It's what Friends would be had it been created in 2011.

Multi-racial, urban, quirky and somewhat predictable.

That's an instant recipe for success and why it's received the ratings and accolades over the years.

This has been WAY more fun than talking about the ****ing Patriots.

Ensemble sitcoms are much more a writer's vehicle nowadays. Sure it's about pretty, diverse, 20-somethings, but the structure is a coatrack for quips much more than in the days of Friends, which was more about situations, performances and catchphrases. I enjoy watching it, but there are so many instances of the episode revolving around a couple key opportunities for wordplay. This phenomenon got it's big break with all the things 'Sex Panther' smelled like in Anchorman, and just this last weekend, Last Week Tonight had a skit riffing on all the crap Bud Lite tastes like.

@2:50

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However -- and believe me I've logged more Friends and HIMYM hours in this life than I care to admit, like basically two to four hours a night for the better part of a decade -- Friends still holds up a bit better than HIMYM in terms of sexism, portrayal of women, etc. You would think HIMYM, being the younger brother learning from bigger siblings mistakes, would have improved in those terms.

I was more talking about New Girl, Mindy Project, Happy Endings, Weird Loners, etc., than HIMYM.

:thumb:

In my haste to make my clarification, I missed the tail end of your post.

Wonder what you think about the present day critiques of homophobia in Friends. First the whole 'is Chandler gay' thing, then the stuff with his dad the trans lounge singer.

I've noticed a lot of millennials getting snarky, but then that's the age we're in.

I've noticed that "Millennials" haven't realized that society existed long before they were born into this world, and has evolved, thus I couldn't care less about their complaints.

Never really cared for Friends. Part of that was because I was like 8 when it began and never got into it.

Seinfeld had some great moments, but even though I laughed there was always something that bothered me about the fact that I was laughing.

Frasier, on the other hand, that was a great NBC sitcom.

Frasier is a very well written sitcom I totally took for granted. I know there are classic bits from it, but I'd be hard pressed to recall them [I know, I know, I know].

What is great, though, is to go on youtube and find out who all the celebs were who called into his show.

See how many you can guess without peeking

Of course, you know that Lisa Kudrow was the original Roz, right up to the first day of taping.

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Friends isn't flawless, for sure. But it feels far more progressive for its time than HIMYM does for its time in that regard.

Today, I'd prefer that an actual trans actor play Chandler's father. But the inclusion of a trans character at all was fairly forward thinking. Also, Friends is so damned white-washed. Living in the Village in the 90s/00s you'd think they'd encounter some greater ethnicity. Again, not flawless.

Slow clap

I just think that was a quirk of the show in that it relied heavily on the same tropes of Frasier and Niles being up-their-own-ass intellectuals whose nature conflicted with Martin / Daphne / Ros' grounded and sensible personalities such that every episode had a same-y feel to it but it didn't detract from the quality.

Aisha wasn't enough? ;)

Heh! And Kristen Lang. :drool: