Courtesy of Max
Audio By Carbonatix
Most Gen Xers and elder millennials can tell you plenty about the classic TV sitcom “Friends” – Ross and Rachel, “Smelly Cat,” “PIVOT” and Ms. Chanandler Bong are all part of the cultural zeitgeist.
But for a pair of Phoenix friends, their love of the show turned into the opportunity of a lifetime.
Salon owners Suzanne Theune and Michelle Keoghan are one of the teams featured on “Fast Friends,” a four-episode Max game show that sees competitors rushing through The Friends Experience in New York City, answering trivia questions, playing games and solving puzzles to see who is the ultimate “Friends” fan.
The show debuted in December. Theune and Keoghan won round one and on Thursday evening, viewers can see how they fared in the finale.
To celebrate, the pair are hosting an open-to-the-public viewing party from 5 to 8 p.m. on Jan. 9 at Shag Salon, located at 10624 N. 71st Place in Scottsdale. Pizza and Prosecco will be served.
The women’s path to New York began in July.
“I got a text from Michelle saying ‘Hey, I have an interview set up for us for Thursday.’ And I said, ‘Great. What is it for?’ She goes, ‘Uh, we’re going to audition for a game show.’ And it went from there.”
After a phone interview, a Zoom interview and a bit of a wait, Theune and Keoghan flew to New York City to tape the show. Before taping, they rewatched the show and were surprised to discover how much they’d forgotten.
“It’s 10 years worth of shows. It’s 236 episodes. That’s a lot of information,” Theune says. Along the way, they revisited their favorite episodes. For Keoghan, it’s “The One Where Everybody Finds Out,” and Theune’s favorite is “The One With the Prom Video.”
The shoot took place at The Friends Experience, an interactive exhibit that allows visitors to walk through sets such as Central Perk, the friends’ apartments and the outdoor fountain from the opening credits.
The first task was to shoot the “Fast Friends” opener, which involved dancing around the fountain like the characters do in the “Friends” credits.
It was “was very out of my comfort zone, to dance in front of cameras in front of a bunch of people I don’t know,” Theune says, laughing.
Then came the challenges.
“It was nerve-racking at first,” Keoghan recalls. “We were looking at each other like, oh my God. What are we doing? What if we’re so terrible? What if we know nothing? And everything was really kept secret from us until just before we did each challenge, so we didn’t know what we were walking into.”
As is customary with game shows, the pair can’t reveal the outcome of the finale. But the experience was positive enough that they would like the run to continue.
“It felt like a very once-in-a-lifetime thing to have happen,” Theune says. But now, they’ve been bitten by the game show bug.
“We want to be on all the shows,” she adds. “We want to host the shows. Make this our new life, please!”
