It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, American sitcom developed by Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton that premiered on FX in 2005 and moved to the network’s FXX channel in 2013. Starring McElhenney and Howerton as well as fellow actors Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an irreverent dark comedy about a group of friends who own and operate a dive bar in South Philadelphia. In its 16th season as of 2023, the series became the longest-running live-action sitcom in U.S. television history in 2021.

Premise and characters

It’s Always Sunny follows the exploits of “the Gang,” a group of crass, callous, and self-interested characters, all of whom are prone to fits of rage and spend their time drinking alcohol, arguing among themselves, and devising elaborate schemes to defraud (and sometimes terrorize) people around them, including one another. One-phrase summaries of their outlandish capers serve as the show’s episode titles, including “The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell,” “The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis,” and “Frank Shoots Every Member of the Gang.” In a 2008 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer, TV critic Jonathan Storm referred to the show as “Seinfeld on crack,” which caught on as one of the show’s taglines.

At the start of the series, three members of the Gang own shares in Paddy’s Pub, an unsuccessful Irish-themed dive bar in South Philadelphia. Bartender Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton), bouncer Ronald (“Mac”) McDonald (Rob McElhenney), and janitor Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) own and run Paddy’s with help from Dennis’s twin sister, Deandra (“Dee”) Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson). They are struggling to keep the run-down bar afloat. The twins’ millionaire absentee stepfather, Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito), joins the Gang in season two and takes a significant financial stake in the bar.

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Dennis is intensely vain, cold, and calculating, and he considers himself to be the smartest and the most attractive member of the Gang. He regularly attempts to manipulate those around him for personal gain. However, beneath his self-confident persona, Dennis is a deeply insecure individual whose self-worth depends on others perceiving him as attractive or popular.

Mac is obsessed with his tough-guy image and nonexistent prowess as a security guard. He is competitive, aggressive, and easily flattered about his fighting skills and his physical appearance. He lives with Dennis, with whom he is mired in codependency.

Dee is an untalented aspiring actress who, at the outset of the series, serves as the Gang’s voice of reason, earning the nickname “Sweet Dee.” However, she eventually devolves into a nearly irredeemably selfish, self-loathing target for the Gang’s verbal abuse who incessantly tries to snare a boyfriend through underhanded means. Dee also wants to become a stand-up comedian, although she often seizes up in fear and gags while attempting to deliver punch lines.

Charlie revels in the filth of the bar, regularly eating things unfit for human consumption and demonstrating poor hygiene. He cannot read and is often the least successful member of the Gang at assimilating into polite society. Despite this, the bar has never failed a health inspection under his watch, and he is a competent musician who writes and performs his own songs throughout the show, including the semi-autobiographical musical The Nightman Cometh that the Gang performs in the final episode of season four.

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Although Frank is independently wealthy, he prefers to live in squalor with Charlie on a pull-out couch in a one-bedroom apartment, where they eat cat food and huff glue before bed each night. Although Frank refers to Dennis and Dee as his kids, he has given up posing as their father figure and prefers to be considered as one of the Gang. Frank bankrolls the majority of the Gang’s schemes and is constantly pursuing fraudulent business ventures.

Throughout the series, it becomes clear that all five members of the Gang misuse alcohol, and many of them also have other substance use issues. This is often played for laughs, as in the season nine episode “The Gang Gets Quarantined,” in which the Gang tries to avoid the flu by holing up in the bar and deciding to abstain from drinking alcohol. They all fall ill with what they think is the flu, but when they go back to drinking alcohol they become well again, concluding that they had made themselves sick by withdrawing from alcohol.

Background

It’s Always Sunny originated as a short film directed by McElhenney and starring Day and Howerton, who had all met in Los Angeles as underemployed actors. In the film, a man (played by Howerton) goes to his friend’s (Day) home to borrow some sugar. He learns that his friend has cancer, and, unfazed, he just wants to get the sugar and leave. The short film expanded into a pilot for a series about a group of friends who care very little for one another. Originally, the characters were all out-of-work actors, but when FX decided that it did not want a series about show business, the characters were rewritten as owners of a dive bar in Philadelphia. DeVito’s character was added after the first season in a bid to add comedic star power and boost the show’s ratings.

Aesthetic

Although the show’s production values have improved over time, It’s Always Sunny has a home-movie feel to capture the Gang’s chaotic vibe; each episode is filmed in a handful of days with three or four handheld cameras recording simultaneously. The Gang’s vulgar and cynical activities are ironically punctuated by smooth orchestral production music intended to disarm the audience. It’s Always Sunny also displays absurdist characteristics, such as elaborate dream sequences, hallucinations, and conflicts in which each character gravitates toward the most extreme possible outcomes of everyday situations.

Critical reception

Although the series has received extensive critical acclaim, It’s Always Sunny has not performed well on the awards circuits, receiving a handful of nominations for People’s Choice Awards and Satellite Awards but never winning a single major award. It’s Always Sunny has received Creative Arts Emmy nods for stunt coordination but has never been nominated for the higher-profile awards given at the main, televised ceremony. Members of the Gang poked fun at their lack of Emmy recognition while presenting an award during the 2023 Emmy Awards ceremony, with Day asking the audience, “Have you guys been doing this every single year without us?”