CHARACTER
Mr. Heckles
First appearance	The One With The Blackout
Last appearance	The One With The Flashback
Number of episodes	5
Portrayed by	Larry Hankin
Information
Name	Heckles (Surname)
Nicknames	Old Man Heckles, Mr. Heckles, 'The Weird Man'
Gender	Male
Occupation	Retired

Mr. Heckles lived in the apartment below Monica and Rachel. In his first appearance, he was credited simply as "The Weird Man". He often complained about the apparent noise that the two made (though seemingly they were not making any noise at all) by rapping on his apartment ceiling with a broom.

CharacterEdit

When Mr. Heckles complains to Monica and Rachel, he usually starts his lines with "You're disturbing my..." Both of them reply "You don't have a..." but Heckles replies "I could have a..." or even "You owe me a..." Phoebe once responded by saying "In that case, I'm going to have to ask YOU to keep it down!" and slammed the door in his face.

Heckles did a number of strange and unusual things throughout the series. When Rachel and Phoebe asked him if Paolo's cat belonged to him, he lied and claimed that it did. He once stole Marcel and dressed him as a ballerina, though later insisted that he hadn't seen him. He also once lied about being Chandler's new roommate and even wandered into Chandler's room, both shocking and scaring Chandler in the process. It is never revealed why he did those things, though he may have been a lonely old man making up stories to get company, or possibly even mentally ill and delusional.

During "The One Where Heckles Dies", Mr. Heckles dies while banging on the ceiling after complaining to the six friends about the noise for the last time. Shortly after his death, the friends meet his lawyer, who reveals that since he didn't have any surviving family members, he has left all his worldly possessions to "the two noisy girls upstairs." During this episode, Chandler looks through Mr. Heckles' possessions and after discovering his diary, is able to draw parallels between his life and Mr. Heckles'. It turns out that Heckles had refused to commit himself to other people when he was Chandler's age, which at this point in the series virtually mirrors the attitude towards the people around him held by Chandler himself. Chandler also becomes irritated when he hears the sound of banging coming from the above room and grabs hold of a broom before banging on the ceiling with it...only to then realize, to his horror, that he's becoming like Heckles. Guessing that Heckles' refusal to commit himself to other people is what led to him becoming-and dying-a crabby, grumpy hermit, Chandler becomes scared and paranoid that he will end up dying alone just like Heckles did if he doesn't at least attempt some kind of committment with another person, which eventually leads to him attempting to rekindle his relationship with Janice. At the end of the episode, the friends seem to have sympathy for their late elderly neighbor in spite of his grumpy nature. The episode ends with a sympathetic Chandler saying to his empty room, after his possessions had been cleared out by the friends "Goodbye Mr Heckles...we'll try to keep it down."

Mr. Heckles appears again in a flashback, where it is revealed that he was the main reason Joey became Chandler's roommate instead of a model photographer with a porn star sister. It turns out that after putting out an ad for a new roommate, Chandler, upon meeting Joey for the first time, took a dislike to him at first due to being irritated by Joey's stupidity, so when he met fashion photographer Eric, who had a porn star sister, he invited Eric to be his new roommate instead of Joey. But just as Eric was about to move in, he encountered Heckles in the hallway, and when he informed Heckles that he was moving in with Chandler, Heckles told Eric that HE was Chandler's new roommate, and he sent Eric away before wandering into Chandler's room, much to Chandler's shock. When Eric didn't turn up, Chandler assumed he simply hadn't bothered to, failing to realize that Heckles had sent Eric away prior to wandering into Chandler's room. As a result, Chandler reluctantly accepted Joey as his new roommate instead...and started to rethink his negative opinion of Joey when the latter introduced him to Baywatch. Although the friends never discovered it, they therefore never would have gotten to know Joey if it hadn't been for Heckles-and since he was responsible for Chandler's decision to attempt a kind of genuine commitment with people around him, which he had refused to do prior to realizing that Heckles' refusal to do this is what led to him dying a lonely, unhappy hermit, it is also unlikely that Chandler would ever have fallen in love with and married Monica if it hadn't been for Heckles.