It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Updated on Jan 05, 2024

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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American television sitcom that premiered on FX on August 4, 2005. It moved to FXX beginning with the ninth season, and has remained there since. It was created by Rob McElhenney, who developed it with Glenn Howerton. It is executive produced and primarily written by McElhenney, Howerton, and Charlie Day, all of whom star alongside Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito. The series follows the exploits of "The Gang", a group of self-centered friends who run the Irish bar Paddy's Pub in South Philadelphia.

The series was renewed for a twelfth season that premiered on January 4, 2017. On April 1, 2016, the series was renewed for a thirteenth and fourteenth season, which will tie it with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as the longest running live-action sitcom in American TV history.

Top 10 best it s always sunny in philadelphia episodes

Premise

The series follows "The Gang", a group of five depraved underachievers: twins Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) and Deandra "Sweet Dee" Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), their friends Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) and Ronald "Mac" McDonald (Rob McElhenney), and (from season 2 onward) Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito), the man who raised Dennis and Dee. The Gang runs the dilapidated Paddy's Pub, an Irish bar in South Philadelphia.

Each member of the gang shows varying degrees of dishonesty, egotism, selfishness, greed, pettiness, ignorance, laziness, and unethical behavior; they are often engaged in controversial activities. Episodes usually find them hatching elaborate schemes and conspiring against one another and others for personal gain, vengeance, or simply the entertainment of watching another's downfall. They habitually inflict mental, emotional, and physical pain on each other and anyone who crosses their path. They also regularly use blackmail to manipulate one another and others outside of the group.

The Gang's unity is never solid, and any of them would quickly dump any of the others for quick profit or personal gain, regardless of the consequences. Everything they do results in contention among themselves, and much of the show's dialogue involves the characters arguing or yelling at one another. Despite their lack of success or achievements, they maintain high opinions of themselves and display an obsessive interest in their own reputations and public images.

The Gang has no sense of shame when attempting to get what they want and often engage in activities that others would find humiliating, disgusting, or preposterous. These include smoking crack cocaine and pretending to be mentally challenged in order to qualify for welfare, attempted cannibalism, kidnapping, hiding naked inside a leather couch in order to eavesdrop on someone, coercing people into sleeping with them, forcing each other to eat inedible items, huffing paint, foraging in the sewers for valuables, sleeping with each other's romantic interests, seducing a priest, plugging their open wounds with trash, pretending to have AIDS in order to get priority access to amusement park rides, and stalking their crushes.

During the Season 7 episode "The Gang Gets Trapped", in which The Gang breaks into a family's home and has to hide from them when they return, an angry monologue by Dennis captures the essence of The Gang's modus operandi:

Cast and characters

Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly – Charlie was the co-owner at Paddy's Pub, but traded his capital investment for "goods and services", half a sandwich, and other undisclosed compensation. He is a childhood friend of Mac, and high school friend of Dennis and Dee. He is also the roommate of Frank, who may be his biological father. Charlie does most of the actual work and maintenance (referred to as "Charlie Work") at the pub. He is unable to read or write, and is an alcoholic substance abuser who is often seen huffing glue or paint. He lives in squalor with Frank in a run-down, vermin-infested apartment and suffers from deep-seated psychological problems, believing his dreams to be haunted by a figure known as "The Nightman", who breaks into his home and rapes him. Charlie has unresolved anger issues, often screaming as a means of getting his point across. He also has an unhealthy obsession with "The Waitress", a recurring character who finds Charlie repulsive and shows no interest in him. Despite his character flaws, he is typically the most compassionate and moral member of the gang.

Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds – Dennis is a co-owner of Paddy's Pub and is Dee's twin brother. Easily the most sociopathic of the characters, Dennis is abrasive, narcissistic, selfish, histrionic, and vain. To justify his inflated ego he frequently references a very brief stint at the University of Pennsylvania, where he minored in psychology but dropped out after one semester. It is at times hinted that Dennis may be a psychopathic serial killer, but this remains ambiguous.

