Funeral for a Friend

Run out of Friends episodes to stream as our nation mourns the loss of Matthew Perry? I have some suggestions on what to watch next.

As I write these words, we are one week into our nation’s period of mourning over the tragic death of actor, writer, and advocate for those suffering from substance abuse, Matthew Perry. And I’m not being glib—I haven’t seen a collective outpouring of grief like this outside of the death of Queen Elizabeth or a U.S. president. The truth is that, with the increasing lack of social interaction people have with each other these days, coupled with the parasocial bonds we forge with fictional characters (and the actors who play them) to compensate, Perry was, in his way, a friend to us. And we are mourning the loss of that friend we saw nearly every week on Thursdays at 8:00pm on NBC for a decade.

I can see evidence of this outpouring of collective grief on social media, where images of Perry have been grayed out of color photos with his former Friends castmates and clips from the television series have pushed out clips of The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Two and a Half Men on Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. In fact, people are professing their love of Friends so much that we’ve apparently forgotten how much we collectively hate the series now for how “culturally insensitive” the show allegedly was 20-30 years ago. We’ve apparently even forgiven Perry for the potshots he took at actor Keanu Reeves in his autobiography.

(By the way, can we let that last one go? How soon people forget that, back in the ‘90s and early 2000s, we all made Keanu Reeves jokes. For example, here’s a 2003 infographic from The Onion, as well as two clips from the ABC / Fox series The Critic [1994-1995]. We stopped after the successful John Wick series and the discovery that he was a genuinely nice guy. If anything, Perry was guilty of using dated references.)

However, by now I’m sure you’ve already grief-watched the entire Friends series on streaming or physical media. You may have also rewatched The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and its sequel (2005), thus allowing you to mourn not only Perry, but also the slow-motion passing of Bruce Willis, who is suffering from frontotemporal dementia. After exhausting those options, however, many mourners are still hungry for more Matthew Perry material. Fortunately, as a long-time fan of the actor and his catalogue, I can recommend some stuff.

Why am I doing this on a blog best known (to a small handful of people) as a place I analyze thirty-year-old cartoons? Well, the desire to expand my readership is certainly there, but mainly it’s a form of penance. You see, a few years back, I was a contributing writer for The Final Edition Radio Hour, a mostly weekly sketch comedy podcast, and one of the sketches I wrote was called “Sitcom Pilot #237,” which mocked how quickly sitcoms are cancelled these days, and one of the “characters” on the show was heavily implied to be Perry. You can listen to it here:

While funny, I do feel bad about how mean it comes across. In truth, I’ve always loved Matthew Perry. I’ve admired his looks, his charm, and his black belt in sarcasm and snark. In fact, his allure was best summed up in a recent passage from The Guardian:

His was the spirit of the age: self-deprecating, metrosexual, all ironic distance, no ambition. […] Incidentally, he’s a way better character before he gets together with Monica. And he’s a way better character when he hates his job. The unfolding of adulthood was like kicking two legs off a stool. Gen X is a shadow of itself when it grows up. (Williams)

The characteristics that define Chandler Bing are all things, for good or ill, that I have internalized in the decades since the show aired. He was the fictional character I aspired to be when I was a teenager. I was never going to have the sex appeal of a Jason Priestly or Luke Perry (God, how old do I sound?), but I could be funny. And a smartass. Anyway, here we go, in a vaguely chronological order…

Home Free (1993)

Not so much a recommendation as a curiosity. Ever wonder what Matthew Perry would look like in an ABC family sitcom circa 1993? Well, wonder no more thanks to Home Free, a saccharine-sweet series that lasted 13 episodes and, for a brief period, was even part of the network’s famed TGIF lineup alongside Family Matters. On the series, he played Matt Bailey, a 22-year-old journalist who lives with his mother and, after the pilot, his divorced sister and her two kids. The show was your standard family sitcom fare, but Perry did show off character traits that would eventually be filtered into Chandler Bing.

Where Can I See It: YouTube is your only hope. For the moment, you can find clips and full episodes there.

Fools Rush In (1997)

The film that Perry would later recall as his best movie (Tinoco), here he portrays Alex Whitman, a WASP-y New York project manager who is sent by his company to supervise the construction of a Las Vegas nightclub. While there, he has a one-night stand with Isabel Fuentes (Salma Hayek), a Mexican American photographer and, after discovering three months later that she is pregnant, they marry and attempt to start a life together, thus allowing a montage of culture shock moments to ensue for both of them. While it is one of a multitude of boy-meets-girl romantic comedies from the era, I thought it was funny, plus there is a certain bent appeal to this “opposites attract” plot once your realize that they paired Chandler Bing with the actor who, one year prior, played the vampire Santanico Pandemonium in Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk till Dawn:

Where Can I See It: It’s currently available for sale or rent on Amazon Prime and iTunes.

Serving Sarah (2002)

This is as close to Chandler Bing you’re going to get outside of a Friends rerun. Here he’s Joe Tyler, a former New York lawyer-turned-process server who makes a deal with his latest mark, a British socialite named Sara Moore (Elizabeth Hurley), to tear up her papers and serve her husband, a Texas beef magnate (played by Bruce Campbell), thus allowing her to get a better deal in the divorce, as it would be under New York law rather than Texas law. Featuring an all-star cast—including Vincent Pastore, Cedric the Entertainer, Amy Adams, Terry Crews, and Jerry Stiller—the film underperformed at the box office, but it was funny as hell, with scenes including Perry doing his best James Bond impression to sneak into an underground mob casino, as well as chasing his target into a monster truck rally with a gun-toting bodyguard (played by Crews) on his tail.

