Google pays tribute to Friends with character Easter eggs

Google is commemorating the 25th anniversary of Friends by building character Easter eggs into its search results. On Thursday, the company rolled out a feature that shows a special icon when people search for a character. You'll see the icons on the knowledge panels on the right side of the search page, next to information about a character. 

Searching Ross Geller, for example, pulls up an icon of a couch. Clicking on that triggers a soundbite of Ross yelling "Pivot!" If you click on it enough times, the couch splits in two and you hear Ross say, "OK, I don't think it's gonna pivot anymore."

A search for Phoebe Buffay calls up an image of a guitar. When you click on that, a black cat pops up on the screen, and you hear Phoebe singing "Smelly Cat." And searching Rachel Green calls up an icon of The Rachel haircut. Clicking that leads you to a Google Images search results page for the famous 'do. 

If you want to brush up on your Friends vocabulary, a search for "Friends glossary" calls up some lingo from the show, such as "transponster," "Joey's apple" and "Holiday Armadillo."

Several Friends cast members took to Instagram on Thursday to pay tribute to the show's anniversary with a group picture and caption reading, "Celebrating a Thursday night 25 years ago."

Theaters across the US are screening different episodes of the show along with exclusive interviews in celebration of the anniversary. The first set of episodes hit the big screen on Sept. 23, but you still have a chance to catch showings on Sept. 28 and Oct. 2.   

Last month, Google also rolled out an Easter egg for the 80th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz. Clicking on Dorothy's ruby slippers triggered a sound bite of her saying "There's no place like home" and turned the search results page black and white.

Originally published Sept. 19.
Updates, Sept. 20: Adds Instagram posts; Sept. 25: Adds theater showings.