Jerry Seinfeld Claims ‘Friends' Was NBC's ‘Good-Looking' Version of ‘Seinfeld'
Jerry Seinfeld recently mused that NBC's iconic Thursday-night "Must See TV" lineup was built on the success of Seinfeld, joking that Friends only exists because of his groundbreaking series.
"Here's my theory on Friends … My show came on [1989]-90. Friends came on a few years later," he quipped at Netflix Is a Joke Presents Jerry Seinfeld in Los Angeles, People reports. "I think NBC was watching my show and said, ‘Hey, this is working pretty well. Why don't we try the same thing with good-looking people?"
This isn't the first time Seinfeld jokingly took credit for the success of Friends. Lisa Kudrow, who starred as quirky folk musician Phoebe Buffay on Friends, even agreed. She recounted running into Seinfeld in a 2022 interview where she happily gave him credit for the series' rise.
"It was in the summer when we were in reruns after Seinfeld, where Seinfeld was our lead-in, where we exploded," she told The Daily Beast. "I remember going to some party, and Jerry Seinfeld was there, and I said, 'Hi,' and he said, 'You're welcome.'"
She added, "I said, 'Why, thank you…what?' And he said, 'You're on after us in the summer, and you're welcome.'" At that point, she understood and replied, "I said, 'That's exactly right. Thank you.'"
While Seinfeld may take some credit for Friends' success, the "Must See" TV boom on NBC began earlier than his sitcom with the trailblazing comedy, Cheers, starring an ensemble cast of Ted Danson, Shelley Long, George Wendt, Rhea Perlman, Woody Harrelson, and more in the 1980s. Along with The Cosby Show, new "must-see" series emerged in the early 1990s, including Seinfeld and Friends, but also ER, Mad About You, Wings, Will & Grace, and Cheers spin-off Frasier.
Danson recalled, like Seinfeld, Cheers wasn't immediately embraced by viewers at first, despite ultimately sparking the series of hit shows on the network. "Critics loved us. Everyone around us…the writers, everybody was so positive. 'Don't pay attention, just keep doing it' kind of feedback, which was lovely, but we were dead last one week in the ratings," Danson said on the Dinners on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson podcast. "We were like... Jimmy [Burrows] likes to say we were 75th outta 70. There were only 70 shows."
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This story was originally published May 7, 2026 at 5:21 AM.