Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
You have seen “Knock Off” before. And you didn’t like it then, either. Sure, it may have had a different title and maybe a Dolph Lundgren or a Brandon Lee in the starring role instead of Jean-Claude Van Damme. But the premise has always been the same: The charming, vaguely shady hero is caught in a web of deceit where no one is what they claim to be. (In Van Damme’s case, that would be an actor.)
Julia, Jean-Claude, Chris and Brooke joined Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Ross and Joey in a special “Friends” Sunday night, and the high-profile guest stars proved a hilarious addition to the cast. The one-hour episode, titled “The One After the Super Bowl,” compared to the best of “Friends” – and that includes last season’s hourlong sweeps special where Monica (Courteney Cox) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) tried to one-up each other on a double date with guest stars George Clooney and Noah Wyle from “E.R.,” and the episode where all the pals made and broke a pact to spend New Year’s Eve dateless.
The stars of “Friends” were happy to welcome all the guests on Sunday’s celebrity-studded special episode — except one. Julia Roberts, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chris Isaak and Brooke Shields all reportedly received adoring, excited welcomes on the set of NBC’s hit sitcom. But not so for Marcel, the temperamental monkey who hurled feces at the cast last season.
If things had worked out differently for Belgian actor Jean-Claude Van Damme, he would be in Chicago running a karate school today. But he couldn’t get enough money to finance the operation, so Van Damme headed for Hollywood to pursue his childhood dream of becoming an actor.