Just saw an episode guide online, and think it's idiotic that they've named each episode with the starting lines "The One where...". How completely unimaginitive! Ocassionally over the years TV Guide will mention a title in a cover story, like "The One After The Super Bowl" or "The One After Vegas". I had no idea, though, that the producers would give this silly heading to every episode.

The reason why the each episodes starts with:

THE ONE WITH
THE ONE WHERE
THE ONE AFTER

one of the creator answer this question and said it's, because that's what the characters will be talking about the next day.

I also read that it's because of viewers who talk about the shows and in general, the way TV viewers refer to shows. I don't think it's unimaginative at all. I think it's pretty darn ingenious! It's a helluva lot easier to remember episodes this way!!! http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Kathy http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif

Sure, for us, Kathy, to discuss with friends or whomever, but for the shows history it would've been more interesting to give them clever play-on-words titles, like a lot of other ep. guides I've seen for other shows.

In my humble O.

On one hand, I agree with you, because if you look through an episode guide, you usually have to read the synopsis to find out if it's the episode you're looking for, etc., and it can be aggravating. But, OTOH, titling the episodes this way gives the show a "unique-ness" from any other sitcom, past or present. http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Kathy http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif

Yep, an arguement can be made for both sides http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif.

I think its extremely creative. The reason is cause people always say did you see the one where?... I think it's cute and also gives it a certain uniqueness.

Most people used to not even know or care if episodes have titles, thus the "did you see the one where" conversatoins.
In this the internet era, people are more interested in this sort of thing. Example McFly, who was looking at an episode guide which generated this topic.

I for one like to read episode titles to see how creative the writers can be or if they even bother worrying about titles. So I'm not crazy about the Friends episode titles. (it may make it easier when searching for a certain episode, but what if the one you're looking for is one of the three plots going on in an episode but isn't part of the title?) It probably just started that way and it stuck. That became their title gimmick.
There are other shows which do wonderful jobs in their titles. I'll use my favorite shows as examples (only because of familiarity)

-Frasier, because not only do they have to title the epiasode, they also title the acts within the show. They also occasionally use the "the one where...", but mostly when Cheers characters made guest appearances: "the one where Woody shows up"

- The Odd Couple was clever with a few titles, usually puns or plays on other titles or phrases "what does a naked lady say to you?" a take off on "what do you say..." "And leave the greyhound to us" (pun on bus ad slogan) "I'm Dying of Unger" "Take my Furniture, please" "The Murray who came to dinner"

Some not so great: (sticking with the ones I know.)
-The Odd Couple had a stretch where it was "The _____ Story" fill in the subject

-Newsradio had a stretch of episodes named after Led Zeppelin albums (that's even worse when searching episode guides because the title doesn't even have anything remotely to do with the plot)