| NEWS 1: Friends C4 and Sky censor evening showings of Friends! What a shock Channel 4 show Friends repeats (ad nauseum) on Channel 4 and E4, usually at 6pm. On the early-evening repeats in 2001 and 2002, like in Futurama and the Simpsons, anything 'offensive' was deleted from episodes. Friends had been shown uncut in an early-evening slot on C4 for years, and the cutting seemed very hit-and-miss, as if C4 only noticed it sometimes. I'm not a fan of Friends any more (after a few years it just becomes too irritating to bear) but it still shouldn't be cut. Here are a few examples from various episodes. [Credit to The Complete Friends Scripts Index for S6 lines] ------------------------ CHANNEL 4 SEASON 4: The One With The Cat & Where Joey And Chandler Get Robbed Phoebe is performing a 'song': PHOEBE (shouting) # Dumb, drunken bitch!! # (strums a few times angrily) (cheerily) Thank you! ------------------------ Joey, trying to sell his entertainment centre (the big thing with a television inside), is showing it to a prospective buyer. He claims he can fit inside a cupboard, but the buyer disagrees: JOEY If I can�t, I�ll knock 5 bucks off the price of the unit. (opens door) PROS. Yeah, you have yourself a deal. (they shake hands) (Joey climbs into the unit and shuts the door, the buyer gets an ice-hockey stick and jams the door closed with it) JOEY (from inside) See? I told ya! (buyer grabs the hi-fi and a lamp and heads towards the apartment�s door) Sometimes I come in here just to get away from it! (shot of the e'ment centre) Hey, a nickel! (end of scene) ------------------------ Later, Chandler walks in to find nothing in the apartment: CHANDLER (astonished) Oh my god! JOEY (still in there) What? (Chandler shrugs exasperatedly, and walks across to the e'ment centre) CHANDLER Are you all right? JOEY Yeah. (Chandler takes the stick out of the door) CHANDLER What happened? JOEY (gets out) Oh man, he promised he wouldn�t take the chairs! CHANDLER (turning redder and louder) What the hell happened, how are you locked in there are where the hell�s all our stuff?! ------------------------ REASON FOR CUT - C4 must have been afraid that kids would see this on TV, and start pushing their parents into cupboards and locking them in. Yes, I can imagine it all now. ------------------------ SEASON 4: The One Where Ross gets a keyboard and starts playing very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very poor songs After Phoebe, Rachel, Chandler and Monica have heard Ross' "music" for the first time: ROSS Well, what did everyone think? RACHEL (not quite telling the truth) Oh, that was... terrific! CHANDLER Yeah, it was really... bitchin'! ------------------------ SEASON 4: The One Where Ross invents a quiz game that loses Monica and Rachel their apartment During the 'lightning round': ROSS (quizmaster) At what age did Chandler first touch a girl's breast? MONICA Fourteen! ROSS No, nineteen. CHANDLER (to Ross) Thanks, man (!) ------------------------ The worst thing is that those cuts have stuck - whenever C4 show the programme, even at night on E4, they only show the censored Joey-in-a-cupboard episode. And I don't know how long they'll be able to continue shoving Friends into the 6pm time-filler slot - they allowed the term 'son-of-a-bitch' recently, and as time went on, the show became more and more risqu�. And here's a small selection of what they cut from 6pm repeats in January 2003. Some very odd stuff: ------------------------ SEASON 6: The One Where Ross Got High & Where It�s Thanksgiving & Rachel Gets Her Trifles Mixed Up Rachel enters: RACHEL Joey, God, your apartment is like a hundred degrees! JOEY Did-did it make you want to walk around in your underwear? RACHEL No! JOEY (frustrated) Still not hot enough! ------------------------ SEASON 6: The One With Rachel�s Sister & Where Monica�s Sick But Still Wants Chandler To Have Sex With Her MONICA Fine, I�ll rub it [the Vap-o-Rub] on myself. CHANDLER Okay. (To start this task, she lowers the top of her robe to reveal that she is naked from the waist up, and starts to rub on the gunk. Chandler notices this, and 'something' starts happening to him) CHANDLER So you�re just, kinda rubbing it on yourself? MONICA Yeah? CHANDLER It�s nice. MONICA Are you kidding me?! Is this; is this turning you on? ------------------------ SKY ONE have also been cutting stuff! The dastards. SEASON 6: The One That Could Have Been, Part 2 In the closing credits, Phoebe is performing one of her beloved, crap songs: PHOEBE It only takes two heart attacks to finally make you see One of them won�t do it but the second will set you free Till all your hate and anger It�s time to say goodbye And that is just what I will do Till those bastards I worked for die! La lalala la la lalala la [episode ends, mercifully] ------------------------ They're so offensive, they are > |
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