Rob McElhenney as Ronald "Mac" McDonald – Mac is a co-owner of Paddy's Pub. He is Charlie Kelly's childhood friend and Dennis's high school friend and later roommate. The son of a convicted felon who has been in prison for much of Mac's life, he frequently attempts to demonstrate his toughness and refers to himself as the "sheriff of Paddy's". He also often brags about his hand-to-hand combat skills, although he typically flees from physical confrontation. Despite his behavior often contradicting Christian ethics, Mac is a Roman Catholic and often espouses strong Christian fundamentalist opinions, such as a strong stance against the marriage of a former partner of his who had become a post-op transsexual, solely because she had not contacted him after her changes like they had discussed, coinciding with an adamant denial of his homosexuality when confronted, much to the annoyance of the gang. In later seasons, the gang gets increasingly frustrated with Mac's refusal to acknowledge that he is a closeted homosexual.

Kaitlin Olson as Deandra "Sweet Dee" Reynolds – Dee is Dennis's twin sister and is the bartender at Paddy's Pub. Dee dreams of becoming an actress, although she lacks any apparent talent and suffers from debilitating stage fright. She wore a back brace in high school, leaving her with the nickname of "The Aluminum Monster". She is also constantly referred to as a bird due to the gang's perception of her as a giant, awkward, bird-like creature. She majored in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, but failed her classes and like her brother did not graduate. Dee lives alone in an apartment. Her comments and ideas are usually disregarded by the others, though they will often repeat what she has said word-for-word and pretend it was their idea, at which point it will be hailed as a great idea. She is often left to deal with the negative consequences of the gang's activities. Though often the butt of the gang's jokes, she is frequently involved in their schemes. She is portrayed as the angriest and most physically violent of the group and has a history of assault, including setting her roommate on fire in college.

Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds – Frank is the legal father of twins Dennis and Dee, and may be the biological father of his roommate Charlie. He used to be a successful businessman with a long history of illegal operations and dealings with sordid characters, but chose to abandon that life and redeem himself after leaving his money-grabbing, cheating wife. He has since embraced his "feral" nature and describes himself as "fringe class". Despite having substantial financial resources, he chooses to share a decrepit studio apartment with Charlie, where they live in squalor and sleep together on a pullout couch. He is frequently armed with a handgun and often snorts cocaine as part of his daily routine.

Production

The show began as a short film idea written by Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton about a man telling his friend he might have cancer, while the friend is only intent on trying to borrow a cup of sugar for the "shitload of coffee" he has made. This was then developed into a pilot called It's Always Sunny on TV and was shot on a digital camcorder by Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney. It is believed the pilot was shot with a budget of just $200, but Day would later comment, "We shot it for nothing...I don't know where this $200 came from...We were a bunch of kids with cameras running around shooting each other and [the] next thing you know, we're eleven years in and we're still doing the show." This pilot was shopped by the actors around various studios, their pitch being simply showing the DVD of the pilot to executives. After viewing the pilot, FX Network ordered the first season. Although it is often stated publicly that Always Sunny was one of the first shows to be shot in 24p standard-definition video, using Panasonic's DVX100 MiniDV prosumer video camera, from the sixth season forward, the show was shot in 24p using high-definition video cameras.

Danny DeVito joined the cast in the first episode of the second season, playing the father of Dennis (played by Glenn Howerton) and Dee (played by Kaitlin Olson).

Broadcast and syndication

The first season ran for seven episodes with the finale airing September 13, 2005. According to McElhenney, word of mouth on the show was good enough for FX to renew it for a second season, which ran from June 29 to August 17, 2006. Reruns of edited first-season episodes began airing on FX's parent network, Fox, in June 2006, for a planned three-episode run—"The Gang Finds a Dead Guy", "Gun Fever" (which was renamed as "Gun Control") and "Charlie Gets Molested" were shown. The show would not be shown on broadcast television again until 2011, when FX began offering the show for syndication.

The third season ran from September 13, 2007 to November 15, 2007. On March 5, 2008, FX renewed It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for a fourth season. On July 15, 2008, it was reported that FX had ordered 39 additional episodes of the series, consisting of the fifth and sixth seasons. All five main cast members were secured for the entire scheduled run. The fifth season ran from September 17, 2009 to December 10, 2009. On May 31, 2010, Comedy Central began airing reruns of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. WGN America also began broadcasting the show as part of its fall 2011 schedule.

