User:Shlomif/Running gags in Friends

Friends had many running gags throughout the span of the show, some of which became recognised in general culture by their own right, such as Chandler's "Could this be any more...". Some of the most famous include:

Monica

• Obesity: Monica Geller, now slim and attractive, was obese as a child. She and the other characters would often refer to her "fat past" and several flashbacks throughout the series allowed us to see just how she looked then. She is also known to have "fat clown feet" as mentioned by Rachel. There is confusion as to at what point she became overweight as a child, as several episodes put her at developing her weight as early as kindergarten, while one episode shows a home movie of her clearly after that point, as being still thin. The show does reveal, however, exactly when she lost the weight. When she first meets Chandler during Thanksgiving her senior year in high school, he upsets her by calling her fat. By the following Thanksgiving, she has become completely thin.
• Obsessive-compulsive behavior: While there is no medical diagnosis to point out she has such, Monica has continuously exhibited various traits of an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, including obsession with cleanliness, refusal to relinquish control over anything, excessive categorization and organization, intense competitiveness, and the need to get people to like her. Her competitiveness could be observed when playing tennis with Chandler's boss and his wife, where Chandler suggests that they should let them win, to which she replies "I'm sorry, I don't understand what you just said." In another instance, Rachel, who is moving out of the apartment, offers Monica a chance to pack her belongings for her, presenting the offer as a goodbye present, which Monica gladly accepts. In addition, the show has innumerable references to Monica cleaning her apartment, or any other location she's in. When Ross dates a woman with a filthy apartment, Monica shows up at the woman's place begging for the chance to clean it, claiming that she hasn't been able to sleep since hearing about it.
• Freakishly strong: Monica's strength is referred to in several instances. In one episode, she beats Chandler in an arm wrestling match (though this might just be referring to his weakness). In another, when Ross asks Rachel to recruit some extra help in moving his couch, she comes back with Chandler, remarking that Joey wasn't available, so she got the next best thing. Ross comments that "the next best thing would have been Monica," to which Chandler replies "I might be offended by that, but Monica is freakishly strong." In one episode, Monica pins Rachel to the ground and Rachel remarks "Wow, you are freakishly strong." Another reference was how she would always beat Ross in wrestling matches as a child. That was more likely due to her weight, rather than her strength. It is more likely her strength is more recently acquired due to athletic activity (also helping to explain her weight loss).
• “I know!”: Monica often uses that short phrase, emphasizing it in her already loud voice.

Phoebe

• Previous way of life: It is often mentioned that Phoebe Buffay once lived on the street, and her strange former friends often come up. Various random facts from her childhood are revealed throughout the show, such as that she "stabbed a cop", had a pimp spit in her mouth - from which she contracted Hepatitis, has lived in Prague, and even mugged Ross when they were 14. She has apparently also spent time in jail or prison. In addition to those, Phoebe is known for holding grudges (for a long time) against people who have "betrayed" her. Notable examples of this are her feud with her twin sister, Ursula, her ex-singing partner leaving her to write jingles for an advertising firm and her birthmother not looking for her. When a cop asks her out, and brings up her criminal record, she says they'll talk at dinner, so while she may be comfortable mentioning it in front of friends, she prefers not to get into the gritty details with them.
• Music: Phoebe was often a musician at Central Perk and was known for her rather unusual, original songs. Some include: "Jingle Bitch Screwed Me Over", "Ode to a Pubic Hair", "Sometimes Men Love Women, Sometimes Men Love Men...", "The Barnyard Song" in which she graphically describes farm animals being turned into meat products to a group of elementary schoolers, and her most famous, "Smelly Cat."
• Regina Phalange: Phoebe's alter ego, which she regularly makes references to (similar to Art Vandelay on Seinfeld). In the last episode she stops Rachel's plane by telling her the plane has something wrong with its left phalange. She is sometimes "Doctor Regina Phalange." The name first appears in the season 4 finale, "The One With Ross's Wedding", when Phoebe is trying to warn the gang of Rachel's imminent arrival in London.
• Dead mother: Phoebe often references her mother's suicide to various situations on the show, usually as an excuse. For example, when Ross questions her on why she's never tried taffy, "Well, my mother was too busy planning her suicide to provide saltwater treats."
• Animal Rights: Phoebe is a vegetarian and is against the use of fur for fashion. She even named and fed a family of rats once living in her apartment. When she is pregnant, Phoebe is distressed that "The babies want meat!" and is only able to eat meat when Joey volunteers to not eat any meat while she is pregnant to balance her eating meat: "No extra animals would die, you'd just be eating my animals." Phoebe breaks up with her cop boyfriend, Gary, when he shoots a bird.

