Jennifer Aniston gives a sweet nod to Friends during her appearance in Live Studio Audience

She led the all-star cast for ABC’s Live in Front of a Studio Audience as Blair Warner on The Facts of Life. And during Jennifer Aniston’s performance, the actress gave a nod to the show Friends, which she starred in from 1994 until 2004. The star, 52, said ‘I’ll be there for you’ during a scene, which is a nod to the Friends theme song of the same name by The Rembrandts.

Jennifer was doing a scene with Jon Stewart as they enjoyed some croissants together. Jon’s character had head gear on and was having trouble taking a bite, so Jennifer’s character Blair kindly broke off a piece of her croissant as she said ‘hey, no no no. I’ll be there for you.’ In addition to an episode of The Facts of Life, there was also an episode of Diff’rent Strokes. Ann Dowd pulled double-duty as Edna Garrett in both episodes, with surprise guests such as Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Snoop Dogg. Both sitcoms attracted huge followings throughout the 1980s, with the Diff’rent Strokes centered on Phillip Drummond, a widowed Manhattan millionaire and hugely successful businessman who adopts two African American orphans from a rough Harlem neighborhood.

With its focus on blended family, the show – a TV mainstay following its 1978 launch – would prove to be groundbreaking for the time and used its platform to illustrate a variety of social problems, notably racism, child abuse, kidnapping and drug abuse at a time when the crack cocaine epidemic was destroying inner city communities across the United States.

In spin-off The Facts Of Life, which aired from 1979 to 1988, Mrs. Edna Garrett, the Drummonds’ former housekeeper, navigates a group of girls at a female boarding school through the issues commonly faced by teenagers as they enter adulthood.

Live in Front of a Studio Audience was produced by Jimmy Kimmel and Norman Lear, the third time the duo has joined forces to bring back classic TV episodes with a star-studded cast.  The first special aired in May 2019 featuring classic episodes of All in the Family and The Jeffersons, with the second airing in December 2019, featuring All in the Family and Good Times.

Friends featured Courteney Cox (Monica Gellar), Jennifer (Rachel Green), Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing), Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay) and David Schwimmer (Ross Gellar).