Friends: The 'Pivot' Blooper That Would Have Made The Iconic Scene Even Funnier
"Friends" has contributed some key catchphrases to the English-speaking world, from the oft-repeated ("How you doin'?") to the absurd ("Could I be wearing any more clothes?"). In some instances, a single word does the trick. We're referring, of course, to "Pivot."
In the Season 5 episode "The One with the Cop," Ross (David Schwimmer) is in the market for a couch for his new apartment, the erstwhile home of Ugly Naked Guy. He finally settles on a boxy white sofa, but is shocked by the shipping fee, which is almost as much as the couch itself.
After maneuvering the couch down three New York City blocks, Ross runs into trouble navigating the couch up his building's narrow stairwell. The resulting scene is arguably one of the funniest in "Friends" history, with Ross screaming at Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Chandler (Matthew Perry) to "PIVOT!" All their pivoting is in vain, as the couch gets hopelessly jammed in the stairwell.
It's a scene that even the "Friends" cast had trouble shooting. A blooper reel shows Aniston, Perry, and Schwimmer doubling over in laughter, struggling to film the scene. Schwimmer squawks out another "pivot" as he hunches over. Perry collapses behind the couch. "That was — I think it's the hardest I've laughed in my life," Schwimmer told Conan O'Brien in 2008.
The couch pivot is a quintessential New York scene
The "Friends" writers weren't sure that moving a couch constituted a sitcom B-plot. "I remember in the writers' room there was a discussion about, 'Can we do a story as simple as getting a couch up a flight of stairs?'" series co-creator David Crane told Entertainment Weekly. But a simple idea turned into a burst of physical comedy. "Even on stage that was fantastically funny," he continued. "The three of them were just brilliant and it was all they could do to get through it."
Part of the scene's brilliance, Crane explained, was how it captured a quotidian challenge of living in New York City –– even though the series was filmed on a Warner Bros. soundstage in Burbank. The titular friends may not have spent much time on the subway or in Central Park, but a cramped apartment is as quintessentially New York as any iconic landmark from the Big Apple.
"At least once on the show space was a problem," Crane continued. "They all lived in those apartments, but try to get a couch up a flight of stairs! That's New York. That's where we captured the New York we actually lived in."