on that.
-Like, it's not fun to talk about this stuff.
I don't -- I don't like talking about it, but...
I know it's going to help people to talk about it.
-In terms of his legacy as it pertains to "Friends,"
the fact that, like,
everybody started to speak a little bit more like Chandler,
which just didn't exist until he was on television.
-Could you want her more?
[ Laughter ]
Could I be more sorry?
-You can go find actual studies
that look into the way
that "Friends" influenced
patterns of speech in Americans.
-Could that report be any later?
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, I don't sound like that.
That is so not true.
-Oh. [ Laughter ]
-He invented that.
-The "Friends" phenomenon
will be reckoned with for years to come,
as this wildly popular sitcom from the '90s
is still one of the most watched television shows today.
-This idea that your friends will stick together
and follow you throughout every change in your life,
I think, is an extremely appealing
and durable fantasy for many people.
-It's like a time where people weren't,
you know, worried about climate change
and the country wasn't so politically divided.
And I think that that's comforting to people.
-In the fragmented era of streaming,
where you can watch whatever you want,
whenever you want.
This is still very much
one of the last bastions of mass culture.
In spite of all of its problems,
and it's total fantasy quality.
"Friends" really penetrated American culture
in a way that few things can anymore.
♪♪