Before Friends, Matthew Perry Starred In A Sitcom That's Nearly Impossible To Watch Today

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If you've read Matthew Perry's memoir, "Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing," you'll know how important fame was to the young actor. Perry, who sadly passed away in 2023, wrote about how, prior to playing Chandler Bing in "Friends" and becoming a global megastar, fame seemed as though it would "change everything" for him. "I yearned for it more than any other person on the face of the planet," he wrote. "It was the only thing that would fix me. I was certain of it."

Though he would eventually get his wish and quickly find out that it wasn't quite the salve he expected, Perry spent years trying to attain fame and recognition. It didn't come quickly. The actor made his first on-screen appearance as a child in the TV series "240-Robert" back in 1979. But after moving to Los Angeles in the early '80s, he began pursuing acting in earnest, landing small roles on shows such as "Charles in Charge" and "Silver Spoons" before making his film debut in 1988's "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon." Still, fame eluded him even after he was cast as a regular on the CBS sitcom "Sydney" in 1990.

By the time Perry landed the role of Chandler in "Friends" he was actually committed to another show — a sitcom called "LAX 2194." The actor had portrayed a baggage handler at a future version of the Los Angeles Airport in the pilot for this ill-fated series, and as such wasn't originally available to take what would prove to be his breakout role in "Friends." Thankfully, "LAX 2194" fell through, and Perry was free to gain the fame he so coveted.

But "LAX 2194" wasn't the only failed sitcom that Perry had been involved with prior to "Friends." In fact, he was intimately familiar with the format. Perry had not only shown up in "Growing Pains" by then, but he had also appeared in a trio of sitcoms that only lasted one season: "Second Chance" (later renamed to "Boys Will Be Boys"), the aforementioned "Sydney," and ABC's "Home Free," in which he was the star. Yes, Perry had been the star of a sitcom before "Friends," but if you want to experience this lost piece of Matthew Perry history, well, good luck finding it.

Produced by Universal for ABC, "Home Free" aired from March 31, 1993, to July 2, 1993, and starred Perry as Matt Bailey, a carefree young bachelor who lives at home with his doting mother, Grace (Marian Mercer). However, the newspaper worker's easy going lifestyle is upended when his older, more conservative sister, Vanessa (Diana Canova), moves back home following a divorce, bringing her two children Abby (Anndi McAfee) and Lucas (Scott McAfee) with her. The series also featured Brooke Theiss and Alan Oppenheimer in supporting roles alongside none other than disgraced Nickelodeon writer and producer Dan Schneider as Walter Peters. It's a tad upsetting to see Perry palling around with Schneider in the photos for the show on IMDb, but this was long before all those horrific revelations emerged in the 2024 documentary "Quiet on Set."

"Home Free" was created by Tim O'Donnell and Richard Gurman. The former had written for shows such as "Gloria," "Diff'rent Strokes," and "Growing Pains" prior to co-creating his own sitcom, which he also helped direct. He had additionally created a TV version of the John Candy classic "Uncle Buck," and guess how long that sitcom lasted? Yep, one season. Don't worry, O'Connell continued to work after that, executive producing the "Clueless" series and several other shows.

"Home Free" however, was a short-lived project. Taglines for the series included, "His family used to call him 'brother,' 'son,' and 'uncle.' Now, they call him roommate," and "He came. He saw. He moved back in," the latter of which is particularly befuddling as it was the sister that moved back in — but I digress. The point is that the writing was surely on the wall early on, but as decades of TV and movie history have proved, nobody really ever knows what's going to work and what isn't. Sadly, "Home Free" didn't work. At least, it wasn't popular enough to warrant a second season, and the show wrapped up after 13 episodes. Ever since, it has essentially become lost media even in the age of the internet, which is quite an accomplishment.

With the amount of media produced by Hollywood over the years, some of it was always bound to disappear from public view. Today, lost media runs the gamut from movies that are only available on VHS to Peter Jackson's original cut of his banned horror movie "Braindead" (aka "Dead Alive" in North America). In fact, Norm Macdonald even starred in a forgotten sitcom that's almost impossible to watch today, which is basically the case for "Home Free."

The sitcom, which aired just a year before "Friends" debuted, is unavailable on streaming platforms (as confirmed by JustWatch), and there are, perhaps unsurprisingly, no physical copies (ABC likely wasn't too interested in churning out "Home Free" tapes after the show came and went so quickly). That said, the "Home Free" pilot can be found on both YouTube and the Internet Archive, along with a few other episodes in terrible quality.

It might not be one of Perry's best non-"Friends" projects, but aside from the fact there's a certain allure to any lost media, watching "Home Free" would surely provide a fascinating look at how the actor's comedic sensibility evolved prior to him becoming the sneaky, sincere heart of "Friends." Perry's unique blend of sardonic humor with expressive physical comedy was formative for an entire generation that grew up on "Friends," and it would be cool to see him on-screen just prior to perfecting that style (not to mention, before he attained that fame he so desperately wanted).