THE STORYLINE was ahead of its time, but when Carol and Susan got married on Friends, network bosses were bracing for a huge audience backlash.

One of the show’s co-creators Marta Kauffman says while the wedding between Ross’s ex-wife Carol and her girlfriend was given the green light, big measures were put in place to deal with the fallout.

“When we did the lesbian wedding episode of Friends, everybody was up in arms,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

NBC assigned over 100 operators to man the phones for fear of getting millions of calls about the episode, which aired in 1996.

However, they only "got two".

Marta added: "A month later, they got the letters, but nobody called. And the letters were all from the Rev. [Donald] Wildmon. What a putz!”

The show's boss, whose new series Grace and Frankie airs on Netflix, also spoke about the endless Friends reunion rumours — and gave a pretty definitive answer.

“Oh, oh, don’t even. I don’t know how many ways we can say no,” she said.

Back by popular demand, the show is now available on streaming services – let's see if any bosses receive complaints this time round.

As our social attitudes are more accepting than when Friends first hit the screen, many of their plots seem to be, quite simply, homophobic, racist and anti-anyone slightly "different".

This just represents the changing of times – and it can only be a good thing that societies have moved away from their narrow-thinking ways.

One example of the blatant stereotyping appears in season two, when Joey and Chandler take a baby onto a bus together, and are mortified when people assume they are a couple.

Homophobic references appear throughout, to the extent that it defines the characters.

During the series they are both at pains to point out that they are just good friends, and both totally love women.

And in season six Chandler is forced to help Joey take a shower after he hurts his back.

Chandler refuses to discuss it afterwards, to the point that when Joey simply thanks him for helping, Chandler shuts him down: “Now, is that 'never talking about it again’?”

Related Articles

Another outrageous storyline that is likely to be deemed too inappropriate as a plot for a teenage hit series is the one where Ross has sex with his underage student.

In the episode Ross finds out through anonymous teacher evaluations that he has a student admirer, so obviously the professorial thing to do is immediately try to sleep with her.

First, some maths.

Ross claims to have been divorced twice before 30, with his second divorce occurring some time in early season five.

During season six, he starts dating this student — Elizabeth — who is stated to be 12 years younger than him.

This makes her not only his student, but a teenager.

The argument can be made that a teenager girl is intelligent enough to decide who she wants to date, but it’s hard to make excuses for the guys in this storyline — least of all Elizabeth’s dad, played by Bruce Willis, who is vehemently against Ross crawling all over his daughter — threatening to contact the college where Ross teaches.

He has a change of heart, however, when Ross catches him giving himself a mildly embarrassing pep-talk in a mirror.

When Ross hints that he witnessed this display and might go public himself, Bruce backs off completely, seemingly now fine with a 30-something blackmailer screwing his teenage daughter.

Source: Read Full Article