Imagine a world where Matthew Perry didn't play Ms. Chanandler Bong Chandler Bing on Friends.
It's horrible, isn't it?!
Well that's almost what happened when he was originally tied to star on a pilot called LAX 2194, a show that would have been about "baggage handlers at the L.A. airport in the year 2194." After his "horrible" business manager called him to say, "Matthew, you have no money," he was willing to take any role, even if it meant one with aliens.
He explained to Late Night host Seth Meyers that the show had him sorting baggage for aliens at LAX, which were played by little people. But when the script for Friends Like Us (later named Friends), Perry admitted that he was so upset he couldn't be in it because of how hilarious the script read!
Fortunately for Friends fans everywhere, the people at Fox realized that LAX 2194 was "the worst thing we've ever seen in our lives," which meant that Perry could star as Chandler! WOOOOOO!
Now that we've finished having our almost-panic attack, we can resume our binge-watching on Friends. Don't judge us for not finishing yet, we were too busy freaking out at "The One That Could Have Been" AKA Perry's LAX 2194.
*Shutters*
But now that the days of new episodes of Friends are over, Perry has dropped some serious truth bombs about the show that launched him, Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBlanc to fame.
"I didn't envision living past 2000, so I had no idea [how big Friends would get]," Perry told a small group of reporters during his 2015 TCA Winter Press Tour panel for his new CBS sitcom The Odd Couple. "I never really thought about the future and I had no idea I would ever be involved in something as big as Friends and I will never be involved in anything as big as Friends ever again because TV is so different now."