Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Always 'Sunny'?

Philly-based sitcom begins 9th season, with 10th already a go. An 11th?

This publicity photo released by FX shows, from left, Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds, Rob McElhenney as Mac, Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds, Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly and Kaitlin Olson as Dee Reynolds in Episode 5, "The Gang Gets Analyzed" from the TV show, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which airs Thursday, November 8, 10:00 pm EDT/PDT. (AP Photo, FX, Patrick McElhenney)
This publicity photo released by FX shows, from left, Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds, Rob McElhenney as Mac, Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds, Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly and Kaitlin Olson as Dee Reynolds in Episode 5, "The Gang Gets Analyzed" from the TV show, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which airs Thursday, November 8, 10:00 pm EDT/PDT. (AP Photo, FX, Patrick McElhenney)Read moreAP

* IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA. 10 p.m. today, FXX.

NINE YEARS ago last month, FX added two half-hour comedies to a lineup known for dramas like "The Shield" and "Nip/Tuck."

One, "Starved," about the members of an eating-disorders support group, was canceled after seven episodes.

The other was "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

The show about a group of self-absorbed friends running a South Philly bar - created by St. Joe's Prep grad Rob McElhenney and sold to FX with a video that famously cost only a few hundred dollars - enters its ninth season today as the flagship for a new comedy-oriented spin-off channel, FXX.

It's already guaranteed a 10th season, and its 100th episode - a milestone few shows set in Philly reach - is scheduled for Oct. 9.

Who saw that coming?

Former "Taxi" star Danny DeVito, who joined the cast in Season 2, says he did. Kind of.

"We were all very positive about it, and I felt really great about it," from the beginning, he told reporters. "How it started, really, dawning on me that we were going to be a long-running show is that we never got nominated for anything, and we never got any awards. So, I always figured that's really a good sign. You are going to make some dough."

The awards issue will be addressed in an upcoming episode, but if you want predictions, check with DeVito. Because I'm the one who nine years ago praised "Starved" for creator and star Eric Schaeffer's "strong vision" and "peculiar world view" while damning "Sunny" with faint praise. I admired its "energy," but concluded that "Sunny" wasn't "funny enough often enough to justify its rather labored envelope-pushing, even if its episodes on abortion and underage drinking both had their moments."

Going for 'broke'

That "It's Always Sunny" now makes me laugh more than cringe is an enduring mystery, because it's not as if any of the characters have changed.

The people who play them have, of course. McElhenney, who plays Mac, married co-star Kaitlin Olson ("Sweet Dee") in 2008, and they have two sons. His co-stars and fellow executive producers, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day, also have married (Day to Mary Elizabeth Ellis, who's had a recurring role as "The Waitress") and become fathers during the show's run. Offscreen, they're grown-ups. Onscreen, they're still pretty much insane.

Though sometimes one life may bleed into another - literally in the case of Olson, who was nursing a leg injury when the cast visited Philadelphia in mid-June to shoot scenes for this season.

"Can I put my leg on you?" she asked Howerton as the pair, who play twins on the show, sat down for an interview between takes of a scene at 9th and Green streets that's part of next week's episode.

She'd cut it on a metal grate while filming back in Los Angeles, she said, describing it as looking "way worse" then.

"It was wide open. We were shooting . . . in like an abandoned power plant. It was very dangerous."

Added Howerton: "Really dangerous, really dirty, and she caught the brunt of it."

Not that Olson catching the brunt of things is new: Dee Reynolds isn't one of those female sitcom characters who exist to be the voice of reason or to make the guys look more like, well, guys. In eight seasons, she's gotten as down and dirty as anyone, and in tonight's season premiere, "The Gang Broke Dee," she stops washing altogether.

Though, as Howerton sees it, things are looking up for Dee, "who actually starts to gain a little bit of success" as a stand-up. "It's bigger than you'd think for any of our characters," he said. "Which is kind of cool. It's a little bit of a departure."

In real life, Olson's done stand-up exactly once.

"You did?" asked Howerton.

"I did," Olson said. "Hated it. Just absolutely hated it. I don't like to not be funny. I like to know that at least in my opinion I am going to be funny. So I don't care for things that are unpredictable like that."

A new network

The move to a new network doesn't seem to worry her, or anyone on "Sunny," though.

Olson, who can, yes, say "FXX" three times fast, claimed not to have even known about it until the time came to shoot promos for the new season.

"People find their shows more than they find their networks," said Day, when reporters at a news conference in Beverly Hills last month asked about the move.

DeVito agreed. "I remember when we did 'Taxi,' the big fear was ABC would move us from one night to the next."

"I would be a little bit more nervous if we were in Season 1 or Season 2 or Season 3," McElhenney told me during the show's visit in June. "But I think, at this point we're pretty well-established. We have our fan base and I don't think anybody's going anywhere."

And he understands FX's position, he said.

"I think they really were in an interesting dilemma, where they had these shows that were polarizing in so many ways and were in a lot of respects so geared toward different demographics that they weren't entirely positive how to market, and brand, their entire network," he said.

FXX targets 18- to 34-year-olds, while FX will keep shows like "The Americans" and "Justified" and "American Horror Story."

That 100th episode can be a big one for many shows, with stunts often planned to promote them. But as recently as early August, McElhenney didn't even know which episode would air Oct. 9.

"We've already shot them all, but because you can kind of interchange our episodes, because the characters never grow or learn or change or evolve, we're not really sure which one it's going to be."

Ninjas cost

Season 10's already ordered for 2014, but whether there's a Season 11 may come down to money, according to FX Networks CEO John Landgraf.

"It's become quite an expensive show to produce," and not just because actors on long-running shows usually earn more.

"Look, I just saw an episode that had an entire ninja fight, like 20 ninjas," Landgraf said. "Like, really, the canvas of it was tiny [when it started]. We used to make it with prosumer cameras; we made it for nothing. And now, it's a kind of expensive show to produce, and so we'll just have to struggle with whether we can figure out [a way to continue] economically."

Creatively, Landgraf's happy.

"What really surprises me . . . is that I actually have seen in the last month some of the best episodes they've ever made, and I'm really shocked by how vital the show is creatively and how inspired they are at the moment," he said. "I saw an episode last week that had an entire animated sequence in it that was brilliant."

One thing that hasn't changed for "Sunny" is its commitment to shooting at least some of the show in Philly. "It's worth it to us" to bring in the entire cast, McElhenney said in June.

"At the beginning of the season, we realized that there wasn't going to be a ton of material [that required location filming here] and the question came up, should we not go to Philly? And we didn't go last year [when Olson had their second son] and we felt like, look, this is the heart of the show. We have to go. If only to shoot three scenes. If we have to write material to make it work, we need to make it work. Because there is no 'Sunny' without Philly."

On Twitter: @elgray

Blog: ph.ly/EllenGray