“About Friends? What?,” you may be wondering.
And nope, I’m not talking about my friends, although they are some pretty great people who I care about deeply.
I’m talking about the popular ’90s sitcom, the one that aired four years before I was born, but yet, somehow 20+ years later, is still relevant and struck a chord with me. The fact that a TV show has the power to impact an audience that many years later means that it has some pretty good storytelling.
If it’s any indication, I have watched Friends two and a half times through. For those who don’t know, there are 10 seasons. 236 episodes. Some people “say” they’ve watched Friends, but have they actually? They’ve skipped around in seasons, seen a handful of episodes when it was airing on TV, watched the first few seasons, or let it run as background noise while they’ve been doing some other activity.
Not me. I’m the real deal. I’ve watched every episode, in order, in English, twice. I’ve taken a difficult quiz or two that test your recall of the smallest details from the show. Only the real ones take quizzes on their favorite TV shows.
Now, I said earlier that I’ve seen the show two and a half times, but I just said that I saw it twice in English. So where does the other half come from?
Two summers ago in Sevilla, my host mom would make her daughter, my roommate and I lunch every weekday, and while we all ate together at their table, we would watch Friends dubbed in Spanish.
That’s one of my favorite memories of living with my host family.
Insider view of our daily lunches
While that may not mean much to you reading, it meant so much to me. My host mom didn’t speak English, so the only way we could verbally communicate with each other was in Spanish, but we could also bond through the show. I could tell that she loved it just as much as I did.
Although it was not quite the same watching — because the majority of the Spain-dubbed version has actors and actresses with pretty drastic voices from the American actors and actresses’ (besides Janice’s voice) — not only can individuals relate to the show so many years later, but the show can also connect audiences on opposite sides of the world . . . that’s powerful.
FYI, that memory from Sevilla inspired me to title all of my posts in the same structure of every Friends episode title.
You’re not going to remember the titles of my posts, even if I came up with wildly creative ones, but hopefully you’ll remember SOMETHING from my storytelling and recall, “oh yeah, her blog was the one about her travel stories.” The creators of Friends did this for the same reason.
And no, I am not happy that Netflix removed the show, nor the fact that I have never been able to figure out how to watch the Spain-dubbed version in the U.S.