A Sci-Fi Sitcom Nearly Forced Matthew Perry To Turn Down Friends

The late Matthew Perry was one of the biggest television stars of the '90s and early aughts thanks to the mega-popular NBC sitcom "Friends." It ran for 10 seasons, from 1994 to 2004, with the finale garnering an audience of 52 million. Over 3,000 of those people watched it on the big screen in Times Square. Perry played Chandler Bing, who was the comic relief of the group. He was the smart, witty, and self-deprecating member of the group who took pride in his funny man status while also being refreshingly self-aware of his use of humor as a self-defense mechanism.

It's hard to imagine if anyone besides Perry could have played Chandler as successfully. In 1994, Perry almost turned down this iconic role because he was already locked in for a new sci-fi sitcom called "LAX 2194" on Fox. After filming the pilot, Fox decided to pass because the executives knew it would not be among the best sci-fi sitcoms like "Mork and Mindy" and "Red Dwarf." In fact, they hated it. Luckily, he was able to audition for the role of Chandler and land it. Chandler Bing became an icon, and he was usually ranked among the top two "Friends" characters out of the six, with Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) usually being at the bottom.

When Perry appeared on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" (via YouTube), he explained what his role in "LAX 2194" was about, and it's no wonder Fox passed. He was supposed to play a baggage handler at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in the year 2194 (self-explanatory, really). According to Perry, "I was wearing a futuristic shirt, and little people played the aliens, in which I had to sort out the aliens' luggage, and that was basically the show." The pilot also starred Kelly Hu, who appeared in an underrated Netflix thriller with Eric Bana ("Hulk").

While filming the pilot, Perry got the script for a show called "Friends Like Us." He loved it and thought the part of Chandler was perfect for him. While Perry was losing his mind over this new script, an executive at Fox released him from his contract because "LAX 2194" was not moving forward. They even said it was the worst thing they had ever seen and allowed NBC to have him for the show that would later become "Friends."

Perry signed up for "LAX 2194" because his business manager called him out of the blue and told him he was broke. So he begged his agent to sign him for anything. By the time "Friends" was ending, Perry and his co-stars were among the highest-paid actors in television, earning $1 million per episode by the eighth season. The show is currently streaming exclusively on HBO Max.