If You Don't Know Who Ms. Chanandler Bong Is, You Won't Pass This Friends Quiz
- by Michael Gordon
- – on
- in Movies and TV
"Every week the TV Guide comes to Chandler and Joey's apartment. What name appears on the address label?"
"Oh! Chandler gets it. It's Chandler Bing."
"I'm afraid the TV Guide comes to Chanandler Bong."
"Actually, it's Miss Chanandler Bong!"
This is one of the funniest moments of one of the funniest television shows ever made. It's a moment that fans can quote ad nauseum, and no matter how many times they see the episode, it will still make them laugh. That's the timeless quality that a show like Friends has; it holds up extremely well on repeat viewings, and so will never really go out of fashion (even if some of the wardrobe choices and technology used in the show is dated at this point).
Friends was about six people we loved to see muddle their way through their New York lives: Ross and Rachel, the true will-they won't-they love story of the show; Chandler and Monica, the sarcastic jokester and the uptight clean-freak who somehow belonged together; and Joey and Phoebe, the dim-witted, womanising actor and the off-the-wall kook who always made us smile with their antics.
Friends lasted ten seasons, from 1994 to 2004, and truthfully could've probably went for ten more if the cast and crew had wanted it that way. There were 236 episodes in total, and the series finale was watched by 52.5 million people, which made it the most watched TV episode of the 2000's according to the Chicago Tribune.
Friends was a TV institution.
And now we're going to quiz you on it!
What was the name of Joey's girlfriend who Chandler fell in love with?
Despite only appearing in six episodes, actress Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds, Huff) made a big impression during season four of Friends. She first appeared in Central Perk, where she caught Chandler's eye. When he went to ask her out, it turned out she was already waiting on a date...Joey! She and Chandler eventiually began developing strong feelings for each other, as it became obvious she was more suited to him than Joey. They kissed, and when Joey found out, it nearly ruined he and Chandler's friendship! But what was her name?
When Phoebe changed her name to Princess Consuela Banana Hammock, what did Mike change his name to?
In the later seasons, Phoebe met a new love interest, who would go on to marry her in a super romantic outdoor wedding. He was named Mike Hannigan and was played by none-other-than Paul Rudd (Ant-Man, Anchorman)! A nice balancing influence for the kooky Phoebe, he memorably decided to change his own name when Phoebe changed hers to 'Princess Consuela Banana Hammock' following their marriage. His choice, which was somehow even more idiotic than hers, convinced her she'd made a mistake, and she changed her name again to Phoebe Buffay-Hannigan.
Prior to marrying Courteney Cox, David Arquette appeared in the show as Ursula's...?
Courteney Cox, who played Monica Geller on the show, met her future husband David Arquette on the set of Wes Craven's seminal horror film Scream in 1995. But he had previously made a guest appearance on Friends as well, as Malcolm, a man with more than a passing interest in Phoebe. It turned out that he knew her twin sister Ursula, and had latched on to Phoebe by mistake. By the time the episode aired, he and Cox were an item, but they shared no scenes together.
What was Monica's parents' nickname for her as a child?
Monica and Ross' parents Jack and Judy Geller made many appearances on the show. Played by Elliott Gould and Christina Pickles, they were portrayed as a loving couple who always seemed to favour Ross over Monica when they were growing up. Monica had a particular problem with her mother, but Jack was often shown to be more sympathetic, telling her to ignore her mother's cynical jabs and consoling her after a big break-up. Jack is also the one who always referred to Monica by her cute childhood nickname...
Who accidentally banged Ben's head when they were babysitting him?
In the later years of the show, children became a driving force for several of the characters, including Monica and Chandler and Rachel. Throughout the show's early years, however, the only character who had a child was Ross, who had his son Ben with his ex-wife Carol. In season three episode 'The One With The Giant Poking Device', Ben is left in the care of two of Ross' friends. One of them accidentally bangs his head while playing airplane, and then tries to cover it up with a teddy bear's raincoat and hat...
Which Friend hates Thanksgiving?
Like many sitcoms, Thanksgiving episodes became a recurring and popular element of Friends. In season three they all played a hilariously competitive game of touch football, and in season four Chandler spent six hours in a box as a way of apologizing to Joey for kissing Kathy. Also, in season six, Rachel managed to make half an English trifle and half a Shepherd's Pie for dessert (a disgusting mess which Joey, naturally, loved). But one of the group notoriously hated the holiday, as when he/she was nine years old, it was when his/her parents told him they were getting divorced...
What injury does Joey sustain just after he loses his health insurance?
Joey Tribbiani, everyone's favourite dim-witted but good-natured aspiring actor, was always one of the funniest characters on the show. In the season six episode 'The One Where Joey Loses His Insurance', he loses his health insurance (obviously) because he isn't working enough as an actor. This prompts him to try to get in better shape, but he winds up causing himself a disastrous injury while weight-lifting. Eventually he is cast as a 'dying man', which he is able to play very convincingly due to the tremendous pain he is in!
