Conception Creators and writers
David Crane and
Marta Kauffman were known in the television industry for writing the cable television series
Dream On. A second series by the duo,
Family Album, had premiered on
CBS in the Fall of 1993 season but was cancelled after airing six episodes. In November 1993, they began developing three new television pilots from their offices at
Warner Bros. Television that could premiere in the Fall 1994 season. As
Dream On had won them clout in Hollywood, they aimed to pitch one of their ideas to
NBC;
Insomnia Cafe, about six friends who live and work in New York City, was pitched as a seven-page treatment to the network in December 1993. "It's about sex, love, relationships, careers, a time in your life when everything's possible. And it's about friendship because when you're single and in the city, your friends are your family." :— Part of Crane and Kauffman's original pitch for
Insomnia Cafe James Burrows, known for directing
Cheers, was hired to direct it. He liked the script, though asked for Joey, who was originally written similarly to Chandler, to be "dumbed up a bit". The script was completed in early March 1994, though before then eight-line character breakdowns had been sent to acting agencies in
Los Angeles, New York and
Chicago. David Schwimmer was first to be cast. He was in Chicago doing a stage adaptation of
The Master and Margarita when his agent offered him the audition. He was not interested in doing television after a bad experience appearing in
Monty, but changed his mind when he learned that it was an ensemble script. Unknown to him, Crane and Kauffman had remembered him from when he auditioned for an earlier pilot of theirs; they had written the part of Ross with Schwimmer in mind to play him. was the best-known cast member Courteney Cox was the most well-known of the six main actors. She was being considered for Rachel, but Cox read the script and thought she was a better fit for Monica. After reading for Monica instead, she won the role.
Nancy McKeon also read for the part. Jennifer Aniston read for the part of Rachel after initially being considered for Monica. Her contract with the CBS TV series
Muddling Through meant that any role with
Friends would be in second position to the series. The CBS show was not scheduled to be broadcast until mid-1994 after NBC announced whether
Friends would be
greenlit; if
Muddling Through became a rating success and CBS enforced Aniston's contract,
Friends would have had to recast her. Within three days of first auditioning for
Friends Aniston nonetheless got the role, because NBC Entertainment president
Warren Littlefield correctly expected that
Muddling Through would immediately fail. Crane and Kauffman wanted Joey to be "a guy's guy" who loves "women, sports, women, New York, women". The actors auditioned using the "grab a spoon" scene, and many arrived in character with "lots of chest showing". He had at least eight auditions for the part, and in his final one read with Aniston and Cox.
Vince Vaughn also read for the part. Chandler and Phoebe had originally been written as more secondary characters who were just there to provide humor around the other four; Matthew Perry described Chandler in the pilot script as "an observer of other people's lives". They had become part of the core group by the time casting concluded. Crane believed that the part of Chandler, described in the character breakdown as "a droll, dry guy", would be the easiest to cast, though it proved more difficult than he initially hoped. Perry had previously worked with Kauffman and Crane on an episode of
Dream On, and requested an audition when he identified with the character. He was turned down due to his involvement as a cast member in
LAX 2194, a television pilot about airport baggage handlers in the future. After the producers of
Friends saw
LAX 2194, it became clear to them that it would not be picked up for a series, and Perry was granted an audition. Before Perry was cast,
Craig Bierko was first choice for the role. Bierko was a friend of Perry's, and Perry coached him for his audition to help him get to know what the Chandler character was like.
Jon Cryer had also auditioned for the part. He was doing a play in London and read for a British casting director, though his audition tape did not arrive at Warner Bros. in time for him to be considered. Many actresses who read for Phoebe arrived at the audition in character, wearing "bell bottoms and clunky shoes and nose rings". She was second to be cast, though there was about a month between her and Schwimmer being signed on.
John Allen Nelson and
Clea Lewis guest-star as Paul and Franny, Monica's date and co-worker, respectively. Cynthia Mann appears as a Central Perk waitress.
Filming A dress rehearsal was held on May 2, two days before taping. Several NBC executives watched the rehearsal and were concerned that Monica did not care enough about Paul to sleep with him on their first date. NBC West Coast president
Don Ohlmeyer believed that the audience would perceive her as "a slut". Crane, Kauffman and Warner Bros. executives disagreed, and surveyed the other people watching the rehearsal to support their position. Despite the audience agreeing with them, they had to take NBC's considerations into account in case they lost the commission; they rewrote Monica's lines to show that she cared about Paul. NBC also wanted a scene removed that implied the supposedly-impotent Paul was getting an erection, as it would violate network standards. Crane and Kauffman rewrote the scene and found they preferred the new version, as it made the scene "smart and subtler". They sought to protect other parts of the script, some major and some minor; NBC wanted two of the pilot's three storylines downplayed to subplots, but the writers were adamant that all three should carry equal weight. They also favored not cutting the "Mr. Potato Head" line. Their final script draft was completed on May 3. A total of eight hours of material was filmed (two hours from each of the four cameras), which was edited down to 22 minutes under Bright's supervision. The network announced the fall schedule on May 13 and ordered an additional 12 episodes of
Friends for its first season. Crane and Kauffman immediately received telephone calls from writers' agents who wanted to get their clients jobs on the series. == Reception ==