20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About Friends
20. What's In A Name?
When Kauffman and Crane were working on a sitcom idea for the NBC network, they knew they needed a public setting for parts of their show. With Cheers, which had just recently finished its eleven-season run on NBC, monopolising the bar as a locale and Seinfeld taking place in a diner, the writers were struggling until they happened on a coffee shop called Insomnia Café. They quickly realised they had found the perfect setting, even including the name on the seven-page treatment that secured them a pilot episode.
Insomnia Café wouldn't be the last name floated for the show - Six Of One, Across The Hall, Once Upon A Time In The West Village and Friends Like Us were all under consideration at some point before Friends was settled upon.