On the 20th anniversary of the Friends premiere, a Hypable writer reflects on growing up with the show.

I feel old. Very old. Today, September 22, 2014, marks the 20-year anniversary of the Friends series premiere, “The One Where Monica Gets a Rommate.”

Created by Kevin S. Bright, Marta Kauffman and David Crane, the show ran on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004, with a total of 236 episodes. Friends was nominated for 62 Primetime Emmy Awards, and won the Outstanding Comedy Series award for season 8.

When the show premiered, it was like the beginning of a well-known fairytale: a long time ago, a princess named Rachel Green fell out of her fairy castle in the sky (Long Island), stumbling into the dark forest (Central Perk, NYC), where she met a band of five misfits who would teach her about life.

She would end up not back in her castle with a Prince Charming on her arm, but instead she took to the peasant life and conquered it, ending up a successful single mother on track to getting everything she never knew she wanted, on her own terms.

Friends was the ultimate feel-good story; a brightly-coloured world you could slip into to escape your own reality. And despite presenting a glorified, squeaky-clean (and totally fictional) version of Manhattan, the show still took the time to deal with serious, real life problems. It taught us about love, sex and friendship, as we slowly watched the six 20-somethings transform into real adults (well, sort of).

And while the circumstances of the friends’ lives were unrealistic, the characters themselves were very believable. There was never a time where it felt like “Matt LeBlanc pretending to be Joey.” Joey was real, in that world.

Now, I haven’t been with Friends since the premiere. Not only was I too young to care about anything that wasn’t a cartoon, but the show took a few years to arrive in Denmark.

My first episode ever was the season 4 finale, “The One With Ross’ Wedding.” I vividly remember asking my mother (already a fan) why Ross was marrying his sister, because I couldn’t tell the difference between Monica and Emily.

I quickly became hooked. Friends became a part of my daily routine, as two old episodes aired every day when I got home from school. On our school trip to Scotland a few years later, I spent all the pocket money I had on a VHS set of season 7 (which hadn’t yet come out at home).

Friends was my first real fandom – and was the show that taught me English. Danish kids learn English in school, sure, but we have no reason to get better at it than most American children are at Spanish. All our TV shows and movies are subtitled, and our cartoons are dubbed.

But along came the internet, and an early idea of global fandom community, and hell if I was going to let a small thing like language stand in my way of participating.

It began when I decided to start reading Friends scripts, to feed my obsession. There was no such thing as online streaming, and it wasn’t like I could just go out and buy the VHS tapes (each tape contained four episodes, and they were around 30 dollars each!). So I read through the episodes, and since very few were translated, I read them in English.

My poor mother had to translate every other word at first, until I got tired of asking and started guessing. If I sort of understood a sentence, I figured out what a word probably meant (and was often very wrong – I’m still not 100% sure when it is appropriate to use the word “sheepish”), which among other things led to an absolutely hilarious script-style fanfic I wrote at age 13, titled “The Trip and the Pickles” (I didn’t know what pickles were, I just thought using the word made me sound more American).

Just for pickles – I mean giggles – I’m going to share a brief excerpt with you. Enjoy my glorious 13-year-old self’s attempts at making jokes (…actually, not much has changed):

PHOE: I thought then we could take some kind of a trip together.

MONI: Oh, please don’t let it be to Mountauk again.

ROSS: Yeah. The only thing I have from there is bad memories. (Notices Rachel, who looks hurt. She tries to give him a fake smile but she’s not good at that.)

PHOE: No, not Mountauk, I was thinking of a trip to my dad’s old summerhouse. He gave me the keys and said that I could use it as much as I want. That is the least he could do after arbandon my entire family.

CHAN: No, matter what, make sure there is a real floor, okay?

PHOE: There is. According to the letter he sent me, there are mahogni floor. And there is a village… (Looks in the letter) 500,0311 feet away.

RACH: 500,0311? Wow… my lucky number… (I don’t know what her real lucky numer is, it was kinda meant like a joke because it’s a wery weird number…)

PHOE: Oh… So, we have a deal about this weekend?

ALL: Yeah./Sure./Gotcha! etc.

FADE OUT.

As you can see, I still had a lot to learn. But damn it, I did learn. I coded my first website, using HTML, and I was very keen on the whole “frames” thing. I even had a quiz, where I had painstakingly created individual pages for each answer option. And then I accidentally linked them all to the files on my computer rather than the online versions, and had to do it all again. Yeah.

Soon came Buffy, in its fifth season by the time I started watching, and I knew I was hooked on fandom. Buffy was a totally different ballgame than Friends, mainly because it made me so scared I couldn’t sleep at night, but also because the nature of the beast made it more fun to be a fan. Then came Harry Potter… and I haven’t looked back since.

Still I kept watching Friends, bitterly resenting Ross and Rachel’s rollercoaster relationship (a hardcore shipper, even if I hadn’t learned that word yet), singing Phoebe’s songs at the top of my lungs, applying for all possible website awards, “adopting” various Friends characters and items for my site, making a Fanlisting, and writing absolutely terrible fanfiction.

And here I am. Wow. I really should have gone outside more.

…Naaaah, just kidding. Fandom is awesome. The Friends community has only strengthened over the years, as constant re-runs not only provide us with a dose of nostalgia, but also remind us that some things – love, friendship, and figuring out how you’re meant to do this whole “real life” thing – never change, no matter how much the world around us does.

Thank you for everything, Friends. And for the record, I don’t think there should ever be a reunion show. Happy endings are endings for a reason.

Share your Friends memories in the comments, and enjoy today. Are you celebrating the anniversary with a cheesecake and your favourite episodes?

More ‘Friends’ on Hypable:

– Fandom Flashback: Friends
– “I’ll be there for you”: The most memorable Friends quotes
– How to be an adult according to Friends