This Friends Scene Was Deleted Over 9/11 Controversy, But Fans Loved It Anyway
Sitcoms' scripts are written in advance, and terrible events like 9/11 can inflict some changes. But the Friends fans still loved the cut-out "insensitive" scene.
It's a common occurrence that some scenes get removed from the final version of a visual product, whether we're talking about movies or TV series.
But sometimes, the reason behind the decision can be far more serious than the director's will and vision. One of the Friends episodes had to be changed in a hurry since it was soon to launch when the tragedy struck.
The 9/11 terrorist attack rendered some of the jokes in that episode not only insensitive but borderline offensive, and some of the scenes were reshot with a different script.
It was season 8, episode 3, and the sequence in question is Monica and Chandler's honeymoon. You see, in the original version, the happy couple gets in trouble in the airport for their jokes about bombs and planes...
And yeah, the creators of Friends were totally right to rush the changes.
"The sign says, 'no jokes about bombs,' but shouldn't the sign really say 'no bombs'?" Chandler muses as he and Monica notice the writing in the airport.
The couple then proceeds to discuss that and eventually gets detained for suspicious behavior.
This was most definitely not the type of jokes America needed those days. The scenes in the airport were reshot, but later, the originals were uploaded on YouTube.
Despite the context, the audience surprisingly loved them.
Many fans pointed out that the original scenes were hilarious and way more fun than the version that was actually aired.
Still, as it makes total sense, they had to agree that cutting it out was the only right decision back in 2001 considering the terrible context the Americans were in back then.