Moo Point, A Friends Podcast
Episode 1: T1W Jozi Says Jimmies and Brandon Yells Bing!
April 7, 2017
Jozi: Hi! I’m Jozi, and I’m here to convince Brandon that Friends is his favorite show.
Brandon: I’m Brandon, and this is Moo Point, a Friends podcast.
Jozi: Welcome to Episode One. Today we’re going to be getting right into the pilot episode, which is either called The Pilot or The One Where Monica gets a roommate, um, but first we’re going to take a little bit just to introduce our show.
Brandon: This is, first and foremost, a podcast about the sitcom Friends, but I have a problem. I don’t actually like the show. I’ve never watched more than two episodes in a row without being thoroughly annoyed and shutting the damn thing off. Naturally Jozi had the idea to walk me through it to show me the errors in my ways.
Jozi: See, I’m convinced that Brandon just hasn’t had the right immersion factor to appreciate the charm that is Friends. Um, I’m not saying the show is flawless but I, I’m going to hold my flag high and say that this is one of the shows that eventually we will agree that has something that most people can appreciate.
Brandon: We already agree on that, most people do appreciate it. That’s why the show is such a great challenge to me. Most of the people whose opinion I respect really enjoy this show.
Jozi: So you’re just admitting you’re the problem is what you’re getting at?
Brandon: I, I have three daughters. I find it important to admit the possibility of me being wrong from time to time.
Jozi: Oh, now that is, that’s extremely Renaissance man of you to …
Brandon: Um …
Jozi: Jump on that one.
Brandon: Wasn’t there a Friends-era movie called Renaissance Man, like Danny DeVito or something?
Jozi: Oh my, oooo, hey look, this is our first tangent?
Brandon: I …
Jozi: It’s, uh …
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: Renaissance Man …
Brandon: You’re right, I’m sorry.
Jozi: It is, was Danny DeVito.
Brandon: I, okay, hold on, we’re not, we’re not chasing any obscure movie titles within the first minute of the episode.
Jozi: Okay. All right, fine. So, okay, back to business. Um, first, we want you to know where you can find us. We are all over the interwebs and all the likes, so you can, you can find us on Facebook at Moo Point Podcast, or Twitter @moopodcast.
Brandon: You can also email the show using [email protected]. And, uh, Jozi, I have a question for you, why, why did we go with Moo? I mean, I know the reason why we went with Moo Point, uh, but there might be someone out there listening that hasn’t seen the show and wonders where the name came from.
Jozi: Well, okay, so the origin of the cow thing is just another one of those things about Friends that you’re not really gonna understand until you understand it. So for now that’s all just a moo point.
Brandon: Oh, God.
Jozi: Now don’t worry, you’ll get there. It’s okay.
Brandon: Yeah, sure. Not likely.
Jozi: Ohforgoodnesssake, okay, could you BE any more negative?
Brandon: I mean, you’re making me watch the show.
Jozi: Well that, okay, that brings us to something that’s kind of important. You’re complaining a lot. I think it’s really time you tell us all why it is that you just don’t like Friends so much.
Brandon: Uh, all I can think of when I watch this show is how annoying the characters are to me. Uh, there’s …
Jozi: Oh, they’re endearing and lovely.
Brandon: I suppose, yeah. I have, I have annoying friends out there, I’ll be honest. But, like, I don’t watch them on television. Um, there’s a r- …
Jozi: That’s just because they don’t have the money to make a show.
Brandon: You’re probably right on that. There’s, there’s the really whiny guy, uh, I can’t remember his name at this point but, uh, really tough to watch for me. Uh, the show has two Urkels, which maybe for the people that don’t remember Urkel he was this overly obnoxious next door neighbor on the show Family Matters …
Jozi: He doesn’t whine that bad. Like, did I do that, I mean he doesn’t do that.
Brandon: No.
Jozi: He’s not that whiny.
Brandon: No, I’m talking about the …
Jozi: The Friends isn’t that bad …
Brandon: No, there’s two Urkels, there’s the actor guy and then the lady, Phoebe, that, that filled that role for me.
Jozi: Oh, you think they’re Urkels.
Brandon: That, that’s what I think.
Jozi: Oh, this is charming.
Brandon: Yes. Um, so, I mean, they’re supposed to be comic relief. A lot of times they just make me want to stab myself in the eyeballs. Um …
Jozi: That’s effective.
Brandon: I, I kind of hate shows that have laughter built into them. Uh, this one …
Jozi: You mean, comedies?
Brandon: Sure, I’ve seen comedies. I mean, comedies that are movies do not have people watching them and laughing at them so that the audience knows when to laugh, and to me, I don’t know if my brain is just built to think that that is a way of them coercing a laugh out of me so maybe that, you know, everyone in the room is laughing, it must have been a funny show. Um, but a lot of these jokes just aren’t laughable. And it, it seems insulting that people would be guffawing at them.
Jozi: Well yeah, that’s fine.
Brandon: I guess. I, and then …
Jozi: That’s called laughter in comedy, okay, I’ll give you this, I’m sorry, I didn’t …
Brandon: So it …
Jozi: I don’t mean to negate your party …
Brandon: There may be a lot, a lot more reasons. But I haven’t seen the whole show, so I’m just going to cover one more point and that’s that opening song which …
Jozi: [Loud gasp. Seriously, the gasp is major here. That’s why it’s notated.]
Brandon: Is a good song and I recognize that, but it is so stinking catchy and I, just since, like, … we’ve figured out that we wanted to do this podcast it has been stuck in my head every single day and it is so annoying and …
Jozi: [sings the opening guitar lick to “I’ll Be There For You” in Hee Haw banjo-plucking style]
Brandon: What’s with the clapping?
Jozi: Oh, come on. [claps]
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: See?
Brandon: You did that every time you watch it, you still do it now?
Jozi: Okay, I’m going to tell you about that song, um, because, like, when I hear that it’s like automatic nostalgia, right?
Brandon: Of course.
Jozi: But I will tell you a fun fact about that song, I play in a cover band.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Where we do, um, we take requests on songs that are played, and so we’ll do, like, weddings …
Brandon: Right, like Free Bird.
Jozi: Parties and funerals, that kind of thing. Um, but anyway, that song, you would not believe the number of times that that song is requested. Everyone wants to hear the Rembrandts and they want to hear that whole thing. I don’t know why. So I’m one of the people, not only do I clap when I get there, I can also sing, um, the obscure second verse and the everyone-forgot-about there’s a bridge.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: I can do the whole thing from beginning to end and every single time the whole room erupts with [claps] every single time.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: So I’m just gonna say that and, yeah, you do. You still clap. If you don’t you’re just, you’re just pop culturally deprived.
Brandon: Hey.
Jozi: Yeah, you see what I did there?
Brandon: Yeah, that’s a good show.
Jozi: Okay. All right, that is a good show.
Brandon: All right, so why do you like Friends so much? Besides …
Jozi: Um …
Brandon: Besides the theme song.
Jozi: Um, okay, besides the title song? Um, actually I really hated the title song when it first came out, and now it’s just, you know …
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Nostalgia for me.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Um, and that’s actually probably half the reason that I like the show, um, most, most of my reasons are actually more of a kind of personal level. I mean I, I’m not going to act like this is the smartest show you’ve ever seen. This is not an intellectual show. Um, and, but I do believe that, like, for its time when it was airing it had some pretty progressive characteristics. I mean, I’m not going to call it groundbreaking, um, except the cultural phenomenon that was Friends was pretty groundbreaking. Um, but it did pave the way for some future televisions trends, I guess.
Brandon: Sure.
Jozi: For lack …
Brandon: No, I …
Jozi: Of another word …
Brandon: I will agree with that …
Jozi: Um, but …
Brandon: For sure.
Jozi: But, yeah. I mean, that’s not really why I like it though. Most of my reasons for enjoying are just kind of along the, well, I, I just do. Like, I am one of the people who actually laughs at it. Like, you think it’s canned or I’m laughing because they are, but I usually laugh. Um, and I, I find the laughs, you know, I’ve watched it so many times that they’re familiar and they’re comforting and comfortable, and I have a lot of various nostalgic reasons, or, that …
Brandon: So …
Jozi: I’ll get into later. Um …
Brandon: That, that is …
Jozi: Yes?
Brandon: One of my internal fears about doing this show is that I’m going to upset some people that I care about because I’m going to tell them to their face, or not to their face, whatever, I’m going to tell them that that joke …
Jozi: To their earbuds …
Brandon: Was not funny and you’re laughing at it …
Jozi: I’m speaking right to your earbuds …
Brandon: And that is wholly incorrect. If you think a joke is funny, laugh at it. My mom laughs at every joke that I ever make, and I love her for it. So please …
Jozi: That can’t be that funny.
Brandon: So I’m not trying to insult people when I say that it’s not laugh out loud funny, I am just speaking, like, if you texted me that right now, I would put lol in my phone and I would be lying to you. That’s what I’m saying about most of the jokes of this show that I’ve seen. But we’ll find out.
Jozi: Okay, yeah, we’ll get there. I’m, I’m seeing that argument and I probably w-, yeah, we’ll get to that one.
Brandon: All right.
Jozi: Um, circling back, but yeah, I mean that’s, that’s ba-, I’m going to say most of my reasons for liking it are just ‘cause I’m that shallow and I think it’s kind of funny.
Brandon: All right.
Jozi: Um, most of the characters, I agree with you about the whiny dudes. Um, but I mean, most of the characters I see something in them that I identify with that I enjoy, but I just like that this is just a goofy show. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. They just want to make people laugh.
Brandon: All right.
Jozi: I think they do it. Um, they did enough with the characters to get us to come back and watch it again and, um …
Brandon: Very cool.
Jozi: Yeah. So …
Brandon: So …
Jozi: There we go.
Brandon: So you like it and I don’t, and now we have a show.
Jozi: Yep. I’d like to show you that Friends can be enjoyable.
Brandon: And I’d like to crush your memories by showing you that this show is crap.
Jozi: That, that’s lovely. Okay, then …
Brandon: So here’s what we’re going to do. Every week we’re going to watch an episode or two of Friends. We’ll recap the episodes here for you guys and give our thoughts on them. After we’ve done that, we’ll tally up the score.
Jozi: And that is more than just a little bit subjective.
Brandon: Yeah, very much so, uh, but I like to win.
Jozi: Oh.
Brandon: So we need a score for that.
Jozi: Okay, uh, so what’s the score?
Brandon: Well, as the one that has to suffer through watching these shows, I’m going to go ahead and begin with a score of 236.
Jozi: Because there’s 236 episodes of Friends?
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Okay.
Brandon: And so I get 236 points, you get zero, and, uh …
Jozi: That’s …
Brandon: Every time that you can prove to me that there’s something to enjoy about a particular episode then I lose a point and you gain one.
Jozi: So all I have to do is just show you one enjoyable thing per episode of Friends?
Brandon: Uh, no. I actually have to enjoy watching the episode.
Jozi: Okay, so, like, the most subjective scoring system in the history of the world is what we have?
Brandon: E-, exactly.
Jozi: Oh, great.
Brandon: Um, but I, I should add that I am coming to this with an open mind. Uh …
Jozi: Oh, clearly. Clearly.
Brandon: There, there are a lot of people that I, I respect and I spend time with in real life, online, that, that adore this show and I, I look to be proven wrong. Uh, and I’m open to be proven wrong sometimes. Maybe.
Jozi: Uh …
Brandon: Uh, rarely.
Jozi: Okay. All right, well, that’s fine. That’s fine. I’ll take your subjective scoring, um, but as the one that has the burden of proof, um, I’m going to claim the advantage of choosing which of the episodes we watch I recap.
Brandon: Perfect. I, uh, I don’t want to watch any of them, so …
Jozi: That’s classic. All right, so I’m, in that spirit, I’m going to choose this first one and we’re just going to jump into the pilot.
Brandon: Very cool. Off you go.
Jozi: Okay. This is Season One, Episode One, the Pilot, or as, as it’s been renamed, The One nd Where Monica Gets a Roommate. Um, this episode originally aired on September 22 , 1994, so take yourself back. 1994. Um, and I’m, I’m going to, like, go up front and say this pilot episode, there’s a lot in it and this is going to be a slightly long recap. I, I will not always talk this long about an episode. So …
Brandon: So excited.
Jozi: Um, uh, yeah, y-, sit back. Have some wine. Um, this, I, I am one of the people who has watched Friends over and over, but it has been a really long time since I’ve watched Friends, um, I did watch it, like, full on when it was on real time, prime time, every Thursday night, um, back in 1994. This was a time that I actually, well, not in 1994, but when Friends was airing I remember, uh, some of my real friends coming into my college dorm room to watch Friends with me. Um, I also know that conspicuously absent from these Friends gatherings was one Brandon, who …
Brandon: Oh.
Jozi: Thought that Thursday night hockey was more important than hanging with his friends …
Brandon: Was that the …
Jozi: But, uh …
Brandon: Night that that was on?
Jozi: I don’t …
Brandon: I loved hockey.
Jozi: It could have been, I just know Brandon wasn’t in the room because he didn’t care about Friends or his friends. Um, that’s not true. Brandon cared about his friends a lot. Um, anyway, I’ve already digressed. So back to it we go. Um, and I’m gonna skip talking about the song because …
Brandon: Uh …
Jozi: That title sequence is enough without talking about the song …
Brandon: Oh, I don’t know that it is though. We talked for two seconds about it. And I know that, I mean this is, this is our first recording for this podcast at, so maybe it’s expected to go a little long and we can tighten that up for sure, but we can’t, we can’t stop …
Jozi: We can’t stop the feeling …
Brandon: We must stop. We must stop and talk about their outfits.
Jozi: Oh, no, no, no, see, I wasn’t going to skip …
Brandon: Real quick …
Jozi: The title sequence, I was going to skip the song.
Brandon: Okay. Yeah.
Jozi: I mean, title sequence …
Brandon: We’ve already talked about the song …
Jozi: I mean …
Brandon: More than I ever want to talk about the song.
Jozi: I don’t know how we’re dancing in the fountain, why our entire title sequence is a wet T-shirt contest. I mean, this is just not, I, I don’t get this. But …
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: I mean …
Brandon: Um …
Jozi: But luckily, it’s a …
Brandon: Also where is that pond? And h-, why does Matthew Perry let the water in his mouth? He spits out pond water?
Jozi: Oh, he’s …
Brandon: Like, there …
Jozi: It’s perfectly fine to put pond water in his mouth because what that is is a nice little manufactured fountain on a sound stage in LA.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: See, you’d feel a whole lot better about it …
Brandon: Sure.
Jozi: If you had read as much nerdy Friends trivia as I have, but …
Brandon: Okay. So there, you assure me there’s no, like, dirty pennies in there?
Jozi: No, people have sought out that fountain. People will wander around New York, Central Park, and, and they’ll, like, people will take pictures of themselves going, oh I found the fountain. It’s, it, people, it doesn’t exist. That’s papier mache, and …
Brandon: All right.
Jozi: Tubes, okay? It’s not real. Um …
Brandon: Very well.
Jozi: And NBC felt the same way about this pilot, or about this title sequence, by the way, because this is the only time they ever showed this whole thing. Like, it’s just embarrassing. It, it’s …
Brandon: Well …
Jozi: I mean, they …
Brandon: Well, I haven’t gotten that far yet.
Jozi: Oh, great. To continue, you were, you were saying …
Brandon: No, we’re good.
Jozi: No.
Brandon: If, if they had a problem with it, I don’t.
Jozi: No, they had a problem with, uh, the, you know, the dancing wet T-shirt contest. They wanted to use pull, uh, show pulls so, um, eventually, like, this, this looks familiar to everybody because pieces of the title sequence are used for the next ten years, but they’re also combined with show pulls.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Jozi: So, this is the only time you’ll ever have to see this entire thing from beginning to end. And truly, I’m, I’m gonna give you this, that by the time we get to the end of this, you do kind of want to stab your eyeballs. Um …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Great job telling all body-conscious little girls exactly how you should hang out in New York, excellent fashion choices, moving on. Um, so we do, we do a quick, you know, blurry 90s zoom through New York City, we land on Central Perk which also, no, does not exist.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, but we begin at Central Perk, as often we do and we can even hashtag WBACP, CP if we really want to because we’re always there. Um, and the friends are all sitting on the couch, almost all, all sitting on the couch talking. Um, so we’re going to break this down for just a second, and again, I’m not normally going to spend …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: This much time talking about scenes, especially not Central Perk scenes, ‘cause they’re forever. But this whole opening bit here is just a little chatty montage that, it does a fairly nice job of just giving us a quick overview of who the characters are, um, ‘cause from what …
Brandon: Sort of.
Jozi: Sort of. Not, not quite.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: It’s a, it’s a quick overview.
Brandon: It...
Jozi: But I mean, from …
Brandon: I think it does …
Jozi: From the very first, go ahead.
Brandon: I think it does do a good job of giving us, like, the very face of what these characters are going to eventually be like. Like, it captures what I see …
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: Through the rest of the episode.
Jozi: Yeah, I mean, you can kind of tell that they’re basically reading their own character descriptions off the page as they’re talking.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Like, y-, you know Monica, Monica: pretty sad love life. Great, so she has to talk about that. And Phoebe’s, you know, obviously really flighty and her, I never equated her to Urkel but now I’m watching that. Um …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Joey’s obviously obsessed with his looks, uh, Chandler has this strange phallic obsession that has to do with phones. And Chandler has also apparently been attending the William Shatner school of elocution because I don’t know why Chandler can’t finish a sentence without stopping and really letting us know. Um, but that’s how it goes.
Brandon: Right. He seems to have some sort of, like, uh, New York cultural vibe going on with everything he says. Uh …
Jozi: I’m going to call it impediment. But that’s okay.
Brandon: Yeah. Um, the very first joke, uh, Joey on the couch, like w-, I don’t, I don’t know him. I know, I know that his character’s name, let, let me say this again. I’ve figured out all their character’s name by the time we were done and sitting down to record this. I had trouble until halfway through the episode r-, remembering their names, but Joey’s I remember because he had a show spinoff eventually, right? Um, so …
Jozi: Of Joey! With apos-, or with exclamation point after it.
Brandon: Yes. So I, I’ve never met any of these characters, and Joey, the very first joke of the entire Friends show, he says “you’re going out with him, there must be something wrong with him.” And I understand a dig when I hear one, but if, if I don’t know these characters, then that’s just plain mean.
Jozi: Yeah, he’s a big fat jerk, right?
Brandon: Like, yeah. And I, I understand that eventually that may become endearing, and actually by the end of the episode I get it. But …
Jozi: Yeah, ‘cause by the end of the episode …
Brandon: There’s no sense …
Jozi: Absolutely everybody else has made fun of Monica, and even Monica has said there must be something wrong with him.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: But …
Brandon: That’s for sure.
Jozi: So as an, as an introduction, these people are just kind of pathetic. Like …
Brandon: Right, yeah.
Jozi: Joey’s mean, Chandler’s got weird dreams, Monica’s so sad …
Brandon: And then …
Jozi: And Phoebe, like, literally can’t keep her eyes not crossed. It’s very strange.
Brandon: And Chandler, like, he has this, this joke, again, this might be the second joke, actually. And he says, does he have a hump? A hump and a hairpiece? And I googled that and I can’t figure out what the hell it means. Can you explain that to me?
Jozi: Um, there’s really no, like, I think that Chandler was just picking things that could be wrong with him, and …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: They thought it would be funny if they both started with h. That’s, that’s my guess.
Brandon: Oh, okay.
Jozi: I mean …
Brandon: I gotcha.
Jozi: I’m …
Brandon: It, it’s funny because …
Jozi: I’m not going to sit behind these lines. They’re not, they’re not great.
Brandon: This show is so engrained in culture now that when I looked this up on Google it, it was, like, just referencing itself over and over.
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: It was a cycle. It was, you know, I’d be like, I, I would find the question that someone else asked, where did this saying from Friends come from, and the answer would lead me back to a link that led me to Friends somewhere.
Jozi: Yeah, I, I’m not going to stand behind every joke that they make in this, especially this opening scene.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: I don’t think the writers would either. Um, I have a feeling that they just sat there and, like, vamped for two hours saying stupid, stupid things, and this is the best …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: They could come up with.
Brandon: All right.
Jozi: I mean …
Brandon: Well, I will try not to nitpick. It just, it was striking to me that, uh, it was, it was bad joke, bad joke, and then Phoebe’s chalk joke, and I just wrote in my notes, okay. Like, w- …
Jozi: See …
Brandon: We’re getting somewhere now.
Jozi: You’re …
Brandon: I get that …
Jozi: You’re going to suffer through this mightily …
Brandon: I recognize that as humor.
Jozi: ‘Cause you’re already trying to make this make sense. That’s the real problem here.
Brandon: Maybe, maybe not. But I was also not laughing at this.
Jozi: Um …
Brandon: So …
Jozi: Neither was I. I admit that.
Brandon: Okay.
Jozi: But, but so we’ve got banter …
Brandon: We should move on.
Jozi: Yeah. We, we’ve got banter, they’re doing it, we’ve got laughter, I will say that, um, Friends, with the exception of some spoiler scenes, Friends was filmed entirely in front of a studio audience. Um …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: The entirety run of its, or the entire run of its show was in front of a live audience. So that’s, that means nothing, um, because these jokes aren’t funny and they’re still laughing, so you know someone’s holding up a sign. But anyway, so Monica and Chandler, they’re kind of sad but that doesn’t matter because Ross comes in. And Ross lets us know that his now-lesbian es-w-, ex-wife has finally moved out of his apartment. And he’s on his own.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: It’s commiserate, commiserate, until Ross’s whining just thinks, and it, I mean, yes. Ross is a whiner. I’m sorry. I’m giving you that. So …
Brandon: Well …
Jozi: Sorry, Friends people, Ross is a whiner.
Brandon: No, and also to be fair, like, Joey’s first comment when he walks in the door is, uh, “this guy says hello to me and I want to kill myself.”
Jozi: “Want to kill myself,” yeah. That’s, like …
Brandon: So, like that, that is …
Jozi: Classic and keeps going.
Brandon: That is genuinely funny and I think that I laughed at it. Uh, that might be the first time in the episode that I laughed.
Jozi: I’m going to need you to take a, like, a clicker tally thing or something and, like, every time you, every time you actually laugh just give us a, a tick. Just so you know.
Brandon: No, no. I don’t need to do that. My family points it out to me. We watched it together …
Jozi: You laughed, you laughed, I knew you’d laugh …
Brandon: And I, like, I chuckled on my way out of the room and Mary shouts across the …
Jozi: I heard that …
Brandon: I, I heard you laugh.
Jozi: So, wait, does this mean your family is on my side?
Brandon: I have no recollection, Senator.
Jozi: Um, uh-huh, okay. So anyway …
Brandon: All right.
Jozi: Ross is doing a little whining. Ross’s whining brings us to the line, “I just want to be married again.” And …
Brandon: Um …
Jozi: At this exact second, the door opens with impeccable timing.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: And on to the scene stumbles a wet wedding-dress-clad Rachel. Um, foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow. And then, uh, again with more impeccable timing Chandler reacts with, “And I just want a million dollars!” So …
Brandon: Yes. Also funny.
Jozi: Uh, this is actually funny. And so it …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Audience laughter, it’s pretty obvious this time it’s really. I’m going to, I’m going to give them that that is some super good backstage, uh, cueing for Rachel to open the door exactly right.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: ‘Cause it is a single shot. Um, but it, it is definitely funny, and why did I take all that time to break down every single one of those beats? It’s probably because it’s probably the best moment of the whole episode.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: And, and it’s less than five minutes in. So, um …
Brandon: I will disagree with you on that part. But …
Jozi: Okay.
Brandon: They did a good job with it, for sure.
Jozi: Yeah, that one was good. That one, that one should have hopefully made you laugh, and we don’t care about the penis phone and …
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: So …
Brandon: Which was a well-written joke, it just wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny again.
Jozi: No, not one bit.
Brandon: Rachel does a really good job here of carrying this whole scene over the couch. There’s a little decaffeinated joke. She sits down and she has the ability to focus on everything she’s saying, which is a lot, and …
Jozi: Uh-huh.
Brandon: Getting her coffee pro-, properly flavored with Sweet n Low by someone else while she’s talking.
Jozi: Yeah this is, this is some of the best character building right here, is building Rachel’s character.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Because like you said, she’s sitting there and she’s completely obsessed with her own problems and her own self but she also, she’s so into herself that she knows the little details that need to be filled.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Like, and so it’s, that’s pretty good for all of the lack of character work that was done before, Rachel pulls this off remarkably well. And Jennifer Aniston is one who ends up with the most Emmy nods, I believe.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: For this …
Brandon: Also …
Jozi: Over the course of the ten seasons.
Brandon: Ross does a really good job in this scene of just capitulating into, like, I’m going to be your servant now.
Jozi: We call that foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow. I’m just going to say that. One more time, foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow. Um, yes, agreed. So Rachel is doing her thing and the, there is one quick moment that I will g-, like, there is a moment of in continuity that will come in later when Rachel and Chandler don’t recognize each other. Um …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: That doesn’t matter because Ross’s umbrella can’t control itself at the thrill of seeing her again.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Jozi: Um, which, again, foreshadowing. So, um, but yes, so Rachel does her thing. She has her coffee. She’s off, she’s all fine. Um, we have a super c-, fast cut right after that.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, and now we’re starting to realize that this is the pacing of the show, and the pacing of this show, at least the pilot, is, like, at, at best it’s frenetic. I mean …
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: This one just keeps moving. It’s, here’s action, here’s punch line, here’s information, here’s action, here’s punch line, here’s information. And there’s just real, no real time to react to anything.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: ‘Cause I, the writers just felt they needed to give everything to us in the first 23 minutes of the show. Um, so that does become something we keep seeing as the thing goes on. There’s almost always an A storyline and a B storyline. Sometimes there’s a C as well, um, but they eventually kind of dial things back just a little bit so it’s not so painful …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: To, to pound through the information. They actually get to emote from time to time. Um, not this pilot.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Just putting that there. Um, after all these cuts we have a quick cut back to Monica’s apartment. Uh, we are watching a Telenovela, um, which, with all the stuff that we crammed in here I’m not sure why we had time to do this. But we are watching a Telenovela …
Brandon: You know the name of the show? That’s, did you look that up or do you watch it too?
Jozi: Um, no. Uh, a Telenovela is a, uh, Mexican soap opera.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Jozi: Like …
Brandon: I, I will agree it looked like …
Jozi: They’re not watching Telenovela, they’re watching a Telenovela.
Brandon: I gotcha.
Jozi: Yeah, I know that, um, not because I watch Telenovelas, but because I also watch Jane the Virgin so, uh, Telenovela (←if you are reading this transcript and not listening to the audio, you are truly suffering by not hearing this spectacular butchering of a Latino accent Jozi just attempted) is what we got there. Uh, anyway, Rachel is talking on the phone in the background. The five friends are doing, like, Mystery Science Theater type thing to the screen because they don’t speak Spanish.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: And, um, we pretty much agree with everything they’re saying. Um, Rachel’s trying to convince her father that she was right to run away from her wedding. Um, and so during the course of this we get a couple, a couple little notes that, you know, she’s going to stay in New York, um, even though she hasn’t seen Monica for how many years and Monica wasn’t invited to the wedding. But she’s going to stay with Monica in New York and we get some pretty bad jokes from Monica and Ross through all of this. Um, I’m going to keep admitting that Ross is kind of an idiot so far. Like …
Brandon: Yeah, uh …
Jozi: These little awkward one-liner jokes, they’re not, they’re not …
Brandon: I, I do like the group dynamic of when Rachel says on the phone to her dad that she might stay with Monica and everyone in the room turns to look at Monica …
Jozi: Yeah, everyone turns …
Brandon: It’s perfect, it’s well done.
