99 things EVERY Friends fan should know!

1. The fist line of dialogue in the very first,
pilot episode of Friends was: "There's nothing
to tell."

2. A 30 second commercial during the break in
the show in America costs advertisers around
$800,000 or £500,000.

3. Other titles considered for the series
included "Once upon a time in the West
Village", "Insomnia Cafe" and "Across the
Hall". The original title "Friends Like Us" was
shortened to the current one-worder

4. The six characters' full names are: Rachel
Green (Jennifer Aniston), Monica Geller
(Courteney Cox), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa
Kudrow), Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc),
Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) and Ross
Geller (David Schwimmer).

5. According to Aniston, her famous "Rachel"
hairdo was created by accident when her
"friend" Chris cur her hair with a razor.

6. Courteney Cox, who was born in
Birmingham, Alabama is known as CC to her
friends and family.

7. David Schwimmer attended Beverly Hills
High, the school on which the series Beverly
Hills 90210 was based.

8. Mattew Perry appeared in Beverly Hills
90210 earlier in his career. He said of his role:
"it's kind of a blur, but I remember playing the
most popular kid in school who ends up with a
gun in his mouth because his father is to
overbearing."

9. Perry's wit is so legendary that the
scriptwriter has often incorporated his gags
into the show.

10. Cox had the honour of being the first
person to say "period" on American TV,
making a commercial for Tampax.

11. Aniston attended the New York High
School for Performing Arts, the school that
"Fame" was modelled on.

12. Central Perk, the cafe in which they all
hang out, is based on the Manhattan Cafe in
New Yorks West Village.

13. Cox was a cover-girl for People
magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the
World" issue.

14. She was also dubbed "TV's hottest babe"
by American Playboy magazine.

15. Director James Burrows, responsible for
many of the early episodes of Friends, also
directed Taxi, Cheers and The Mary Tyler
Moore Show.

16. Matt LeBlanc loves dogs and has a mutt
called Lady that he rescued from a dog pound,
and a Doberman called Shadow.

17. Kudrow is married to a French advertising
executive, Michel Stern, and has a young son named Julian

18. Schwimmer is the son of two Los Angeles
lawyers. His mother, Arlene, handled
Roseanne's first divorce.

19. LeBlanc, son of a mechanic and a circuit
board maker, originally studied carpentry. "I am
not a dumb guy," he says, "I just play one on
TV."

20. Famous guest stars on the show have
included ER's George Clooney and Noah
Wyle, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chris Isaak
and Julia Roberts.

21. Perry dated Roberts after her appearance
on the show. His verdict? "She does leave
toothpaste all over the sink and she's all ways
wanting to borrow money."

22. The whole cast huddles together before
each episode to wish each other luck. This
made frequent guest star Tom Selleck feel a
bit left out.

23. Perry's dad was an actor who stared in the
Old Spice after-shave ads; his mother was
press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau.

24. Kudrow has made appearances on several
"worst dressed" lists in American magazines,
but because of her character's clothes rather
than her own.

25. Perry is very fond of female vocalists. He
says: "If you're a woman and in any kind of
emotional duress and you sing a song about it,
I will buy your album." Favourites include
Shawn Colvin, the Indigo Girls and Tori Amos.

26. When the pilot show was approved by the
network, and a series commissioned, the entire
cast was sent on a free trip to Las Vegas.

27. Cox dated Batman actor Michael Keaton
for five and a half years, and they are still
reportedly "good friends".

28. After graduating in speech and theatre
from Chicago's Northwestern University,
Schwimmer founded a theatre company,
Lokkingglass, with 17 class mates.

29. Aniston's dad was an actor, John Aniston,
who starred in top US soap opera Days of
Our Lives. He divorced her mother when
Aniston was nine.

30. Kudrow gets fed up with being considered
in real life to be as dippy as her on-screen
character, Phoebe: "People talk slower to me,
as if I were a ten-year-old," she reveals.

31. Kudrow graduated from exclusive
American college Vassar, where she gained a
major in biology.

32. Cox has been known to bleach her teeth.

33. Like Ross, LeBlanc has simian friends...
he starred with an animatronic chimp in the
baseball movie Ed.

34. Aniston, whose real last name is Anisonopolous,
used to be 30lb heavier, until her agent told her to loose
weight. She gave up mayonnaise, pre-meal
snacking and butter to reach her current trim
size.

