Trust me, since "Friends" is a colossal hit in syndication, "Gunther" (James Michael Tyler) is not hurting in the residual departmenteven if he's only getting the low end of the scale. Featured actors and principal performers (in Canada a principal player is anything over 5 lines) still get a nice piece of the pie if a show is a huge hit in syndication. Clearly, "Friends" is one of the biggestso James hit the jackpot with this one, as a continuity character.

Celebrity Net worth says he is worth $500,000 so he is doing ok.
That and he is working more these days.

He was awesome, so I hope he's set for life based on his Friends earnings. He'd deserve it. : )

I'm sorry but I have to say I LOL at all the different numbers thrown around for Gunther's eppy total!
~in the end only kindness matters~Jewel

the site says 131 ep now, i wonder how many it is?:P

maybe he made salary vs per episode, since he was in quite a few they may have paid him a salary a year for the fact he be avaliable just to show up. i mean i bet they could have afforded to pay him around 100,000 a yeari bet that is way out there, but you never know. gunther was to me a big part of the show, i mean really every time they went to the coffee house he was there, and he really did have a fan base, you see the coffee house you expected to see gunther. if i was an extra like how he was i would much perfer to have an annual salary vs per episode.

i dont know exactly how much he gets paid for reruns, but i'm pretty positive he gets paid. my uncle had a very small part in the movie mystic river with sean penn, he only had one line, and he still gets paid every time the movie is shown on tv. so, if he gets paid for having one line in a movie i'm pretty sure he gets paid for friends.

This message has been deleted.

Towards the end he was probably on about $50'000 an episode (in which he had lines.)
In terms of his appearances as an extra (with no speaking parts) I think its fair to say he's probably the highest-paid extra of all time.
Alfredo James

• the greatest actor of
  all
  time

Everybody keeps coming up with different numbers of how many episodes he was in, but this site says he was in 121 episodes.what's the deal?

He also probably didn't have a contract ei2000therso when the character became popular and they wanted to keep him on, I'm sure he got a decent pay raise. But I'm sure most of his dough comes from residualshe was on 99 episodes, so he's pretty much set for life with the money from not only first-run episodes but syndication in the US and all over the world.

Here's some info about actors and the money they make in TV.
Most Guest Stars in half-hour TV made a minimum of around $3,500 back then for an episode. Since Tyler starb68ted as an extra, he probably only made about $600 for a day's work on Friends. I would bet that after a couple years, Tyler started getting raises, but nothing compared to that of the big 6, of course.
There are complex formulas that SAG has worked out for how much actors get paid when episodes are rerun. They get paid the most for reruns on major networks like NBC. They get paid a smaller fraction on cable stations like TBS. But they still make a good deal of money.
But keep in mind, not only is Friends being rerun nationwide on TBS, it is also syndicated on local stations all over the world. AND the DVDs (and downloadable episodes) are still being sold right and left. Actors get nice residuals from direct sales like DVDs and downloads.
I think it's safe to say that Tyler is set for life thanks to his work on Friends.

Are you Paul Rudd?

Crap Bag is an awesome character.

they should have given him more of a story or dialogue

According to Helen Baxendale (Emily, one of Ross's wives) she was only paid 1000 ($2000) per week.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_liv e/article3099881.ece
So he wouldn't be paid more than that.

He made more than 1000$ per epside there is no way he got that little.

I don't know how much money he made per episode, but I would like to clear up how many episodes he was in, which was a total of 91.

He probably made about $1,000 per episodeif that. And he probably doesn't make anything from the rerunsprobably just the main cast does as they are the ones with the contracts.

i highly doubt he made much of anything. most episodes he didn't even have speaking parts so he could have just been a featured extra making a couple hundred a day, but hopefully that wasn't the case and he at least made ten thousand an episode, but i doubt he would have made anymore than thatas far as residuals.. no way

He was in 131 episodes so he qualifies.

the show only goes into syndication, or re-runs, IF they make 100 episodes of the series. But an actor makes residuals, or a percentage of what they were paid for that specific episode, every time an episode airs after its first airing, EVEN if they're not one of the lead characters. That doesn't go for Background or Extras, just people with lines.

I guarantee he makes money off of syndication. The payments to an actor for reruns are called residuals. I have a friend who played a double in a movie over 25 years ago and still gets a check when ever it's on TV. Residuals have been around for decades. The size of the residual depends on the actors contract, but base residuals are part of what the The Screen Actors Guild (actors union) regulates and defends for all of its members. Considering the number of years and times a day that Friends is shown on TV, I'll bet he has made plenty.

No. Anyone who has a line (even a one liner) receives royality checks for whenever that episode is aired.