Chandler Muriel Bing is a fictional character from the NBC sitcom Friends, portrayed by Matthew Perry. He was born on April 8, 1968, to an erotic novelist mother Nora Tyler Bing and a homosexual father Charles "Helena Handbasket" Bing who later became the star of a Las Vegas drag show "Viva Las Gay-gas". He is of Scottish and Swedish ancestry. He is an only child and is apparently from an affluent family. Chandler's parents announced their divorce to him over Thanksgiving dinner when he was nine years old, an event which causes him to refuse to celebrate the holiday in his adulthood. It is revealed in season 1 he went to an all-boys high school.
Chandler's best friend is Ross Geller from college. He and Ross were in a band named Way/No Way during college. He met Ross's sister, Monica Geller, and her friend, Rachel Green, while celebrating Thanksgiving at Ross's House. Chandler was the first person to know about Ross's love for Rachel. He moved to New York City and lives across the hall from Monica and, through her, meets Phoebe Buffay. At some point during this time, Joey Tribbiani moved in with him and they became best friends throughout the journey. Chandler has a very good sense of humor, and is notoriously sarcastic. He is personally the highest earning member of his friends due to responsible income management, and learning the value of money from a young age. He suffers from commitment issues but later on, he ended up marrying Monica. He is afraid of dogs.
Video Chandler Bing
Appearances
Chandler works as an IT procurements manager with the specialization "Statistical analysis and data reconfiguration," but thoroughly loathes it. Though he does quit his job in Season 9 and Monica helps Chandler secure a job in advertising through an old colleague friend of hers.
Chandler is Ross Geller's roommate in college. Chandler met his friend Rachel Green while celebrating Thanksgiving with the Geller family during his first year at college. On a tip from Monica, Chandler later moved to Apartment #4 in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, across the hall from Monica and her roommate Phoebe Buffay. Actor Joey Tribbiani moves in with Chandler, who becomes his best friend.
Ross and Chandler have been best friends since college where they were roommates at Columbia University. They made pacts of girls they shouldn't sleep with, were in a band together, shared weird hair and fashion styles, and Chandler went to Ross's house for Thanksgiving 1987 and 1988. Ross and Chandler frequently play racquetball and basketball. They also get bullied together and stand up to the bullies, who steal Chandler's hat.
In "The One with the Football", Ross picks Chandler as his first player, despite Rachel being his girlfriend at the time. Ross sometimes describes Chandler as his best friend and Chandler vice versa.
Until moving in with Monica, Chandler shared an apartment with his joint best friend Joey Tribbiani. Chandler and Joey's apartment is an important focal point for the series as one of the few meeting areas of the gang. The two form a close and enduring friendship, and get into many humorous situations.
When Chandler is first considering Joey as a roommate, the two start off on the wrong foot when Joey says that he "is cool with the gay thing" (Joey assuming Chandler was gay). Joey comes to fill the slot, only Chandler had already chosen a roommate - a fashion photographer with a porn-star sister. But after Mr Heckles (the grumpy old man in the apartment below Monica and Rachel) tells the photographer that he is Chandler's new roommate and is able to open Chandler's unlocked door, the photographer leaves disappointed. This forces Chandler to give the keys to Joey and they find out they had a lot in common, including sports and beer. Chandler often supports Joey throughout the show, paying the rent, paying for Joey's headshots, buying most of the food and even give money to Joey for his numerous dates. Joey tries to repay Chandler by giving him the only ticket to the première of his new movie. Unfortunately, Chandler falls asleep. Later that episode, Joey insists on paying back every penny that he owes Chandler until he realizes exactly how much he owes him.
The relationship between the two is balanced as Joey looks to Chandler as his intellectual superior while Chandler acknowledges Joey as the more confident counterpart, especially when it comes to getting women. One of their recurring moments involves Chandler understanding something and waiting in silence until Joey catches on.
