In 1993 David Crane and Marta Kauffman, with Kevin Bright, had just seen CBS cancel Family Album when they pitched NBC a seven page treatment about six people in their twenties in Manhattan, under the working title Insomnia Cafe. Cameron Crowe has said Warner Bros. Television wanted to adapt his 1992 film Singles and used its premise when he declined, which the network and creators dispute. Casting went through about a thousand actors per role. Only Ross was written for a specific actor, David Schwimmer, while Courteney Cox talked her way from Rachel to Monica and Matt LeBlanc turned Joey from a sleazy womanizer into a sweet one.

Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry were cast days before the pilot while still attached to Muddling Through and LAX 2194, and NBC bet those shows would fail. The cast then acted as a unit. Paid $22,500 each an episode in season one, they drifted apart to $20,000 to $40,000 in season two, and before season three, led by Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow, demanded equal pay together. That reached $1 million an episode in seasons nine and ten, and a 2000 renegotiation won backend syndication points.

• The famous Manhattan coffee shop was built on a soundstage in Burbank, California.
• A University of Toronto study linked the show to the spread of so as an intensifier.
• NBC paid Warner Bros. $10 million per episode for the final season.
• The 2004 finale drew 52.5 million US viewers.
• Around 2018, Friends accounted for about 4 percent of all Netflix viewing.