Friends Every Title The Show Almost Had Why They Were Changed

Friends has become one of the greatest and most beloved sitcoms of all time, and it’s hard to imagine it with a completely different title, which it almost had. In fact, the series had different titles while in development, before it ultimately landed its simple yet memorable final name. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, Friends debuted on NBC in 1994 and came to an end in 2004 after 10 seasons and a lot of unforgettable jokes.

The series followed the lives of a group of six friends (Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, and Ross) who were pretty much a family, and all the ups and downs that come with adulthood and living in a big city. Friends is now part of pop culture, with its main characters, their catchphrases, and many of the jokes being constantly referenced in other TV shows and films and also by fans in real life during casual conversations.

Friends’ title is very simple and easy to remember, but it wasn’t always called like that. In fact, the creators went through a couple of names that have nothing to do with the final one, and some of them might have not had the same impact.

Every Title Friends Almost Had

When Crane and Kauffman came up with the idea of a series about a group of people in their 20s trying to make their way in Manhattan (and in life), they titled it Insomnia Cafe, which in retrospective makes some sense given how much time the characters’ spent at Central Perk. After NBC bought the idea and Crane and Kauffman started working on the pilot, they renamed it Friends Like Us, but it was later changed to Six of One as the former was similar to ABC’s These Friends of Mine. Another title in consideration (courtesy of NBC president Warren Littlefield) was Across the Hall, but by the time the show premiered it was decided it would be called Friends.

Though they all had something to do with the concept of the series in different ways, they just don’t sound really attractive – especially if they are as obvious as Across the Hall. The title “Friends” was probably risky too due to its simplicity, but that’s exactly what worked for the series. Of course, Friends’ success was a combination of many factors, but it probably wouldn’t have had the same effect in the audience if it had been titled Insomnia Cafe or Six of One.

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