Jozi: Yeah, that’s a very nice, very nice moment. We, ‘cause that really is the group dynamic too, like, they’ll, they’ll always be involved in something else and, you know, a fly walks across the room and suddenly that’s the most important thing.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: And they all know it and, um, good character work.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, Rachel realizes she’s going to, she accidentally, uh, throws a bomb to her father which cuts her off from her father’s line of credit. Uh, quit cut to her hyperventilating on the couch. Hyperventilating, can I say that right? Hyperventilating on the couch, which is also a nice little moment. Um, while she’s trying to regain her breath, Monica’s date rings the bell and suddenly the entire gang realizes that her mystery date is Paul the Wine Guy. And we’re all so excited! We’re so, so excited ‘cause it’s Paul the Wine Guy and everyone knows how exciting and wonderful Paul the Wine Guy is! So we get Monica out the door for the date of a lifetime and it needs to happen and we have, of course, more awkward banter while Monica gets dressed in her room. And this is the moment I’m going to give you what you want. We are discussing fashion right now.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, I’m going to, I’m going to mention Monica’s suspenders …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Because I do remember wearing them when I was, uh, six, which was, um, ten years before this episode aired, so we’re going to go with that. Um, Chandler’s shirt, and we’re also talking about Joey’s leather jacket and Phoebe’s, uh, awesome denim ja-, vest.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Whatever that thing is. So we’re just going to rip into this quick. Like, Monica, done. Okay, like, that was on a Seventeen magazine …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: But maybe seven years prior to this airing if we’re lucky.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Uh, Chandler’s shirt, no one really understands Chandler’s shirts. Um, they were so weird and so odd at the time that they actually ended up setting up a weird, like, retro-inspired trend for business casual. And people now wear Chandler shirts all the time.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: But they made no sense. They were weird. And Phoebe and Joey …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, just trade your jackets. That’s all you need to do.
Brandon: There you go.
Jozi: Just, Joey, take the denim, Phoebe, black leather, now, now we’re lovely dressed, wonderful professionals, um, we can actually make money on the street doing whatever it is that they do. That sounded wrong.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Um …
Brandon: Yes, it did.
Jozi: Anyway, Joey, Phoebe, trade your jackets …
Brandon: And we’re leaving that in.
Jozi: Okay. I’m just going to stand up, if there’s a takeaway from the episode, it’s that Joey and Phoebe need to trade their jackets …
Brandon: And work on the streets.
Jozi: So that they can go work on the street.
Brandon: All right. Sold.
Jozi: Anyhoo, so Ross makes more awkward jokes to Rachel, and we’re on to the next scene. And I think I can quit just saying Ross makes awkward jokes, ‘cause that’s all Ross does.
Brandon: Yes. Ross also sets up a Phoebe joke on the way out of that scene where he’s basically like, hey, Pheebs, you want to come help us put together furniture, and she says, I wish I could, but I don’t want to.
Jozi: I know.
Brandon: It’s great.
Jozi: Phoebe, I believe, is the first one, back in 1994, she started teaching us how we can actually say what we think instead of PC niceties. So …
Brandon: Oh, is that a thing now?
Jozi: It’s nice to see how it’s come full circle and now we’re no longer allowed to say what we think unless it’s a PC nicety.
Brandon: Nice.
Jozi: It’s, it’s kind of funny. Now we have a whole set of stuff that I’m just, it’s, it’s this entire set of low speed smash cuts and we see, like, three separate tableaus going back and forth, so I’m just going to sum these up real quick. I don’t do anything real quick, but I’m just going to sum these up. Um, the guys are in Ross’s new apartment.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Apparently putting together the said furniture, which is pre-IKEA but it still looks like they’re losing Allen ranches, Allen wrenches …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: In the weird places. Uh, Monica and Paul the Wine Guy are on their date. They’re talking about their exes.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: ‘Cause that’s what you do on a first date. Um, Rachel is on the phone with Barry, um, her ex-fiancé. She continues, it becomes clear that she’s leaving answering machine messages.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Which, um, I’m going to call that nice joke.
Brandon: Yes, I, I have …
Jozi: That was pretty funny.
Brandon: I have pretty good written next to that one.
Jozi: Yeah, if you hadn’t seen it before, you probably didn’t see it coming, and for those of us who remember answering machines …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Does, well, does anyone who listens to a podcast still, like, remember answering machines, or were we all …
Brandon: Oh, abs- …
Jozi: Born after?
Brandon: Absolutely.
Jozi: Okay.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: I wanted to make sure.
Brandon: I guarantee it.
Jozi: So those are the three scenes we’re watching. Um, the takeaways from each of them, the, the takeaway from the guys, awesome, guys, is that there’s a world of ice-cream-flavored women out there.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: And that if Ross wants to get over losing his wife to her lesbian lover, he should just grab a spoon and start tasting.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Um …
Brandon: I …
Jozi: Well, well done, I mean …
Brandon: I thought that …
Jozi: This is my slow clap.
Brandon: I thought that Joey was the best part of this particular scene. He, he was spot on with, like, having New York things to say that I didn’t understand, like the Bing, the Bing, what is it, Bing Cherry Vanilla, that must be a flavor that I don’t get at my local grocery store up here in Alaska. And what the hell are Jimmies?
Jozi: Wait, you don’t know what Cherry Vanilla is?
Brandon: No, I understand Cherry Vanilla.
Jozi: Oh, okay, whew, I was worried about that.
Brandon: I, I never heard anyone call it Bing! Cherry Vanilla! So …
Jozi: Oh, see, this is a joke that’s funny because Chandler’s last name is Bing.
Brandon: Oh, cool. Nice job writers. Hey, so do we …
Jozi: Hey, there you go, Bing cherries, Bing Cherry Vanilla, Chandler Bing, oh, okay. That’s good stuff.
Brandon: It, well, I’ll have to write down that, that down for future episodes so I know that Chandler’s …
Jozi: That’s …
Brandon: Last name is Bing.
Jozi: That is actually super funny because now that I’m thinking through this, there’s many times that I’ve watched some of these, I’ve watched them so many times that I get every joke every time, and no wonder I really did not like it, oops, spoiler, I really did not like it the first couple episodes …
Brandon: Ah-ha.
Jozi: Because none of it made sense, it didn’t, anyway.
Brandon: Um, so Jimmies I had to Google what that is. That’s an ice cream topping.
Jozi: Aren’t those little gumdrops or something?
Brandon: It’s, it’s just the little candy sprinkles. But he doesn’t call them candy sprinkles because that’s not what you call them in New York. You call them jimmies, apparently.
Jozi: You call them jimmies? Oh, see, we always called them candy sprinkles.
Brandon: I could be wrong on that. Maybe people in New York call them candy sprinkles and only Joey the actor in Friends calls them …
Jozi: Calls them jimmies? They’re called all sorts of weird things though because, um, my, my sister in New Zealand, they call them, wait, no, they call them fairy sprinkles? I can’t remember. I think the sparkly ones are fairy sprinkles and I think the jimmies, the …
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Like, cylindrical ones, those are called hundreds of thousands.
Brandon: Okay. I could get behind, uh, fairy sprinkles for sure.
Jozi: I can get behind fairy sprinkles, but I’m not going to go, uh, order, like, Bing Cherry Vanilla with Hundreds of Thousands, please.
Brandon: Yes, or jimmies for that matter.
Jozi: Like, no one understood that. It’s ridiculous. Yeah, I don’t want jimmy all over my ice cream. That sounds like a serious problem. Um, I feel as though I should move on.
Brandon: We should move on.
Jozi: Don’t jimmy all over my bowl! Okay. Um, takeaways, that’s where we were going. Uh, Monica and Paul. The thing that we take away from Monica and Paul’s little date is that Paul once smashed an ex’s watch.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: And since that particular woman, whoever she is, um, has unfortunately been unable to perform.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: You know, sexually.