What is Phoebe's all-purpose fake name?
On a long-tenured sitcom like Friends, a lot of running gags are accumulated that make fans smile every time they are referenced. One of the best ones on the show is Phoebe's all-purpose alias that she uses several times in different episodes. The first time came when Phoebe tried to call Ross in London and pretended to be his doctor diagnosing a disease, and she also used it when she was pretending to be a fan trying to convince Joey's 'identical hand twin' to join him in his stage show idea...
What was Danny DeVito's stripper name in 'The One Where The Stripper Cries'?
Over the years, Friends had a huge number of great celebrity cameos, with the likes of Brad Pitt, Alec Baldwin and Julia Roberts playing memorable roles. Our favourite, though, just might have been the 5-foot-nothing Danny DeVito's appearance as a stripper who Rachel and Monica hire for Phoebe's Bachelorette Party. The sight of DeVito in a cop uniform (which Phoebe assumes is a child's Halloween costume) complaining about having to take two busses and climb a million stairs to get to their apartment is utterly hilarious. But what was his stripper name?
How did Dr Drake Ramoray die on 'Days Of Our Lives'?
The acting role most fans associate with Joey Tribbiani is the handsome Dr Drake Ramoray on daytime soap Days Of Our Lives. Joey struggled for the early seasons in bit part roles, commercials and terrible plays, so when he finally booked a starring role it seemed things were looking up...until he was killed off, that is! A distraught Joey explained that the character was injured so badly that the only doctor skilled enough to save his life was himself. Poor Joey struggled with the irony of this...
What is the name of Rachel's boss at Central Perk who is in love with her?
Rachel worked as a waitress in the coffee shop Central Perk (where the Friends all spend an inordinate amount of time) until midway through season 3. Her boss during this time secretly (and not so secretly) pined for her, letting it slip to Joey that one of the perks of his job was getting to stare at Rachel all day. Bizarrely, he also revealed to Joey that he used to be an actor and played a character called Bryce on All My Children, who was killed off in an avalanche!
Monica and Rachel lost their apartment in a quiz game because they couldn't answer which question?
In the season four episode 'The One With The Embryos', Joey bets Monica and Rachel that he and Chandler know more them than they do about the boys. This quickly escalates into a full-blown trivia game, with questions created and asked by Ross. The game is gut-bustingly funny, and builds to a crescendo that has become legendary. Monica ends up putting she and Rachel's apartment on the line, and when Rachel gets the last question wrong, Monica's realisation that she now has to move into the boy's apartment comes out as an anguished 'NNOOO!!!'
Which Friend became a surrogate mother for her brother's triplets?
Giovanni Ribisi (Avatar, Contraband) played Frank, one of the Friends' oddball half-brother in the show, and made such an impression that it seems like he was in much more than a scant nine episodes. He and his (much older) wife Alice, who he met when she taught him home-economics at school, want to have a child and convince his sister to carry the embryos and be their surrogate. In the end, she gives birth to triplets that they name Leslie, Chandler and, brilliantly, Frank Jr Jr!
Ross became a Professor of what at New York University?
Ross Geller, especially in the later seasons when his various eccentricities shone through, is arguably the funniest character on the show. Always someone who liked everyone to know about his intelligence, Ross worked at the New York Museum of Prehistoric History and had a deep love for dinosaurs. He eventually got a job as a Professor at NYU, despite being a mediocre teacher who bored his students to sleep and forgot classes. He also talked about how his academic paper on sediment flow rates was 'widely discredited'. So, was Ross as smart as he let on?
Ross bumped Isabella Rosselini off his 'freebie list' for which celebrity, who was 'more local'?
In a brilliant third season episode, the gang decide to each draw up a list of five celebrities they would be allowed to sleep with and their significant other couldn't get mad about it. Naturally, Ross takes this much more seriously than the others, and even goes so far as to laminate his list. He initially had Isabella Rosselini on the list, but bumped her off because she was out of the country at the time. So, when she (amazingly) wound up walking into Central Perk, he had to explain to her why she didn't make the cut...
One of Joey's 'big breaks' in acting was playing which famous actor's butt in a shower scene?
A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (the year 1994 to be exact), Friends aired the sixth episode of its first season. It was entitled 'The One With The Butt' and dealt with Joey getting what he thought was his big break in acting. A role in a movie starring an A-List actor, Joey gets super excited...until he finds out the role is as the lead actor's 'butt double' in a shower scene. Joey being Joey, of course, he somehow manages to overact in even that smallest of roles, and gets himself fired!
Which Friend was very overweight in their youth/college years?
