20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Never Knew About Friends
19. Matthew Perry Came Up With The Same Idea
Kauffman and Crane weren't the only ones writing a sitcom about the lives and loves of twenty-somethings - several rival shows were in development around the same period: Paul Rudd, who would go on to become a regular on Friends, headed up the cast of Wild Oats, which centred around a group of friends in Chicago and aired a few weeks beforehand; Living Single, about six friends living in a Brooklyn brownstone, had already been on screens for a year; and Pig Sty also focussed on flatmates in New York and premiered a few months after Friends.
Matthew Perry also threw his hat into the ring, tapping into his savings to write a TV comedy called Maxwells House about a group of attractive, caffeine-charged twenty-somethings taking their first steps in the real world. He even sold the pilot to Universal Television, having already been turned down by NBC for some reason.