The show Friends is the number one comedy on television today. It is currently in its 8th season on NBC, and is the leadoff series, at 8:00pm, on the popular "Must See TV" Thursday night line up. JenniferAniston, Courtney Cox Arquette, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer star in this "zany" sitcom about six friends living in New York City. Every week, the six friends experience many different aspects of life together, situations to which the audience can relate.  Friends brings in real life issues like marriage, pregnancy, and weight gain and loss.

    The six friends, generally gather at each other’s apartments or share a sofa at the local coffee shop, "Central Perk." Monica (Cox Arquette) is a chef with an obsession for neatness and order in her life. She is married to Chandler (Perry), a dry wit who is never at a loss for words. Across the hall is Chandler’s good friend Joey (LeBlanc), who is an actor. Joey currently shares his apartment with Rachel (Aniston), Monica’s best friend from high school and former roomate. Rachel works for a fashion designer and is still trying to get by without help from her wealthy father. Across the alley from Monica and Chandler is Monica’s hapless brother Ross (Schwimmer), a palaeontologist who has been divorced three times. Rounding out the circle of friends is Monica’s ex-roommate, Phoebe Buffet (Kudrow), an offbeat, eternally optimistic folk singer and massage therapist.

     Due to the popularity of this show, the six stars have moved on to star in many movies, as well as guest appearances on a variety of other television shows. Further information about the show Friends, including awards it has won, a photo gallery, as well as the actors who make this show a success can be found on NBC.

     For the purposes of this assignment, our group chose to use a specific episode of Friends entitled, "The One With The Rumour" which aired on November 22, 2001. This was the Thanksgiving episode starring Brad Pitt. In this episode, Monica invites an old high school friend, Brad Pitt, to Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of the cast. During this episode, it becomes quite clear that Pitt’s character is not exactly a fan of Rachel, which quickly becomes the main topic of conversation around the table.

     We used an article entitled "Do we learn to 'read' television like a kind of 'language?' by Stefan Herrmann to analyse Friends using four different theories; Audience Analysis, Content Analysis, Genre Theory and Semiotics. Through our analysis of Friends using these four theories, we all agreed with Herrmann that we 'read' television as a kind of language.

Listen to the Friends Theme Song, or Test your knowledge of Friends trivia.

Created by the Friends.1 group: Stacey Morris, Vanessa Principe, Melissa Lim, and Gina Mani.