The writers of Friends have revealed the show’s producers tried to change the pilot episode so that Monica wouldn’t sleep with a man on a first date.
The hit ‘90s sitcom ran for ten seasons, but it was the show’s very first episode that found the writers at loggerheads with NBC executives.
David Crane and Marta Kauffman created and ran the show, and immediately received pushback for a plot line in the debut episode in which Monica, played by Courteney Cox, sleeps with a man after a first date.
Speaking to The Times, Crane said: “The guy who was in charge said: ‘We’re not going to like Monica because [in the pilot] she sleeps with a guy on the first date’. We made the argument that it makes her sympathetic.”
In the episode, titled The Pilot, she sleeps with her co-worker ‘Paul the Wine Guy’ after he claims not to have had sex with anyone in two years, only for it to turn out he was misleading Monica.
“The network, in trying to prove that the audience wouldn’t like Monica if she sleeps with a guy on the first date, distributed a little questionnaire to the audience at our dress rehearsal,” Crane continued.
“And it was so skewed. The question was like: ‘When Monica sleeps with a guy on her first date, is she a) a slut or b) a harlot?’”
“People wrote in saying: ‘No, it’s fine,’” Crane added.
In other Friends news, Jennifer Aniston recently shared photographs to celebrate Cox’s 60th birthday. “Celebrating this powerful, magical, mystical, interesting, interested, ferociously talented girl today!!!” she wrote. “She’s funny like no other, STUNNING on the inside and out. Independent in the most gorgeous way, cares for everyone even if she doesn’t know you.“
In June, Cox recreated her iconic dance from Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ video, in which she appeared as a relatively unknown actor in 1984.
Her Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston reacted with a series of emojis, actress Julianne Moore threw in clap reactions, Jennifer Garner commented “You win!” followed by five stars, Lily Aldridge called Cox an “icon” and more.
Cox also revealed in May that she still “talks” with her late co-star Matthew Perry. “I’m so thankful I got to work so closely with him for so many years. He visits me a lot, if we believe in that,” she said.
Last Thursday (August 15), US federal authorities held a press conference in Los Angeles in which they said they had arrested and charged five individuals in connection with Perry’s death, and had uncovered a “broad criminal network” of ketamine suppliers that “took advantage” of Perry’s addiction issues.
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