35. Courtney Cox is concerned about becoming fat. She says:
"My ideal weight would be 100lb. My whole family is
shaped like pears and I'm afraid of looking like
that."

36. Aniston played a very
unglamorous role in Ed Burns film 'She's the
One'. She was cast as a wife whose husband
refuses to sleep with her.

37. Courteney Cox's step-cousin is Stewart
Copeland, of pop group the Police fame.

38. Schwimmer is very keen to become a
father. "I've always wanted a family," he says.
"I think that's why we're here - to have
children, raise them well and try to improve
the quality of life for all people who will
follow."

39. One of David's past girlfriends was Natalie
Imbruglia, singer of the hit song "Torn".

40. The cast apparently get on as well in real
life as they do on screen. They play poker and
Scrabble together, and the girls often shop
with each other. The rumour that they had
made a pact never to sleep together is untrue.

41. LeBlanc and Aniston were rumoured to
have had a fling.

42. The day he auditioned for Friends,
LeBlanc had a big scab on his nose and
forehead after falling down drunk on a bender
the night before.

43. When Schwimmer first met LeBlanc he
was sceptical. LeBlanc was wearing leather
jeans, and Schwimmer thought he was "Joe
Cool Stud" and hated him on sight.

44. Cox originally read to play the part of
Rachel.

45. Perry has been linked to actress Tricia
Fisher, daughter of Connie Stevens and Eddie
Fisher, who played Hollywood madman Heidi
Fleiss in a TV film.

46. LeBlanc is a speed freak who competed in
amateur motor-racing competitions at the age
of eight. In a recent celebrity Grand Prix he
ran into a wall, taking Jason Priestley's car out
of the race.

47. As a teenager, Cox was Bruce
Springsteen's dancing partner in Brian De
Palma's video of Dancing in the Dark.

48. Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz
was linked to both Cox and Aniston.

49. Like his on-screen character Joey, Le
Blanc has a reputation as a womaniser. He
has been linked to volleyball star Gabbrielle
Reece, English actress Minnie Driver, porn
star Jenna Jameson, Goldie Hawns's 16
year-old daughter Kate Hudson and several
stripers.

50. Schwimmer complains of being hounded
by women who demand that he kiss them -
even when their boyfriends are there, too.

51. In 'The Pallbearer', Schwimmer's first film
after Friends began, he stared with Gwyneth
Paltrow. The film did badly in the USA.

52. When she was younger Aniston wanted to
be a sculptor. At the age of 11, she had a
painting in an exhibition at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in New York.

53. After being picked to play Roz Doyle in
Frasier, Kudrow was dropped in favour of
actress Peri Gilpin before the pilot was ever
shot.

54. Friends is ranked as the number one comedy in the U.S.
It is also popular overseas, regularly attracting three
million viewers to the U.K.'s Channel 4.
55. Kudrow's father is one of the world's
leading experts in headaches.

56. LeBlanc was down to his last $11 when he
got the part in Friends.

57. Schwimmer claims to have been "a fat
ugly geek" in high school.

58. Cox played the part of Michael J Fox's
girlfriend, Lauren, in Family Ties, between
1986 and 1988.

59. She claims to have been really in love only
once. The lucky man was called Paul, hailed
from Leeds, and "he made a hell of a
Yorkshire pudding".

60. Aniston counts among her former loves ER's
Noah Wyle, Tate Donovan, actor Johnathan Silverman,
co-star Matthew Perry, and Grant Heslov from True Lies.

61. David Schwimmer accused the handlers of
his on-screen pal Marcel the monkey of being
"too possessive". He claims he was never
allowed to bond with the creature.

62. Marcel's trainer, Nerissa Pulitzer, said of
her charge: "If Monkey were human, she'd be
Meryl Streep."

63. The monkey was the first cast member to
get a Hollywood movie role, appearing in the
film Outbreak.

64. The daughter of Cary Grant and Dyan
Cannon, Jennifer Grant, played an employee
of Chandler's who ended up dating him in the
first series.

