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Grab a latte as the show’s creators wax poetic about couches, Chandler, romance, and the Rachel.

You want Friends in high places? You got ‘em. Meet the proud parents of TV’s No. 1-rated comedy: series creators Marta Kauffman, 44, David Crane, 43, and director Kevin S. Bright, 46. On the eye of Friends’ eight and possibly final season (“The hope is it isn’t, but we honestly don’t know,” says Kauffman), the trio of executive producers sat down with Entertainment Weekly to spill the beans on everthing from Chandler’s sexual identity to the disco remix of “Smelly Cat.”

Crane I certainly identify with Ross’ kind of hapless wanting everything to work out and do the right thing, and Chandler’s defending himself with humor and trying to avoid things being real and keeping it light. Kauffman I would have to say Monica, for the most part - her controlling nature... But I also feel a real connection to Phoebe, although I don’t feel that I’m like her. I do have some tendencies toward - what would you call it? - ghosts, spiritual, New Agey stuff... And Kevin, you’re Rachel, right? Bright I was going to go with Gunther, because it’s kind of nice just knowing you can make the best cup of coffee and stand in the back and really enjoy the talented people in front of you.

Kauffman That was very initially. When we first wrote the pilot, it was six of them, but we imagined Phoebe and Chandler to provide jokes more than depth or heart. Crane And then once we had those actors, everything changed. There were some differences before there were any actors involved. Monica and Ross were much more blue collar. Kauffman She had a big ol’ crush on Joey. Crane Monica and Joey we saw as the central love relationship. And she was much more tough and defended, a kind of Janeane Garofalo prototype. Kauffman And Joey didn’t have the heart that the character has, and so much of that was Matt LeBlanc and all the heart that he brings to it. Crane So much comedy has come out of Joey being a little dim. And that wasn’t there originally. I don’t want to say that comes from Matt because Matt is anything but.

Bright Well, there was a thing about the coffee shop. It was before Starbucks had really hit and they wanted us to change the coffee shop into more of a diner - more like what you saw on Seinfeld. Crane It came down to “Do the couches have to be so ratty?” It’s like getting notes from your aunt: “I don’t know, it doesn’t look clean.” Bright We didn’t want the typical neutral-color-value set that every other sitcom had. The apartment was purple and you actually saw color on color television in a sitcom. And Marta and David’s whole style of very short, fast-paced scenes spoke to the style in which the show was shot and edited. Everything was just trying to keep up with the pace of that writing and make it snap and pop. Kauffman The word I remember using in the pilot pitch was that we wanted it to be overcaffeinated. I don’t know that we set out to set any trends, but we did set out to do something that we would watch that we hadn’t seen before. Bright The trends came later. I mean, Jennifer’s hair wasn’t something... Kauffman It wasn’t a conscious decision on anybody’s part.

Crane When we first did it, all we were thinking is, “Oh, please don’t cancel us after 13 [episodes].” That was our lofty goal as we’d just finished doing a quickly failed series [1993’s CBS sitcom Family Album]. What did we last? Five? Six? We were kind of beaten down from that experience. Kauffman On the other hand, I remember going to the first run-through [of Friends]. I had chills up my spine. Something just felt right.

Crane As we were breaking up Ross and Rachel, we were going, “What about these two?” And we thought, “No, no, no, we can’t go there, because it’ll look as though we’re just trading partners.” And we held off. It was the end of the fourth season that they showed up in bed together in London. So often we had talked about “What about Monica and Chandler?” and finally we were like, “All right, let’s just play the card.” Bright And once the card was played the reaction was so huge. I don’t know if [Marta and David] were really thinking of going as far as it ultimately went. Crane No. When we originally started, we thought, “Maybe this is an episode or two; maybe it’s more. Kauffman Yeah, we thought they’d just have sex a bunch of times. Crane Which is nice. Kauffman Friends should do that once in a while. Crane So the show does have a message. [They all laugh.] But as we started the fifth season, we started writing that whole run where they’re hiding it from everybody. Kauffman They’re both so neurotic. They were fun to have together. Crane And we made the decision: We needed to make it different from Ross and Rachel. Ross and Rachel had a lot of angst. So we decided that all of Chandler and Monica’s fights would be funny. And it set a really different tone that separated the two couples.

