Ursula Buffay may have been a minute older than Phoebe, but she was on television two years earlier too. Before Lisa Kudrow was cast in a central role as ditsy masseuse Phoebe, she had been an occasional guest star on NBCs other hit Thursday night comedy, Mad About You, as a ditsy waitress who would continually get stars Paul Reiser and Helen Hunts characters Paul and Jamie Buchmans orders wrong or forget them entirely. When Kudrows new show became an immediate hit, it was decided to make Phoebe Buffay Ursulas twin sister, creating a crossover between the two shows. This crossover would later be more manifest in The One With Two Parts, when Hunt and another Mad About You mainstay would visit Central Perk for lunch and mistake Phoebe for Ursula. Thats not the only crossover between the two shows, though: 1994s The One With The Blackout featured a power outage across the whole of New York. Who caused the blackout? Mad About Yous Jamie Buchman, in an episode earlier that evening. By the way, if youve ever wondered what happened to Phoebes horrible older porn star sister Mad About Yous series finale, set 22 years in the future, reveals that Ursula Buffay eventually became Governor of New York. So, theres that.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
