Who Plays Fun Bobby On Friends & What's He Up To Now?
When Fun Bobby made his first appearance in Season 1 of "Friends," he wasn't much fun. Initially introduced as a love interest of Monica's (Courteney Cox), Bobby made his "Friends" debut in "The One with the Monkey." Bobby is expected to be the life of the party at Monica and Rachel's (Jennifer Aniston) New Year's Eve fête, but when he finally arrives, he's distraught by the death of his grandfather only two hours prior. Soon, he has the entire party in tears.
According to Vincent Ventresca, who played Bobby in the 1994 episode, "Friends" co-creator David Crane said they would definitely bring the character back in a future episode. "I've been told 'We'll have you back' a lot," Ventresca recalled in an interview with Showbiz Junkies. "Whenever they say that, they'll never have you back."
Crane, however, stuck to his word, and Ventresca returned in the Season 2 episode "The One with the Russ" in a much meatier role. There, Fun Bobby lives up to his name, cheering up the entire "Friends" gang with his hilarious anecdotes and bubbly personality. When the sextet realizes he has a drinking problem, Bobby vows to quit. But sober Bobby is decidedly less fun, and Chandler (Matthew Perry) even dubs him "Ridiculously Dull Bobby." He's so dull that Monica starts hitting the bottle herself to endure hanging out with him, and Bobby promptly dumps her, not wanting to date an alcoholic himself.
After "Friends," Ventresca appeared in shows like "Boston Common," "Prey," and "The Invisible Man," and he reunited with Phoebe actress Lisa Kudrow in "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion."
Vincent Ventresca is a TV regular (with a Fun Bobby spec script on the backburner)
In the past few years, Vincent Ventresca has remained a reliable presence on television, appearing in episodes of "Nashville" and a two-episode arc of "The Fosters." He's also a crime procedural mainstay. In 2018, he appeared in two episodes of "9-1-1," and a "Criminal Minds" episode followed in 2020. Most recently, Ventresca played notorious bank robber Todd Shelf in a Season 5 episode of "The Rookie."
Ventresca admitted that while he's still a working actor, his primary creative focus these days is writing. He even penned a spec script about a modern-day version of Fun Bobby, in which he returns home to the Midwest to take care of his aging parents.
"I always thought Fun Bobby should have his own show," he said in the same Showbiz Junkies interview. "I know a lot of writers from TV shows who've helped me structure it ... Fun Bobby has to help his mom and dad — that becomes his new mission in life." For Ventresca, the sad and dull iterations of Bobby are poignant points of entry for a different kind of show. "He's Ridiculously Sad Bobby at this point. That's sorta the bit: He has this midlife angst, but everyone who sees him lights up because of what he means to them. At some point, maybe that's enough — to be that person that people loved. He doesn't feel like his own life was wasted."