Friends Cast Members Change Legal Names

n a move labeled practical by some, good business by others, the cast members of NBC's hit Friends have saved years of fruitless optimism and professional disappointment by changing their legal names to the monikers they're known by on the popular show.

Series stars Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox-Arquette, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer, will here by be known in future professional projects, and their personal lives as, respectively, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross. The declaration by a judge made the decision legally binding Friday.

"Why waste years that could be spent getting used to your typecasting denying the inevitable outcome?" said a spokesperson of the William Morris Agency, whose name we didn't bother to get. "Kim Fields wasted valuable years before changing her name to Tootie. And most people assume Todd Bridges changed his name to Willis long ago. It just makes it easier on everybody, and you can capitalize on that fame without needing to remind people, 'Do you know who I am? I used to get a million-plus an episode!'"

"It will make it a lot easier to do the last season of Friends at any rate," said NBC executive Brian Norris. "We spent a bundle a few years ago just on the typeface to 'Courtney Cox-Arquette' alone. Now we can just say starring Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross. Now people will have more brain space to remember which one is Will and which one is Grace."

Of course, according to various reports, all members of the Friends cast are hopeful about future projects in film and other series after the show's finale next year. But seriously, with their legal names at last intricately linked to their characters, the serious money for commercials, infomercials, state fair and car show appearances, and other forms of necessary income will be much easier while searching for elusive post-Friends success.

With luck, according to some insiders, Matt LeBlanc will be free of his Friends obligation in time to secure a spot on the fifth installment of Fox's Celebrity Boxing program.

Even with the name change, some members of the cast are adamant about making the jump from television to movies.

"It's not easy, no one's saying that, but it has been done before by quite a few popular actors," said Matthew Perry in a recent interview. "George Clooney is one example. Johnny Depp, another successful film actor. And Michael J. Fox, before he returned to television with Spin City. Don't forget Tom Hanks. Although Bosom Buddies was never really a big hit or anything… hmm… Will Smith, the Fresh Prince himself. I guess, uh… Alan Alda? Shit. Why can't I think of more people?"

Some fellow actors are not applauding the Friends cast's decision.

"You can't simply give up your humanity, who you are, to what people perceive you as. In the end it's not going to improve your success, you're just grasping to retain what had once been the peak of your fame," said Mallory from Family Ties.

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Once again we are celebrating the best kind of weekend, good people—a 4-day weekend. Is there anything better in the great scheme of things than having to work one day less than usual. Of course. There's the 4-day weekend. Praise be to whatever genius created this thing, having only three days of actual work at my job before another, if somewhat disappointingly short weekend, comes around. And there's always that one week when the commune was shut down for Red Bagel's circumcision—that was a sort of gloomy vacation, but the kid survived and our fearless editor was cleared of all charges. Still, I have an idea that will blows your socks all the way up to your hands so you look like a lazy puppeteer: The 368-day weekend.

Are you aware that 2007 ends on a Monday? Good people, this gives us an amazing opportunity to demonstrate that America still knows how to have fun. Let us take that weekend before the last Monday in 2007 and start the longest weekend the world has ever seen. A 368-day weekend! I'm not joking, I wouldn't even know how to joke about something like that, I take my weekends far too seriously. Do you know how many barbecues you could have in 368 days? How many exhibitions of dangerous fireworks? How many days you could mow the lawn, shirtless, enticing the female neighbors? Just think about all the nights you could stay up researching bus tickets to Albany until 3 in the morning, carefree about the stack of work waiting for you on your desk back at that miserable office?

Believe me, I love my job. If it wasn't for my job, I would feel I lacked definition, and had no purpose in the world. It's doing whatever it is I do that makes me who I am. Still, that aside, it's a soul-sucking, worthless, abysmal darkness having to work day-in, day-out. It saps the very will to live out of me thinking of the things I love in my life and how I can't do any of them because I have to spend 40 hours a week performing some bullshit function to keep our crass commercial society steaming along, crushing the innocent under its tracks. So nothing perks me up like a long weekend! And a 368-day weekend would be the longest ever.

