Co-creators of Friends David Crane and Marta Kauffman had to fight for Monica Geller’s pilot storyline, in which she sleeps with someone on a first date because NBC executives didn’t like it.
“The guy who was in charge said: ‘We’re not going to like Monica because [in the pilot] she sleeps with a guy on the first date,’ We made the argument that it makes her sympathetic,” said Crane, adding, “The network, in trying to prove that the audience wouldn’t like Monica is she sleeps with a guy on the first date, distributed a little questionnaire to the audience at our dress rehearsal, and it was so skewed. The question was like: ‘When Monica sleeps with a guy on her first date, is she a) a slut or b) a harlot?’”
The joke was on those prudes, though, because the audience was cool. “People wrote in saying: ‘No, it’s fine,’” said Crane.
The one-night-stand in question was a co-worker, also known as “Paul the wine guy,” who assures Monica that it’d been years since he slept with anyone, which she later uncovers as a lie.
Question for the audience: When Paul the wine guy lied to Monica to get in her pants, was he a) a shithead or b) a douchebag?
My handful of loyal readers (hi Mom!) will remember that my day job boss is an OG Friends fan, so I asked her for her thoughts.
“A slut or a harlot?! Let me guess: the executive was an old white dude. Shows how far we’ve come but … in not such a long time if you think about it,” she said. I talk to her about my love life a lot, so I think what she means is we’ve come far enough that no one would call me a slut or harlot today, even if I deserve it. Another friend (who referred to herself as “A Monica” and me as “A Phoebe” in a speech once) wanted me to link this book: I’ll Be There For You: The One About Friends by Kelsey Miller.