Wanna talk about Pheebs? Park it right here!

(Other "Phoebe" label suggestions are welcome!)

Pheebs the Magnificent. This may not be a popular opinion, but I think she was the most consistantly funny of the female friends, even when she became a random bitch in the latter seasons. I love her in the one with the male stripper:

Old Stripper: Young lady, you're under arrest.

Phoebe: Cardiac arrest?

Phoebe Buffay: aka Princess Consuela Bananahammock.

I never tire of that one. :D

My favorite Phoebe moments:

Watching Chandler and Monica make out (and maybe more!) through Ross' window: "My eyes! MY EYES!"

Channeling the dead Jewish woman.

Spaz!Jogging Phoebe.

Watching Ursula perform in "Buffay, the Vampire Layer": "Oh my god, WHAT AM I DOING?!"

Echoing jonnypaul12, I found Phoebe to be the funniest of the three main females and, bitch or not, she was one of my favorite Friends.

RainIsBeautiful, I was going to suggest the same thing. Even though I liked early Phoebe better than later Phoebe. She started out as quirky and got kind of scary and strange towards the end, I thought.

Sure, she could be a real bitch but if I recall correctly, Phoebe was the only one to tell off Mr. Heckles...

Mr. Heckles: You're disturbing my oboe practice.

Phoebe: You don't play the oboe.

Mr. Heckles: I could play the oboe.

Phoebe: Well, then I'M going to have to ask YOU to keep it down! (slams door)

She wins points from me just for that. That was a definite "HELL YEAH" moment.

I know I am clearly in the minority, but I also thought Lisa Kudrow was the weakest link on the show. She could never do subtle and often played Phoebe really bitchy when I didn't think that was the writers' intent. She also had the least chemistry with the other actors. The only scenes I really enjoyed with Phoebe were the ones with Rachel. I thought Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow had pretty good chemistry and Jennifer played off Lisa's over-acting pretty well.

I also think the one where Ursula is a porn star (The One Where Chandler Can't Cry?) was a high point for Lisa Kudrow on this show. On the other hand, I hated the one where Phoebe discovers Ben isn't friends with Sting's son and yells at Ross to get her tickets. Lying, stealing, insulting Phoebe? Didn't seem like Season 1-5 Phoebe at all.

I also like the one where everyone finds out and she dances for Chandler..other than that Phoebe is my least favorite character, and I hated at the way she always seemed to crack up at her own jokes, like she couldn't stay in character for long. I also cringe at the "the woman I love" moment with Mike. I know it's supposed to be romantic and all, but it's so cliché to almost-walk-in, but-instead-stops-and-overhears-something-romantic.

Ah, but this episode gave me one of my favorite Phoebe quotes: (singing to the tune of Roxanne): ROSS CAN!!!

I have a weird love/hate relationship with Phoebe. She was always my least favorite character, but there are some moments where I love her and think Lisa Kudrow is a comedic genius, and then there are others where I think Phoebe is the most annoying character in sitcom history and someone needs to take Lisa Kudrow's SAG card away from her. I guess it might be safe to say that Lisa Kudrow gave the most uneven performance of the six Friends, and Phoebe is probably the character that polarizes fans the most. In my group of friends, there were a few people who counted her as their favorite and absolutely adored her, and then there were a few people who despised her. I was always the one that couldn't decide how I felt about her.

I think from S2-S4/5 she's amazing, especially S2, she just nailed everything. But it seemed to me that in the second half of the series she was just phoning it in. It seemed that the writers didn't care about Phoebe a bit [how half-hearted was her relationship with Mike?] and I think Kudrow's performances reflected that. She's talented, to be sure, but not as versatile as some say.

Still, I would take Pheebs over Monica, Joey and Chandler any day. So I guess she's my third favorite.

I think that was the problem with the character of Phoebe in general. The writers didn't have a freaking clue what to do with her. All of the other characters had some sort of long term character arc that sustained them in addition to the more 'one-shot' storylines.

Rachel, for example, evolved from a spoiled girl who never had to do anything for herself into an independent career woman.There was also the baby storyline, both when she was pregnant and when she had to learn how to take care of the baby. Of course, there was the whole Ross/Rachel relationship. Monica had the Richard storyline, working her way through several crappy jobs finally have her dream job at her dream restaurant, and her and Chandler's entire relationship. Ross had the Ben storyline, when he was the first one of all of them to be a parent, the relationship with Rachel, the disasterous marriage to Emily, losing his job at the museum, then getting a job as a professor at NYU. Chandler had the problems with women, from Janice, to Kathy, and finally the relationship with Monica. Joey had his up-and down career to deal with.

