n a move labeled practical by some, good business by others, the cast members of NBC's hit Friends have saved years of fruitless optimism and professional disappointment by changing their legal names to the monikers they're known by on the popular show.

Series stars Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox-Arquette, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer, will here by be known in future professional projects, and their personal lives as, respectively, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross. The declaration by a judge made the decision legally binding Friday.

"Why waste years that could be spent getting used to your typecasting denying the inevitable outcome?" said a spokesperson of the William Morris Agency, whose name we didn't bother to get. "Kim Fields wasted valuable years before changing her name to Tootie. And most people assume Todd Bridges changed his name to Willis long ago. It just makes it easier on everybody, and you can capitalize on that fame without needing to remind people, 'Do you know who I am? I used to get a million-plus an episode!'"

"It will make it a lot easier to do the last season of Friends at any rate," said NBC executive Brian Norris. "We spent a bundle a few years ago just on the typeface to 'Courtney Cox-Arquette' alone. Now we can just say starring Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross. Now people will have more brain space to remember which one is Will and which one is Grace."

Of course, according to various reports, all members of the Friends cast are hopeful about future projects in film and other series after the show's finale next year. But seriously, with their legal names at last intricately linked to their characters, the serious money for commercials, infomercials, state fair and car show appearances, and other forms of necessary income will be much easier while searching for elusive post-Friends success.

With luck, according to some insiders, Matt LeBlanc will be free of his Friends obligation in time to secure a spot on the fifth installment of Fox's Celebrity Boxing program.

Even with the name change, some members of the cast are adamant about making the jump from television to movies.

"It's not easy, no one's saying that, but it has been done before by quite a few popular actors," said Matthew Perry in a recent interview. "George Clooney is one example. Johnny Depp, another successful film actor. And Michael J. Fox, before he returned to television with Spin City. Don't forget Tom Hanks. Although Bosom Buddies was never really a big hit or anything… hmm… Will Smith, the Fresh Prince himself. I guess, uh… Alan Alda? Shit. Why can't I think of more people?"

Some fellow actors are not applauding the Friends cast's decision.

"You can't simply give up your humanity, who you are, to what people perceive you as. In the end it's not going to improve your success, you're just grasping to retain what had once been the peak of your fame," said Mallory from Family Ties.

cow implanted with cells taken from a cloned bovine embryo didn’t reject the tissue, scientists report, though the cow did give birth to a full-grown clone of comedian Gilbert Gottfried seven hours later. While still far from human use, experts say the bovine advance demonstrates the potential for much-debated therapeutic cloning to correct many of the common ills that affect humans, while the unexpected side effect demonstrates the terrifying danger of screwing with Mother Nature’s cookbook.

The study proved that laboratory-engineered tissues created from heart, skeletal and renal cells cloned from cows, then transplanted back into the animals, could develop into both functional tissues and a live clone of the 45 year-old comedian turned actor who sometimes does voice work for cartoons.

“While more work needs to be done, this demonstrates the potential use of this technology,� said Dr. Lorenzo Mead, director of tissue engineering at Children’s Hospital Boston. When asked about the unexpected Gottfried clone side effect, Dr. Mead bit his lower lip and stared at the floor in a non-committal fashion.

Cloning technology is controversial and opposed by many, including President Bush and Pope John Paul II, because it involves creating and destroying embryos and requires more than a high-school level understanding of science to comprehend.

“Thousands of Americans die every day from diseases that could be cured using stem cells,� Mead said while the clone of Gilbert Gottfried mimicked him in a high-pitched singsong voice.

Stopping repeatedly to ask the Gottfried clone not to touch the equipment, Mead demonstrated how the nucleus from a cow egg was removed and replaced with a skin cell from another cow, which developed into a healthy embryo. Dr. Mead told the commune that the embryo did not, however, have “big, sexy udders� as was claimed by the Gottfried clone.

Hours after the study’s results were reported to the media, the original Gilbert Gottfried arrived at the research labs brandishing a large rubber crucifix and demanded to meet his clone. Researchers felt obligated to comply, but soon regretted their decision as Gottfried and his clone began yelling loudly in stereo and eventually were kicked out of the building for playing ping-pong with a cow’s eye.

