PaleyFest DVD Series: Always Sunny in Philadelphia
From the very beginning, the odds of the FX comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia finding success were a long shot. The premise of four self-absorbed friends acting in a selfish manner had already been successfully executed with the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. Then there was the subject matter, as the episodes of Always Sunny contained narratives around such socially sensitive topics as abortion, welfare and cancer. Despite these obstacles, however, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia not only found solid ratings and a fervent fanbase, but became the centerpiece of cable channel FX’s programming strategy.
With four critically-acclaimed seasons behind them, the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was honored on April 10, 2009, with a panel discussion at the prestigious Paley Center for Media. All five of the main actors were in attendance—Charlie Day (Charlie), Danny DeVito (Frank), Glenn Howerton (Dennis), Rob McElhenney (Mac) and Kaitlin Olson (Dee)—and they talked about the show’s inception, the nature of the characters and, naturally, the politically-incorrect tone of the series.
“We’re really careful about not being offensive,” Rob McElhenney insisted. “We don’t try to be offensive. If we happen to be offensive, you know, that’s not our intent. We don’t purposely try to push the limit, we just want to do things that haven’t been done on TV before. And often times that does butt us up against the ‘standards’ that the FCC has imposed upon all creativity. However, FX and our production and a lot of other productions on the network work really well to push the limits without going overboard and getting everybody in trouble.”
The other cast members of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia agreed. “Seinfeld did it first and they did it beautifully,” Charlie Day offered. “You could have completely self-serving character who are doing some pretty despicable things but if they’re not doing it with the intent of being malicious, then I think you get away with it.”
“We’re the ones who always end up looking stupid,” Kaitlin Olson added. “We’re not really making fun of sane people.”
“If there is any one sane voice of reason, I think it’s the world,” Day continued. “When these characters go out in the world, the bank teller is the real person who’s sort of saying, ‘How am I witnessing this behavior?’ Or the woman at the door is just trying to process what’s happening before she knows, ‘Now it’s time to call the police.’ Those people are the voice of reason. And then when you set that up, then the world is sort of real and the characters are slightly heightened and I think that’s how we get away without having the (literal voice of reason).”
The journey that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia traveled in regards to finding its way onto FX is somewhat legendary. While different dollar amounts have been offered on the Internet, the original pilot episode for the series was filmed on the “cheap” by the three male leads using store-bought camcorders and their own homes as sets. Ironically, it was not the goal of the group to create a television show when they started but something entirely different.
“I had this idea for a short film in which a friend went over to another friend’s house to get some sugar and when he got there, the friend told him that he had cancer,” Rob McElhenney explained. “And I thought, ‘Man, that’s such a dramatic scene, how would you go through that?’ Then I thought, well, what if the guy just wanted to get the fucking sugar and get out. And so I wrote this scene, and it was really dark, but I also thought it was kind of funny and I’d never seen anything like that as a short film. And I brought it to Glenn and Charlie, they both thought it was pretty funny so we just decided to shoot. I filled it out a little bit with a couple of other characters. I introduced this other character who was the other guy’s roommate who, when the guy came home and said, ‘Hey, Charlie has cancer,’ the other character got upset, like ‘Why wouldn’t Charlie tell me first, I feel like I’m a better friend to him.’ And that sort of filled up a world and I realized this could be a really cool short film and that’s what we shot. And once we did it, it came out to about a half an hour long and we were like, this could be a TV show.”
Once FX bought the series, slight changes were made to both the characters and the setting. “Originally the show took place in LA and the network wisely advised us to move it somewhere else because there were so many shows about the city of Los Angeles,” McElhenney continued. “And we didn’t want it to seem like it was about the industry because it’s not at all, it’s just about these people who have nothing better to do with their lives. And we thought that bar owners in a blue-collar city like Philadelphia would really work.”
“It was originally called It’s Always Sunny on TV,” Glenn Howerton added. “The characters were originally actors because that would be a good way to...”
Charlie Day finished the sentence with, “Excuse their behavior.”
“I’ve heard some people describe the characters as cynical and I don’t see them as cynical,” McElhenney replied. “I see them as really optimistic in a really weird way. In like every episode, they’re really psyched about something, like this is going to change their lives for the better. And then in the end, they wind up in the same place. I feel like the more we push that and the more we make them degenerates, the more people enjoy the show. Because they know they’re just laughing at a bunch of slumdogs.”
Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney are more than just actors on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as they are also close friends and the creative force behind the series. The trust that they have in each other extends to the remaining cast members of Danny DeVito and Kaitlin Olson, which translates into a more casual filming environment.
“It’s not scripted to the letter,” Glenn Howerton explained in regards to the scripts. “We’re pretty loose with it. I mean, by the time the three of us—Rob, myself and Charlie—take a pass through every script, it is tightly scripted but one of the freedoms that we enjoy on this show that I think not a lot of other actors do, is that we can improvise around the script with complete and total freedom because we are the producers of the show. We don’t have to ask anyone for permission. We tried to set that environment from the very, very beginning. It was very important to us to have the show feel like it was spontaneous, like this was the first time these words were coming out of any of these people’s mouths. So we do strive for that.”
There are many recurring characters on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia—including Rickety Cricket, the Waitress and the McPoyle brothers—that have become almost as popular as the main cast themselves. One of them, however, is an alter-ego of Charlie Kelly, the Green Man. The concept of the Green Man has become a pop culture phenomenon, with regular people showing up at sporting events around the country dressed in the one-piece, head-to-foot outfit. According to Rob McElhenney, however, the origination of the character is actually based on reality, not the imagination of the writing staff.
“That’s a real guy,” McElhenney told the crowd at the Paley Media Center. “One of my best friends from high school, his name’s Joe Dwyer. I went with a whole group of friends to an Eagles game, a Monday night game, in which they beat the shit out of the Dallas Cowboys. And at the end of the game, we’re all half in the bag and we go back to tailgate, of course, because the game’s over and they won, so you tailgate some more. And as we’re celebrating and drinking and having a good time, he’s stripping down naked. Freezing, at night, in the middle of the night on Monday. He’s got work tomorrow, he’s a doctor, by the way. A doctor. And he’s putting on this very skintight suit. Nude. And as soon he puts on the head, I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He goes, ‘I’m the Green Man. I’m the Green Man, man. I’m the Green Man.’ And then he just walks around and people knew he was. ‘Hey Green Man! Hey Green Man, let me take a photo!’ And he would take the photos. So as soon as I got back, I said we have to put this in the show.”
“The moral of that story is, try not to ever get sick because that could be your doctor,” Charlie Day deadpanned after McElhenney finished his tale.
Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction, and controversial topics can be the funniest. The FX comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia may indeed push the boundaries on what is socially acceptable, but it is an intelligent and though-provoking sitcom nonetheless. Just like the cast members of the show, as the April 2009 PaleyFest event clearly demonstrates.
Anthony Letizia (September 7, 2011)
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