Andrew McCarthy Calls ‘Friends’ a ‘Funnier’ Version of ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’

Transcript

00:00The thing you have to keep in mind about the Brad Pack is it was like it was at that transitional

00:03moment in culture when youth movies took over. We forget now and it was before you're even born.

00:09Like it wasn't always this way. Now all entertainment is geared toward young people.

00:14It didn't used to be that way. So when it started, we were at the forefront of that and we were like

00:19out ahead of the herd. And so we're like easy prey. When you're out ahead of the herd, you're

00:23easy to approach. And we were poached by this term. I mean, look at Friends. The show Friends

00:27is like the Brat. It's like St. Elmo's fire, you know, except a week later and funnier.

00:35So, I mean, it started the vanguard of things being about and for young people. And it just

00:41didn't exist in Hollywood like that before that. And so it began that and the Brad Pack was out in

00:46front of that. So it was instrumental in the shift toward youth culture and things that, you know,

00:52and it also featured, you have to remember what you, it's impossible to remember now, but

00:57movies and stories were always about romance and the Brat Pack and movies like St. Elmo's

01:03fire and The Breakfast Club put friendship at the center. And that was new and different.

01:09There weren't movies about friendship being the most important thing in life. It was always get

01:13the guy, get the girl. That's what movies were about was romance. And the thing to be held up

01:18is this wonderful thing. And these shows, movies, and then shows like Friends held up friendship as

01:24the ultimate kind of thing. Although Friends eventually, I guess, became about who they could

01:28marry. So, but, you know, so and I think that was a real seismic change that we take for granted now.