How did you get into Friends?

Unlike some people, I haven't been watching Friends since it started. I'm only 19, so I was pretty young when it first aired. I'm actually a newbie to Friends; I only started watching Friends this past year, mostly through syndicated reruns that I would catch any evening I didn't have class while attending Rutgers University. Because I only saw it sporatically, I didn't really get the full effect of seeing the episodes in sequence and getting the overall stories.

I really like what I saw though, so started reading some episode guides to see what the whole deal with Ross and Rachel was, because I didn't really get that. Then I checked my college's direct connect hub and found practically every single episode of Friends scattered across our network. I picked one arbtrarily: TOW Joey Dates Rachel, from season 8. The end of that episode really got me wondering what was going to happen, because I had just read a little about Ross and Rachel and all that stuff. I downloaded and tore into the rest of season 8 and 9 over the next few days, whenever I had time between classes.

I grew up on shows like Full House, Family Matters, and Perfect Strangers; shows where each episode was pretty separate from another. Watching a sitcom where the episodes flowed together with a larger, tighter storyline was something new to me, so I was totally captivated by all different things going on. Over the course of the rest of the semester, I started watching a lot of the older seasons, and got the full story on all of the Friends, like when Ross and Rachel went on a break, when Pheobe gave birth to her brothers' triplets, when Monica and Chandler got engaged, and when Joey got the turkey stuck on his head. I'm a huge fan now, and it's one of the few shows I actually watch on TV anymore.

What about you? How did you get into Friends?

I got into Friends because Ross looks like my ex-husband. ~~~ Kathy

"DarkeSword" wrote in message news:bnuu3a$167es6$[email]...

didn't

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"Kathy" wrote in message news:[email]...

So does that make you Carol, Emily, or Rachel?

Since I was his 2nd wife, that would make me Emily -- yuck! ~~~ Kathy

"DarkeSword" wrote in message news:bnv40v$163pev$[email]...

"Kathy" wrote in message news:[email]...

Too bad for you!

I caught on during the 1st season when George Clooney and Noah Wyle guest-starred. I was an ER fan at the time, and that ep turned me into a diehard Friends fan as well, so I started watching almost from the beginning. :)

I was in it from the beginning. I'm 31. I didn't really know the cast except for CC who was on Family Ties. I had seen LK as Ursula on Mad about You. I just saw promos from the show that looked interesting and started watching and never looked back. I usually give new comedies a chance. Alot of them don't get a second chance. LOL

Niki

<Snipped your story to make room for mine>

Well I was in 7th grade and it was the first season for Friends, I was hanging out with a group of dorky kids that were into mature things like Friends and Seinfeld, we called one of the guys Kramer, his real last name was Gutrie, I won't say his first name but if your reading this WHATUP DUDE. Well anyway we were the very original type the kind of people that in 7th grade they weren't doing what normal 7th graders were doing they were watching Friends, and Seinfeld. THIS IS A TRUE STORY!!

I watched it off and on over the first couple seasons, but I really got into it in the 4th season. Unfortunately, I missed what was probably the funniest 4th season ep (TOW the Embryos) and was confused when I tuned in one day and they had switched apartments ;^) Once it hit syndication that next fall (when the NBC started the 5th season) I was able to catch up on all the early episodes and was hooked.

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:17:43 -0500, "DarkeSword" wrote:

I've seen Friends from the beginning but got into it from episode 3 of the 1st series, as I thought Monica/Courteney looked cutier then either Rachel or Lisa, whose hair had a life of it's own in the earlier episodes.

In alt.tv.friends on Sat, 1 Nov 2003 at 09:13:38, Christopher wrote :

'That's not even a word!' :)

I've just been watching S1 again after finishing the S9 DVD, and you really notice the difference!

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:17:43 -0500, "DarkeSword" wrote:

Well, I am 23, and I didn't watch the first season of Friends. I started from the second. I was a fan, but not a *big fan*. Of course, being Italian and living in Italy, I only knew the dubbed version. When I was 18 I started watching movies in English (I do bless the DVDs) and once the 8th season was released in DVD in UK I bought it and I saw it in English (before it was even released in my country). Anyway, it was weird because I was used to the Italian voices. How long does the weirdness last? A couple of episodes. Now I can't stand the Italian voices and I don't watch Friends in TV. I downloaded the 9th season and then I bought the UK DVDs and now I am downloading the 10th. I bought the US/Canadian DVD box sets and every time one of these jewels come into my house, it's like a new experience to me, my first time in English.