The sixth season ran from September 16, 2010 until December 9, 2010, running twelve episodes, plus the Christmas special. The seventh season ran from September 15, 2011 until December 15, 2011, running 13 episodes. On August 6, 2011, FX announced it had picked up the show for an additional two seasons (the show's eighth and ninth) running through 2013. On March 28, 2013, FX renewed the show for a tenth season, along with the announcement that the series would move to its new sister network, FXX.

Music

The theme song is a piece of production music called "Temptation Sensation" by German composer Heinz Kiessling. Additionally, Kiessling's work ("On Your Bike" and "Blue Blood") can also be heard during various scene transitions throughout the show, along with other composers and pieces such as Christopher Movick ("Off Broadway"), Joe Brook ("Moonbeam Kiss") and Karl Grell ("Honey Bunch"). Many of the tracks heard in the series have been taken from Cafe Romantique, an album of easy listening production music collected by Extreme Music, the production music library unit of Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Independent record label Fervor Records has also contributed music to the show. Songs from The Jack Gray Orchestra's album, Easy Listening Symph-O-Nette ("Take A Letter Miss Jones", "Golly Gee Whiz", and "Not a Care in the World") and the John Costello III release Giants of Jazz ("Birdcage", "Cotton Club" and "Quintessential") are heard in several episodes. The soundtrack, featuring most of the music heard on the show, was released in 2010.

Reception

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has received critical acclaim. Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker praised the show, calling it "not merely the best sitcom on television but one of the most arresting and ambitious current TV series, period." Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly reviewed the first season negatively, commenting "it is smug enough to think it's breaking ground, but not smart enough to know it isn't." Brian Lowry of Variety gave the first season a positive review, saying it was "invariably clever and occasionally a laugh-out-loud riot, all while lampooning taboo topics". Later seasons of the show have received favorable ratings on review aggregator Metacritic, receiving 70/100, 78/100 and 85/100 for seasons 4, 5 and 6 respectively. The show has become a cult hit with viewers and is often compared in style to Seinfeld—particularly due to the self-centered nature of its main characters. The Philadelphia Inquirer reviewer Jonathan Storm wrote "It's like Seinfeld on crack," a quote that became widely used to describe the series, to the point that FX attached the tagline, "It's Seinfeld on crack."

In 2014, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at #7 in the "26 Best Cult TV Shows Ever", with the comment that "it's a great underdog story ... If it sounds too dark for you, consider that there's an episode about making mittens for kittens, and it's adorable." In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that Sunny was "more popular in college towns (and most popular in Philadelphia)".

In 2015, Rolling Stone rated the top 20 greatest and funniest It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes, stating "for 10 seasons, the series had mined comic gold from the execrable behavior of the owners of Paddy's Pub." They claimed the two-part season 4 episode, "Mac and Charlie Die" is the sitcom's greatest episode yet.

The Nightman Cometh live

In September 2009, the cast took their show live. The "Gang" performed the musical The Nightman Cometh in New York City, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Mary Elizabeth Ellis and Artemis Pebdani also appeared in the performance as The Waitress and Artemis. Actress Rhea Perlman (wife of Danny DeVito) assumed the role of Gladys.

Creator Rob McElhenney said that Live Nation originally approached the cast about doing the show at 30 cities, but in the end the cast settled on 6. Co-developer Glenn Howerton described the show as "essentially an expanded version of the actual episode of "The Nightman Cometh", which was the final episode for season four. There are some added moments, added scenes, added songs, and extended versions of songs that already existed." Two new songs were included in the performance and a longer running time allowed for greater improvisation by the actors. The performance was also preceded by a preview screening of a season five episode.

The Los Angeles performance, filmed at The Troubadour, was included as a bonus feature on the season four DVD box set.

Russian adaptation

A Russian adaptation of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia premiered in Russia on the television channel TNT on May 12, 2014. This version is titled В Москве всегда солнечно (V Moskve vsegda solnechno, It's Always Sunny in Moscow) and like the original, centers around four friends, who own a bar called "Philadelphia" in Moscow.

Book

The first It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia book was released on January 6, 2015, titled The Gang Writes a Self-Help Book: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today.

References

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Wikipedia

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