The television show Friends was an American sitcom that was on air for a decade, from 1994 to 2004. The show was typical to most sitcoms, and always maintained a socially acceptable and family friendly story line. The one exception to this was an extremely unlucky coincidence that occurred during the eighth season.
The episode "The One Where Rachel Tells Ross" was filmed before the September 11th attacks, and was set to air two weeks after the attacks. Because of a seriously unfortunate script, the episode's main story line was completely changed. It aired instead on October 4th, 2001. Here's why:
In the original episode, Chandler and Monica are getting ready to take a flight, Chandler makes a joke about bombs, and they're both taken in for questioning. Talk about the worst timing ever. While the 9/11 attacks were devastating and horrific, I'm sure the writers of that script couldn't help but think "are you kidding me?" when they found out. And if that wasn't bad enough, the rest of the story line is comprised of terrorist, hijacking and national security jokes. I realize that the writers couldn't have had any idea of what was coming, but the deleted scenes seriously seem like they were written to be as socially inappropriate as possible. Every single joke is like a slap in the face. You have to sympathize for how awkwardly guilty they must have felt.
The story starts with Chandler saying "hey look at that, federal law prohibits any joking regarding aircraft hijacking or bombing" than turns to the security attendant and says "you don't have to worry about me ma'am, I take my bombs very seriously". Ouch. Can you imagine the type of response that would have after 9/11? I guess the writers should thank their lucky stars that the episode didn't air right before September 11th, not to mention look into the possibility of being satirically psychic.
They released the deleted scenes later, making it clear that they found them as offensive as the rest of us. You can watch them here .
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