65. The Friends album includes songs from
REM, Joni Mitchell and Hootie and the
Blowfish, a band four of them once went to
see.

66. The theme tune, I'll be there for you by the
Rembrandts, has been a huge hit on both side
of the Atlantic.

67. Friends executive producers Marta
Kauffman and David Crane also created the
adult sitcom Dream On.

68. The characters of Ross's ex-wife Carol
and her girlfriend Susan are based on the
godmothers to Kauffman's daughter.

69. The opening footage of the cast dancing
around a fountain was filmed on the Warner
Bros. lot in LA at five o'clock in the morning.

70. The first thing Cox bought with her Friends
money was a brand-new Porsche.

71. The occupations of the characters are as
follows: Ross, palaeontologist; Monica, chef;
Joey, actor/model; Phoebe, aromatherapist;
Rachel, Waitress;Chandler, data processor.

72. Cox was the best-known of the case
before the show. She played opposite Jim
Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and
was in Cocoon: the Return.

73. Courteney played a TV reporter chasing down a
serial killer in the horror flic 'Scream'.

74. Two models for American underwear
company Victoria's Secret appeared in the
first season. One of them was the dream girl
Chandler gets stuck with during a blackout, the
other was a girl who is convinced that Joey
has VD.

75. Perry looked at 40 houses before buying
his current W-shaped ranch house with pool,
in Los Angeles.

76. Aniston bought her brother a Bronco car
for Christmas, and he cried.

77. Schwimmer was in the first series of
NYPD Blue. He was a nerd who lived in the
apartment next door to Sherry Stringfield and
ended up shooting a mugger.

78. Kudrow co-starred with Oscar-winner Mira
Sorvino in the film, Romy and Michele's
High School reunion.

79. Christina Pickles, who plays Monica's
mom, also worked with Cox ten years ago on
the film Masters of the Universe.

80. Cox said of her character; "She's
obsessive, the one who has to be perfect and
please everybody. I'm so similar to her it's
frightening."

81. When Jay Leno asked Aniston to touch
her nose with her tongue on the Tonight show,
she politely declined.

82. Kudrow started her showbiz career at
Groundlings, a local improvisation comedy
school in Los Angeles.

83. Schwimmer has a multi-million dollar deal
with top Hollywood studio Miramax to star in
and direct several films.

84. Aniston starred in an unsuccessful horror
movie called Leprechaun in 1993.

85. She also starred in the 1997 romantic comedy, 'Picture
Perfect' with Jay Mohr and Kevin Bacon.

86. Kudrow used to date American talk-show
host Conan O'Brien.

87. LeBlanc admits to having spat in
someone's food when he worked in a New
York burger joint.

88. Aniston's shampoo commercial for L'Oreal
is only being shown in Europe. She says that
she will never do a hair product ad in
America.

89. Her godfather was former Kojak actor
Telly Savalas.

90. Courteney Cox married actor David Arquette on June
12th, 1999. They've been seeing each other since
meeting on the set of the horror film 'Scream' in
October of 1998.

91. Raised in Ottawa, Canada, Perry was a
junior tennis ace before talking up acting. He
never graduated from college. He gave up his
studies when he won a role in a sitcom called
Boys will be Boys. His first movie role since
joining Friends was Fools rush in, playing a
nightclub promoter.

92. Childhood friends of southern belle Cox
were reportedly shocked at the lesbian
storyline in the show.

93. Perry's grandfather, however, loves the
show. And so do all his friends.

94. In a somewhat unlikely claim, Perry also
insists that Mrs Thatcher is an avid viewer,
particularly of Joey and Chandler's scenes.

95. Neurotic about her looks, Cox worries
about the thin, dry skin under her eyes, having
different-sized nostrils and a double chin. As
if...

96. There's a book out called Cooking with
Friends, full of comfort food recipes for when
"it hasn't been your day, your month, or your
year" - a reference to the theme song.

97. Matt LeBlanc used to model Levi 501's
and has appeared in TV ads for Coca-cola
and Heinz Ketchup.

98. LeBlanc admits to being a mommy's boy,
and is devoted to his Italian mother, Pat
Grossman. He didn't meet his father until he
was eight.

99. The show's producers admit that the
characters could never afford the rents on the
apartments they live in on the show.