Asked if he was shocked by the inadvertent creation of the Gottfried clone, fellow researcher Dr. Cameron Angelos disagreed. “Not really. We accidentally created a clone of Tom Sizemore last week. I think he’s still working back in the stock room somewhere… Yo, Tom-o! I think he went home. Anyway, we’re still not sure if we’re getting contaminated DNA samples or if this is a warning from God. Though after we had both of the Gottfrieds in here earlier I started leaning toward the ‘Warning from God’ theory.�

“Cloning is a spectacular and beautiful thing,� said Dr. Mead, while thumbing through job listings in the paper.

So I'm sitting there, explaining to the sheriff about how if a pizza delivery dude leaves his car running in front of your house while he jets in to bring your gaywad neighbor a pizza, it's totally kosher to sprint out and take his car for a spin for a few days or whatever, when I shit you not, that Eric Clapton reggae song comes on the radio. Right there, in the car, while the cop is leaning in my window and his breath is stank like Thai food and I'm trying to remember if Grand Theft Auto is a felony or just some shit they made up for the video game.

I'm sitting there, explaining to this dude about civil disobedience and Johnny Tremaine and all that, and about the legal precedent of Roper vs. Furley in 1968 and whatever else I can skewer onto the bullshit-kabob I'm cooking up for the guy, when I start to think I may have broken on through to the other side because there's no way this song comes on right then. I didn't even know the radio station had that record, as far as I can tell all they've got is one each from AC/DC and Pink Floyd that they picked up at a yard sale somewhere and they keep playing them again and again like your annoying ten year-old neighbor kid.

But sure as that cop's breath smelled like a loose Chinaman's ass they were playing the goddamned Clapton song. I think I may have screamed, quietly, when it came on, though I'm not sure if the cop looked uncomfortable because of that or just because he doesn't like Clapton. Not that I'd blame him, you hear all about the police backlash when shit like "Fuck Tha Police" or "Cop Killer" comes out but nobody said a word when it was "I Shot the Sheriff," even though that's about as specific as you can get. I guess they don't take it seriously when it's a white guy singing the song. Or maybe most sheriffs are just pricks and the rest of the cops are just like "Right on."

Well, just my luck this guy actually is the sheriff, and I don't think he's a Clapton fan either. Not even when Clapton jammed with the Beatles and porked George Harrison's wife, and that's some pretty cold shit. I don't know what kind of music you're into if that doesn't do it for you; maybe he was a big fan of that Mexican polka shit that's always playing in the kitchen at restaurants. I guess somebody else has got to like that stuff, since it's not like a bunch of dishwashers own radio stations.

So I'm sitting there thinking this goddamned station just sank my battleship outright, since after I hit the water fountain I really only had the cop's good graces to bank on to avoid some kind of harsh retribution. I'm not sure what the penalty is for borrowing some random pizza guy's car and using it to practice your stunt driving, but I'm sure they'd at least make you walk home, which I wasn't too excited about.

All I can say is thank God I spent my childhood on up honing the ability to lie through my teeth. They had the pizza guy's license and registration, so I started going off about how I didn't look like the picture anymore because I'd had a sex change to become a woman, you know, because I thought it would be fun to have tits and stuff. But that hadn't worked out since then I couldn't sit out on my lawn with my shirt off anymore, so I got a sex change back, but they kind of fucked it up so when I shot out of the tube I didn't look the same as I had before. You think it's like the Sneetches in that one book, but it's actually much more complicated than that, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah, maybe it wasn't Shakespeare but it wasn't too bad considering the circumstances.

Actually I'm not sure if they believed my story at all, they might have just let me go because the deputy had to pee really bad. The way he was dancing around I thought he was excited to see how the story ended, which at the time I thought was pretty stupid since all he had to do was look around to see that it ended with a Fiesta covered in piñata fragments, half-submerged in a public fountain. So in retrospect I bet I was saved mainly by the length of my story and the size of the Big Gulp weighing down on the dude's bladder.

Which you know, isn't the most badass way to get away from the cops, since it didn't involve any Panamanian gun-runners or anything, but I'll take it. Bricks out.

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