Inside theFriendswriters room.
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Every writer knew the sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach.
David Crane would enter the room, toting a script full of notes scribbled in the margins.
The assembled writers would silently groan, knowing that this was Crane-ian code for a full script rewrite.
Everything was out, and it was time to start again.
Good enough was not a concept Crane, or Marta Kauffman, understood or accepted.
One day during the first season, writer Jeff Astrof approached Crane with a proposal.
Crane instantly rejected the proposal: Absolutely not.
The show has to be one hundred.
There might have been a faster way to get the work done.
But this was Marta Kauffman and David Cranes show, and their room.
Comedy is king, Crane told the assembled writers.
This is a show where we want everything to be as funny as it can be.
It was a remarkable feeling to be given the green light to simply be funny.
Participants were thrilled to be granted the privilege of being a part of the work of writingFriends.
But it was simply not possible to avoid occasionally sighing and wishing to go home.
This was never howFriendsworked.
Kauffman and Crane would listen and then open it up to the room.
How do we solve this problem?
This was in part because Crane and Kauffman themselves were still relatively new to the ways of television.
The remarkable thing about theFriendswriters room, Chase believed, was its complete allergy to compromise.
This created the challenge of intertwining separate stories, but it also prompted an insatiable hunger for story lines.
And fully plotted stories would regularly be tossed out because they flopped in rehearsals or during a shoot.
On other shows, more emphasis would be placed on individual effort.
Writers would write the first drafts and ultimately be granted credit for the episode.
But the true work was done in the room, together.
Writers would have to endure the process of watching their scripts be slowly, steadily dismantled and rebuilt.
It was like an arranged marriage between a dozen different people, and should have been as impossible.
Sitting at opposite ends of the conference-room table, Kauffman and Crane were curators of the staffs efforts.
They would take one idea from here and one joke from there, and begin assembling workable material.
And if they hadnt found something they were pleased with, they would tell the writers to keep looking.
Their writers lack of experience was a bonus, not a problem.
The result was an atmosphere that was simultaneously competitive and cooperative.
Whats wrong with me?
I used to be funny.
Being in theFriendswriters room, Sikowitz thought, was like an emotional stock market.
Some days you made a killing, and others you lost your shirt.
Ordering dinner at the office was a matter of course.
All-nighters were a fairly standard occurrence.
I think I just saw your beard grow, Alexa Junge told Mike Sikowitz during one late night.
They would play video games to blow off steam or watch the latest installment ofThe Osbournes.
Kreamer and Carlock jumped on tables and tore the room apart for precisely thirty seconds.
What made you go into this line of work?
The best theLaw and Ordercrew could come up with was To meet charming detectives like you.
Writers would learn what it looked like to see the sun come up over the Warner Bros. lot.
Kauffman had a private rule: She would not miss her childrens bedtime two nights in a row.
Exhaustion had the propensity to tear away the expected response and sometimes reveal the odder pitch lurking underneath.
There was a scene in which Joey and Chandler would knock on some attractive neighbors door.
Joey and Chandler would be enticed by the radiantly beautiful women but would carry on with their search.
The staff was at a loss as to what joke might work best there.
What did you just say?
Astrof repeated his suggested line for Joey: We promised wed find this monkey.
Kauffman and Crane were willing to trust their writers enthusiasm, even when they didnt entirely share it.
Matthew Perry said no, and the story was shelved.
It was an ideal opportunity for a Chandler witticism, but what might he say?
Had Astrof known somehow?
Had he prepared the joke in advance?
It was maddening to be surrounded with people who were that good at being funny.
Sikowitz had his moment later in the process of writing Poker, when a similar opening announced itself.
Could you want her more?
Chandler asks Ross at Central Perk, gesturing offscreen with a rolled- up newspaper.
Ross, feigning ignorance, asks, Who?
Sikowitz leapt in and suggested a line for Chandler: Dee, the sarcastic sister fromWhats Happening!!
Sikowitz was terribly pleased to have buzzed first on that answer.
and being able to take the credit.
LeBlanc would call them bombs, meaning a joke that had knocked an audience flat with laughter.
Jeff Strauss believed that Crane thought of the writers room as an expansion of his brain.
They were ill inclined to crack the whip or insist on getting back to work.
They were also perfectionists.
Every line had to be the absolute best it could possibly be.
Every plot had to be ironclad.
The writing process was intensely collaborative.
Often, an idea would be filtered through numerous writers, who would add their own flourishes.
Chase suggested Phoebe play a song called Smelly Cat.
Chase panicked what happened to no-name writers who gave acting notes to the stars of their shows?
The scene was, by collective agreement, funnier after Kudrow began emphasizingsmellyinstead of cat.
But Crane approached Chase after the shoot and told him, Look, youve got to pick your moments.
Because sometimes youre right, but a lot of the time, its not worth it.
If its three percent funnier, its not worth it.
This time, Ill give it to you.
Chase was still early enough in his career that he was fixated on the precise words of the script.
The room was like a vampire, forever hungering for fresh blood to suck.
Six hundred dollars later, Chase owned a pair of pants he would likely never wear again.
The incident was a terrific start but needed more to serveFriends needs.
Stories could come from anywhere.
Reich brought this thoroughly unremarkable observation back to the room, where it eventually mutated into the memorable Pivot!
couch-moving sequence from The One with the Cop.
Comedy writers had a relationship to the world that differed notably from that of civilians.
He was picking up Sam, tossing him in the air, and then catching him.
On about the third attempt, Chase sent Sam hurtling directly into a metal door frame.
She comforted her son but was otherwise unruffled: I drop him on his head all the time.
Could I be wearing any more clothes?
(Eventually, theOxford English Dictionarywould creditFriendswith one of the earliest recorded usages of the term.)
The squabbles and absurdities of the writers room found their way into scripts as well.
After Malins left the room, writer Michael Borkow said, Huh.Wapah!
All the other writers turned to Borkow, confused.
He responded, You know.
Hes running out to take a phone call.
What was funny, though, was the sound that came out of Borkows mouth.
Chase responded, Thats not the whip sound.
This is the whip sound, doing a more traditional hoo-pssshh crack of the whip.
Borkow agreed: Thats what I just did.
(In later years, the staff would have a more even gender balance.)
You know, she told the other writers, if theyre friends theyre not going to do that.
Thats bad for the sisterhood.
We would never do that.
Junge was disturbed by the girl-fight vibe of the episode, complete with the wardrobe choices.
(The T-shirts stayed.)
Copyright 2019 by Saul Austerlitz.