With Phoebe, the only arcs she really had were meeting her birth mother, and the triplets. There was that David/Mike thing as well, but that just seemed kind of tacked on to get Phoebe paired with someone. Otherwise, she was just kind of there. The second half of the series, there really wasn't much for Lisa Kudrow to do, and by extension, Phoebe. It's too bad, because I personally think that Kudrow did really well with Phoebe the first half of the series. She wasn't only brilliant comedically, but she nailed the dramatic moments too. I still cry when she talks to the triplets after she gives birth to them. I will go out a limb and say that Lisa Kudrow was better than Jennifer Aniston in the series, but Aniston's character got more attention from the writers, therefore she had more to work with.

I remember reading somewhere that Phoebe and Chandler were only supposed to be secondary characters in the beginning. So maybe that explains the lack of good stories for Phoebe.

princessleah I'd never thought about Phoebe's lack of arc in that way before, but you are totally spot on. It's a shame, because she *was* going places for a while in the early seasons, with re-connecting (to various extents) with her fractured family (her distant twin sister in series 1, then her half-brother, then her birth mom, then she had the triplets etc etc)...I did feel like there was a thread there, from series 1-4. But then it just kind of disappeared. I loved it when we saw her real dad in one of the later seasons, and thought that was a great character I'd of liked to have seen more of. But alas, it was not to be.

I find the character of Phoebe, along with the character of Ross, to be the most changed of the six when you compare how they started to how they ended. In season 1, Phoebe tells Rachel that the three things she should know about her are that 1) she makes the best oatmeal raisin cookies ever, 2) her friends are the most important thing in the world to her, and 3) she never lies. It's sad that this was all so very true about early Phoebe - she actually did never lie, or if she did she immediately had to own up to it, and you could see her friends were everything to her. But by the end of it all, the character we started off with was virtually unrecognisable to me in the self-centered, snarky bitch we ended up with.

Phoebe was always kind of the 'Kramer' of the group, wasn't she? I can almost picture the writers going, "We need something random and wacky here - of course! Phoebe can come in carrying something strange and inappropriate for Chandler to mock and Monica to be freaked by!"

I never much liked Kramer, either...

And Ro's post is spot-on - Phoebe went from being a slightly annoying but good-natured kooky hippie to a genuinely nasty piece of work by the end of the show. She was actually more like her aggressive and heartless alternate universe self from 'The One That Could Have Been' than the original character.

Huh. Never thought of that. But it's so true.

Also, in terms of relationships in the show, Phoebe was always the odd one out. Monica and Rachel went to high school together, Monica and Ross are brother and sister, Chandler and Ross were college roommates, Ross and Rachel had their crazy relationship, Chandler and Monica got married, Chandler and Joey were long-time roommates, and Phoebe? Was Monica's roommate however many years before, and moved in for awhile when there was the fire at her apartment. The episode TOW all the Kips where Rachel said that Phoebe lifts right out was sort of the truth, unfortunately.

I always loved seeing Phoebe and Ross together. It seemed like they had a genuine friendship. She was the one he told about still being married to Rachel, and the scene where he gave her that bike was so cute. It is one of my favorite scenes ever on the show.

I loved after Ross embarassed himself trying to flirt with the cute pizza delivery girl by talking about the different odors put in oven gas , Phoebe comes over to him and asks quietly and sincerely "Ross, what other gas smells are there?"

[quote]I always loved seeing Phoebe and Ross together. It seemed like they had a genuine friendship. She was the one he told about still being married to Rachel, and the scene where he gave her that bike was so cute. It is one of my favorite scenes ever on the show.[quote]

I really liked that scene too. Phoebe's reaction was great!

Nobody's mentioned Phoebe's dollhouse! I thought that was so funny that Monica had the "perfect" dollhouse and wouldn't let Phoeebe play with it, so she went and made her own! And hers was so much cooler!