Brandon: Yeah, because none of us got it before he …
Jozi: None of us got it. Especially Monica, wow, she really didn’t know what was happening, which was great because we wouldn’t have had that fabulous spit take if she got it the first time.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: I mean, that was the worst spit take I have ever seen on television. I have seen cartoon characters hand over a more convincing spit br- …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Spit sprays than that. That was awful. Um, so moving on, the takeaway from Rachel and her conversation with Barry is that she almost became Mrs. Barry Finkle. Um, and suddenly we are all on her side.
Brandon: Nice.
Jozi: Because no one is going to, who.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: But a nice crossover for that, um, is that Finkle is a great name for making fun of because, um, Ray Finkle was the character in Ace Ventura.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Um, which also starred Courtney Cox.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Nice, uh, Kevin Bacon moment there. Um, but we are moving on. That took me five times as long as the tableaus to sum them up. So the main purpose of all of those setups was to extremely subtlely set up one of the core conflicts of the entire series run, the entire ten years.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Um, and it is done by overlaying Ross’s final line of “but who should I ask ” …
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: With the shot of Rachel gazing forlornly out the window.
Brandon: Right. When he’s sitting …
Jozi: Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow.
Brandon: He’s sitting on the window and he’s touching those blinds that hang down, the little slat blinds, and they’re all over him. This is really disgusting. Like, the, the fountain water I could get past because you told me it’s a fake fountain, but those blinds are gross everywhere. On set, in your house, I don’t care. Like, that is disgusting, and I’m sorry, but no.
Jozi: But if he just reaches through those blinds, she might be out there.
Brandon: Yes. Really cheesy. I couldn’t wait for that particular, there was, like, Top Gun music playing in the background, and …
Jozi: That is U2. And if you don’t understand the importance of U2 through the arc of Friends, you’re done.
Brandon: Sure, sure. Thanks for joining us.
Jozi: Wait, was that U2? I just assumed it was U2.
Brandon: All right. So …
Jozi: Um …
Brandon: We move on from the obvious, uh, setup, which, like, which was already set up as soon as she walked in in a wedding dress, and we go, apparently, straight to commercial from there because we get a scene that …
Jozi: Oh, of course.
Brandon: Is in the apartment, and then what’s next?
Jozi: Yep, so now we’re back in the apartment. We just call this The Apartment now.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Because there’s more than one, but this is The Apartment, right? Rachel is so thrilled.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: She has figured out how to make coffee, and Chandler and Joey disagree, but …
Brandon: Yes, oh my goodness, this is my favorite joke.
Jozi: Subtlely and sweetly do not tell her.
Brandon: This is, it, the …
Jozi: This is a good joke.
Brandon: The entire show, which felt really long for me, this is it, and this is why, it’s, Rachel makes coffee, she pours it. The timing is perfect. Uh, it’s Chandler and Joey that are drinking it, and Joey spouts out the, hey while you’re at it, why don’t you make me, like, a Denver omelet or something. And he takes a sip of the coffee, and both he and Chandler move to dump their coffee in the flowerpot at the same time, and he’s like, on second thought, I’m not that hungry.
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: And, like, the, their timing is perfect. The faces that they make, like, it’s clear that, that Matt Perry is acting like he is chewing on coffee grounds or something, and just disgusting, and I just love it.
Jozi: Yeah, it’s well done.
Brandon: It is, it is the one, I would say the one perfect joke all around the whole episode and I loved it, so kudos.
Jozi: My favorite part of that joke is how they both just decide that, we’re just going to murder this plant.
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: We don’t care enough, I mean, we care enough about Rachel’s feelings …
Brandon: Well …
Jozi: To kill her plant.
Brandon: Right. W-, and that’s the best part to me, is that they’ve clearly done that before with other things.
Jozi: Uh-huh.
Brandon: Like, there wasn’t, there was no hesitation. There wasn’t any thought process behind it. It’s just that that’s, it’s, like, sticking the bubblegum under the desk. You just, that’s where it goes. So that’s where I’m going to put it.
Jozi: They’re twelve. All right, as Moni-, or as Monica, as, uh, as Joey and Chandler kill the plant …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Uh, Monica, Monica emerges from her bedroom and she is followed fairly shortly by a swooningly grateful Paul. Um, who apparently no longer has a dry spell. Monica has broken it with some well-placed spit takes. Um, he, he walks out the door. The boys wait for him to leave to make a couple cracks about, you know, Monica’s apparently character flaws for sleeping with a guy on a “not a real date.” Um, because these guys are so chaste and prudent that clearly they’ve got opinions about who Monica sleeps with.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Um, we’re good with that double standard. Whatever. Um, off we go. Um, oh, and quick trivia moment here. When Monica and Paul walk out in the hallway …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: You can see that her apartment number is five.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Um, which means that the apartment number across the hall is four, and the, we started out with apartments four and five, and later the show writers realized that they were giving the impression of it being a walkup, and that that is too low, the numbers were too low for a walkup. So they changed the numbers to nineteen and twenty.
Brandon: Oh.
Jozi: That means absolutely nothing. It’s just …
Brandon: It makes sense.
Jozi: Oh look, there’s the five. Remember, before they grew brains and started writing the show properly? Anyway. Um, Rachel, who appears, she is shocked to realize the entire gang has jobs.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, so we take a moment to point out that Rachel has no idea how basic commerce works, and that Joey is a bad actor, and, um, it, I don’t care if you like this joke or not, Chandler’s dance out the door …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Is pretty stellar.
Brandon: It was appreciated. I liked it.
Jozi: It was, it should be well appreciated. Um, no one knows, that’s one of those jokes that everyone forgets until you see it again, and you laugh.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: Every time. Uh, so with the boys gone, Monica and Rachel have a quick chat about how amazing Monica’s date was.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: And, uh, Monica is so happy.
Brandon: So …
Jozi: And Rachel’s going to go get one of those job things.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: While Monica, yeah.
Brandon: The, uh, there was a moment in, in this particular spot where, uh, Rachel tells Monica that it looks like she has a hanger in her mouth because she’s smiling …
Jozi: No, it looks like she slept with a hanger in her mouth.
Brandon: Right. That crowd reaction was …
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: Massive.
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: That was a real laugh. And, like, and it, it looked to me like Courtney Cox was, like, grinning too much to …
Jozi: Actually laughing at that …
Brandon: Yeah, and that, I wonder, like, I, I mean I know that it’s filmed in a, it, could that have been ad-libbed, right? Like, she knew that was coming and it was still that funny to her, right?
Jozi: Um, there is lore that occasionally they will ad-lib things and leave them in.
Brandon: Man, that is brilliant …
Jozi: Um …
Brandon: If that happened.
Jozi: Yeah, certainly you see when, like, um, certainly when you see, um, blooper reels …
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: You see a lot of ad-libbing.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Jozi: Um, that, that, there is the occasional thing that sticks in. I don’t know about particular, that, that particular line, but it’s pretty funny. Because if she d-, I think Jennifer Aniston delivers that perfectly.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, and Monica does look like she’s about to lose it.
Brandon: Yes, for sure.
Jozi: But, you know, she slept with a hanger in her mouth, so it’s really hard not to be happy about that. Um, we move on to Monica’s kitchen. Uh, Monica is a chef, by the way, write this down, you gotta know what they do.
Brandon: No, I, I actually did. I have …
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: Here’s what I have, because this is what I figured out. Uh, just a little bit past this, I figured out that Joey’s an actor, uh, I, and actually I wrote that Courtney’s character is a chef, because I was still trying to figure out names.
Jozi: N-, so you got, Monica’s a chef, Joey’s an actor, uh, Ross …
Brandon: Chandler enters numbers …
Jozi: And Rachel’s an idiot.
Brandon: That don’t apparently matter. What, what number, because this is all I get in the episode, is Chandler enters numbers that don’t matter. We don’t know what he does.
Jozi: Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow.
Brandon: Yes. Rachel is jobless …
Jozi: That’s all I can say.
Brandon: Currently. That solves itself. Uh, and then, and then Phoebe is an aroma therapist, according to what she said in this episode. And …
Jozi: Uh, no, she discovered aromatherapy.
Brandon: Right, uh …
Jozi: Which means you use it.
Brandon: Yeah, and, uh, she did masa-, or attempt to massage a foot at one point and, uh, we have no idea what Ross does in this episode.
Jozi: Uh …
Brandon: There’s no reference to it.
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: I watched it twice. Maybe three times.
Jozi: Ross’s, um, Ross’s job does come back up.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: Um, not in this episode, you’re right. But it’s, uh, it’s actually an important revelation for a future episode.
Brandon: Cool.
Jozi: So I’m going to leave you hanging on that one. Um, but Monica is, in fact, a chef. Yes. And she’s talking with her chef friend, who, apparently, is clairvoyant because she takes one look at Monica and realizes that the hanger in her mouth was actually Paul’s hanger …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Um, anyway, she reveals that Monica has had a fun night. Um, or she figures out that Monica had a fun night, and Monica admits that yeah, it was Paul the wine guy. Um, Monica’s friend reveals, wait, wait, she takes credit for Paul because she was the one who broke Paul’s dry spell. Um, uh, w-, we cut quickly to, this could possibly be Ross’s only funny line of the entire series, I’m not sure.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: But it could be. Ross’s funny line of, Monica asks, why, why would he do that, and Ross delivers, “I assume we’re looking for more sophisticated than ‘to get you into bed.’”
Brandon: That’s pretty good.
Jozi: I mean, yeah, that’s good. That, that actually comes out, if you watch, that appears in the title sequence for years to come.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Ross delivering “to get you into bed.” Um, and then he explains, of course, to Monica that guys will do anything to get you into bed. Um, yeah, that’s Ross’s one funny moment.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: So we, we share a moment of pathos, uh, Monica’s very sad, but very quickly Joey’s always on hand for a tactless joke.
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: And Rachel is always ready to come back in the scene and bust things up. And guess what? Rachel is still using her dad’s credit cards.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: For boots boots!
Brandon: Yeah, she has another great line here where, “Guess what?” “You got a job?” “No, I’m trained for nothing!”
Jozi: Right.
Brandon: It’s perfect.
Jozi: She’s so happy in her cluelessness. It’s awesome, ‘cause she has great boots boots. I can’t deliver the whole thing, I didn’t write it down. But it was good. Um, unfortunately Rachel’s boots take us all the way back to the apartment immediately.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: So we spend, what, 45 seconds out of the apartment? We’re back here, uh, we need to cut Rachel’s credit cards. Phoebe reassures Rachel that everything will be all right because Phoebe herself has bounced back from a brilliant string of suicides and aromatherapy.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Um …
Brandon: And Ross has his second moment where he, he says, “the word you’re looking for is Anyway ” … …
Jozi: Anyway, yes. I wrote that one down too, actually. Anyway Rachel eventually does … give in. She cuts all of her credit cards. Um, this is another scene where I give her credit.
Brandon: That …
Jozi: This is another scene …
Brandon: That is a pun. We’re going to leave that in there because it’s brilliant.
Jozi: Okay, I’ll do it again without meaning to …
Brandon: You were saying …
Jozi: Let me go back and start that over. Um, Rachel, wow, I actually wrote down “I’m going to give her some credit” and didn’t see it. Okay. Anyway. Um, Rachel does give in. She cuts all of her credit cards, and I r-, I am going to give Jennifer Aniston credit in this scene for delivering the facial expressions because I actually bought everything she was saying. And I put two puns …
Brandon: Yes, you …
Jozi: In that sentence.
Brandon: Absolutely did.
Jozi: Look at that, all right! So we are clearly, we are almost at the end of the episode. We can tell because we’re really tired. So Monica and Ross and Rachel are tired. They’re ready to hit the sack. Uh, Rachel discovers Paul’s watch left on the floor. Now isn’t that interesting? I seem to remember something about a watch, um, I can’t place it until Monica, on her way back to her bedroom …
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Hands over a really nice kick, where she smashes it. Um …
Brandon: Yes, that was …
Jozi: Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow.
Brandon: Well-delivered, for sure. The kick, and …
Jozi: I, I actually …
Brandon: The foreshadowing, for sure.
Jozi: I, I buy that one. Yeah, it’s one of those, you, you question how many of those earlier setup jokes actually did have a punch line at the end that we would have appreciated.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: And that got cut for time. Because the inexplicable watch story did pay off.
Brandon: Yeah, there’s another perfect one coming up, for sure.
Jozi: True. I believe I know what you mean. Ross and Rachel are left alone in the living room. Ross decides, again, Ross, you’re an idiot. Ross decides this is the right time to confess to Rachel his lifelong crush on her. Um, well done, Ross. She responds extremely delicately that she always just basically thought he was a big old nerd. So, nice move.
Brandon: Uh-huh.
Jozi: And for some reason this puts Ross in an amazingly fabulous mood.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: He, like, he struts out of the apartment, I mean, he looks like, like the cat that ate a thousand canaries. I don’t know why we’re so happy, but he’s happy. Um, we should all be so thrilled to be rejected so …
Brandon: Well …
Jozi: Formidably.
Brandon: To be fair, like, he did ask if she would ever date him, and she said that she could see herself doing that or something along those lines. Like …
Jozi: Oh, was I taking a drink during that line? Because I just thought Ross was kind of an idiot.
Brandon: I was definitely drinking a lot while I had to watch it too, so it’s possible.
Jozi: By this time, I may be checked out. I’m not sure. I, another spoiler alert, I have a feeling we know who’s winning this round. Um, anyway, Ross is happy. He’s gone. Um, we’re back at Central Perk for our post script, um, with a nice little pan that reveals that Rachel has indeed gotten herself a job serving coffee.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: She is serving the c-, as we are certain to point out.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: She is serving the coffee, she’s not making it.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: Nice done.
Brandon: Yes, and as soon as, as soon as that’s revealed, every character drinks out of their cup.
Jozi: Would like to have some c-, that was a well, that was a well-timed joke.
Brandon: I, I agree. It was, it was paid off. I liked it.
Jozi: And we have the end of, oh, we have one more, thanks for leaving this line in, guys. Chandler goes back to recapping his dreams.
Brandon: Uh …
Jozi: Uh, apparently Liza Minelli is a cross dresser with a telephone, I don’t know, I h-, I had lost track of Chandler’s dreams by this time. I admit it. Um, and I was actually kind of glad to have our fade to black. So, Episode One, The Pilot, The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate, there we are.