Imagine: You leave from work on the evening of December 29, 2007 (and it's been a wonderfully short Christmas week anyway) and you return on Thursday, January 1, 2009. Wait—coming back to work on New Year's Day? I don't think so! By necessity, this plan has to be a 369-day weekend! Good Snapple, this plan keeps getting better by the minute! 369 days it is.

I'm not blind to the practical difficulties of such a plan. I'm well aware that if the banks don't function in 2008, if the farmers don't grow food and the grocers don't stock it, if the power company just shuts down for the entire year, it might cause a less-than-enjoyable weekend. I say bullocks! Which is British for bullshit. Whenever I have a long weekend I can just do a few columns ahead of time, or play catch up when I get back. Why don't we do that? Everybody stock up all the food you can in December 2007, and buy a lot of batteries and gasoline generators. I have a laptop with a battery, so I should still be able to get on the computer. But who wants to? It's a weekend! This prettyboy's not working for the weekend.

Forget the dreary drag of the office, let go of that boring drive to work every day— we can hold the presidential election in 2009. The president can't do the country any more damage if we're all at home watching The A-Team on TV Land. All I'm saying is think about it, Americans. I just might go ahead and take the "long weekend" myself if no one else wants to do it. Feel free to stop by the regal Finger estate to see my wife, Ginger, sunning in the deck chairs and good ol' Rok himself mowing the lawn. Check out my pecs.

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Now that America has had a few post-Christmas weeks to calm down from the wet dream of capturing deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, we have to ask ourselves the very real question: What to do with the prick? And by us, I mean, Bush and his friends. After all, they were the ones who put their necks on the line to bring him to justice. It's not like the American people had any part in it at all.

The immediate consideration for the administration, beyond getting re-elected in November, speaking just in terms of the Saddam Hussein issue, is how to classify Saddam Hussein. Original classifications of "a tubby, hairy hole-livin' weapons-hider" proved to just be White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan having fun with reporters. No, seriously, the administration later stated, Saddam Hussein is to be classified as a POW, at least until such time as it becomes better political fuel to classify him otherwise.

It's no wonder the Saddam Hussein issue is being handled so delicately, like a hemaphroditic baby. There's no end to the kinds of information Saddam Hussein could tell us about his wondrous country. How he managed to make an entire population docile, unwilling to fight back and unseat him from his government, and how to antagonize other world leaders for 13 years running. It's the exact kind of thing vital to the Bush administration's plans for a second term.

Not to mention Hussein's biggest talents, either hiding incredibly large reserves of weapons of mass destruction, or making the world believe he has large reserves of weapons of mass destruction which he doesn't really possess. If you consider it, either is an amazing ability of limitless benefit to any world leader.

Imagine the amount of power any world leader could accrue if he could stockpile massive numbers of chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons, and then hide them from the notice of everyone in the world. Even the world's greatest weapons-finders wouldn't be able to unearth them. So greatly hidden would these weapons be, world leaders would have to write them down and never lose the paper telling where they were, otherwise they'd be forever lost.

Or, even if it's true, as critics of the administration and pure logic tells us, there never were any weapons of mass destruction, imagine that. You're talking hot shit now. You could spend nil on weapons for defense, or offense, shell out all your money for educational and social programs to take care of your population or investing in creating new jobs, and not have to spend a dime on weapons. The world would believe you have them and never want to see them. It would be like being the most economically and militarily powerful country in the world, for half the money.

All of this, of course, hinges on the classification of Saddam Hussein. It's imperative now the United States keep the rest of the world away from the dictator. If we need to juggle his classification, from war criminal to jailed drunk or whatever, anything to keep outside investigators from sneaking and finding out his fat juicy secrets, we should do it. Sure, the U.S. might not even really need any of those secrets. But Saddam Hussein is, as the Bush administration (the first and the unpopular sequel) has attested for years, the most dangerous criminal mastermind to ever live. Never should we forget this propaganda, and we must keep him from passing his secrets on to other world dicks.

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