A closer look
Iconic opening credits for the sitcom Friends were not filmed in New York City but rather on a Warner Brothers studio backlot in Burbank, California at four in the morning. The cast was freezing cold while splashing around in that fountain, and the hit song by The Rembrandts was not even playing on set because they had not finished recording it yet. For ten seasons, audiences tuned in to watch what they believed was a quirky group of Manhattanites spontaneously celebrating life, but it was actually a bunch of sleep-deprived actors shivering in chlorinated water while pretending to hear a theme song that did not exist. The magic of television is just highly organized lying, and your beloved nineties nostalgia was manufactured on a Tuesday night next to a soundstage
