24FRIENDS

Aired: NBC, 1994-2004

Co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane met in the theater program at Brandeis; by the time they created Friends, they had added a third partner, Kevin Bright, with whom they'd worked on the pilot of the HBO series Dream On. "We wanted something that felt over-caffeinated," Kauffman said in Written By of Friends. The energy of a sitcom about being in New York in your 20s, at loose ends, thrived alongside the chemistry of the show's young, attractive cast. Kauffman said the writers came to realize that Friends worked best when the entire ensemble was onstage. If a character went on a date, for instance, that scene didn't necessarily need to be in the show, since it worked better to have her describing the date to the others. "With Friends, that's where it works best to put them all in a room together," Kauffman said.

Matt LeBlanc & Courteney Cox present Marta Kauffman & David Crane the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award