Considered one the most popular sitcoms of all times, Friends premiered on the NBC television network on September 22, 1994. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, the show centered around a group of six friends living in the Manhattan area of New York City. The stars of the show included Courteney Cox Arquette, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Anniston and David Schwimmer.

In the beginning of the series the cast, though known, were not considered stars.  However, the success of Friends made them all household names before the series came to an end on May 6, 2004, after ten successful seasons.

NBC was smart enough to promote the event and some 52.5 million viewers made it the fourth most watched series finale episode in television history.

This was a show about your typical group of  friends who lived together and helped each other out in some precarious ways. Part of the success of Friends, I believe, is because of the fact that the pilot aired between to hugely popular shows, Mad About You and Seinfield.  As a result it was watched by almost 22 million viewers. It became a pivotal part of NBC’s famous Thursday night “Must See TV” line-up.

When you thought of the show Friends you normally associated it with Seinfield. Though each show was genuinely unique, they still seemed to have a very similar air about them.

Despite Friends’ huge widespread success, there was only one spin-off that came from the series. The show was called Joey, and it starred Matt LeBlanc continuing to play the role of Joey Tribbiani. The show followed the character to Los Angeles, where he pursued his acting career.  The show started off with a bang with 18.60 million viewers who watched the pilot episode but by its second season the viewership had dropped to just 7.1 million and the show was unceremoniously canceled.