sbp

Friends is not even the best comedy currently on the air, let alone ever.

Everyone else tired of this show's overblown TV farewell?

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http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/...endspraise.ap/
OK, maybe "Friends" isn't the "best comedy ever."

NBC promised Thursday not to rerun a promo using that phrase to refer to the show, which will go off the air after 10 years in May.

"They were just trying to hype it and went overboard," NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said. "It ran once and it won't run again."

The ad irked some people, most prominently Kelsey Grammer, star of "Frasier," five times the Emmy winner for best comedy. "Friends" has won the best comedy Emmy once.

"I don't blame them for saying that," Grammer told reporters last week. "Although, we all know it's not true."

Grammer admitted feeling a little overshadowed during the final year of his sitcom. "Frasier" will end its run a week after "Friends."

NBC has been eagerly beating the drums for the "Friends" finale, which is being taped this week in Hollywood. Thirty-second ads for the show are reportedly being sold for $2 million, just shy of prices for the Super Bowl, according to Horizon Media, an ad buying firm.

"It will be more of a, I guess, social phenomenon for 'Friends' to leave than it will for 'Frasier,' so we will accept that," Grammer said. "We've always been creatively, I'd like to think, setting a very high bar. And we can go out saying that we continued that to the end."

CBS chief Leslie Moonves, never shy about tweaking his rivals at NBC, couldn't resist a shot at the network for the "Friends" promo.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to call it the best comedy in television, Moonves said last weekend.

"The people who did 'All in the Family' and 'M*A*S*H' and 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'I Love Lucy' and 'The Honeymooners' and 'Cheers' and 'Seinfeld' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' all those shows, may have a little bit of a problem with that claim," he said.

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I like how Moonves slipped in 'Everybody Loves Raymond" in the pantheon of all-time great American TV comedy.

bachviet

Nothing beats my "Married with Children". Al Bundy is my idol.

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attgig

sick how ads for friends is just as much as ads for the superbowl....

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nickel

that show ruled!

and Friends needs to end. it came and went.

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Cantacuzene

Only complete tools like Fraiser. And I can't think of an appropriate generalization for Friends fans, but just insert somethign about them being an insipid bunch of low intellect morons.

ray

What do you watch on television?

Kevster

I don't watch either of these shows. Never have.

Married with Children, though, was comedic gold 'til it jumped the shark.

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I think over again
My small adventures, my fears.
The small ones that seemed so big,
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.

And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing:

To live to see the great day that dawns,
And the light that fills the world.

-old Inuit song

ray

When do you think they jumped the shark on that one? I think it's when they started regularly casting that little kid

whitak24

admittedly, i don't watch much tv. i will say that fraiser is funny, but i don't find it hilarious or ground-breaking. friends is basically a soap opera - it has its funny moments but it mostly sucks you in by making you think that you're "friends" with these hip, attractive people who lead exciting lives and never seem to work.

truly funny tv = the simpsons or family guy

ray

I was a big fan of Seinfeld. As far as other comedies go, I only started watching the Simpsons when I entered college. Otherwise, I think most of the sitcoms on air are pretty CRAPtacular

Apex

Anyone else like family guy? Just started watching that, and it just cracks me up to no end.

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Cantacuzene

I watch the news. And for entertainment I watch stuff on comedy central or sometimes Howard Stern on E!. Network television is garbage.

ray

So you watch all of the "unbiased" programming. Good choice.

Cantacuzene

I'm sorry if I don't find sitcoms funny.

whitak24

btw, i love you avatar. that's hilarious

Kevster

You got it! Whenever you add a little kid to a tired formula like that it does nothing but drive a few dozen more nails into the coffin.

DaFunkyUnit

just look what it did for:

The Brady Bunch
Family Ties
Who's the Boss
Step by Step
Cosby Show (multiple times, i think... then again, Bill loves da kids!)

i was about to say Full House, but gawd o mighty that show sucked.

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mcs328

I watched Frasier the first few seasons then dropped off. Same thing with Friends. Seinfeld I watched a lot except the last 1 or 2 seasons. Married with Children was great but I lost interest near the end also. I think the kids name was Seven.

Family Guy is hilarious

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cheapie

ah yes. another fine canta moment. instead of merely saying you don't like frasier or friends, you have to mock the fans and try to make the world your intellectual beyotch.

and then go on to say you watch howard stern, a much more pedantic production.

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Cantacuzene

At least Howard Stern doesn't make pretensions to being anything more than T & A. SOme people would have you think Friends was the best written comedy since Aristophanes.

johnnymk

On sitcoms, do you think anyone would laugh if they didn't have a bunch of silly people in the audience roaring over every dumb remark?

I doubt it.

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cheapie

no disagreement here.

nickel

Fred: You are so ugly that if you pressed your face in some dough... you'd have gorilla cookies.