Six attractive, barely employed but financially comfortable Manhattanites in their twenties constituted the eponymous core of Friends, the TV sitcom that burst onto NBC for the first time during the 1994-1995 season, and rocketed to instant, "must-see" popularity. Single young viewers, bored with sitcoms about family life, latched enthusiastically onto this group of pals in cute clothes and trendy haircuts, who spend much of their time sitting around in a coffee bar conversing and exchanging banter, and who treat each other like family. Friends is an ensemble show that appeared to have been directly modeled after the Fox sitcom Living Single, which began its run a year earlier and featured an almost identical premise except that the cast was African American.

Created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane, the group of friends is divided equally between the sexes. The girls are Monica Geller (Courteney Cox), a chef and...