If you, like me, were someone who watched and loved “Friends” — even with its many flaws — you’re probably doing a rewatch right now. The world lost Matthew Perry on October 28, 2023, at the age of 54, and it’s pretty hard for fans to process. Perry, who played loveable goof Chandler Bing, struggled with addiction to alcohol and drugs during his time on the hit NBC series and afterward, according to his 2022 book, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir.” Though it will be some time before we know the cause of death for my favorite Friend, viewers are recalling their favorite episodes and Chandler moments, and remembering the show for what it was.
The cast put out a statement recently, calling themselves “family,” something we saw on display during the 2021 “Friends” reunion show on HBO. From some of the stories from the set that came out during that event, in the book, and since Perry’s passing, it’s clear how close they were and how much fun they had shooting the 10 seasons of the series.
One story from the 2005 book “Friends … ‘Til the End: The One With All Ten Years” by David Wild tells us about the ongoing prank that Perry and co-star Matt LeBlanc, who played Chandler’s roommate Joey Tribiani, played on one of the co-creators of the series.
‘ … just to egg him on’
In the book, LeBlanc was asked about his thoughts on the writers they had for the long-running series. LeBlanc praised them as “highly, highly underrated” and said they were some of the best on television. Then he mentioned the prank. LeBlanc said:
“We have this really fun thing that we do with David Crane. He’s super, super smart, but he’s also ultraconservative in that he doesn’t like toilet jokes. So Perry and me, just to egg him on, will pitch toilet humor to him. And we’ll pitch it with a straight face in front of everyone. He doesn’t have any idea we do it on purpose.”
I mean, he probably figured it out after ten years, but I love that they did this. I’m sorry, but toilet humor is pretty funny. The show didn’t have a ton of it, but it was certainly there. This is just a guess, but in season 7, episode 10, there is a scene about holiday decorations, and at the end, Joey just walks out of Monica (Courteney Cox) and Chandler’s bathroom with a newspaper and out the front door, with the implication that he’d been in there the entire time. I’m going to guess that was a pitch from these two.
‘ … you’re considered by the community as an authority on what’s funny’
LeBlanc mentioned pitching something similar. He explained:
“I’ll say, ‘What if Joey just goes in the bathroom here?’ We tried one time; I’ll never forget it. It’s a classic. Since I didn’t say anything for three pages, I suggested that I go to the bathroom door and say, ‘I’ve gotta go,’ and shut the door. Then I’m gone. I don’t come back for the rest of the scene … That’s how we pitched it. So I said, ‘David, what do you think of that pitch?’ He goes, ‘I’ve got to say, I don’t like it.’ I go, ‘Why?’ And he goes, ‘I couldn’t think about the rest of the scene. I didn’t care what they were saying. I was thinking, so Joey is just in there sh******.’”
I don’t know if this was the scene described above, since Joey doesn’t say “I’ve gotta go” at the beginning. Still, having him just walk out with no one knowing he was in there in the first place makes it seem like that was the solution for Crane thinking about where Joey was the whole time.
LeBlanc went on to say that the writers are the funny ones and that sometimes the actors get the credit. The writers were funny, but the actors who delivered the lines had a huge part as well. TV is a group effort, and whatever sort of lens we look back at “Friends” with now (or even did at the time), one thing you can say is that this group was pretty amazing. The world is a little less funny now that Perry isn’t in it.
