Friends: 10 Phoebe Memes That Are Almost Too Funny

In many ways, Pheobe Buffay was the most free-spirited member of the gang on the monster hit show Friends. She’d had an incredibly hard life, including birthparents who abandoned her, a step-mother who committed suicide, a completely selfish twin sister and the whole ‘living on the streets, robbing people for food while fending off advances from crazed drug addicts’ thing.

But despite experiencing such intense personal tragedy, Pheobe maintained a cheerful demeanor, believing in the goodness of people and happy to help anyone she could. Here are 10 memes celebrating everyone’s favorite composer of the ‘Smelly Cat’ song:

10 The Alarmed Face Emoji

Before emojis were a thing, we had to rely on facial expressions to convey all sorts of emotions, and no one has a better emoji-face game than Pheobe. We’re pretty sure Pheobe wasn’t actually thinking of her homework during that scene, but her expression does perfectly capture the agony of a student who has only just remembered the mountain of homework still left to do which needs to be submitted the next day.

9 The Joey Connect

Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow have revealed that they had pitched the idea to the show’s writers that Pheobe and Joey had been secretly hooking up the entire time. That plotline did not make it into the show, but the two did enjoy a very close relationship, with Joey even falling for Pheobe’s evil stepsister Ursula.

The picture clearly shows that the years may have marched on and the show come to an end, but Joey’s adoration for Pheobe has not dimmed in the slightest.

SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY

8 The Name Blame

Pheobe was usually the most spaced-out character on the show, so we can totally believe she was not aware that Pheebs was short for Pheobe, and thought that was just an expression of affection that everyone in the gang used to address each other. What really sold the hilarity of the moment was the slightly surprised expression and the dead-pan delivery of the final line by Kudrow.

7 Shots Fired!

Pheobe often got away with delivering the sickest burns on the show, because unlike the sarcasm king Chandler, she was often completely genuine in making potentially hurtful remarks, with no actual ill-will behind her speech. This is one such classic scene, where poor Ross was unexpectedly made aware that his hairstyle is no good. Maybe that was what prompted a hairstyle change on Ross’ part in later seasons.

6 Pheobe Marries A Superhero

Before he became known as Ant-Man, he had a different name: Crap Bag! It is strange to consider that the current generation knows Paul Rudd as a superhero, while the earlier generation knows him as Pheobe’s charming, hilarious husband. The meme does make us wish that Pheobe had been revealed to be Ant-Man’s wife in the Marvel movie as well, so the MCU could be introduced to her trademark flaky charm.

Interestingly, Rudd faced similar challenges in both roles. While many Marvel fans were initially skeptical that an actor known mainly for his comedy roles would make a good superhero, fans of Friends were also initially reluctant to believe a completely new character would be worthy of becoming Pheobe’s husband. But in both cases, Rudd used his boyish good looks and guy-next-door charm along with impeccable comic timing to win the critics over.

5 Pheobe’s Highs And Lows

Being a sensitive artist, Pheobe was sometimes prone to melodramatic outbursts, especially in later seasons. Fans often found themselves existing in either of Pheobe’s two extreme emotional states. The one where she feels unconquerable, believing that the world was hers for the taking, and she could achieve anything she set her mind to, from writing a hit song to flying a commercial aircraft.

But then sometimes the shoe dropped, and her other extreme emotional state came to the fore, where she viewed everything through a lens of doom and gloom and believed a simple visit to the dentist would cause one of her loved ones to be murdered.

4 The Hidden Hardass

Since Pheobe was normally such a sweet and ditzy character, her friends and the audience often forgot she had had an incredibly tough life, and there was a dangerous side to her personality that she had been forced to develop in order to survive. In fact, Pheobe may well have actually been the toughest member of the group, and the one most likely to cross a moral line, like breaking Joey’s nose, mugging people, or destroying her friends during the next violent revolution.

3 The Incomparable Lyrics

Pheobe was writing parody songs long before Youtube helped them explode in popularity. The thing is, she never believed them to be a parody, and was always one hundred percent serious about singing the most ridiculous verses in songs like the now legendary ‘Smelly Cat’ or the very first episode of the series, where she sang about giant pigeons and their excretory habits, and how the whole thing reminds her of her lost love. Trust us, it all made sense in Pheobe’s head.

2 Her Low Opinion Of Chandler

Pheobe and Chandler were probably the two most opposite characters on the show. One had lived on the streets but never lost her sunny disposition, while the other came from a rich, broken home and used jokes to keep an emotional distance from others. Despite this, the two were good friends. Although Pheobe often seemed to see through Chandler’s quick wit, lucrative job and jokey attitude to the damaged and insecure little boy he was on the inside. Little wonder she thought the suicidal man on the phone recounting his woes might have been Chandler.

1 The ’90s Represent!

For an entire generation, Friends was the idealistic representation of the nineties and early two-thousands. So massive was the influence of the show and characters on pop culture that even other celebrities began fanboying in the presence of the Friends cast. A cute example of this was when Taylor Swift went on tour for her 1989 album and sang a duet with Lisa Kudrow in character as Pheobe. It’s safe to say the mighty Swift was just another fangirl on that day, along with everyone else in the audience.

NextFriends: 10 Life Lessons We Can Learn From Ross Geller

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *