[Times photo: Joseph Garnett Jr.]
It's the end of Friends and a group of pals were among about 300 gathered for a party Thursday. Ann Hove, left, laughs as she talks with friends, including Maya Burke, while watching the Friends highlight show on the patio at Centro Ybor.
TAMPA - On the steps of Centro Ybor, fans spilled down the stairs. They wore flip-flops and old jeans, white tank tops and sleeveless red T-shirts. They drank soda from plastic foam cups and sipped Bud Light.
The audience, which looked nothing like the flawless fantasy people on TV, mostly said the same thing. They loved the television show Friends, which ended its 10-year run Thursday night, because they saw themselves in the show.
"It's real," said Samantha Stewart, 22, who lounged at a table with her friends.
She had come, along with about 300 others, to view the final episode at a screening at Centro Ybor, sponsored by WFLA-Ch. 8.
At her table were four 20-something women, and a man they had just met. The young women all worked together at Fresh Mouth, the burger joint, and wore stickers on their shirt from Mix 100.7 FM.
Among these real friends, there was not the same type of scripted, witty banter that you see among the TV friends. There were not the same movie star white smiles, or toned arms.
On the show, the six friends suck up all the air in a room with their charisma, charm and stunts.
Thursday night, the clusters of real friends watching the show at Centro Ybor mainly sat quietly, talking among themselves. It felt like a polite screening in a college film class, minus the lecture.
"I think this is funny because of how absurd it is," said Ann Hove, 22, a student at New College in Sarasota. "I think it is ridiculous."
Even so, she was there, watching.
"I suppose that means I am absurd," she said.
This audience knew the subject material. Before the two-hour special, radio station MIX 100.7 FM gave out prizes to fans who could answer obscure questions about the show.
People knew itty-bitty details about these TV characters.
Question: What is weird about the way Monica eats Tic Tacs?
Answer: She will only eat them in even numbers.
"I guess I can relate to the male character," said Hector Islas, 28, an engineer from Mexico.
He said he identified most closely with Joey, the good-looking but clueless character played Matt LeBlanc. But, he acknowledged, he was probably more like Ross, the geek played by actor David Schwimmer.
What was the resemblance?
"I think because he's just such a loser," Islas said. "He's a loser, and he gets the girl.'
He won a glow-in-the-dark Bud Light Frisbee for knowing this piece of trivia.
Question: In the episode "The One Where Everyone Finds Out," what does Joey say that Chandler is afraid of?
Answer: bras.
There were six people at the party who actually pretended to be the Friends characters. (They entered the look-alike contest.)
Randall Metting, 30, of St. Petersburg came as Chandler, the character played by Matthew Perry.
If the TV character was real, the two would have been "partners in crime," or best friends, said Metting, who watched the final episode standing alone by a pole.
He didn't win the contest, but said his girlfriend saw the similarities.
Jeff Hertweck, 32, of Tampa actually won the look-alike contest. He looked so much like Chandler that people stop him and ask for autographs.
At the Gasparilla Parade one year, one guy told him how he loved all his movies. While golfing with buddies, a group of women asked him to sign a set of golf balls.
"Strangers stop him," said his wife, Elise, 31. "Do you know who you look like?"
She was glad the show was concluding. "It needs to end," she said. "I don't think it can go on forever."
Three college students asked Hertweck for an autograph Thursday night.
He signed it, "Fake Chandler."
Of course, even before Thursday's episode began, the Fake Chandler told a reporter - accurately - how the finale would end.
"Maybe he is not as fake as we thought," said Carolyn Grossman, 21. "Maybe he is the real Chandler, posing as a fake Chandler."