I'm just watching an episode of Friends that I've never seen before. It's the one where Phoebe makes Monica tell Chandler that it was Joey she actually wanted to sleep with on that infamous night in London. Obviously all will turn out well for Mondler but what the hell? Phoebe had no business bringing this up and no one gets mad at her and tells her where she gets off? This seems to happen a lot with Phoebe. Doesn't anyone ever get mad at her for this kind of stuff?

Well, she thought Chandler already knew that Monica wanted to sleep with Joey first.

In a deleted scene on the DVD, Monica does get mad at Phoebe. After Chandler left, Monica asks her what was she thinking and how could she tell him that. Phoebe says she doesn't know and blames it as a side effect on the headache medicine she's taking.

People think Phoebe didn't like Chandler wasn't good enough for Monica forget she was the first person he told about wanting to propose to Monica and she was genuinely happy for them. She also went with him to find the ring.

Really? That wasn't the way it sounded to me. I don't remember her exact words now but I really felt she definitely knew that Chandler did not know. Which is why it was just plain mean of her to even bring it up. That deleted scene LizDC mentions would have made a lot more sense then the way it played out with no one seemingly angry with Phoebe at all.

There are a lot of problems with Phoebe's character that I don't have the patience to get in to now (not that anyone's missing anything by not having my insight), but I do want to say that I loved her in season four when she was pregnant. She's absolutely hilarious, and I think it's simply for the fact that she was allowed to sit back and comment on everything around her. We got to see how Phoebe responded to all these situations, how her brain cells worked, etc. It was a time when the character was allowed to just be really honest. At this point, she had a perfect balance of goofiness and meanness and it came across very well. I think the best example is the episode where she was trying to name the baby. Not a large storyline, and the main conflict was between Joey and Chandler, but Phoebe was still involved and still voiced her opinion, and while she was clear that Chandler couldn't be Clint, she definitely showed a sweet side at the end when she picked him.

I adored her, then, and it makes me sad to see what the writers did to her later on. She was gorgeous as a pregnant woman, too.

I loved Phoebe in the early seasons, before she turned meaner and more bitter. I still don't understand why the Friends writers thought that was a natural development. I think I heard there was an interview with the creators saying that Phoebe turned cynical because of the disappointments she experienced during the show--finding out about her birthmother, losing the triplets, etc.

But she also suffered big losses BEFORE the show started. She was always fighting with Ursula, her dad was already gone, her friend the jingle bitch already abandoned her, Lily killed herself, the step-dad went to jail, and Phoebe lived homeless on the streets for YEARS, when the normal people were in high school. One setback after another, yet she was still a sweet, bright, loving person in the early seasons. If all that stuff didn't turn her cynical, what on earth could?

1. Chandler only told her first because she walked in on him.
2. She could have just been excited about keeping another secret; see how casually she agreed to keep Ross's non-annulment a secret.
3. After he got the ring, she asked insensitively, "If Monica says no, can I keep the ring?"
4. In discussing backups with Rachel, they had that horrid exchange about how they'd marry someone "better than Chandler"
5. Phoebe made many other disparaging remarks to or about Chandler before and after the marriage.

Did anyone else ever notice the suggestion that Phoebe was an alcoholic. Like the time the went to Rachel's silent auction and all Phoebe does is drink. Or when they are in Vegas and she's drunk at breakfast. I know there were others mentions of it too. I guess it was just a ha-ha wacky Phoebe comedy device, but once I noticed it a couple times, I kept thinking they were going to go somewhere with it.

I agree, the character of Phoebe really fell apart. I loved sweet, dumb, new-age Phoebe from the beginning who would pink lint off your aura and la-la-la you to your "happy place."

I liked that Phoebe had a darker side to her.

I don't mind the dark side in itself. I didn't want her to be like that overly zesty, perky Alec Baldwin. I liked the glimpses we got of Street Phoebe, and how she could kick people's asses.

I don't like her being mean to her friends, though. There is a difference between light teasing, like when she teased Chandler for gaining weight in that season 2 or 3 episode, and actually undermining any sense of masculinity or self-esteem he might have. I don't like when Monica crossed the line into being a harpy either.

Actually, Monica and Phoebe were living together before Chandler and Joey were. Joey was the last to join the group-- he moved in with Chandler just about when Phoebe moved out of Monica's, about a year before the Pilot.

And Phoebe mugged Ross as a child, so Joey was the only one who no one knew before. Heh.