Sebastiano

The whisper of DarkeSword resounds through the universe:

I watched friends occasionally on german television. But i always thought that the german audio sounded sterile (without background noises) and so many jokes don't made me lough. So i downloaded one ep of the first season (iirc it was tow george stephanopoulos) and that was funny and had ambient sounds. So i ordered the first four seasons an rc1 DVDs (the german or uk DVDs are too expensive and have afaik less bonus material). And by lending the DVDs to some guys i made them addicted, too. :)

by Carsten

Carsten Faltin performed this cute little number:

Sterile is a good word to describe. I always thought that it lacked "atmosphere", the voices of all six actors seemed quite emotionless and the lack of background noise, which was compensated with excessive use of the laugh track when nothing funny was happening was a major annoyance to me too. Or rather became after I'd seen the original. "Back in the day" when I only knew the German version I was indifferent to the show, I didn't think it was good, nor did I think it was bad.

However, when I lived in England I happened to catch TOW the girl from Poughkeepsie on TV and thought it was quite funny. As fate would have it (trying to be dramatic here) when I got back to Germany I caught the same episode on German TV and didn't like it all. But since I remembered bits of the original I was able to realize how badly this show offers from its poor translation. So when I got a DVD player I picked up a disc with eps. 113-118 (earliest episodes the store had) on it to try if I like the original - which I did and since then I spent an insane amount of money on the R2 DVDs (S1-S8, still pondering about getting S9 right now) and R1 as well (Best of set, S1 + S2, with S3 + S4 on their way).

As for the R2 discs, the only advantage they have over the R1 discs is that if you get all the boxsets and put them next to each other you get a picture of the NYC skyline (inlcuding Twin Towers, at least on mine) - which is why I'm not getting rid of them. Plus I paid around 95 Euro for each of them on Amazon and they go for around 30 Euro on ebay, which means even if I sold them I'd lose 600 Euro, so I may as well keep them. Yeah, I'm just that stupid...

Andr�

I watched an old TV-movie starring Matt LeBlanc way back in 1995 before the show had started in Norway. A magazine had an article about him where it said that he was currently starring in a popular American sitcom, and that sitcom started on January 7th, 1996. I watched the pilot when it aired, and I was hooked from the start. :)

In article , "DarkeSword" wrote:

I watched from the second episode.

For ages I'd only ever seen the pilot in German.

I was (and still am) a fan of Courteney Cox.

Tennant Stuart

I didn't watch the show until it started in syndication here. They showed the first episode and I started watching from then on. I was vaguely aware that the show existed, due to the Rembrandts' music video a few years earlier.

Remove "moc" to reply.

Whoever says "Nothing is impossible" has never tried to slam a revolving door. - Willy Walker

"DarkeSword" wrote in message news:...

I didn't watch Friends when it first got popular, but I happened to catch a rerun a few years back, the one with the blackout I think. I thought it was hilarious, and thought, this isn't too bad! I then rented the Best of Friends videos by chance (the one I'd gone to the store for was rented out LOL) and got hooked.

I'm 13 now, but a while ago, all my classmates used to watch Friends and talk about it at school. I tried watching it (I still remember, the first one I ever saw was where Rachel was teaching Joey to sail) but I thought it was REALLY boring and stupid. Then, about a year ago, I forced myself to try watching it again to see if I could get into it. I'm really glad I did because now I love it. I'm obsessed with Friends and I've seen every episode--some of them like 5 times. Near the beginning, it was really funny when I think about it now, because I didn't get the storyline at all. I didn't even know the characters names. I wondered why they kept calling this one guy Chandler, because I didn't even think that was a name. LOL. Friends Rules!!! It's the best. I'm sad now that I was so young when it started and when I've finally gotten to love it, it's in its last season. :-( Oh well. There's always the Joey spinoff, but it's not going to be the same without all 6 of them.

A lot depends on the first episode you see - fortunately my first episode was not TOW the Bullies, or TOW the Two Parties.