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"The One Where The Monkey Gets Away" is the nineteenth episode of the first season of Friends, which aired on on March 9, 1995.

Plot[]

Rachel gets to know that her ex-fiancé, Barry, is marrying her former friend and bridesmaid Mindy. This starts sprouting doubts in her whether she made the right decision breaking up with him or not.

Ross leaves Marcel with Rachel the next day, but he gets away as Rachel takes out Marcel's poop. She gets everyone looking for him before Ross finds out. At the same time, Ross is planning to tell Rachel of his feelings. When he tries to do so, Rachel is in no mood to talk about such matters, as she's worried to death about the monkey's getaway. Ross finds out that Marcel has gotten away. He's furious with Rachel for losing the monkey, and gets even madder when she tells him she called Animal Control to look for him. He points out that as Marcel is an illegal exotic, they'll take the monkey away from him as soon as they find him.

The Animal Control personnel turns out to be Luisa, an old acquaintance of Monica and Rachel, as they used to share a common room in high school. Unluckily, Luisa also remembers the hard times she had to get through by Rachel the prom queen (Monica, being fat, had her own problems and couldn't help Luisa out). Because of this, Luisa decides to confiscate the animal instead of helping her old schoolmates out.

The friends' search for the monkey does not go well - Joey and Chandler lose the chance to hang out with two beautiful hot women in the building. Meanwhile, Phoebe and Monica manage to find Marcel in the basement. At the same time, Luisa finds the monkey too, and fires a tranquilizing dart in his direction. Phoebe intercepts the dart, which hits her in the butt, letting Marcel escape again.

Ross and Rachel, still arguing about the monkey's getaway, decide to search the one apartment they haven't looked at yet - Heckles'. Mr. Heckles (who has been previously shown to have an extremely possessive nature) turns out to have captured Marcel, and dresses him up in a pink tutu to disguise him. Ross and the friends, however, know that it's Marcel, but just as they are to get him back, Luisa reappears and captures Marcel in a cage. Having to acknowledge the fact that compromise with Luisa won't work amicably, Rachel resorts to blackmailing her by threatening to report her shooting a human with a tranquilizer dart, which makes Luisa relinquish Marcel to Ross.

Ross, who has forgiven Rachel for her carelessness with Marcel, tries to resume the conversation about his feelings. Just as he's about to tell her, Barry walks in on them. He tells Rachel that he's still in love with her and can't marry Mindy because of this.

Cast and Crew[]

Main Cast[]

Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Greene
Courteney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry - Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer - Ross Geller

Supporting Cast[]

Mitchell Whitfield - Barry Farber
Megan Cavanagh - Luisa
Larry Hankin - Mr. Heckles
Katie - Marcel the Monkey
Angela Visser - Samantha
Elizabeth Sjoli - Tia
James Michael Tyler - Gunther (uncredited)

Crew[]

Directed By:
Peter Bonerz

Written By:
Jeff Astrof & Mike Sikowitz

Trivia[]

  • In the uncut DVD version of the episode, Joey asks Mr. Heckles if he can have his butt-magnifying glass, which Joey later takes for himself in "The One Where Heckles Dies" (S2E3).
  • Phoebe refers to the film Speed when she says the film they saw didn't have "guns, bombs and buses going really fast".
  • It is revealed that Rachel was the prom queen, homecoming queen, and class president at Lincoln High School, and that their mascot was the bobcat.
  • When Rachel is telling Ross "I kind of lost him", the closet door can be seen open at the back of the apartment, even though Chandler tells Monica in "The One With The Secret Closet" (S8E14) that he's never seen inside it.
    • What he actually tells her in the season 8 episode is that he's never seen what's inside it since he's been living there. Obviously, he would've seen inside it before, for instance during the 7 episodes in which they switched apartments.
  • The name of the pizza restaurant where Joey, Chandler and Ross are discussing Rachel is Joe G. Pizzas. It's later revealed that a Joey special is two pizzas.
  • When Monica asks Rachel which shoe Marcel pooped in she says "those cute Amish ones". In a couple of episodes ("The One With The Fake Monica"), Monica claims to be Pennsylvanian Dutch, making her Amish.
  • This is the first time Chandler mentions that he went to an all-male boarding school.
  • Rachel suggests that they go to Newark. In the series finale Rachel's Paris flight departs from Newark Liberty International Airport.
  • Angela Visser, who plays Samantha (the hot blonde girl), was crowned Miss Holland in 1988 and Miss Universe in 1989. She also appeared in Baywatch (which the guys watch regularly).
  • Tia (the hot brunette girl) wears a white and blue shirt which looks similar to the one Rachel wore at the last poker game in the previous episode, and they both wear it with their sleeves rolled up.
  • Chandler and Joey tell Samantha and Tia they don't know anything about fixing radiators. However, in "The One With Phoebe's Dad" (S2E9), only 14 episodes later, Joey is the only one who manages to fix Rachel and Monica's radiator (even Mr. Treeger couldn't).
  • Rachel changes what she's saying on the phone to food items when Ross enters. This joke is repeated when Rachel and Monica are discussing the pros and cons of Rachel having a fling with Joey later in the series.
  • The slow-motion sequence when Phoebe gets hit by the dart was filmed using a special camera, without the audience. The same type of camera was later used for the slow-motion sequence in the football game.
Reunion-Heckles-2
  • Larry Hankin also appeared as Mr. Heckles in "Friends: The Reunion". At the reunion quiz, David Schwimmer asks the girls whose voice it is, and we hear the phrase "That's my monkey." The girls fail to name the character, then Mr. Heckles, in his usual bathrobe, enters the apartment, waives at them, waits for the public's applause to stop, and says "You all owe me a cat and a waffle" and exits.