Where Can I See It: Surprisingly, it’s currently available for free on YouTube; it’s also available for sale or rent on Amazon Prime and iTunes.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007)

Having previously made appearances on The West Wing, Matthew Perry returned to the Aaron Sorkin-verse with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a series about the behind-the-scenes activities involved in the production of a Saturday Night Live-style weekly sketch show. Reteaming Perry with former Whole Nine Yards costar Amanda Peet, he starred as Matt Albie, who—along with professional partner Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford)—returns to a struggling series that he was once fired from to be the new executive producer and head writer. Featuring an all-star cast—including Sarah Paulson, D.L. Hughley, Steven Weber, Ed Asner, and a pre-Big Bang Theory Simon Helberg—the series was, surprisingly, at is best when the characters served as a mouthpiece for Sorkin’s beliefs regarding storytelling, professional integrity, and the general state of the television industry.

Premiering to critical acclaim, interest in the series began to drop off as the season progressed. The fact that it debuted in the same television season with the more popular 30 Rock probably didn’t help. Still, the show is noteworthy for Perry’s performance as well as his onscreen chemistry with both Whitford and Paulson. I highly recommend the first eleven episodes.

Where Can I See It: It’s currently available for sale or rent on Amazon Prime and sale on iTunes.

Mr. Sunshine (2011)

A mid-season replacement created by, co-written by, and starring Matthew Perry, this series featured him as Ben Donovan, the manager of the Sunshine Center, a lesser San Diego arena. Starring Allison Janney and Joey alum (and Matt LeBlanc’s then-partner) Andrea Anders, the series had its moments, but as the middle child between Studio 60 and the final one on my list, it was lacking.

Where Can I See It: It’s currently available for sale or rent on Amazon Prime and sale on iTunes.

Go On (2012-2013)

Of the films and television series I’ve showcased here today, this is the one I recommend the most. In this series, Perry plays Ryan King, a sports talk radio host who joins a support group following the death of his wife in a traffic accident. The series follows King as he copes with the grief he feels and other related issues as he attempts to move forward. Much like his fans right now.

In addition to its relevant setting, the series was a wonderful vehicle for Perry, giving him a range of stories as well as an excellent ensemble cast to play off of—including John Cho, Laura Benanti, and Brett Gelman. In addition, Courteney Cox appears in one episode as a potential love interest.

Where Can I See It: Say it with me now—it’s currently available for sale or rent on Amazon Prime and sale on iTunes.

He Was There for Us

In addition to the above, there are no doubt a number of other appearances to be found on his IMDB and Wikipedia pages that are worth our time and attention. For example, I’m sure that his CBS remake of The Odd Couple (which he starred in with Thomas Lennon) was good, but I never saw it (at the time, CBS was the only one of the big four networks not streaming their shows on Hulu). I would recommend his appearance on Ally McBeal, but it was recently pulled from Hulu and Amazon Prime, and as it’s also no longer available on iTunes it means you’ll have to go dig up physical media to see it now. And Perry, along with his fellow costar Lisa Kudrow, can be counted as one of the only two Friends alums to make an appearance on The Simpsons (in his case, as one of the voice options for the Ultrahouse 3000 in the “Treehouse of Horror XII” segment, “House of Whacks”):

(Seriously, The Simpsons managed to have the three surviving Beatles appear on the show, but only two of the cast of Friends?)

Matthew Perry was laid to rest in Forest Lawn Memorial Park on Friday, November 3rd, in a private ceremony attended by his family and the remaining cast of Friends. He will be remembered as a talented man who, despite the addictions that plagued him for much of his life, produced a formidable body of work that, more often than not, was delivered with a sarcastic joke meant to hide a deep vulnerability. And that’s how I’ll remember him.

Rest in peace, Matt. Sorry about the “has-been” crack in my sketch.

UPDATE 11/25/2024: As of November 2024, Ally McBeal is back on Hulu, so if you want to see Matthew Perry’s turn as attorney Todd Merrick, check out Season Five’s episode, “Love is All Around.”

Works Cited

“1992-93 United States Network Television Schedule.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. n.d. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992%E2%80%9393_United_States_network_television_schedule>. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.

Tinoco, Armando. “Salma Hayek Mourns ‘Fools Rush In’ Co-Star Matthew Perry & Remembers ‘Special Bond’ of Sharing Dreams.” Deadline. Deadline Hollywood, LLC. 30 Oct. 2023. <https://deadline.com/2023/10/salma-hayek-tribute-fools-rush-in-matthew-perry-1235587550/>. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.

Williams, Zoe. “’An Ironic, Self-Depreciating Metrosexual’: How Matthew Perry Captured the Spirit of the Age.” The Guardian. Guardian News & Media Limited. 29 Oct. 2023. <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/oct/29/ironic-metrosexual-lothario-how-matthew-perry-captured-spirit-age-friends?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1698593969>. Accessed 5 Nov. 2023.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and Sony Pictures Television. “Sitcom Pilot #237” courtesy of The Final Edition Radio Hour; YouTube video courtesy of the Edu channel.