Ross

• Marriage: Ross Geller is divorced when the show begins and later has two marriages that both also end in divorce. Many gags from the sixth season on, run along the line that Ross will likely marry any girl he hooks up with and is equally as likely to break up with her after marriage.
• Speech: Ross speaks oddly, leaving long pauses in sentences and using words like "hello" and "like". When speaking to Russ (an uncannily similar character, also played by David Schwimmer in heavy makeup), he exclaims "It takes that guy...like, hello, what, like, a, uh, year to get a out a sentence", to which Chandler replies "Annoying, isn't it?" and Ross says "heh, uh, (pause) *weeze* yeah." Ross also tends to overpronounce words, as suggested by Chandler in "The One With the Thumb."
• We were on a break!: A highlight of the third season was Rachel and Ross, a couple at the time, having a major fight and subsequently deciding to go on a break in their relationship. Around this point, the depressed Ross sleeps with another woman; his resulting guilt and Rachel's resulting resentment resonated for many seasons to come. Whenever someone brought up Ross' one night stand, he would defensively yell, "We were on a break!" In a fantasy episode showing the paths the characters' lives might have taken if they'd made different choices, a married Rachel wants to sleep with soap opera star Joey and wishes she could "just not be married for a little while -- like, be on a break or something." In a later episode, Ross is diapering his and Rachel's daughter, Emma, and tells her, "So no matter what Mommy says, we really were on a break!"
• PhD: Ross has a doctoral degree in paleontology, so he is not a physician. Many times, this lead to misunderstandings, especially since Ross is always keen on presenting himself as Dr. Geller. Even Rachel can't tell the difference, as seen in one of the very last episodes, when Ross goes with her to the hospital to visit her ill father, she tells him not to call himself doctor, since they are at a hospital and "that actually means something here".
• Dinosaur Stories: Ross often tries to flex his intellectual muscle by telling the rest of the gang about his work as a paleontologist, but they are uninterested and have pretended to fall asleep whenever Ross starts telling one of his dinosaur stories. At one point, Monica wonders whether Ross' dinosaur stories will ever become extinict. Also, in "The One Where Chandler Gets Caught," Rachel reminds Phoebe that Phoebe once thought that Ross was trying to kill her, to which Phoebe replies, "I'm sorry, but it's hard to believe that anyone would tell a story that dull just to tell it!"
• Double Entendres: Ross tends to make unfortunate comments which imply that he is perverted. This can lead to disgust and confusion from those around him. For example, when trying to flirt with a pizza girl whose hair resembles "an eight-year-old boy's" Ross says "I like eight-year-old boys". At another time he offers Rachel's boss free museum tours for his son saying "it will just be the two of us, and he can touch anything". When he was buying a new sofa he said that it had to say "Kids are welcome" and, at the same time, seductively, "come here", to which Rachel exclaimed, shocked, "You say that to kids?".
• Hi: When Ross is depressed or has some sort of problem he'll always show up to Monica's apartment or the coffee shop. When the door opens he would say in a dry, low, and almost incomprehensible voice, "...Hi...", be asked about what is wrong and tell them.

