Four years before Rachel Green ever came into existence, Jennifer Aniston was busy in another iconic role — although she was really just a stand-in for the character’s rightful actress.
The show was the short-lived television adaptation of John Hughes’ popular 1986 movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In it, Jennifer starred as Jeannie, the cynical sister to wise-cracking Ferris.
Things seemed to get off to a good start with much the same dynamic as Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey shared in the original. (Fun fact: The Jennifers went on to appear together on Friends, where Jennifer Grey played one of Rachel’s estranged friends.)
But, with Ferris Bueller, it seems the magic quickly wore off…
With such wise quotes as, “Men are bad. Ice cream is good,” it’s hard to see why the show didn’t last. But, alas, it was canned after the Fall 1990 season on NBC.
Still, it was enough to set Jennifer up for bigger and better things.
For technical purposes, Ferris Bueller can’t be considered Jennifer’s first break: She starred on the equally short-lived Molloy just one year before.
“I have my sitcom graveyard… I played the spoiled little sister of the lead character,” Jennifer told the New York Times in 2008 of Malloy. “And then I was cast as Jeanie Bueller, the bratty sister in the TV version of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That lasted almost a season.”
She admitted that the misfortune of her first two shows actually worked in her favor.
“When you accept a role in a pilot, you automatically sign up for five years. You think it’s scary to walk down the aisle? Try signing a five-year contract for a show you may not want to be part of down the road,” Jennifer said of the thought of playing Jeannie for an extended period of time.
Thankfully, both for Jennifer and for viewers, that didn’t happen.
