Dig into the facts behind the iconic 90s sitcom starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and the late Matthew Perry.

• Friends debuted on September 22, 1994. It ran for a decade, airing ten seasons and a whopping 236 episodes.

• The emotional finale, which aired on May 26, 2004, was watched live by 52.5 million viewers in America, making it one of the most-watched TV finales of all time. 

• Friends also won a ton of awards over the years including a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, 6 Primetime Emmys, 2 SAG Awards, and 12 People’s Choice Awards. 

• It was set in New York but filmed at Warner Bros. Studios in L.A.

• Friends almost had a number of different titles - sitcom creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman considered monikers like Friends Like Us, Insomnia Café, and Six of One before finally settling on Friends. 

• The show’s iconic theme song was also meant to be different - Friends’ original theme song was Shiny Happy People by R.E.M. which was used for the unaired pilot episode, Friends Like Us. It was eventually changed to I’ll Be There For You by The Rembrandts.

• David and Marta originally planned for the show’s main couple to be Monica and Joey, but they weren’t romantically compatible unlike Monica and Chandler who had natural chemistry. 

• The cast of Friends made a pact not to date or hook up - there really was no Ross and Rachel off-screen. “We didn’t want to jeopardise any of the great relationships and friendships we had established. It was kind of an unspoken rule," David revealed.

• The cast always stuck together though, even negotiating their salaries increases as a group. When they started out their each earned $22,500 per episode but that steadily increased to $1,000,000 per episode by the finale season.