Gunther actually spoke his first line on Friends halfway through the second season, despite appearing in the background of Central Perk since the pilot episode as a glorified extra.

A closer look

Gunther actually spoke his first line on Friends halfway through the second season, despite appearing in the background of Central Perk since the pilot episode as a glorified extra. James Michael Tyler only got the gig because he was the sole person on set who knew how to operate the espresso machine, which is a brutally accurate representation of how actual career advancement works for most millennials, where being competent at a mundane piece of equipment casually traps you in the same dead-end job for ten years while your attractive friends sit on a couch complaining about their lives