The brains behind Friends’s recurring character Janice Litman-Goralnick née Hosenstein, or, as you might remember her better, Janice, or Jaaaaanice, or Janice with THAT laugh, has explained where that creaking, annoying laugh came from.
Maggie Wheeler, who has gone on to star in ER, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Shameless and The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, told Emma Barnett's BBC 5 Live show that the inspiration behind her character’s legendary cackle is three-fold:
‘You have to be of a certain generation and have watched certain television shows [to remember] but on a show called Welcome Back, Kotter, a show way back then, there was an actor called Arnold Horschack, he used to laugh like “ha ha ha”.
‘And I grew up watching Flipper which was a fantastic show about a dolphin and I was in love with that dolphin and Janice often of course sounds like a dolphin.’
‘So I often say she’s a combination behind Arnold Horshack and Flipper and Woody Woodpecker, the great cartoon character who of course went ‘a a a HA a’ so I think Janice was some sort of conglomeration I invented on the day’
And the reason she deployed this mishmash of all the worst laughs ever to create a stunningly annoying giggle? She had to out-do Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) and his incredible wit.
‘That laugh really was an organic sort of life saver, because Matthew Perry is so funny and I had to work with him and I knew he was going to crack me up, so I knew if Janice couldn’t laugh on set and couldn’t laugh in the moment I was gonna be in big trouble. That was why that laugh exists.’
Wheeler who ‘loved’ playing Janice, confirmed that, ‘luckily for my family’ she doesn’t laugh like that in real life.
Crediting Netflix with helping Friends, 15 years since its last episode, continue in its appeal to new audiences from generations ‘old and young’, Wheeler said ‘It’s undeniable how brilliant Friends was: in the writing, the chemistry the cast, it was lightning in a bottle. It endures in a way so many great comedies do. They don’t come along often but when they do they last forever.’
Probably for the best that that laugh doesn't. HA HA HA