It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia will outlive even the cockroaches
TV Features It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Finally something we can happily shout “four more years” about.
As part of its deluge of news dropped Thursday afternoon during an investors call, insanely large conglomorate Disney announced that It’s Always In Philadelphia will be airing through at least season 18. This news extends the renewal FX announced in May, which brought Sunny to a record-breaking 15th season, by three more years. This only furthers the show’s lead against ABC’s The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet (which ran for 14 seasons) as the longest-running live-action comedy series of all time.
Sunny has a long way to go to surpass the longest-running live-action scripted series (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, with 22 seasons and counting) or the longest-running scripted series (The Simpsons, with 32 seasons and counting), but Sunny creator Rob McElhenney doesn’t envision running out of ideas any time soon. “We just turn on the news, man. Look online, look at social media,” he told The A.V. Club last year. “There’s no shortage of the places the human condition can take you to satirize.” With inspiration in large supply, the only other hurdle is scheduling, which McElhenney has expressed is no concern now that Sunny is a well-oiled machine and production of an entire season can be condensed into just a few months, allowing the entire cast—including Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito—to do any other projects they please (like McElhenney, who balanced season 14 of Sunny with his Apple TV+ series, Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet).
We know someone somewhere is crafting an interpretive dance in celebration of all this news.
65 Comments
Still has a long way to go to outlive the longest running unscripted series, Meet the Press (1947-Present).
I look forward to the episode where they cover the 2020 Election.
The Gang Steals the Vote
They’re definitely doing something where Frank tries to collect mail in ballots for… some reason.
Maybe recycling the Philly Bar Awards storyline, this time with a new plan on winning either through ballot manipulation, or taking it to the courts…omg, I can already hear Charlie doing his best Giuliani in a courtroom… the episode is writing itself.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping is in Philadelphia FFS!
lol, yeah, I heard mention somewhere that they are planning on shooting there for the next season.
So they make it Four Regions Total Manscaping for the episode.
You gotta have Frank acting like Guiliani in court so he can dye his hair and have the dye start pouring down his face. Seriously, that’s a no-brainer.
And instead of having a press conference in front of a landscaping firm, it’s gotta be a manscaping firm that does bikini waxing for men and they see Dennis walking out from his weekly appointment in the background.
The Gang Saves DemocracyI think is what you meant to say here
You know this is already written and waiting.
I’ve been having that same thought since Election Night.
I hope it goes on forever
The only issue I see with Sunny is how long Danny DeVito wants to keep working, as he’s 76 and TV productions have long hours. There’s just no way they could possibly continue without Frank in the Gang.
I mean, they started without him and I loved the show, so I think they could manage.
While I agree pre-DeVi was definitely great, his addition really sealed the legendary status of The Gang. I’m with Bart, if Danny retires, I say end Sunny (but I’m still hoping that will be with a monumental Season 20).*end obscene rhyming scheme*
Well I think they still schedule his scenes in a two week schedule as they always have, so I think he’ll be fine.
While it would be a big loss, I think the show is much bigger than Frank (and, honestly, Franks death would have the potential of being the greatest Sunny episode of all time).
I’m pretty sure that the rest of the gang would be happy to kill him if it would make a good episode. No need to wait for it to happen naturally!
That’s true, it did have a whole season without him as well.
And at least one other episode where he’s just not there, when they kidnap Fisher Steven’s critic character.
Yeah I was about to say that, this show and the Simpsons are the shows I worry about most being robbed of a good ending because one of the stars simply couldn’t outlive the show. (arguably the Simpsons has already lost too many for it to be the same) Also damn, he’s that old?! I thought he was still in his 60’s
Also damn, he’s that old?! I thought he was still in his 60’s Or, for another perspective, he’s three years younger than one Dr. Fauci. Some people’s clocks are wound up for the long haul and they’re highly engaged in what they’re doing at what seems like a quite old age. Just yesterday, after seeing one of the guest appearances by Judd Hirsch (85 — and regular cast member George Segal is a year older) on The Goldbergs, my wife and I were wondering why Taxi isn’t a lot more prominent on the rerun channels. And now that seems rather poignant, as it seemed to have a disproportionate number of actors who died well before their time, so much so in the case of Andy Kaufman that, incontext of his comedic persona, supposedly some people wondered if the announcement of it was some sort of gag.But I digress…
He also just likes the show, and McElhenney said one of the things he learned from him was to surround yourself with young people to keep things fresh and forward-facing. Plus, as has been said, he works like two weeks a year. I’m pretty sure I could manage that “grind” well after I was officially retired.
Andy Kaufman, Jeff Conaway and … ? Randall Carver’s career?
The third I was thinking of is J. Alan Thomas, who passed in 2007 at age 56.
Maybe they could just do a Weekend at Bernie’s scenario. But they’d need to put the sunglasses on Frank. Without the sunglasses, Weekend at Bernie’s would have been a very dark, strange tale.Or just throw him in the trash. It’s what Frank wants anyway.
