Jerry Seinfeld has joked that NBC created Friends to duplicate the success of his classic sitcom Seinfeld — but with better-looking actors.
The co-creator and star of the eponymous sitcom, 72, was performing Tuesday at the third Netflix Is a Joke festival in Los Angeles when he asked the crowd to guess his all-time favorite TV show.
Responding to one attendee who named Friends, Seinfeld shared his theory about the beloved series, which arrived shortly after Seinfeld.
“My show came on — ’89, ’90. Friends came on a few years later,” the comedian said.
“I think NBC was watching my show and went, ‘Hey, this is working pretty well. Why don’t we try the same thing with good-looking people?’ And that was a pretty good idea. I think that kind of worked.”
Seinfeld debuted on NBC in 1989, starring Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards. The seminal comedy, about four single friends living in New York City, went on to win 10 Emmys during its nine-year run.
In 1994, NBC launched Friends, featuring Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc. The 10-season series similarly followed a group of six friends as they face love and life together in Manhattan. It went on to win a total of six Emmys.
Kudrow has previously spoken about how Seinfeld paved the way for Friends.
“The first season, our ratings were just fine,” Kudrow said in a 2022 interview with The Daily Beast. However, it wasn’t until Friends reruns aired after Seinfeld that the show “exploded,” she noted.
The Comeback star recalled that Seinfeld once approached her to take credit for Friends’ success.
“I remember going to some party and Jerry Seinfeld was there, and I said, ‘Hi,’ and he said, ‘You’re welcome,’” Kudrow said.
“I said, ‘Why, thank you… what?’ And he said, ‘You’re on after us in the summer, and you’re welcome.’ And I said, ‘That’s exactly right. Thank you.’”
Kudrow later revealed that Cox, who once guest-starred on Seinfeld, shared helpful insider knowledge with the rest of the Friends cast about the show’s inner workings.
“She was also the one who, when we were first shooting the pilot, would say: ‘Listen y’all, I did Seinfeld. They help each other all the time. If you think I could be doing something funnier, tell me. You’ve gotta tell me. We need to help each other out,’” Kudrow said on a 2025 episode of the Fly on the Wall podcast, adding that Cox’s advice “set a tone which carried through the whole ten years for us.”
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