The aromatherapy room sounded so cool. Also it made bubbles!

I liked Phoebe, and in the beginning, I felt for all her New Agey-spacey-hippie schtick, she was often the most pragmatic and realistic of all the Friends. She wasn't afraid to tell the truth, even if it wasn't what people wanted to hear.

I don't remember the Mike storyline that well (he's the one she's married, right?). I always thought she should have ended up with the Hank Azaria character. The alternate universe Phoebe, as the backstabbing, hard-hearted businesswoman was hysterical (and actually, I really liked all of the alternate universe Friends).

The scene when Phoebe has to say goodbye to David after bailing on her plans with Joey always gets to me.

I thought it was very well acted, especially when she and David exchange "I love you"s without saying the words.

I'm a sap. By the time she tells Joey she just had to say goodbye to the only person she's ever loved, I'm close to tears.

It may just be me, but I think Regina Philangy belongs in this thread title somewhere.

Phoebe had to be my least favourite friend. Sometimes her wacky moments were hilarious, like the scene where she would randomly get a head rush, or when she'd suddenly start dancing. She did play well off Rachel and Monica.

But I would often get irriated at how overdone she was. Suddenly talking about how she thought a possum had called her, or believing her mother returned as a cat, was just ridiculous and nonsensical. Meant as comedy or not, it still irriates me. I guess it's just not my type of humour.

Actually, one of my favourite Phoebe moments was her discussion with Ross on gravity and evolution. That was wacky and kind of out there, but in a fun way. They could write her as on a different wavelength, without making her appear to be a total idiot. She had a good dynamic with Ross

Phoebe is actually my favorite Friend even though she kind of wasn't as close as the others. Yes her character did hokey things but I loved it.

"Yay me!"
"It wasn't just that she was fat, the woman smelt like garbage! Everybody!"

Trying to be the upper class person for Mike's parents was one of the funniest episodes. She goes and punches the dad and talks about their sex life to his mom.

I loved her relationship with Joey. They were so cute together. The chick and duck race to find the nutter-butter comes to mind.

(Regarding Hannukah and X-mas)Rachel: You may to take this year to teach Ben about Phoebe

Used to like Phoebe, but then not so much.

I had to come over and post this--the other day I was reminded of my two favorite Phoebe moments (at least from the later years): from the Thanksgiving episode where she and Chandler pretend to be engrossed in football so Monica won't make them help with dinner, and Chandler at one point suggests they yell something...

Phoebe: Damn you, ref! You BURN IN HELL!!!

And then later, when she and Chandler contradict eachother when Monica asks who won:

Phoebe: Well technically, the Lions won--but it was a moral victory for the Green Bay.....Mermen.

I always liked Crazy-and-out-of-it Phoebe.

Whenever I think of getting tattoo I think of Phoebe and her dot, the earth as seen from a great distance. "It's how my mom looks down on me from heaven."

And I love Rachel's answer to that:

In the beginning of the series I didn't like Phoebe at all, and found her too wishy-washy, but by the end of the series she was my favourite of the Friends by a long chalk. I know a lot of people didn't like her transition, but I thought she was so much funnier that way. And I think Lisa Kudrow is so talented - I especially loved her impersonations of Joey's agent Estelle and the East Coast WASP-y accent she put on when Phoebe met Meike's parents, those cracked me up so much.

I would have liked Phoebe better in the late seasons if there had been some consistency to her character. She would go from being very supportive (helping Chandler get the perfect ring) to being an obtuse bitch (telling Chandler that Monican had originally wanted a London fling with Joey). I mean seriously, unless she is brain damaged, what kind of person acts like this?

Yeah, that was really inconsistent. She acted as Chandler's confidant when he was planning on asking Monica to marry him. Then after that she always dismissed their relationship, taking every opportunity to say how Monica could do better (but Chandler couldn't), and even introducing Monica to a person that she thought was Mon's soulmate. Some friend!

The later seasons mean, mean, selfish Phoebe didn't do it for me, but I will agree that her Estelle impression and her uppercrust East Coast accent and mannerisms were hilarious. They reminded me of a much earlier episode where she had the spirit of a dead woman inside her, and she made all those hilarious comments in that 1950s movie accent.

