Frank Buffay Jr. (born October 25, 1978) is Phoebe and Ursula Buffay's half brother. Phoebe discovered Frank on one of her attempts to find her father, Frank Sr., who walked out on her and her twin sister when they were children. Frank Sr. also left Frank Jr.'s family, as Phoebe finds out.
Frank Jr. has a punctured lung, was arrested for stealing birds' eggs, likes to melt things, and owned a dog named "Tumor". He also believed that 'massage parlor' was a euphemism for brothel, thereby wrongly presuming his sister, Phoebe, was a prostitute.
Alice
Frank announces to Phoebe that he is dating his home economics teacher, Alice (played by Debra Jo Rupp), in Season Three. He accidentally continues to call Alice 'Mrs. Knight'. Although at first apprehensive, Phoebe realizes that the two are genuinely in love.
In the episode "The One With Phoebe's Uterus", Frank is married to Alice. They ask Phoebe if she would act as a surrogate mother, since they are desperate to have children yet are unable to conceive. She agrees and later gives birth to triplets in "The One Hundredth". Frank and Alice name their daughter Leslie and their first son Frank Jr. Jr. When Chandler asks if the name should be Frank the Third, Alice replies with "Don't get me started". They tell Phoebe that she can name their third baby, who is initially identified as a boy. Chandler and Joey bicker about which one of them the baby should be named after. Joey tells Chandler that "Chandler" is a "non-name", at which point Chandler decides to change his name. Phoebe decides to name the third baby after Chandler, because she feels bad for him and so that Chandler will not change his name. Upon giving birth to baby Chandler, they realize that the third infant is actually a female. Frank Jr. runs into the hospital waiting room, shouting "Chandler's a girl! Chandler's a girl!", which Chandler says reminds him of kindergarten.
Later
Frank reappears in a later season and tries to convince Phoebe to take one of the triplets, because he claims to have not slept in four years. For arguments sake, they discuss which of the children Phoebe will take. She asks for Frank Jr. Jr., but Frank decides that Frank Jr. Jr. is too funny and that she can't take him. She then asks for Leslie, but he says no, because she is the only one of the triplets who knows how to burp the alphabet. Phoebe then suggests Chandler, to which Frank replies, 'Oh, no, no, you can't have Chandler, no. No, no. She's my little genius. I got big hopes for her. She's gonna be a doctor or a realtor.' He then realizes that he has run out of children to give up and that he loves his children way too much to ever give any of them away.
Trivia
- Giovanni Ribisi also appeared in Season 2 (episode 6) as a stranger on the street who had dropped a condom in Phoebe's guitar case when she was playing on the street for money and later came back for it because he "needed it for an emergency". Later in Season 2 (episode 21), Giovanni reappears, but this time as Frank Jr. with very similar characteristics to the former character. However, it is impossible that both the condom guy and Frank Buffay Jr. are the same, because when the latter first appears, his sister takes him to see the Big Apple. Some fans still believe the two characters to be the same, anyway.