Chandler

• Sexuality: Chandler Bing was often painted with the possibility of being gay, despite his determination to prove himself as the heterosexual he actually was. Various characters on the show had assumed that he was gay when they first met him; in the episode The One Where Nana Dies Twice, Chandler is told by his friends and coworkers that he has "a quality" that makes him seem somewhat gay. In addition, Chandler's father was a transvestite, which may have been the cause of some of Chandler's feminine behavioral traits (as well as the middle name Muriel), and one of Chandler's first phrases on Friends was "Sometimes I wish I was a lesbian... Wait, did I say that out loud?". He also managed to say the unfinished sentence "If I were a guy...". He catches himself when he says (referring to all his friends in dress clothes) "Well, don't we look good all dressed up?" He then says, "It's stuff like that, isn't it?" Chandler himself, however, is aware of this and occasionally makes fun of the fact, claiming that, when Phoebe is reading tea leaves, his leaves resemble The Village People. In the "What if?" episode, there are also many jokes to the fact that Chandler has only been with four women, which only turned out to be one woman in the end.
• Sarcasm: Chandler would often drop snide remarks, typically in response to the actions of his friends. His particular brand of sarcasm is also often based on the phrase "Could this [object] BE any more [description]?" Joey occasionally made fun of this fact (e.g., "Could I be any funnier?" or, when he had put on all of Chandler's clothes, "Could I be wearing any more clothes?").
• Speech: Chandler has a strange way of speaking, in which he emphasizes the wrong word in his sentences. One exaggerated example, where Ross was mocking Chandler's speech pattern: "The hills are alive with the sound … of music" (referring to the musical The Sound of Music).
• Smoking: In early seasons, Chandler had just quit being a fairly heavy smoker, and still smokes occasionally (but secretly) in later seasons, stealing cigarette butts from ashtrays, hiding packets of cigarettes in the toilet cistern, smoking other people's cigarettes when they aren't looking and at one point, when told he smells of "perfume and cigarettes" replies, "Well, the perfume's not mine; be thankful for that!"
• Occupation: From the very beginning of the show the professions of each of the characters are quite clear, except for Chandler's (Statistical Analysis and Data Reconfiguration). He also jokes about his job, in the very first episode, he told Rachel "If I don't input those numbers...it doesn't make much of a difference." This turns into a recurring joke, culminating in the episode The One With The Embryos (season 4) in which Monica and Rachel lose their larger, more luxurious apartment to Chandler and Joey during a game centering on which pair knows more about the other. The question, "What is Chandler Bing’s job?", to which Rachel answers, transpondster, proves fatal to the girls' efforts and they are forced to trade apartments with the boys. It is clear from statements made by some of the characters during the series, however, that Chandler earns a lot more than his friends. Chandler is able to replace all the items in Chandler and Joey's apartment after they are stolen from their apartment in "The One with the Cat." He buys back all the things, some even better than before when he goes behind Joey's back to kiss his current girlfriend Kathy in "The One Where Chandler Crosses the Line". When it turns out that Monica's parents have spent her wedding fund on a beach house, Chandler is able to pay for her dream wedding and more. In the ninth season, when Chandler is forced to move to Tulsa for his job, he quits and finds a new career in advertising. Soon thereafter, Monica is able to say exactly what his job was. Chandler is outraged because it wasn't until after he quit that somebody actually knew what his job was.

Joey

• How You Doin'?: This is Joey's pick-up line. It was first seen in "The One with Rachel's Crush," and Joey continues using it for the rest of the series, sometimes on Phoebe, Rachel, Monica, and even humorously on Chandler. Janine, his roommate after Chandler started living with Monica, was the only woman to resist the line. In the spin-off based on Joey, his sister mocks him, saying it's the only way Joey can pick up women.
• Food: Joey has an enormous appetite and often mooches food from Monica's refrigerator. In the last episode when everything is packed and Monica and Chandler are ready to leave, he asks Monica, "Does this mean there's nothing to eat?"; Monica assures him that she put some lasagnas in his freezer. He has a great love of sandwiches, and once ate an entire turkey on Thanksgiving. When ordering pizza, he used to ask for the "Joey special" (two pizzas). During Phoebe's pregnancy, he said to her that he wouldn't eat meat until the babies were born. During the trip to London, he couldn't resist and ate meat. Also somewhat of a deal-breaker with women: he briefly dated a friend of Phoebe's, but broke it off when she stole fries from his plate - because "Joey doesn't share food!!" He agreed to give her a second chance, but was angered when she wouldn't let him take a bite of her dessert.
• Promiscuity: Joey was often portrayed as promiscuous. His longest datings were with Kathy and Rachel. A further joke is that the women he dates are often incredibly stupid; at one point Joey exclaims "This is why I don't date girls who read!".
• Acting: Joey is an actor but rarely got work in earlier seasons, either by the fault of his own abysmal acting or the fault of his agent. Another running joke is his role of 'Dr. Drake Ramoray' in Days of Our Lives.
• Stupidity: Simply put, Joey is the stupid one. Not so much in the earlier episodes but later on it's definitely a running gag (For instance, when out of gas by the highway he spells HELP backwards so people will see it from the air). In the last seasons this is taken even further (e.g., Phoebe referring to him as her "retarded" brother to get him an acting job). Strangely, he apparently has a very good memory (e.g., when he gets Word of the Day toilet paper, he actually remembers what he learns from it, at least for the course of the episode). Once, an encyclopedia seller managed to convince him to buy the letter V from his encyclopedias. When he tried to show his knowledge, a conversation that was initially about the Vietnam war changed to a documentary about the Korean war and Joey, once again, was forced to only agree with what the others were saying.

Rachel

• Nose Job: During high school and in the Thanksgiving episode, Rachel was portrayed with a botch nose. In the second Thanksgiving flashback, her nose is normal, and Jack Geller compliments their mutual plastic surgeon. Emma, her daughter, also appears to have inherited this, a thought which terrifies Rachel.
• Rich Background: Rachel's parents are extremely wealthy and she has been spoiled all her life until she moved to the city. In the Pilot, Rachel is surprised to learn that everyone else has a job and decides to "go get one of those job things." When her sister visits her, it's easy to see that she is a "pre-job" Rachel.
• On a Break: See "We Were on a Break!" under Ross
• Stupidity: While Rachel is a very witty and 'school of life' person, she is often portrayed as lacking knowledge of things, or at least being dismissive or in denial to their significance. Her past as a cheerleader, finding work as a waitress and later, manifesting her love of fashion, are associated with the stereotypical fixations. While often portrayed as ditzy or shallow, she sometimes shows considerable cunning and depth, making her a more complicated character than at first appearance.
• Her Baby: The gag of Rachel being too overprotective of her baby started in The One With Phoebe's Birthday Dinner, where Rachel feared of Emma losing her sight while she attended Phoebe's birthday dinner. Incidentally, Ross and Rachel argued about her overprotectiveness. Ross locks the apartment door, unaware that Emma was inside the apartment. Since then, Rachel was more overprotective than before. And in, The One With Phoebe's Wedding, Rachel reportedly cried hard when Emma couldn't go to the rehearsal dinner.

Ross & Chandler

• College days: Ross and Chandler used to be roommates in college, and throughout the series, their college days have been mentioned numerous times. For example, Chandler claims the basis of his and Ross' relationship was "unfortunate hair." They both were very "nerdy" in their college days.

Joey & Chandler

• As a couple: One of the more frequent recurring jokes of the early episodes paralleled the interactions of Joey and Chandler to the interactions of a married couple. The gag was usually used to enhance the aforementioned "Gay Chandler" joke, as Chandler would often assume the "wife" role, but was often funny on its own. This gag even appears in the first episode of the spinoff, Joey.
• Entertainment Unit: During series 3, Joey begins work on a place to keep the mail in Joey & Chandler's apartment, eventually expanding it out into an entertainment unit.
  In true Joey fashion, he builds the unit too large, causing their doors to be blocked by the unit, and causing Chandler to rip many of his clothes on the side of the unit. Chandler's bedroom door was also cut in half during this time, opening in two halves, until Rachel moved in. After being annoyed by the entertainment unit, Chandler decides to sell it, much to the pesterance of Joey. While trying to sell it, Joey convinces the customer that the main section can fit a grown man, and climbs in as proof. Following this, the buyer locks Joey in and steals all of their furniture. Chandler had done the same with Joey previously, giving him $5 for being able to fit in, then held the doors together with a hockey stick - this is what prompted Joey's claim to the thief that the unit could hold a whole person. They eventually traded it for a canoe. When Chandler kissed Joey's girlfriend Kathy, he bought all new furniture because of his guilt.