When Friends recently debuted on Netflix in January 2018, fans were ecstatic that they could now re-watch all their favourite episodes. You know, if they didn't already own them on DVD. Or watch them when they're on TV everyday! A strange thing happened, though, in that many younger viewers who had never seen the show found many elements to be 'problematic', including the episodes that poke fun at one of the Friends being very overweight in their teen years. It involved the actor/actress wearing a fatsuit, with everyone else taking sarcastic potshots at their weight...
What does Joey do with 'The Shining' novel when he gets too scared while reading it?
Joey Tribbiani was mostly portrayed in the show as being, to put it mildly, pretty dumb. Never someone who was shown to be a big reader, the plot of the season three episode where he agrees to read Rachel's copy of Little Women if she reads his copy of The Shining feels all the weirder in retrospect. Joey unexpectedly finds Little Women to be a great read, and when he accidentally spoils the ending of The Shining for Rachel, she mean-spiritedly returns the favour. But what did Joey do with The Shining when it scared him?
What are the names of Rachel's two sisters?
Throughout the course of the show, we were introduced to many members of the Friends' extended family circles. This included Rachel's two sisters (who, unfortunately, never appeared in an episode together). Her first sister (played by Reese Witherspoon) appeared in two episodes during season six, and was going to date Ross, which made Rachel feel weird. Her other sister (played by Christina Applegate) then appeared in two episodes during season eight, and was resolutely unlikeable and self-centred, even repeatedly getting the name of Ross and Rachel's baby daughter wrong!
Which inappropriate hip-hop song do Ross and Rachel sing to baby Emma?
Any parent out there will know that there inevitably comes a time when you will do (almost) anything it takes to make your baby laugh. It's a wonderful feeling and is amazingly cute when a baby giggles. In Friends, this happened in the season nine episode 'The One With Ross' Inappropriate Song', when baby Emma found it hilarious when Ross sung a certain body-obsessed hip-hop song for her. Rachel then joined in on the fun, and the whole thing ended with them doing a raunchy dance in front of the child as well. #Parenting
Bruce Willis played Paul, the scary father of which of Ross' girlfriends?
Cinematic tough guy Bruce Willis appeared in a three-episode arc during the sixth season of Friends. He played the father of Ross' girlfriend, who also happened to be one of his students at the university. Naturally, he disapproved of his daughter's relationship with the much older Ross, and took every opportunity to intimidate Ross and make him feel uncomfortable. He then moved on to an awkward romantic fling with Rachel, who reduced him to a crying mess when she made him stop being so private with his feelings. Whoops!
Ross has a hilarious incident with hot leather pants when he is in the middle of what?
In the later seasons of the show, David Schwimmer really came into his own as a comedic performer, especially when showing Ross' many mishaps with fashion. He once wore a woman's sweater to dinner, tanned one side of his body to an insane level, and left teeth-whitening paste on so long that his teeth glowed in the dark! Perhaps the funniest incident involved leather pants, which became incredibly hot as he wore them. He ended up in a bathroom, with pants that he couldn't get back on and a whole host of cosmetic products all over his legs!
What was Janice's catchphrase?
Janice Litman Goralnik (nee Hosenstein) was one of the most beloved recurring characters on Friends. Played by Maggie Wheeler (who initially auditioned for the role of Monica), Janice was Chandler's long time on-again off-again girlfriend. Joey couldn't stand her, but to her credit, Janice generally seemed like her heart was in the right place. She was defined by her hilariously shrill and obnoxious voice, and her laugh, which became like nails on a chalkboard for Chandler. Then there was her catchphrase, which she uttered first in nearly all of her appearances on the show...
What was Richard Burke's job?
Richard Burke was played by Tom Selleck (Magnum P.I., Blue Bloods) and was a devilishly handsome man who dated Monica in season two. He was much older than her and, in fact, was a friend of the Geller family who had known Monica and Rachel since they were children. Naturally, this made Jack, Monica's father, a bit uncomfortable. Richard was always depicted as a good man, though, and Joey and Chandler once hilariously both grew moustaches to try and emulate his style. But what was Richard's occupation?
Ross' ex-wife Carol left him for a woman she had an affair with while they were married. Name the woman.
On Friends, Ross Geller had a habit that he just couldn't shake: he married and divorced A LOT. Three times, in fact. Which is a lot more divorces than most people want in their lives! Eventually it became a running joke on the show, but in season one, the backstory of Ross' first failed marriage was all too painfully laid out. His ex-wife Carol had cheated on him with a woman she met at the gym, leaving him when she realised she was a lesbian. But not before she and Ross slept together one last time, leaving her pregnant...
Which Friend got a job at Monica's restaurant just so she could fire him/her in front of everyone?
