There aren’t many people in the world that are instantly recognisable from the microsecond they open their gobs, but Janice from Friends is most certainly one of them.
‘Janice Friends’ (Maggie Wheeler) can proudly call herself the
loudest person in sitcom history. As the on-off girlfriend of Chandler, she appears in every single series, laughing like an asthmatic farmyard animal at his jokes and screaming “OH…MY…GAWD” in her famous New Yorkian drawl every time he bumps into her, breaks up with her or tells her he’s moving to Yemen.
But after being snubbed once and for all by her beloved Mr Bing, who went on to live happily ever after with Monica and the mini-Bings, what became of Maggie Wheeler? Did she manage to get other acting jobs without a laugh transplant or elocution lessons? Okay, we know that’s not her real voice but whatevs. Let’s find out…
Since Friends, Maggie has been in numerous TV shows and movies. She appeared in The X Files with David Duchovny (more on him later), Ellen, The New Batman Adventures and Love Boat. She was in the movie The Parent Trap (with a very young, innocent Lindsay Lohan), before landing roles in shows including Will & Grace, C.S.I and Lilo & Stitch.
But Wheeler’s meatiest non-Friends acting job was being cast as Linda Gruenfelder in Everybody Loves Raymond, in which she starred for eight years. Her voice was, well, quite normal on that show but interestingly, one episode (selected here at random of course) was entitled ‘Blabbermouths’. Hmm.
Since then, the artist-formerly-known-as-Janice has enjoyed several other small-ish telly roles, in shows such as Fat Actress, E-Ring, Drake & Josh, E.R., Friday Night Lights, The War At Home, How I Met Your Mother and Without A Trace. Again, all without nasal voices or stupid laughs (yawn!).
Maggie in 2010
But in 2009, it was time for Linda to make use of those world famous vocal chords – providing the voice for two characters in the TV series, Archer. Okay, the characters didn’t sound exactly like Janice, but you could still tell.
In other news, she recently appeared in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in the intriguingly titled episode: ‘Palestinian Chicken’.
Beyond that, she married a dude called Daniel (Borden-Wheeler), had two kids (the elder of which she was pregnant with during the episode of Friends where she turns up up-the-duff), oh and she used to go out with… David Duchovny! But now he’s in her ex-files. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *punches self in face*
More ‘Friends’ Where are they nows:
Where are they now? Gunther from ‘Friends’ aka James Michael Tyler
Where are they now? Tag from ‘Friends’ aka Eddie Cahill
