The Legend of "Smelly Cat"

Friends has been one of my favourite TV Shows ever since I was a kid, and I know it's not just me, millions of people world wide love Friends and it has become an iconic sitcom in the history of television. However no one loves it more than us Brits, I mean, seriously, we eat that shit up, it is on ALL the time; not even exaggerating, seeing as the show has been in syndication for ten years now, currently airing on Comedy Central, who have about 4 different channels by the way, are constantly airing episodes of the show everyday, back-to-back, all 10 seasons. There isn't a person in England who hasn't at least seen several episodes of Friends. It is truly amazing that a show that hasn't aired a new episode in ten years is still as popular to this day. But then I have to ask the question, is Friends really all that good?

Whenever people talk about how much they love Friends, there's always that one guy who says it's overrated or Seinfeld was a way better show, now too be fair, that's hard to disagree with. Seinfeld in terms of writing was much cleverer in terms of story and jokes, and if someone thinks Friends is just an average sitcom, I'll be honest, I can kind of see it. But then again...I see that as a good thing, Friends has become the staple sitcom, it hits all the right notes and appeals to everyone, it is the most iconic sitcom of all time (Sorry Cheers fans but, it's true). And honestly I still love the characters and I love the writing, why? Because-it's-Friends!

The fact that everyone loves it and watches it means that it must connect to people in some way, and there are so many memorable characters and moments "You had to be a bitch in high school! You couldn't have been fat?" always cracks me up. Frankly everyone can relate to it in some way, it's the show that popularised the "group of Friends" subgenre, and the group is diverse enough where everyone is in someway a member of the group, whether it's smart Ross, funny Chandler, sexy Joey, uptight Monica, free spirited Phoebe, princess Rachel...or Gunther.

The truth is that Friends is just so goddamn likeable and re-watchable, there are very few bad episodes, except season 6 when they did that "what if" episode (seriously, what the hell was that?). Yes, there are funnier shows out there, but very few shows are as likeable, as re-watchable, as iconic has as good a ration in terms of good episodes to bad episodes. And I did the math, that would be 1/168 episodes are bad. Now Elliott Gould on the other hand, that guy can never give a bad performance in the show.

- Danny