#2: "The One Where No One's Ready"

Another popular American television show that has a self-referential nature is the sitcom FRIENDS. Similar to SEINFELD, FRIENDS is a comedy about a group of friends living in New York City dealing with the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Each episode focuses on a common aspect of life and builds a 30 minute episode around that event while adding humorous interactions between the group of friends.

During the third season, the episode "The One Where No One's Ready," is about the group attempting to leave for Ross' banquet. The whole episode takes place in Monica and Rachel's apartment where the individual story lines pick up. For example, Joey and Chandler dispute about the rules of taking someone’s seat when a person leaves the room. When someone leaves their seat and then comes back do they still have the right to that seat? Also, Rachel can't decide on what outfit to wear which makes Ross furious out of the fear of being late to the banquet. Ross spends the entire time hassling everyone about being ready to catch a cab on time. Finally, Monica received a message from her ex-boyfriend on her answering machine but can't decide if it is a new or old message. The dilemma for Monica is if she should call him back or still hold true to her word that she wouldn't talk to him again. All of these events are combined and result in no one being ready for the banquet, which proves FRIENDS was a self-referential sitcom because it is the exact title of the episode.