The Geller Family

• Only child/favourite: In many episodes it's made clear Jack & Judy Geller like Ross more than Monica. Also Judy often forgets Monica and told Rachel "You're the daughter I never had" and when she thought Ross had died she told him she thought she was childless only for him to tell her that she still has Monica. Monica is constantly criticized by her mother, while Ross is the golden child. Apparently this is due to the fact that before Ross' birth it was thought that Judy was infertile and Ross was referred to as a "Medical Marvel". Ross's room was maintained "as a shrine" until the house was sold, while Monica's room was quickly converted to a gym. To a lesser extent, Jack Geller also showed this favoritism. In one episode, when Ross went to pick up some of his childhood possessions before the family home was sold, he noticed that the boxes containing Monica's possessions had been used to protect Jack's Porsche from flooding, and were thus ruined. Feeling guilty, Jack gave Monica the Porsche as recompense.

Other characters

• Ugly Naked Guy: An obese, nude hermit who engaged in odd habits in the "privacy" of his apartment across the street from Monica's. One of the gang would often notice something going on in his apartment and cry out "eww, eww, Ugly Naked Guy is..." and would describe the usually strange act to the others, who would then crowd around the window to a chorus of "ewwwww". During a flashback in one episode that was set a year before the pilot, Phoebe and Ross have a conversation that goes, Phoebe: "Aww, that is so unfortunate." Ross: "What?" Phoebe: "cute naked guy is really starting to put on weight." Ugly Naked Guy decides to sublet his apartment in Season 5, and Ross rents it to live across the street from his sister.
• Mr. Heckles: A slighty off-kilter man who lived below Monica and Rachel's apartment and continually complained about the noise. Usually claims he could have something you know he doesn't. For example, "I could have a cat", or "I could play the oboe". When he died during the second season, he leaves all his possessions to the "noisy girls in the apartment above mine".
• Oh...My...God!: Janice's catchphrase; used as her introductory line in her later guest appearances.
• Gunther likes Rachel: When Gunther appeared in an episode it usually involved his anything-but-secret crush on Rachel, who however remains oblivious to his feelings throughout most of the show's run. In one episode she even believes that he is homosexual when she thanks him by saying, "One day you'll make a man very happy." That he virtually obsesses about Rachel is evident in the episode where Chandler breaks up with Janice so she can give her marriage another try. When Gunther sees Chandler with Janice's gold-coloured shoe in his hand, he observes, "Rachel has those in burgundy". This is also seen when he buys all the stuff Rachel came into contact with in Ross' apartment, and when he buys Rachel's cat and invites her to come over any time to see it.

Miscellaneous

• The One With/Where/Without/Who/When [rest of episode name]: Almost every episode name starts with these three words, which is referred to as "TOW" in TV guides. In reference to the fact that most sitcoms don't display the title of their episodes, so fans must discuss the main plot points with each other when referring to specific episodes. Eg. The One Where Emma Cries, The One With The Blackout. The only exceptions - taking the reference even further - are the first episode, The Pilot. the final episode: The Last One, and to a lesser extent The One Hundredth
• The Magna Doodle: The Fisher-Price Magna Doodle next to Joey and Chandler's front door first appeared in season 3, episode 18: The One With the Hypnosis Tape. In following episodes it was the source of many hidden gags, as it almost always had something humorously written or drawn on it. Joey still has the Magna Doodle at his new L.A. apartment on Joey, next to his front door.
• Alternative way of "giving the finger": When they were kids, Ross came up with an alternative way to give Monica the middle finger when their parents were around. Both hands, formed into fists, would clash together sideways in front of the person two times quickly. Ross is first seen using this on Rachel, and when Rachel asks what is was, Monica explains. Later in the same episode, we find out that they also have another alternative to cursing that includes grabbing the neck with your elbows sticking out and waving your elbows towards the other person, although it is never explained what it is an alternative to. Though everyone makes fun of the alternative finger gesture when it is first introduced, in later episodes, the characters are seen using the gag independent of its context here. This is largely because as a network television show, Friends cannot show characters giving the finger, and the Ross gesture makes a useful and humorous substitute.