Friends and Gilmore Girls fans realise huge crossover even after rewatching both shows 'millions of times'

As summer is drawing to a close, many streaming viewers have fully entered their cosy autumn rewatch era - and some have shared an unexpected connection between two TV favourites.

It’s no surprise that beloved 1990s sitcom Friends didn’t just kickstart the careers of the six protagonists — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, the late Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer — but also gave a platform to a bunch of established and up-and-coming stars of the big and small screen.

Several guest stars set foot in Central Perk across the sitcom’s ten seasons, ranging from the likes of Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Robin Williams and Reese Witherspoon.

And even though these episodes are now a couple of decades old, many fans still do a double take whenever one of them pop up during their Friends rewatches.

More recently, some Reddit users were shocked to find a Gilmore Girls actor dated one of the six Friends for the span of an episode.

In episode 5 of season 7, titled ‘The One with the Engagement Picture’, Phoebe starts seeing guy called Kyle (though some fans may remember him as ‘Hums While He Pees’). Meanwhile, Ross dates Kyle’s ex-wife Whitney (Julia Campbell), and both him and Phoebe are annoyed when the couple reconcile at the end of the episode.

'The One with the Engagement Picture' sees Ross and Phoebe date a broken up married couple (NBC)

Kyle is played by none other than David Sutcliffe, who would go to portray Christopher aka Lorelai’s ex-boyfriend and Rory’s dad in Gilmore Girls.

“Watched friends and Gilmore girls about a million times but never caught the crossover until now,” one person recently wrote on Reddit.

“Rewatching friends this weekend, am i tripping or in s7e5 the one with the engagement picture , is that christopher from gilmore girls playing as kyle??” someone else shared.

“Wow! I thought he looked familiar!” another person offered, with someone else pointing out that Sherilyn Fenn also appeared in both shows.

“I just started watching Gilmore Girls for the first time and when I saw him I exclaimed, "HUMS WHILE HE PEES" lol” someone else noted.

Sutcliffe is best known for the role of Christopher on Gilmore Girls (Warner Bros)

While many were thrilled to draw the connection between the two TV oldies, someone went even further, suggesting Gilmore Girls’ Christopher and Friends’ Kyle could actually be the same person, with Chris leading a secret life in NYC that Lorelai and Rory don’t know about.

“Christopher would hum while he pees. I’ve always thought he was off married in New York and the girls didn’t even know about Whitney,” they wrote.

This would explain Christopher’s absence from Rory’s life for all those years, to be fair.

Friends and Gilmore Girls are available to stream on Netflix in the UK.