Sometimes it's the 'occasional' guys who get to drink your milkshake...

For 10 years Friends captured the hearts of a generation; the audience lived the lives of the central characters through the trials and tribulations of their day-to-day lives while the show launched the careers of all six main stars into the celebrity A-List for life. Rarely has a show attracted both sides of the gender divide in equal measure as successfully as Friends, and every single person in a wide age-bracket knows every word to 'Smelly Cat', how you were doin’ and who was and wasn’t on a break.

If the show’s stars and their interactions were the foundations and framework of Friends, the secondary and guest characters were the cement that held the stories together...

10: Parker (Alec Baldwin) – Season 8

After a disastrous date with a socially stunted children’s erotic novelist, Phoebe pleads with the universe to provide her with her ideal man; cue Parker. At first glance Parker is perfect for Phoebe - enthusiastic and life-affirming. However, after 10 minutes his enthusiasm and penchant for anything and everything, from plate dispensers to roads becomes exhaustingly annoying. Even when Phoebe is trying to dump him, his glee never wavers.

9: Pete Becker (Jon Favreau) – Season 3

Pete Becker was Monica’s first serious boyfriend after the disaster with the love of her life Richard, smart, jovial, rich and successful, he can provide anything and everything she could ever want. Despite all these qualities it takes several episodes for Monica to become attracted to him. When everything seems to be about to work out for Monica and Pete, he announces that his last challenge in life is to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion, a challenge Monica declares too painful to witness.

8: Gary (Michael Rappaport) – Season 5

Gary meets Phoebe when he tracks her down after she finds his lost police badge and begins abusing its power. They begin a semi-serious relationship that becomes the yardstick for passion in Monica and Chandler’s relationship. Gary is a typical New York cop, the rougher side of his edges not seen in the majority of the upscale Greenwich Village based show. Unlike other boyfriends of the three girls, Gary is the only one the three guys are acceptingly submissive towards, as seen when he takes them on a night time ride-along. However, the manly aggressiveness that won Phoebe over becomes his downfall: after showing Phoebe his sensitive side to blackmail her into moving in with him, he shoots a bird on their window-sill.

7: Estelle Leonard (June Gable) – Seasons 1 – 10

Estelle becomes Joey’s agent in the first season. While most of the friends doubt Joey’s performances and acting ability, Estelle believes she can help him and despite her sarcastic jibes, signs him and eventually lands him his career-defining role as Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days of Our Lives. June Gable’s performance as the chain-smoking, tough-talking, self-aggrandizing veteran of show business is excellent; her character was used sparingly throughout and never grew old.

June Gable’s first appearance as Estelle in season one ('The One With the Butt') was cut from broadcast (although it can be seen on DVD versions) and Estelle did not appear until Season 2 ('The One With Russ'). However, June Gable did appear in season one’s 'The One With the Birth' as the midwife who handles Carol’s labour.

6: Mike Hannigan (Paul Rudd) – Seasons 9-10

When Chandler and Monica had sewn up their relationship storyline and Joey had waded in to Ross and Rachel’s epic on-and-off relationship, Phoebe had still never had a serious relationship. Enter Mike. When Phoebe and Joey agree to find each other a respectable date, Joey reneges on the agreement and resorts to grabbing a random guy in the coffee shop. Mike had been a successful married lawyer from a rich respectable family, but gave everything up to pursue his dream of playing the piano professionally. Despite some bumps in the road of their relationship, including Mike’s reluctance to get married again and his parents’ shock at his new girlfriend, Phoebe and Mike eventually tie the knot and live happily ever after.

Mike’s character is one of the only characters of the show that fits well into the dynamic of the six friends; others ingratiated themselves but stood out for one reason or another, either disliked by some of the group or older or richer than the rest. Despite an awkward evening with Ross, Mike finds his place as the man who truly accepts Phoebe for all her eccentricities and social faux pas. Given the awful childhood and adolescence Phoebe so frequently and casually describes, she, more than any of the characters, deserves her slice of conventional happiness.

5: Gunther (James Michael Tyler) – Seasons 1-10

James Michael Tyler was a struggling actor when he landed the role as an extra on the first season of Friends; he was given prominence over other extras as he was the only one who knew how to work the cappuccino machine on the set of Central Perk. By season three he had the occasional line, his own subplot concerning his unrequited love of Rachel and important influence on arguably the biggest plot of the entire show (he tells Rachel that Ross slept with Chloe). He is also only one of the few secondary characters to appear in all ten seasons.

Despite his ubiquitous presence maintaining order in Central Perk, James Michael Tyler kept his coffee shop gig that had landed him the role in the first place for several seasons. He has since gone on to establish a semi-successful career with a guest role in Scrubs and providing voice-over for several Friends-based games.

4: Mr Heckles (Larry Hankin) – Seasons 1-2

Mr Heckles was the eccentric dressing gown-wearing loner from the apartment directly below Monica and Rachel’s. His incessant complaining about the noise they were making and his increasingly bizarre reasons for requiring silence were beginning to become a staple in the show until he was killed off early in the run to highlight Chandler’s relationship failures and insecurities.

Larry Hankin’s performance typified the insanity and business of New York - how a formerly popular and funny guy can fall through the cracks and be forgotten by society paints a picture of another side of the city not explored by almost any other character.

3: Frank Buffay Jr (Giovanni Ribisi) – Seasons 2-10

Phoebe’s desperate search for her father leads her to a house in the suburbs. After maiming the occupant’s dog and running scared a couple of times, she builds up the courage to ask to see Frank Buffay. Instead of her father, she meets her half brother, Frank Jr. As they build a relationship Frank takes some liberties with his new-found sibling, assuming she’s a prostitute and trying to molest her masseuse colleague, running away from home to stay with her and ultimately asking to use her uterus as a surrogate so he and his much older wife Alice can have a baby.

Giovanni Ribisi originally appeared in the show as a guy who drops a condom in Phoebe’s guitar case as she busks outside Central Perk and then returns later to retrieve it. Whether or not this was a precursor to the dull-wittedness of character or pure coincidence is immaterial. Ribisi’s on edge, sleep-deprived waster is probably the best performance of the entire show.

2: Janice (Maggie Wheeler) – Seasons 1-10

Chandler’s on and off again flame for the first four seasons was responsible for perhaps the second-most known catchphrase of the entire show after Joey’s suave “how you doin’?”. Every syllable is etched into any fan’s brain in that distinctive nasal voice. The quintessential rebound girl, Janice was repeatedly let down by Chandler and only revisited in his all-too-frequent low moments. Even after Chandler resorted to pretending to immigrate to Yemen to get rid of her, and after marrying Monica Janice was still prepared to take him back at a minute’s notice until the very end. A brief fling with Ross in season five wasn’t enough for her to relinquish her love for Chandler and after his marriage. Janice's appearances were limited to unfortunate coincidences at inopportune or awkward moments for Chandler and Monica.

Maggie Wheeler’s infamous character would be in with a shout of the number one spot in a list of the best secondary characters of any show, but her appearance could sometimes feel a little too coincidental and ran the risk of becoming purely annoying, without the hilarity of her earlier appearances. Splitting hairs aside, Janice will most probably go down as the seventh most memorable character in the history of Friends

1: Eddie Menuek (Adam Goldberg) – Season 2

Appearing in only three season two episodes, Eddie is the only character on the list to truly steal the show. Almost all other guest stars throughout the run were placed to entice humour via reaction from the show’s core stars. While Chandler’s reactions to Eddie’s many strange nuances and habits are indeed hilarious, Eddie’s high pitched hyena laugh and insane rants deserve a place on the list alone. Despite such a brief role in the show, the character is expertly and comically defined: the relationship with his ex, Tilly; his obsession with fruit-drying (“I’m a fruit drying MANIAC”); and his unhinged personality traits, such as watching Chandler sleep, and buying fake fish also named Chandler.

Adam Goldberg made an appearance as a separate character in the forgettable and ill-advised spin off Joey, but his brief appearance in Friends is more than memorable from the first minute to the last. No other character in the history of the show makes such a fleeting appearance that leaves such a memorable impression; and for that, he comes in at number 1. See ya pals.

See also:

Doctor Who companions: The Ultimate Tournament

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE HELP SUPPORT OUR SITE, AT NO COST WITH ONE CLICK ON THE FACEBOOK 'LIKE' BUTTON BELOW: