For all it was, Friends did spell out some Manhattan realities. The main set, the girl's apartment, was an illegal sublet of an older relative and therefore subject to rent control. Even characters in decent jobs shared apartments. Several had wealthy parents who lived outside the city. A couple of the female characters made no bones about how they wanted to date/marry rich men, often significantly older men. And I got a kick out of the story arch where the Chandler character, despite a reasonable job history and a degree, had to work as an unpaid intern. The visual dimensions were certainly a total fiction, but I got the impression that some of the writing staff wrote what they knew.
That bit with the hanukkah armadillo and superman is still one of the funniest things I've seen on TV.