Brandon: All righty. Uh, we should get to scoring then. This is the first match, so to speak, so right now, uh, I’m, I’m winning. It’s 236 to nothing, for those of you counting …
Jozi: You may have a slight lead.
Brandon: Yes.
Jozi: I’m not sure.
Brandon: Uh, before I say whether or not I enjoyed the episode, uh, I mean, you’ve already kind of foreshadowed this, but how strong would you say that it was, and, uh, did you think that I would like it after you watched it again?
Jozi: So I’m going to preface my answer with, just a l-, a slight bit of defense, because there were a couple good things that happened in this episode. Um, I think they did an okay job of giving you a peek into who the characters are eventually going to be. Um, and they already handed over, like, some of the, some of the lines that become kind of iconic, like, “to get you into bed.”
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: And “anyway ” which is really funny because they're both from Ross and we, everyone … knows that Ross is kind of an idiot.
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: Um, but …
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: The best parts of this actually do come from Ross. Um, and they do some pretty legitimate foreshadowing, like, hidden foreshadowing, not just the obvious stuff about Ross and Rachel, um, but we get hints of Joey’s musical theater and Phoebe’s suicide past, and Ross’s whole didn’t know she was a lesbian, which is a joke that never gets old later. Um, and Chandler’s job, as you said.
Brandon: Right.
Jozi: We, we still don’t know what Chandler’s job is. There’s some punch lines there. Um, and the, and probably the most obscure foreshadowing is Joey’s grabbing the spoon. Um …
Brandon: Right …
Jozi: Believe it or not, that comes back.
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: Anyway, so I’m going to, I’m going to preface it with, there were a few good things about this episode …
Brandon: Right, but none of those I know yet, because I haven’t seen any, like, none of that has been paid off for me.
Jozi: Exactly. Yeah, so, as, as an objective, I, I’m the one, apparently, who’s going to be objective here, I’m going to say I didn’t really think that this would win you over.
Brandon: All right.
Jozi: Like, I thought you would probably laugh at a couple jokes, but I’m, I was pretty sure we weren’t moving the dial too far on this one.
Brandon: Yeah, so here’s the thing. Uh, you’re going to win this round. And …
Jozi: Gasp!
Brandon: Like, I hate this ‘cause I, I don’t want to lose any listeners. I still really have a lot of problems with this cast specifically, and it’s …
Jozi: Oh, you just …
Brandon: It was so difficult for me …
Jozi: You just took out 75% of our listener base.
Brandon: Right, I c- …
Jozi: By using the word “cast.”
Brandon: Yeah, I, uh, I listened, or I, I watched, I watched and listened to the first five minutes of this show and I put it down, and I couldn’t get back to it. Like, it took me forever to get moving to, like, do my homework for this episode. And w-, I finally did, and I got paid off pretty well. Like the, starting with the coffee joke, that w-, that was pretty spectacular, and I think that what really started killing it for me was Rachel and her quote on quote job struggles. Uh, and I think it’s just coincidental because of what I’m going through in life right now, uh, retiring from the military for the first time in my life ever, turning in a resume to someone.
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: And actually actively searching for a job. I’ve never, ever done this before in my whole life, and, and I instantly, it endeared her to me and I started latching on to her even though I really didn’t want to. And that that was …
Jozi: I don’t know a single guy who does not want to latch on to Jennifer. So I’m just going to stop you right there and say you’re just blowing, you’re, you’re teasing me here.
Brandon: Well, yeah, well, the, that, the job thing was a huge part of it. Um, and, and the fact that that was tied in with that coffee joke was just perfect timing. So, like, from that part on, which may have been, like, 60% through the episode, like, I started laughing out loud at jokes. And I didn’t want to, and then I think what sealed the deal is, in that very last scene, which I believe was, like, post, or during the credits, like, it was …
Jozi: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: Yeah, that last scene was during the credits, they used to actually let shows come back and do that.
Brandon: Right, so during that moment, maybe the, the very beginning of it, Phoebe is singing other people’s words out loud.
Jozi: Yes.
Brandon: And I do that all the time at home. It drives my kids crazy. Uh, my wife probably …
Jozi: That w-, that’s cruel …
Brandon: Thinks I’m evil.
Jozi: It would drive anyone crazy.
Brandon: And, and …
Jozi: You’re insane.
Brandon: And then she starts doing it, I’m like, oh, no, because I can’t, I can’t like her. She drives me nuts. So the, and this was when I, when I watched it through the second time, because I had to make sure that I got all my notes in, I got to this part and I’m, I’m leaving the room and that coffee joke was the one that my, my family is like, oh, heard you laugh. And then, and then I was just chuckling the whole rest of the episode and I couldn’t help it, and I can’t be dishonest and say that, I mean, there were some severe problems with this episode, which we covered thoroughly but …
Jozi: Oh, yeah, I made sure.
Brandon: Uh …
Jozi: See, objective.
Brandon: But yeah, like, there you have it. Uh, you get a point.
Jozi: I, you know, I have a 236 point deficit so …
Brandon: Well, that’s …
Jozi: I’m going to take it. 235 now.
Brandon: 234 if you’re counting, but hey …
Jozi: I’m, uh, who’s counting.
Brandon: Because it’s 235 to one. So, uh, yeah, you’re making up ground quickly. Um …
Jozi: Yeah, you’re, this is where I go.
Brandon: Yeah.
Jozi: Watch, watch the momentum happen.
Brandon: The, the g-, the great news is that I only have 235 more episodes to watch, so …
Jozi: That’s, that’s lovely. I’m, I’m glad that you are looking at the silver lining of this thing.
Brandon: Ugh.
Jozi: Well, thanks everybody for joining us for our first episode of Moo Point: A Friends Podcast. Uh, Episode Two is next week where we, we will cover two episodes, The One With the Sonogram at the end, and The One With the Thumb. That just sounds gross. Um, anyway, in the meantime, you can find the show @MooPodcast on Twitter, um, or you can find me @jozbot7.
Brandon: And I am shoesize38 on Twitter. Uh, you can also let us know what you thought of the show. Use [email protected]. Uh, and this and every show will be available at Moopodcast.com. I also want to take a moment to send out a special thanks to Mandi Kaye at the podcast Pop Culturally Deprived, uh, you heard Jozi mention that show earlier. She’s been great at providing …
Jozi: Foreshadow, foreshadow, foreshadow.
Brandon: Yes. She’s been great at providing help and, uh, getting this show rolling. Uh, with, with the help and also the inspiration to, to make the thing. Uh, check out her podcast when you get a chance at Popculturallydeprived.com. Uh, have anything to add, Jozi?
Jozi: Um, yeah. You know, if you liked what you heard so far you can go to iTunes and subscribe and or leave a review. Um, please don’t leave a bad review, that would just be mean. And we don’t like mean. Uh, that’s all I got, man.
Brandon: Right on, that’s it then?
Jozi: Um, hey, do you like Friends yet?
Brandon: Uh, no.
Jozi: Okay, well, that’s a moo point.
Brandon: Right. Nice try, though. Thanks for listening, everyone.
Jozi: [Sings the Friends Theme Song. Seriously. If you read this far, just go listen to the podcast, silly.]