Friends Ruined Sitcoms Without Trying, Big Bang Theory Producer Says
To this day, almost two decades since its conclusion, Friends remains one of the most successful sitcoms of all time.
Regular re-runs, and availability on streaming services allow it to still stay in public consciousness. Its cast reunion, staged by HBO Max in 2021, had been very successful. Friends is a sitcom that many modern sitcoms wanted to be…
And, as Eddie Gorodetsky argues, this is a bad thing.
Eddie Gorodetsky is no random critic – he worked as a screenwriter and/or producer on multiple highly successful sitcoms, including Two and a Half Men, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and, most notably, The Big Bang Theory.
As he explained in Jessica Radloff's book, The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive Inside Story Of The Epic Hit Series, Friends unwittingly caused significant problems with other series by having exceptional casting that could not be equaled:
"The worst thing that Friends did was find six people who are really good-looking and funny. So you went through this period of time on television where we kind of went backwards, and they just wanted to find good-looking people, and they didn't care if they were funny for a while."
Gorodetsky also feels that Friends' exploited its main cast's outstanding looks to the detriment of other aspects of the series. For example, Rachel and Phoebe were supposed to have money problems but that was never reflected in their appearance. And sets, similarly, looked a bit too nice and polished for places in which people were actually supposed to live, to match gorgeous and well-dressed characters.
Gorodetsky argues that Friends established a pattern of focusing on the cast's looks that only the success The Big Bang Theory managed to break, reminding everyone that story and jokes are more important for a sitcom.
Not that the cast of TBBT could be considered bad-looking, by any standard except perhaps that of Hollywood stars, but you could still conceivably glance at that group of people without immediately realizing that they are a group of actors and/or models.
As Gorodetsky asserted: "The idea of seeing people you can identify with and going "I'm not a freak. I'm not the only one who has to bleach my mustache" is really important."