The Gang is back for more “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” tonight on FX

By Stacey Harrison


Dead hookers, dramatic weight gain and a drug-fueled crime rampage are just part and parcel with every new season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The riotous FX comedy returns for its seventh go-round tonight at 10pm with an episode called “Frank’s Pretty Woman,” in which Frank (Danny DeVito) decides he wants to marry his longtime beck-and-call girl, a junkie whore named Roxy (Alanna Ubach). Viewers will also finally get to see in all its corpulent glory the extra 50 pounds star Rob McElhenney packed on for this season. He says it was intentional — achieved through a high-calorie diet that included six to eight donuts a day — but I’m still wondering whether it was just new-daddy weight. He and Kaitlin Olson, who plays Sweet Dee, did just have a baby last year.

McElhenney spoke with reporters this week about the elephant in the room (in this case, him), his favorite episode of the season and why the show hasn’t gotten old yet:

On the weight gain: “I was watching a popular sitcom, and I noticed that the actors were getting better looking as the years were going by, and I started to think about any show that I have ever seen in which that wasn’t the case. I feel like shows in their sixth, seventh, and eighth season, the actors have a lot more money, they become a little bit more famous, and they have better access to better wardrobe, new hair, new teeth, sometimes plastic surgery. And, I thought how untrue of life that was, that especially characters like this who abuse themselves in so many different ways, would start to look — would start to deteriorate over time and certainly wouldn’t look better. And, our goal has always been to try and do what’s not being done on television, and literally deconstructing the sitcom. So, where most sitcoms try to make the characters as lovable and likable, and as far I’m concerned, as fake as possible, we try to go the opposite, which is to make them as deplorable as possible, just to see if we can get away with it. And, it seems like the audience responds to that. So, for me, it wasn’t just about getting overweight, it was about trying to look as unattractive as I possibly could. So, it was as if, what would happen if the character would completely just let himself go and his age caught up to him? So, I grew a disgusting beard, I didn’t wash my hair, and I was 50 pounds overweight, and yet the character still thought he looked good. That to me was funny. Simply getting overweight, that would be just a stunt, and that wasn’t very funny to me.”

On his favorite episode of the season: “Well, one of the episodes I’m really, really proud of, and I think it’s really funny is — a few of our writers were really into the show Toddlers and Tiaras,  which is about a children’s beauty pageant, and we thought, ‘Man, that would be really funny to see these characters in a situation like that.’ And, we’re always trying to do more musical episodes, because we had such a great response to our past musical episodes, like ‘Nightman Cometh,’ and when we started the band. So, this was an opportunity to kind of fuse the two together, and I think that will be our third episode of the season.”

On whether the show ever goes too far: “We have a really sensitive barometer for that, and ultimately we have a rule, which is, if it comes across as the characters being mean and abusive, then it’s funny. But, if it comes across as the writers or the creator or the producers being abusive or mean, then it’s not funny. And, I think ultimately the audience can tell the difference.”

On whether he’s ever felt a script betrayed one of the characters: “No, pretty much because our characters would do anything if it suited their needs in the moment. So like, even forms of like great altruism, or any acts of great altruism, would still play regardless of how deplorable our characters were if they felt like it was going to garner them what they wanted in that particular moment. Because, then you buy it, because you know what the motivation is, even if in the moment the motivation is selfless, you know ultimately it’s going to be selfish.”

On whether he has a series finale in mind: “Well, originally we did. And, what we found is that we just kept thinking that the show was going to get old after awhile as most sitcoms do, but I think we have a couple of things on our side. One is that we don’t do 22 or 24 episodes like most sitcoms. We’ve done as few as seven and as many as 15. But we’ve never exceeded 15, and I think that that’s helped us just from a content standpoint. … So it’s not about the amount of years, it’s more about the amount of episodes. And, every time I kind of mention to fans, ‘Hey, do you think that this is going to get old?’ they keep saying, ‘Well, it hasn’t gotten old, yet.’ So, our feeling is, if we can keep making the episodes and people keep watching them, then we’ll try to do it as long as possible, and I think a barometer for us will be each year saying, ‘Is this episode as good or better than the season before it?’ And, if the answer is no we’ll have to think about wrapping it up. And, if it is, we’ll keep making them. And, as of now we’re under contract for at least two more.”

On the show’s future: “We actually we just signed an overall deal for the next two years with an option for the 10th season, so we’re definitely coming back for Seasons 8 and 9. And, what we’re going to do is, cut the order back to ten episodes, at least for Season 8. We’re not sure about Season 9. And, ultimately that’s because we want to make sure that the quality of the show stays up to par, and ultimately we’d all love to do 15, 20 episodes, because it would be incredibly lucrative. But, I think, really when it comes down to it we don’t want to ever feel like we’ve sold out our fans. And as frustrating as it might be for us and for the fans to only get to watch 10 episodes, and for us to only make 10 episodes next year, I think, ultimately, it will keep the quality of the show up. And, to me, I believe that this season, the seventh season, is our strongest season yet. Which to me, it makes me incredibly optimistic for the future.”

On guest stars he’d like to have on the show: “We worked on John Tesh for awhile, but that didn’t work out. That would be amazing. We had a couple — this year we have  Kings of Leon, which we’re super excited about. They’re friends of ours, and they were really interested in doing an episode of the show, so we wrote them in something really cool in the season finale.”

Photo: Credit: Joey L./FX