An extremely talented chef, Monica worked at a few different establishments over the course of the show (and ran her own catering business too). She was hired as Head Chef at Alessandro's after she wrote a critical review in the paper, which prompted the owner to seek her out. He was impressed by her skills and so fired his current Head Chef, which meant the staff all hated Monica. She then hired one of her Friends, simply so she could fire them in front of everyone and show how she wasn't to be messed with...
Ross slept with the girl at which store when he and Rachel were on a break?
'We were on a break!' There are few phrases in television history that have become as famous as this, which was uttered over and over again by an exasperated Ross after he and Rachel broke up in season three. Ross had become increasingly jealous over Rachel's relationship with a co-worker named Mark, and no matter how often she told him nothing was going on, he wouldn't let it go. She then suggested they take a break from their relationship, and he immediately slept with an attractive girl from a local store! Bad Ross.
Chandler had a third nipple. But what did he call it?
In the season three episode 'The One With Phoebe's Ex-Partner' Chandler begins dating an attractive woman named Ginger, who he met at Central Perk. Eventually, it transpires that Joey also used to date her and he did something awful: he accidentally threw her artificial leg on the fire in the middle of the night, and then ran away, never to speak to her again. Chandler is freaked out by her artificial limb, but tries to get over it and tells her about his third nipple. Which freaks her out and she stops their relationship!
Tickets to see which band caused strife amongst the friends, as some couldn't afford them?
In the second season episode 'The One With Five Steaks And An Eggplant', Ross' upcoming birthday celebrations cause some tension amongst the friends. Chandler, Monica and Ross want to go out to dinner and then go to a concert, but Joey, Phoebe and Rachel are frustrated because they can't afford such things, as they make less money than their friends. The wealthier friends then buy tickets for everyone to go to the concert, but the other three don't want their charity and stay home. Which stings when they find out the gang hung out with the band afterwards!
What was the name of Monica's surly neighbour, who lived below her?
Despite only appearing in five episodes, Monica and Rachel's eccentric and surly neighbour who lived in the apartment below them made a big impression. He would constantly complain about the noise they were making, which they insisted they weren't doing, and made outrageous claims whenever confronted. However, when he died and the friends were cleaning out his apartment, it turned out he'd left all his worldly possessions to 'the noisy girls upstairs', and that, in his apartment, any amount of noise (even walking) in their apartment would appear very loud in his!
In season three, Rachel gets a job at which department store?
For the first two seasons of the show, Rachel worked as a waitress in Central Perk. And she was terrible at it. She consistently got people's orders wrong and made awful coffee, so in season three she decided to take Joey and Chandler's advice to quit and pursue the career in fashion she'd always wanted. She quickly landed a job at a very well known department store, thanks to Mark (who Ross became jealous of) and stayed there for a number of seasons, working as a personal shopper and manager.
What was the name of the adult movie that Phoebe's twin sister Ursula starred in?
Ursula Buffay was Phoebe's cruel and inconsiderate identical twin sister, who appeared in eight episodes in the show's early seasons. Interestingly, Lisa Kudrow first played the character on fellow New York sitcom Mad About You, and when she was then cast in Friends, the producers decided to incorporate the character as Phoebe's 'evil twin'. In a sixth season episode it was revealed that Ursula had been working in the adult industry, using Phoebe's name for anonymity. An angry Phoebe took her revenge by taking all her pay checks, which were in Phoebe's name!
Who was Joey's childhood imaginary friend?
We mentioned earlier about the trivia game that the friends played that resulted in Monica and Rachel losing their apartment to Joey and Chandler. Some of the other questions asked during the game included: What age was Chandler when he first touched a woman's breast? (19). What was Monica's nickname when she was a field hockey goalie? (Big Fat Goalie). And another question was about Joey and his childhood imaginary friend. What was his name and what was his profession?
What does Rachel convince Ross' girlfriend Bonnie to do?
In season three, after Ross and Rachel have their bad break up, Phoebe asks if it's okay for her to set Ross up with Bonnie, a friend of hers. Rachel only agrees whenever Phoebe says that Bonnie was bald, but whenever she meets her at the coffee shop later, she's angry to find out that Bonnie has long hair and is beautiful. Phoebe doesn't see the problem; she said she WAS bald. She's not now. Rachel then convinces Bonnie to do something with her body hair when they're all vacationing at a beach house...
Which Friend was revealed to have mugged Ross when they were both children?
In the ninth season episode 'The One With The Mugging', Ross reveals that he was mugged as child outside St. Mark's Comics and that the mugger stole his backpack, which had all his original artwork for his own comic book 'Science Boy' (whose superpower was an insatiable thirst for knowledge). To his horror, he then finds out that the person that mugged him all those years ago was one of his friends! They bring Ross his Science Boy comic back at the end of the episode, which they had kept all through the years, which he is touched by.