I agree that Phoebe is written inconsistently in later seasons, both from episode to episode and from earlier seasons. She loses that whole wacky, cleansing your aura thing and goes to unpredictable prone to violent fits wackiness. I far prefer the middle of the road, sweet with a kooky past Phoebe of like seasons two, three, and a little four.

I think all of my favorite Phoebe moments were from those early seasons. She always had the cute, sweet relationships- gay ice dancer (Steve Zahn! So cute!), hot poxed Navy dude, library music act booker (seriously, what happened to Chris Isaak? I mean, not in general, but on the show? Why did he never appear again? He was great, and was good with Phoebe), etc. Also, her supporting Ross and Rachel- he's her lobster!- and I loved the whole theme where she looks for her dad and finds Frank Jr.

Though I kind of will always love her for introducing whole new ways of using the word phlange. Heh.

But, some questions about Phoebe. What did she do at the end of the show? I just realize that I cannot remember at all what she did after she got fired from the massage parlor for making out with that married client. Did she start massaging again? How do I not know this?

Also, what the hell is up with her wig and extensions? After season four, I think, she always wears extensions and then switches to a straight up wig in early season six. Why? Is it because Lisa Kudrow had short hair (as seen in the What If? episode)? Why couldn't they make her keep the long hair instead of installing the incredibly distracting fake hair?

She was getting it cut for other roles. I also don't think it would have been in her contract to make her keep the long hair.

Phoebe worked as a "masseuse" (don't get me started on that) for the duration of the show. If she wasn't working for a "massage parlour" (...yeah), she was seeing clients on an out-call basis, meaning she took her table to their homes. We also saw her working at the Lavender Spa, where she told Rachel she was Ikea, the Swedish massage therapist.

Okay, a word about massage. I am nationally certified in Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork, and legitimate therapists do NOT use the words "masseur" or "masseuse" to describe him/herselves. Those words are inherently tied to the sex industry, and any properly trained and licensed massage therapist will NEVER use that term to describe him/herself unless they're doing some under-the-towel work. Also, "massage parlour" = neon lights, no windows. "Clinic", "office", or "spa" is where most legit massage therapists work.

When you go for a therapeutic massage, please don't refer to your therapist as a "masseuse", and please don't ask a LMT if they work in a "massage parlour." It's highly offensive -- almost as if you're assuming we're prostitutes. We're working very hard to separate therapeutic/medical massage from the adult entertainment industry, but some cities are quicker than others to help us with that. (The city of Atlanta's business license department still classifies massage therapists as adult entertainers, which is why I stopped working within the city limits. I refuse to own an Adult Entertainment license, because that's not what I do.

Rant over. Thanks for listening, but this has been a HUGE sticking point for me with this show.

'under the towel work'

Hee.

So is that something that she can do to make a living? Sort of an on-call massage therapist? Because I was under the impression that massage therapy at a clinic/spa only pays about $50K a year, and I am assuming that her scattershot way of doing it paid less. But this leads into stupid questions about how any of the Friends could afford their lifestyle in NYC, and that's pointless. Ok. Full circle.

Well the apartment Pheobe lived in was her grandmother's, so maybe that is how she could afford to live there. Perhaps it was rent controlled like Monica and Rachel's apartment.

I don't know about massage prices in New York, but in Atlanta and Salt Lake City, out-call massage therapists usually charge $80-120 for a massage in a client's home. So if Phoebe did three a day, four days a week, she'd be doing okay. She mentioned her prices a couple of times, but I don't remember them off the top of my head.

Massage therapy at a clinic/spa rarely pays $50k annually in other parts of the country -- again, I don't know about New York. I worked for the self-proclaimed "most prestigious spa in the Southeast", and my salary + tips equalled out to only about $500/week. 90% of massage therapists are not practicing full-time one year after graduation because of the difficulty in securing a decent salary.

Let me preface this by saying I love me some Pheebs. I loved her quirkiness and under-her-breath comments she would add. Of course, singing along with the bagpipes is in a class of it's own.
THAT SAID... WHY did they make her so "ewww" near the end? She went from someone who would be a hoot to hang out with to someone that you knew would say something embarassing... and not in a funny kind of way.
Specifically, tonight they showed the one where she and Rachel are in the bathroom looking for a tissue. Pheebs keeps going through the wastebasket! What's up with that? Digging through the bathroom trash? Then handling someone else's preg test? ewwww..... Not.... really... funny....