Chandler and Rachel originally did not like each other, but grew to become good friends. In "The One with All the Cheesecakes" Chandler and Rachel steal and share the cheesecake which originally belonged to their downstairs neighbor. Rachel, who works in Ralph Lauren is also the one who helps Chandler pick out his wedding suit. Rachel also sets up Chandler with her boss Joanna. Other than seeing Rachel naked, Rachel and Chandler never have any romantic relationships apart from a glance back to their time in college when they made out,
Chandler and Phoebe are very good friends. They sometimes are goofy and have fun with one another. In "The One with the Metaphorical Tunnel", Phoebe and Chandler play hide and seek. They also play games, like coming up with Superhero names and reclining the Barcaloungers like cowboys. They share a duet of "Endless Love" at the end of one episode, when Chandler is sad after a breakup with Janice. In "The One Where Everyone Finds Out", she tries to trick him into believing that she is attracted to him, but Monica tells him that Phoebe finds him charming in a "sexless" way, indicating that any hints towards romance are jokes. Phoebe is the initial reason that Chandler quit smoking in "The One With the Thumb", after an argument between the group about his smoking. He is leaving the apartment when she offers him $7,000 to never smoke again.
Chandler is brash, zany and estranged from both of his parents. He suffers from commitment issues, brought on by growing up in a broken home with no idea of what a stable marriage looks like, can be neurotic and extremely defensive with humour as his shield but his sense of humour is generally unsophisticated. Chandler also associates everything that links to his parents divorce in a negative light, specifically Thanksgiving where his parents reveal their separation over a turkey where his father plans to run away with the bus boy.
Once a heavy chain smoker, Chandler began smoking when he was nine years old after his parents announced their divorce. Chandler is first seen smoking during the first season and is chastised by his friends for breaking his non-smoking streak of three years.
Chandler is apparently dominated by his ballsy and forward spouse, Monica but this is more a strategy to avoid useless conflicts and a way to please her, than a real submissive behavior. In particular Chandler shows his determination and confidence during decisive and crucial moments of their relationship.
Chandler also shares a lot of traits with Mister Heckles, Monica and Rachel's neighbour. They are both extremely picky with women (planning to break up with one simply because her head was too big), were voted class clown in high school, played the clarinet and Chandler even did his signature pound the ceiling with a broom when Monica and Rachel were making too much noise.
His middle name "Muriel" was revealed in the beginning of "The One With Rachel's Date", where one of his co-workers thinks his name is Toby.
Chandler's main catch phrases are starting sentences with "Could that BE any more..." in his own characteristic way, a trait which he shares with his on-and-off romantic interest Janice Hosenstein (Maggie Wheeler); he also says from time to time the phrase "Oh my god" in different contexts.
Maps Chandler Bing
Development
Relationships
Chandler is afraid of commitment and had the fewest relationships out of all the Friends. Despite all this, he is the first one to have a committed marriage that doesn't end in divorce.
At Ross's wedding in London, Monica and Chandler sleep together and decide to begin dating. They try to keep their relationship secret, as they are unsure about how the others would react. Eventually, however, they all find out. Their wedding is officiated by Joey, who is ordained over the Internet. In the final episode, Monica and Chandler adopt twins, due to their inability to conceive.
Monica's bossiness, neatness and overly competitive nature forces Chandler into several situations, such as her being unable to throw a game of tennis against Chandler's boss and Chandler hiding the fact that he is incredibly good at ping-pong so Monica won't enter them in doubles tournaments.
Before his relationship with Monica, Chandler has an on-and-off relationship with Janice Hosenstein (Maggie Wheeler). She is a regular feature in his life, even though he regretted dating her and kept ending their relationship in season 1. He dates her again in season 2, but it ends up in a break-up. However, Janice makes further appearances later in the series.
Kathy (Paget Brewster) makes an appearance in the fourth season of Friends. Chandler sees her in Central Perk and asks the gang if he should ask her out, only to learn that she was already waiting for a date with Joey. She is an actress and Chandler eventually dates her until he gets extremely paranoid when she shares a sex scene with her co-star prompting a big fight between the two. Ironically it was Chandler's own paranoia that drove Kathy to having an affair with the same person.
Career
Chandler works as an IT procurements manager with the specialization "Statistical analysis and data reconfiguration," which he takes up as temporary work and, despite working in the industry for years, thoroughly loathes. Despite disliking his job, Chandler is unable to quit his job as it is his nature to avoid ending anything forcefully, be it his job, a relationship, or even his membership with a gym.
In the episode "The One Where Emma Cries", Chandler falls asleep during a meeting and on waking, realizes that he had agreed to head the new division in Tulsa. Chandler quits his job on Christmas, so that he can fly home to New York to be with Monica. Monica helps Chandler secure a job in advertising through an old colleague friend of hers. Much to Chandler's dismay, he begins as an intern. However, his more mature approach eventually pays off, and he secures a full-time job in the business as a junior copywriter.
References
External links
- Chandler Bing on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia