FRIENDS

Friends was an Emmy award-winning American situation comedy about a group of six friends living in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It was created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, and produced by Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane. It was originally broadcast from 1994 to 2004. One of the most popular television series of all time, the show has been broadcast in over one hundred countries and still continues to attract good ratings for its repeat episodes. The final episode of the show remains one of the largest in terms of television audience numbers in the U.S.

Friends was created in 1994 by David Crane, who wrote Friends in Burbank, California, and who got his start working with the legendary Norman Lear and Marta Kauffman, who served as writer and producer of Dream On. Friends was aimed at young adults who, during the early 1990s, were identified by their café culture, dating scene and modern independence.

Two of the series' stars, Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston, had already appeared in several unsuccessful sitcom pilots.

Another, Lisa Kudrow, was also familiar with working on sitcoms having played Ursula Buffay on Mad About You. In the series, it was revealed that Ursula was the twin sister of Kudrow's Friends character, Phoebe. Kudrow was fired during filming of the pilot of Frasier after being cast as Roz.

Courteney Cox was already an accomplished TV and film actress when she was cast, having appeared in the likes of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and had had several minor roles on sitcoms such as Seinfeld and Family Ties.

David Schwimmer was wanted by the writers of Friends for the part of Ross Geller from the beginning; having auditioned for Crane and Kauffman in the past, Schwimmer was said to have a memorable voice and was most known for his Broadway work, but he did also direct some of the Friends episodes.

Matt LeBlanc appeared as Vinnie Verducci, the boyfriend of Kelly Bundy in Married... with Children in the early 1990s and starred in that sitcom's short-lived spin-off, Top of the Heap as well as Vinnie & Bobby, but before that had mainly been focusing on advertising and modeling work when he was cast as Joey Tribbiani.

The show is a comedy mainly about people in their mid-twenties and later, their thirties just trying to live everyday lives.