Why "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is the best comedy show.
"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is currently running its 15th season making it the longest-running live-action comedy series in American television history.
ASIP was launched in the year 2005 by 3 friends who struggle to find any acting gig so they made a few videos for fun and pitched it to several television networks. All the major networks refused but FX which was then every new and hardly had any viewership they accepted and asked them to make a whole season with $200 bucks.
In season 1 the viewership wasn't good at all, According to Rob McElhenney who created the show told Daily Show that season 1 was not watched by anyone but the FX network liked the show and didn't want to cancel it so they asked the group to include someone with a famous name so they brought Danny DeVito which was quite a popular actor and had done big movies like L.A. Confidential, Taxi (TV series) and many other.
Season 2 viewership wasn't as bad as Season 1 but the group lacked connection with Danny DeVito. The network also asked them to shift from Los Angles to somewhere else as a lot of famous shows already had similar premises, So they shifted to Philadelphia home of the show's creator Rob McElhenney.
The premise of the show was changed from jobless actors to bar owners in Philadelphia where the group comes up with different planes to pass their time. According to Rob McElhenney, the premise needed a group of people with a lot of time in their hands, this could be anyone from bar owners to jobless actors.
The series follows "The Gang", a group of five misfit friends: twins Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Deandra "(Sweet) Dee" Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), their friends Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) and Ronald "Mac" McDonald (Rob McElhenney), and (from season 2 onward) Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito), Dennis' and Dee's legal father. The Gang runs the fictional Paddy's Pub, an unsuccessful Irish bar in South Philadelphia. They all had different jobs in Pub Like Charlie Kelly was a janitor, Mac was the bodyguard, Dennis was the bartender and his sister Dee was the waitress and Frank Reynolds is the manager but none of them actually worked they all come up with different plans to not do their boring jobs.
Season 3 was where they started to work as a group and writers gave each character good roles to showcase their talent. One of my favorite episodes was in S7 "The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatt McGoo" in this the group goes to their college reunion with Frank (Dennis and Dee's Father) who tries to fit in with the group but gets immediately ignored once the group finds their high school friends. The group all had suffered a lot of bullying in their young years so they each comes up with a plan to confront their bullies. This gets funnier when Dee ditches the gang to join the bullies. We even see Dennis's psycho side. They show how each of them recalls the events that shaped them into the people they are now.
The Nightman Cometh (S4 E13) is also a major fan favorite and had gathered a lot of attention. The premise was the gang helps Charlie in his musical in which he proposes the waitress which she declines. The actors actually did The Nightman Cometh live in Philadelphia which was a sold-out event.
In my opinion, This show is the opposite of every television you have watched which is even funnier the plot of the show is unique and very funny. Must watch
Available on Hotstar (India) & FXX Hulu in the US
