“The One With the Cake”

Friends season 10, episode 4
Original air date: October 23, 2003

Rachel can't contain her excitement over Emma's first birthday party. She's gotten presents and games, and Ross is going around with a video camera, asking everyone to share a thought for Emma, which they plan to give her on her 18th birthday. Emma's grandparents — Ross and Monica's parents — share some cheerful thoughts on how they'll probably be dead by then.

Joey panics when he realizes that he was supposed to get Emma a present, but draws inspiration from Phoebe, who says that she wrote Emma a new song as her gift. Joey decides to do an impromptu reading of I'll Love You Forever, which makes everyone cry.

Monica's ready to cry when Rachel refuses to get the party started, because Monica and Chandler are supposed to go away for a romantic weekend as soon as the party is over. Rachel doesn't want to wake Emma from her nap, though, and so everyone has to sit around waiting for her to wake up. Rachel gets the custom birthday cake, which she ordered from a bakery in New Jersey, out of the refrigerator to show everyone while they're waiting, but it's not exactly what she ordered. She had asked them to make a bunny cake with Emma's face on it, but instead received a penis cake with Emma's face on it.

Furious, she calls the bakery and demands a bunny cake, but they say that she'll have to return the penis cake first. She drives off to exchange the cakes, but gets pulled over and doesn't have her license. She calls Ross to bring it to her, and he puts Joey in charge of making sure that no one leaves, because he knows how important the party is to Rachel.

Phoebe and Joey are now as desperate to leave as Monica and Chandler, because Phoebe's got a massage client and Joey has an audition. Since someone has to stay with Emma, though, they agree to race some of her new windup toys to see who has to stay behind. Monica and Chandler's dog loses the race, and Joey and Phoebe take off.

Rachel and Ross take so long to return from New Jersey, though, that everyone else is back at the apartment before they get back. Unfortunately, they weren't able to switch the cake, though, because the trip took too long and they missed the bakery before it closed. Happily, Ross is able to fix the cake with some deft slicing, and Rachel gets exactly the kind of first birthday for Emma that she had dreamed of: everyone sitting around her, eating cake and playing with her new presents, with Ross capturing it all on videotape.