Entertainment

A 'Friends' Monopoly Game Now Exists & It'll Make All Your TV Dreams Come True

by Parry Ernsberger
theworks.co.uk

If this were a Friends episode, it'd be titled, "The One Where There's A Friends Monopoly Game." Naturally, though — just like with most episodes of the much-beloved series — this news via Pop Sugar on April 2 comes with a wacky catch. Well, two, in this case: first, the game is only available in the UK at the moment, and second, it's currently sold-out. Cue the sad "aw" audience reaction track.

While it's unclear if or when the UK retailer will restock the Friends Monopoly any time soon, they'd be crazy not to bring this board game to the U.S. It's where the show started! Central Perk is a (fictional) New York staple, after all. But, for now, instead of dwelling on the unknown, let's focus on what we do know — and what we know is that it looks awesome.

In the classic version of Monopoly, players can choose from eight tokens to represent themselves as they navigate around the board. Currently, those tokens include a battleship, a cat, a penguin, a race car, a rubber duck, a Scottie dog, a top hat, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

In the Friends version of the game — which retails for £29.99, or approximately USD $42.13 — players get to choose from five brand new tokens, each of which represents one of the show's core characters, according to Pop Sugar. Yes, there are six friends total on Friends, but the classic game's T. Rex token got repurposed to represent Ross Gellar (David Schwimmer) — and, honestly, that feels pretty right.

The other five main characters, however — Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston), Monica Gellar (Courtney Cox), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), and Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) — all got new tokens for players to choose from.

According to The Works — the UK retail website where the game was being sold — a handbag token represents Rachel, a chef's hat is the stand-in for Monica, Phoebe gets an acoustic guitar, an adorable mini-sweater vest is the spot-on icon for Chandler, and Joey's token is a piping hot in-the-box pizza. Chandler's sweater vest is by far a personal favorite, but Joey's pizza is pretty hard to hate. Pizza, itself, is hard to hate. Mmm, pizza. Is anyone else hungry?

Beyond the tokens, it appears as if each square represents a fun, Friends memory and/or notable location. The Central Perk square is the equivalent of "Passing Go," and the original game's "Jail" has been turned into Ross and Rachel's relationship jail for the Friends version of Monopoly, which is actually pretty hilarious.

This isn't the first Monopoly game board that's gotten the pop culture treatment, though — not even close. According to MonopolyCity.com, there are so many special edition Monopoly board games that pay tribute to music, movies and television shows.

In terms of T.V., U.S.-based gamers have plenty to choose from while they wait for the Friends edition to make it state-side. Want to stick with classic '90s sitcoms? Give the Seinfeld edition a try. Old-school shows more your speed? There's one for I Love Lucy and fans of The Three Stooges. Love cartoons? Choose from The Simpsons, Family Guy, SpongeBob SquarePants or Adventure Time, to name a few. There's even one for fans of Supernatural, which seems kind of random, but hey — no judgments.

Until more information is released, U.S.-based Friends fans will just have to keep their fingers crossed that the game will get over here sometime soon. In the meantime, queue up your favorite season of the show on Netflix (all 10 are currently available), and just imagine all the ways your favorite friend would spend all those fake dollar bills.