The Weird Connection Between 'Home Alone' And 'Friends'
Shared universes are all the rage these days, but did you know that both Friends and Home Alone were years ahead of the curve, meticulously building a single wacky comedy world that contains both the shenanigans of Kevin McCallister and the hijinks of Rachel Green and her buddies?
Eh. Not really. But as a new video points out, there is an amusing connection between the beloved 1990 film and the popular NBC sitcom that could convince a delirious mind otherwise.
In the final season of Friends (which aired in 2004), Monica and Chandler decide to move out of New York City and into the suburbs to start a family. And while you probably didn't notice it, they're moving into a neighborhood that will be familiar to anyone who has seen Chris Columbus' seasonal slapstick classic. Yep, they're moving into the McCallister house, which was surely too large for John Heard's Peter and Catherine O'Hara's Kate since their brood has presumably grown up and moved on in the 14 years since Kevin's first burglar-mutilating misadventure.
This sounds insane, but the video below provides all of the evidence. It's all about what you can see through the windows.
The video's final conclusion is the only possible option: the producers of friends needed a seasonally appropriate, attractive suburban neighborhood and licensed footage from Home Alone to fill the windows of Monica and Chandler's new home. Anyone who takes it as anything other than that is reading too far into it.
But this is the internet! It's our job to read too far into things! Since the producers of Friends accidentally established that their show takes place in the same universe as the Home Alone series, we can start assuming other things. For example, Friends began its 10-year run in 1994, two years after Home Alone 2: Lost in New York's 1992 debut. Since the pilot of Friends establishes that much of the cast has known each other for some time and have already laid roots in New York City, we can assume that the early days of Phoebe, Ross and the rest of the gang were transpiring as Kevin was wreaking havoc upon the Plaza Hotel and assaulting two dim-witted criminals with booby traps. Heck, for all we know, Joey encountered the Pigeon Woman in Central Park and learned a valuable lesson or two. The possibilities for fan fiction are endless. Endless!
Since Friends concludes with Monica and Chandler moving into their new home with their adopted twins, we can only imagine a future where those kids grew up to violently defend their home against criminals. The circle is complete.