‘It's Always Sunny' Is Only Getting Better With Time

Yahoo

11 hours ago

In addition to all of the creative superlatives we can lay on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as it approaches the 20th anniversary of its debut in August, the FX comedy has provided perhaps the greatest return on investment in television history. The series' original, unaired pilot episode — made largely because stars Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, and Glenn Howerton weren't happy with the roles they were getting — cost maybe $200, with the bulk of that covering the price of videocassettes. One hundred and seventy episodes and counting later, Sunny itself is still going strong, and the three friends and co-star Kaitlin Olson are all now staples in either film or other television series. That 200 bucks has built a big enough fortune that McElhenney is today a part owner, with Ryan Reynolds, of a Welsh football club that's the subject of another successful, acclaimed FX show, Welcome to Wrexham.
How did a scruffy comedy about five of TV's all-time-worst human beings last this long and do so well? In part by embracing the awfulness of the Gang, in part by being much smarter than they are.
More from Rolling Stone
Frank Reynolds Is the Next 'Golden Bachelor' in 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' Season 17 Trailer
'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' Little People Collector Set Drops Online: Find It in Stock Here
Charlotte Nicdao 'Grinds All Night' in 'Mythic Quest' Fourth Season Trailer
Sunny's debut in the summer of 2005 didn't suggest that either longevity or greatness were in the offing. FX scheduled it after another new comedy, Starved, about an eating-disorder support group, which seemed to be the channel's higher priority. (Today, the most memorable thing about Starved is that it gave Sterling K. Brown his first series regular role, a decade before This Is Us.) The premiere, 'The Gang Gets Racist,' had the rough shape of the show Sunny became — Charlie (Day) says the n-word, but only when quoting a new Black acquaintance; Dennis (Howerton) is excited by the attention he gets when Paddy's Pub becomes a gay hotspot while Mac (McElhenney) is dismayed with the new clientele — but also seemed to be holding itself back from letting the Gang become truly despicable.
It was the arrival of sitcom legend Danny DeVito as the businessman father of Dennis and Sweet Dee (Olson) that not only got the show a second season, but also helped provide a necessary commitment to dark comedy. Frank's presence created a dirtbag feedback loop: The more he came to enjoy the Gang's worst behavior, the worse they began to behave, and the funnier and more pointed Sunny became.
It's staggering to try to rank the Gang's worst offenses. Persuading a priest to give up the collar, leading him to become an unhoused crack addict? Burning down various people's homes and businesses? Torturing a little person out of a mistaken belief he was a leprechaun? The implication that Dennis is a sexual predator and/or a serial killer?
The magic trick is that Sunny gradually learned how to distinguish its POV from the characters', showing empathy not only for the Gang's victims, but also the Gang itself. It's hard to imagine the show today putting a slur for a developmentally disabled person into an episode title, which happened in a Season Three installment about Dee dating a rapper with a childlike demeanor. (That one's now best remembered for a subplot about the guys launching separate rock bands, which eventually led to the beloved 'The Nightman Cometh' musical episode.) When Mac finally came out of the closet in Season 12, the joke was never that he was gay, but about him being just as clueless as when he was pretending to be straight; the following year ended with a shockingly poignant interpretive-dance number he performed for his homophobic inmate father.
The longer Sunny has stuck around, the more it's been willing and able to pull off experiments like that, or 'The Nightman Cometh,' or Season 10's 'Charlie Work,' which was presented as an unbroken take detailing everything Charlie does to keep the bar functioning while the rest of the Gang is focused on misguided schemes. The show has become endlessly memeable, to the point where people who have never watched one minute of it can recognize Charlie ranting in front of a murder board; it's just a lot funnier if you've seen the actual episode ('Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack'), where the Gang gets office jobs for the health insurance, and Charlie becomes convinced there's a company-wide conspiracy about a man named Pepe Silvia. Then there are the gags that should make no sense — Charlie donning a neon-green body stocking at sporting events, calling himself 'Green Man,' or Frank becoming obsessed with a rum-soaked ham during a trip to the Jersey Shore — yet work perfectly because it's clear the Gang doesn't think like normal humans do.
Even with a recent crossover with family-friendly Abbott Elementary, Sunny hasn't gone soft — Season 16 included an episode called 'Frank Shoots Every Member of the Gang.' But it increasingly feels free to surprise amid the Gang's usual felonies and misdemeanors.
McElhenney likes to joke that the secret to being the longest-running live-action sitcom in TV history is that each season is short. Over 16 seasons, they've made only 170 episodes — fewer than I Love Lucy made in six. But most classic comedies were running on fumes by the time they'd produced half as many installments as Sunny has. It's a show that, after two decades, still demonstrates a level of ingenuity, insightfulness, and perseverance that would feel completely foreign to the Gang. The older they get, the worse the Gang is. For Sunny itself, it's the opposite.
Best of Rolling Stone
The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time
Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best
70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century
Solve the daily Crossword