Cox related the story as follows:
“One day I was on the set, and I was sitting around, reciting this line, like, doing this imitation of Anthony Michael Hall. He has this line in a movie. The line is, ‘Chicks cannot hold their smoke, that’s what it is.’ And Matthew Perry walks over to me and very adamantly says, ‘Oh, “Weird Science.”‘ And I said, ‘No, Matthew, that’s “The Breakfast Club.”‘ And he was 100 percent sure that it was ‘Weird Science’ and I was 100 percent sure it was ‘The Breakfast Club.'”
Clarification was required, and wouldn’t you know it, one of the stars of “The Breakfast Club” just happened to be shooting in a nearby studio, just across the lot from the “Friends” set. Judd Nelson, a co-star of a contemporary 1996 hit series, would surely have the answer. As it so happens, he did. Cox continued:
“More and more crew members got involved in the debate and the stakes kept rising. We realized that Judd Nelson was over on stage 29, doing ‘Suddenly Susan.’ So, we ran over there and found out that yes, indeed, it was ‘The Breakfast Club.'”
Cox declared, quite proudly, that she had won a bet over this trivial debate with Perry. When Leno asked what she won, Cox merely sneezed. She then rang a bell that had previously been hidden in the couch she was sitting on. Rather unexpectedly, Perry himself emerged from the wing of “The Tonight Show” with a box of tissues. He made quite a show of extracting a tissue and handing it to Cox before rolling his eyes and exiting.
“Five more months of that,” said Cox, smiling. “As your man slave!” Leno added. “My man slave,” Cox replied.
Perry was very game. R.I.P., sir.
