TVSquad

We all speculated as to what role Jennifer Aniston will play when she guest stars on NBC's 30 Rock later this year, and now we know what part she'll play. It's actually one of the choices we came up with.

Aniston will play an old friend of Liz Lemon who starts to stalk Jack Donaghy. The character is described as an ex-roommate of Liz's from Chicago who is a "free-spirited, Fatal Attraction-like stalker." Well, let's hope that she isn't completely like that. We don't need any gunshots to the chest or bunny-boiling on 30 Rock. The character's name is Claire Harper.

So we've had Aniston and David Schwimmer on the show. I think all of the Friends people should appear on 30 Rock at some point.

Thanks to the success of the Sex and the City movie -- and talk of more to come -- the rumor mill has been bubbling with other TV shows making the leap to the big screen. In the case of Arrested Development, it sure sounds like the truth.

However, the Friends feature is a rumor that has no legs. Warners owns the property and on July 4th, even though all U.S. offices were closed for the holiday, denied the rumors via the London office.

Jayne Trotman, Warner's director of publicity, said of the Friends movie, "(There's) no truth in the story."

Just to be sure, Matthew Perry's press rep also denied the rumor. She told the BBC that nothing is happening and the rumor is just that, a shred of news with no value attached to it.

If there is one rumor that never dies it's the one about the possibility of a Friends reunion. Since the series finale aired in May 2004, rumors about a reunion popped up here, there and everywhere. Sometimes the rumor takes the form of "there will be another spinoff" (remember Joey?) but most of the time it's a "there are talks about a movie but one of the stars doesn't want to commit." This week's revival of the rumor is of the latter kind.

What can I say about Friends that hasn't already been said? You either like the show or you don't. I think a lot of people look at the show as "just another sitcom" about friends who hang out somewhere, one that was overhyped and one where the stars where overpaid. The hype I can't argue with and the pay, well, more power to them if they could get it. But I also happen to think that for a while there, several seasons in the middle of the show's 10 year run, it was one of the best sitcoms of all-time. It was remarkably well-written, clever, and at the same time had at its core a really big heart that all the copycats that followed couldn't recreate.

But what about this DVD set? Should you go out and buy the complete set?

Since the last episode of the hit series Friends aired in May 2004, rumors have been flying around as to if and when a reunion would happen. Over the years, there have been reports that some of the actors didn't want to be part of a reunion, at least, not for a while. None of these reports were properly confirmed. However, this week comes the confirmation that David Schwimmer, who played the character of Ross, will not take part in a Friends reunion if there ever is one.

Other than our occasional snarky remarks about Joey . . . okay, my occasional snarky remarks about Joey . . . we haven't heard too much from Matt LeBlanc lately. Well, he's back in the news, but not for good reasons.

According to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court LeBlanc's former business manager, Camille Cerio, is suing the former Friends star for back pay of one million dollars. Cerio, who claims she was LeBlanc's manager back in 1994, says the actor signed a letter approving payment of 15 percent of his earnings from "pilot and series derived from Friends Like Us (the name of the Friends' pilot) and subsequent jobs derived henceforth". In normal English this means she should've been paid for LeBlanc's roles on Friends as well as Joey.

Some TV commericals just fade away, and you can't even remember what product they were pitching. But some commercials are just burned into your brain.

This is one of those commericals. It must be on dozens of videotapes I have of old TV shows. I remember this like it aired yesterday, even though it's 20 years old. It's a Heinz ketchup commercial, with an-oh-so-hip-in-an-80s-way guy tilts a bottle of ketchup on the roof of a building, then walking all calm and cool down the stairs to the street and getting a hot dog in his hand just before the thick, rich ketchup falls from the bottle. He even gets the girl at the end! Oh, and the dude went on to have a role in a TV show you might have heard of. (And the music! "Jane's Getting Serious!" Whoa, flashback.)

Personaly, I think the ketchup pours a little bit too neatly, considering it fell from a few stories. (Check out the video after the jump.)

I guess this holiday season will be the season of the complete set. First The West Wing, then Alias, now comes word that a DVD set containing all of the Friends episodes will be released on November 14.

Note to family: you probably won't be getting any gifts from me this year.

Not only will the set include all 10 season sets from the show, there will be tons of extras, including 25 commentaries, 25 documentaries, a gag reel, and trivia. In this special set will also be a 60 page collector's book with the history of the show, photos, and the original pitch the creators made to the network.

Like most sets, it will go for around $300, but Amazon and other places will have it for much less.

It seems there was more to Matt LeBlanc's recent "I'm getting divorced" announcement than we originally thought. It turns out that LeBlanc has been involved in some extracurricular activities with his doomed sitcom co-star Andrea Anders.

LeBlanc, who's currently gasping for air on the painful to watch Joey, walked out on his wife and two year old daughter back in January. Friends of LeBlanc's soon to be ex-wife say she was, "absolutely blind-sided by what transpired." She wanted to try couple's therapy, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen since she confronted him and LeBlanc admitted to his deeds.

I always find it weird to hear news about a celebrity that isn't in line with a character they're known for. But at the same time, you know what? The guy is only human. And this is America ... go walk out in your front yard right now. There's probably a couple getting divorced in the street as you read this.

[via The Boston Herald]

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Joey is not coming back for another season. First, co-star Andrea Anders left the cast to join the CBS comedy pilot, The Class. Now Paulo Costanzo, who played Joey's nephew, has signed on to a different CBS comedy pilot about an engaged couple, a married couple and a single guy. I know, you were probably thinking Costanzo will be the single guy, but he's actually one-half of the engaged couple.

Now, what do you think Drea de Matteo will do next?

This isn't a great time for Matt Leblanc. First it looks like Joey has been all but canceled by NBC, and now comes word that Leblanc and his wife have filed for divorce, citing the old standby "irreconcilable differences." They have been married for three years, and are seeking joint custody of their two year old daughter.

Let's hope that Leblanc's former costars will be there for him.

After one appearance in its new Tuesday night time slot, NBC has pulled Joey off the schedule indefinitely. It will be replaced by the one show that may be even less entertaining than Joey: Most Outrageous Moments. Variety is reporting that NBC might burn off the remaining new episodes of Joey sometime this summer. Of course, the peacock network has yet to actually admit that it has cancelled Joey, but it's only a matter of time. Especially since one of the co-stars has already signed on to a new pilot on a different network.

Joey is making a surprise return to NBC, but it's getting moved to Tuesday nights. From March 7-21, Joey will air at 8 pm and then a Joey repeat will air at 8:30 pm. That means Fear Factor is being bumped off the NBC schedule until this summer. Scrubs will air at 9 pm, followed by a new comedy, Teachers, at 9:30. Don't worry. We'll get our back-to-back episodes of Scrubs starting on March 28, when it airs at 8:30 and 9:00 pm. Your TiVo will figure it out.

Also, NBC has figured out that The Office is good. Really good. The network has managed to work around Steve Carell's busy schedule to add one more episode to the schedule, a finale that will air on May 11. Originally, the season was going to end on March 30th but now NBC is going to play reruns through April and add that one new episode in May. I wonder if Jim will crash Pam's wedding?

Andrea Anders can take a hint. The actress co-stars as Matt LeBlanc's neighbor on Joey, which is not-so-mysteriously absent from NBC's post-Olympics schedule. It is widely speculated that the lame Friends spin-off isn't going to get a third season, and Anders isn't waiting around to find out. She just signed on to join a new CBS comedy, The Class, which hinges on the premise that a 27-year-old man (Jason Ritter) holds a party to reunite six of his childhood friends who have lost touch. Anders plays one of the schoolmates, as does Jay Bernthal and Heather Goldenhersh.

Last night, Jonathan wrote about a report that claimed the six main actors from Friends were going to reunite for a series of one-hour specials.  It also mentioned that the three male leads -- Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer -- were going to star in a spin-off. Readers responded by either getting their hopes up or cursing NBC for digging up the corpse of a series that died a year and a half ago.

Well, we've got more news for you: It ain't gonna happen, at least according to NBC.

Here's the update from Jonathan:

"Consider this rumor dead as most of us wisely assumed from the get go. Access Hollywood had this to say earlier today, with a direct quote from Jeff Zucker (CEO of NBC Universal's TV Group) squashing the rumors.

Also, many thanks to TV Squad's own Ryan j Budke, who spent numerous hours on the phone this morning with NBC's Media Relations Department, who had this to say: 'There are currently no plans to have any follow-up to Friends other than Joey, which is still a major part of our comedy line-up and we whole-heartedly support. The rumors started this weekend are just that; rumors. We wish the rest of the cast of Friends continued success in their careers, and would welcome them back at any time, but there are currently no plans for them to appear in their Friends roles.' "