Goofs/Continuity[]

  • When Monica checks the magazine she folds it, but when she says "lucky" it's not folded anymore and then she folds it again at the end of her line.
  • When Rachel first picks up the Country Club Newsletter, her notepad is by her left elbow but in the next shot its moved several inches to Rachel's right.
  • The way Rachel holds the chopsticks changes between shots when she's with Ross.
  • When Monica suggests they start looking for Marcel in the building, she tells Joey and Chandler to search the first and second floors, while she and Phoebe search the third and fourth, yet the next scene shows Monica and Phoebe downstairs knocking on Mr. Heckles door.
  • After Marcel has escaped from the basement, he is seen eating a banana as a pair of arms reach out to grab him. These arms are supposed to belong to Mr Heckles, their weird neighbor, however the arms clearly belong to a young, large and hair free person.
  • When Ross starts walking towards Rachel while talking about Marcel being an illegal animal Rachel starts walking in the opposite direction, the shot then changes with Rachel nearest the camera and she repeats the move and then in the next shot Rachel's repeating the movement again.
  • When Rachel says "my Uncle Marcel" Ross' right hand is on her right shoulder. A quick shot of Phoebe as she says "oh is that who the monkeys named after" and then Ross has his arm round Rachel and she has both her hands on it. There's no way Ross and Rachel could have moved so quick.
  • When Samantha answers the door, she asks Joey if he knows how to turn down the heat on a radiator. Joey asks about the knob on the top and then says he doesn't when she says she's tried that. However next season Joey is able to turn down the radiator in Monica's apartment from underneath.
  • The closet door can be seen open with a glimpse of neatly arranged items (probably clothes). In "The One With The Secret Closet", it's very messy.
  • The layout of the hallway outside Mr. Heckles apartment is different in the scene where Marcel is grabbed from when Monica and Phoebe knocked on Heckles' door.
  • During the scene when Ross and Rachel are walking around the table, the bottle of wine which Ross had bought vanishes.
  • Whenever Mr. Heckles' apartment is shown from the outside, the doorway to Apartment #9 can be seen at the end of the hallway. However, Monica and Rachel live directly above Heckles, and on their floor, there is a staircase at the end of the hallway. The same mistake occurs in "The One Where Heckles Dies". Additionally, the apartment numbers on the doors change between these two episodes.
  • When Ross enters just after Rachel loses Marcel, the camera is off focus on Ross.

Memorable Quotes[]

  • Rachel: How was the movie?
    Monica: Wonderful!
    Phoebe: Oh, it was so good!
    Joey: Suck fest!
    ChandlerTotal chick flick!
  • Joey: You're a monkey. You're loose in the city. Where do you go?
    Chandler: Okay. It's his first time out, so he's probably going to want to do some of the touristy things. I'll go to Cats. You go to the Russian Tea Room.
  • Hot Girl 1: Hi, can I help you?
    Chandler: Uh, we're kind of having an emergency and we were looking for something...
    Joey: A monkey.
    Chandler: Yes, have you seen any?
    Hot Girl 1: No. No, I haven't seen a monkey. Do you know anything about fixing radiators?
    Joey: Sure, sure! Did you try turning the knob back the other way?
    Hot Girl 1: Of course.
    Joey: Oh. Then, no.
    Hot Girl 2 (not wearing pants): Taste this daiquiri. Is there too much rum in here?
    Hot Girl 1: Hope you find your monkey.
    Chandler: Oh n- n- n-...wait! Um... We may not know anything about radiators, per se, but we do have a certain amount of expertise in the heating and cooling milieu.. 
    Joey (to Chandler): Uh, weren't we kind of in the middle of something here?
    Chandler: Yes, but these women are very hot and they need our help. And they're very hot.
    Joey (to Chandler): We can't, all right? (to the women) We're sorry. You have no idea how sorry, but we promised we'd find this monkey. If you see him, he's about yay high and answers to the name Marcel, so if we could get some pictures of you, you'd really be helping us out. 

External links[]

Episode Navigation[]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Preceded by
"The One With All The Poker"
"The One Where The Monkey Gets Away" Followed by
"The One With The Evil Orthodontist"
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