Crane A master plan, I think, gives us too much credit. Kauffman Of course we talked about that relationship a lot. It’s the relationship that people ask about the most. My rabbi asks me... [Crane and Bright laugh] No, really. He really wants them together. He thinks they love each other and belong together. Crane How is he on the friends-should-always-sleep-together? Did you run that by him?

Crane We never said he was gay. However... Kauffman We never said he wasn’t. Crane As we were casting it, you’d see a particular actor come in and you go, “If this person did it, the character could be gay.” And once we had Matthew, we made the decision that it would not be.

Crane Mine would be Phoebe and the triplets. It was weird and yet it let us do stories you hadn’t seen before and it was so emotionally full. I’ll be going around the channels and catch it in a rerun and see her goodbye speech to the triplets, and she’s got me. Kauffman [mock annoyed] That would have been mine. Bright The prom video, when we go back in the past and see what they were like pre-this television show. It almost feels like there are moments when I’m watching those scenes where, you know, that could’ve been another series: Early Friends.

Crane It’s not really a storyline, but I’d wished we’d served the parents better. Ross and Monica’s parents, we’ve done okay there. The other parents, I wish we’d done more. Kauffman For me, I think it’s actually that we’ve never been able to make the workplace work. We know that when you’re that age, work is such a huge part of your life, but we just have never been able to find a way to make it funny enough or dramatic enough or compelling enough.

Kauffman There are waves that you have to ride. And some of the waves are really fun and some of them throw you to the ground and you sort of brush yourself off. Crane I understood the backlash we experienced around the middle of the second season. The only thing I would undo - I would not have done the Diet Coke commercials. [The police-lineup-themed ads, penned by the Friends writers, in 1996 as part of a “Who’s Gonna Drink the Diet Coke?” contest.] While they were pretty innocuous, I think they pushed too many buttons. And it wasn’t worth it. The upside was not nearly enough. At the time it seemed like “Oh, sure.” We didn’t know. We were all pretty new to this and so we didn’t know how to say no enough. Kauffman We’d like to apologize here.

Kauffman Sure, sure, sure. The answer’s no. We’re asked these things repeatedly. Crane Spin-off comes up, especially as we near what could be the end. Kauffman I can’t see it, really. I would work with any one of these actors again, but I would not do The Joey Tribbiani Show. Crane There was a point they were doing The Brady Bunch Movie. “How about a Friends movie?” It’s like, “No, what a terrible idea.” Bright There were tons of things [that were made], especially from overseas. There was Friends candy, there was Friends chewing gum. There was almost everything except Friends condoms... Kauffman Which would have been our favorite idea. Bright There was - it never got released, but it did get made - a disco remix of “Smelly Cat.” The record company had three different DJ type people do remixes and they were all just horrible.

Crane The monkey? Oh, God. It was...it was fine. Kauffman It was fun. It was silly. It was different. Bright Basically, if you’re an actor, do you really want to be in a scene with something that eats worms and then throws them up? It’s that fundamental.

Bright They’re dumber. Kauffman They’re easier to get out of the way. Crane I don’t have the heart to have [Joey] give them away, but if you notice, they live in a little apartment in New York with a duck and a chicken and you don’t see them so much. Kauffman We had a story going for a little while that I don’t think we’ll ever be able to do, but what was discussed was that Joey thought that chickens could fly. Crane Oh, yes. Kauffman That was the one way to get rid of them. But we’re not going to do that.

Bright Yes. Kauffman Absolutely. Crane Totally. I still like the song, which I think is a testament to the song - or my simple taste in music.