There are some TV serials which have been showered with lots of love from audiences and the American sitcom Friends is one of them. The American show which was basically a story of six friends (Monica Geller, Rachel Green, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing and Ross Geller) was aired on TV from 1994 to 2004. The show has a global fan base and it is loved by the Indian audiences as well.
It is kind of obvious that when something is hit, there are many who try to copy it and repeat its success. In 1999, Zee TV came up with an idea which was heavily inspired by Friends and it was titled as Hello Friends. The makers copied the scenes, situations and even the dialogues from the original but some changes were made in order to fit it in the Indian perspective.
The Indian version of Friends starred Simone Singh (Monica), Nikhil Chinapa (Ross), Anil Dimbri (Joey), Cyrus Broacha (Chandler), Aparna Banerjee (Rachel) and Maria Goretti (Phoebe). 26 episodes of the show were aired on TV but not many people watched it or knew about it.
Recently, a Twitter user shared a clip from the show and called it more harmful than the coronavirus pandemic. The tweet read, “Experts are saying coronavirus is the worst pandemic of our time? thats cute. I think you are forgetting about summer of 1999 when the entire executive board of Zee TV did acid and decided to make desi Friends”.
Here is the tweet:
experts are saying coronavirus is the worst pandemic of our time? thats cute. i think ur forgetting about summer of 1999 when the entire executive board of https://t.co/bq6CuYEvK4 did acid and decided to make desi Friends pic.twitter.com/KgY50doG87
— misscongeniality (@FUCKitshnb) August 12, 2020
Click to watch this video directly on Twitter
Soon Twitterati started reacting on it; those who watched it began to tell how cringe it was while others slammed the makers for making such a pathetic show.
Check out some of the selected reactions:
#1
Spoilt FRIENDS for me 🤦♀️😭
— Shru 💫 (@shrutib199325) August 14, 2020
#2
https://twitter.com/FatWanderer/status/1293902355184967681
#3
@jashanjohal my eyes my ears. Q dikhaya ye. Nooooooo. Ye sachi hua hai 😳
— Jo Judge (@jjdancingmyway) August 14, 2020
#4
https://twitter.com/NoChillGuy_/status/1294153294911123457
#5
WTF!!!😂😂
I can't believe they actually tried to copy friends and that too so horribly 😭😭😭— Vyomanaut (@gaganyaatri) August 14, 2020
#6
They have even copied the set, dialogues, expressions, even the dressing patterns 🤮🤮🤮 pic.twitter.com/02S9PbZDNp
— Ajay Kumar (@Chodhry_saab) August 18, 2020
#7
Ye nahi dekhna hai 🥺 pic.twitter.com/0wbcZN7Iep
— सौरभ 🇮🇳 (@Saurabh_968) August 14, 2020
#8
I watched the complete 1st episode just to ensure that it is a remake of Friends or not and it turned out to be almost carbon copy but it's the cheapest version. If they would have telecasted Friends in Hindi (dubbed) like Small Wonder, even that would have worked better.
— ATS (@Ashutosh_xyz) August 15, 2020
#9
Hello Friends on Zee TV
What a pathetic attempt that was !
Maria Goretti (VJ), Cyrus Broacha (who still can't act was trying to ape Matthew Perry) and Nikhil Chinapa…. guess Roadie boys should remind him of this show before he starts to insult anyone of them.
Oh Dear God !!
— 𝑨𝒏𝒔𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝑹𝒆𝒖𝒃𝒆𝒏 (@anshuman_reuben) August 14, 2020
#10
OMG! I have never seen this before but in Pakistan they had translated friends in Punjabi and used to telecast on some channel whose name i have forgotten. But this the worst i can see in my life about Friends.
— Ali Arsal (@AliArsal144) August 14, 2020
#11
https://twitter.com/Kaspeirite/status/1293886430343725062
You can watch the episodes of Hello Friends on YouTube if you don’t love yourself.