Good news. Celebrate!
Is this a milksteak kind of celebration? Perhaps a nice rum ham?
But there’s no need for clapping. This is not a clapping event.
Bring back the Martina Martinez episodes! And Lethal Weapon Six.
1000% agreed! The only silver-lining I can see is the possibility of them doing an episode about PC over-censorship which skates the razorsharp thin line and having the episode banned post-release to hammer the point home.
I think if they do fanservice-y shit like this, that’s going to be the death knell of the show. The last few seasons have excelled from taking the series in completely unexpected directions, like Mac’s coming out, or the fact that they’ve subtly pointed out that a lot of their angsty shit from early on was super undeveloped (I’m looking at you, “Mac dating the trannie” arc, or Martina Martinez).
I mean, they’ve done it before. Green man was in a couple of episodes.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t do something that fans respond to, I’m saying that should not be the purpose of the series. The show is amazing right now for the boundaries it pushes, not doing a brownface episode to make fun of cancel culture- IASIP is above your typical South Park antics.
I doubt Lethal Weapon *7* could happen, since Glenn or Rob would have to wear blackface again.
Pedantically, “longest-running show” should be quantified by number of produced minutes of content, not number of episodes or number of seasons.
I know…Ozzie & Harriet had a whopping 435 episodes in 14 seasons while Always Sunny has a mere 153. Damn they did a lot of episodes in the old days.
“It’s my favorite show. It ran for 16 years on the BBC, they did nearly 30 episodes.”
Last of the Summer Wine is the longest-running live-action comedy series of all time.
No it just FELT like it was going on forever;).I’d thought that most of the cast had passed on though , seeing as they were advanced in years to start off with…
I think the last season I watched was 11, maybe? Once they recycled the Wade Boggs episode but with like 1/3rd the funny I pretty much checked out.
Agreed. I just recently blew through 14 seasons of this show. I can say that I didn’t laugh once after season 10. The show was never consistently funny for me, but at least each season had some good episodes mixed in with the weaker ones. But after season 10, there were no more good episodes. Not sure what happened there…Glenn Howerton starting up on A.P. Bio? Kaitlin Olson doing The Mick? Was everyone just too distracted to put 100% into Always Sunny beyond season 10? Season 7 was the height of this show, in my opinion. Frank’s Pretty Woman and The Gang Goes To The Jersey Shore were absolutely top notch.
I think it was a combination of Howerton and Olson working on their other projects and the ideas just running short. Also they kinda tried to rehab the images of the characters, which is in no way what I want to see in a show that is about horrible people doing hilarious shit.
Also, the show has a distinct lack of McPoyles in the later seasons. I’d watch a spin-off series about Liam, Ryan, and Margaret. I think season 3 is when those three held the bar hostage? Best McPoyle episode so far.
Good point lol
Have we seen the McPoyles since the trial of the century?
yup, and it was great watching the shyster lawyer get put in his place by Charlie.
Can’t speak for Ryan, but Liam has been rather busy with other, more prestigous roles.
Wtf. The water park ep? The ski ep? The suburbs ep?
There have been a lot of really awful episodes the past few seasons, but the recent ones that Megan Ganz writes have all been terrific. It seems like they have a lot of new writers—-seen a lot of people’s names under “Written By” i’ve never seen before.“Time’s Up for the Gang” is a top 10 episode, all time.
This is one of those shows I always intended to get around to watching, but the longer it goes on, the more daunting a task it seems to start.
It’s good in small doses, otherwise, it gets annoying really quick. I made the mistake of binge watching the first couple of seasons. After that, An episode here and there. I found the same thing with Arrested Development.
I just rewatched AD a few weeks ago. It hasn’t aged well, IMHO. Will Arnett’s character really grates on me nowadays.But Tony Hale—-I forgot how good he was in that show. Still made me laugh out loud.Only one-upped by his performance in Veep.
My rule of thumb with any comedy I find myself liking is to watch one or two episodes at a time. YMMV, but I started to find if I marathoned comedies to “catch up” the stuff that normally would get a belly laugh was just sort of a chuckle.Sure, it means I’m still slowly working through Parks and Rec, and may never finish this if I start..but at least I don’t take a genuinely fun show and ruin it for myself.
It’s not really linear, you can watch any episode and you’ll pick it up quick. It’s kinda like Seinfeld, but the “gang” is much more stupid and terrible. I’d still start from early episodes though, since some of the side characters might have you wonder what the heck their deal is, like Cricket or the McPoyles.
The devolution of Cricket definitely needs to be started at the beginning.
There’s only about 10 episodes a season, which is less than most shows that have 20+ eps.
Obligatory “How about a crazy wedding? Sweet Dee becomes a robot?” post.
Charlie gets a cellphone?!?
Did someone say long-lost triplets?
The Gang Gets a PPP Loan
Can’t remember, has the gang gone Qanon yet? If not, looking forward to that. Make it a two-parter!