Why was "Friends" so popular?

[Anonymous]

I think one either falls into the "Seinfeld" camp (intelligent humor) or "Friends" camp (stupid humor).

Flame away. But it's true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think one either falls into the "Seinfeld" camp (intelligent humor) or "Friends" camp (stupid humor).

Flame away. But it's true.

Where does Frasier fit in there? I love Friends and Frasier (can’t stand Seinfeld)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m with you OP! I watched pretty much every episode as they aired, thanks to my roommates, but never got the humor. I enjoyed the more serious plot lines - Ross and Rachel, Monica and Chandler, but the comedy just seemed sooo stupid.

I loved Seinfeld though.

Never got Seinfeld. It was moved a couple of times before it became a hit. Anything sandwich between Friends ad ER was going to be popular. Remote control tv was not widespread back then, set it and forget it!

Seinfeld came out before Friends. They started airing Friends in the slot after Seinfeld, so everyone watched it.

In the early years Seinfeld was not considered a hit and was on Wednesday nights, eventually moved to Thursday night.

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/seinfeld-from-flop-to-acclaimed-hit/


The Thursday line up became The Cosby Show, A Different World, Cheers, Seinfeld.

When Friends came in they were before Seinfeld and Seinfeld’s rating went up after Friends joined the line up.

Seinfeld season 5, which aired in the 1993–94 TV season, averaged just under 30 million viewers, and was the third-highest rank series according to Nielsen ratings. That was Seinfeld's last year without Friends alongside it on NBC, but rather than see the bright-new-thing become more popular, Seinfeld only got bigger. From 1994 to 1998 (when it concluded its run), Seinfeld was always in the top two highest-ranked TV shows as per Nielsen, alongside ER, finishing as number one on two occasions.

Friends was massively popular as well, but it couldn't quite compete with Seinfeld's numbers: The best it could finish when Seinfeld was also on the air was third, with an average of 29.4m viewers for season 3. Friends only finished as the number one show a single time, and that was the 2001–02 TV year, for Friends season 8. Across its run, Friends averaged 23.6 million viewers, contrasted to Seinfeld's 26.6 million. Neither was the big winner of the '90s in terms of awards - that belonged to Frasier, which won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series five years in a row - but in that area too, Seinfeld had slightly more success than Friends: Seinfeld has 10 Emmy wins and 68 nominations, contrasted to Friends' six wins and 62 nominations.