Know Your Show: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia #AtoZChallenge

This post is part of my #A2ZChallenge for April 2016 where my theme is TV Sitcoms.

For the letter I, I choose It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Premise:

 A bunch of self-centered friends run an Irish pub, doing their best to get into trouble at every given opportunity.

Why you will hate that you love this show:

1) The gold standard of dark comedy today on Television. The stars of this show are all sociopaths of the highest order.

2) Ill-informed, narcissistic, everything-phobic, scheming, self absorbed, conceited. No, I am not talking about Donald Trump though the resemblance is scary. So yes, this is a show about a lot of underachieving Donald Trumps together.

3) It is precisely what makes them so funny. They have such high opinions of themselves and go to any lengths to preserve it, be it seducing a priest, blowing up a building, hiding naked inside leather couches to spy on others or blackmailing.

4) Into it's 12 season now, the show created by lead actor Glenn Howerton is the second longest running live-action comedy sitcom in television history.

5) A usual sight in this show is to see the group make a Mountain Volcano out of a molehill. 

This monologue by the 'leader of the Gang' sums it up best:

"We immediately escalate everything to a ten... somebody comes in with some preposterous plan or idea, then all of a sudden everyone's on the gas, nobody's on the brakes, nobody's thinking, everyone's just talking over each other with one idiotic idea after another! Until, finally, we find ourselves in a situation where we've broken into somebody's house – and the homeowner is home!"

6) You do not want your kids to watch this show. There is no nudity or profanity but they should not learn anything from these evil people. You, on the other hand, will enjoy chuckling at them and identifying who in your life behaves like this.

7) Each one brings a unique 'evil' in addition to the 'Gang collective':

• Dennis, the 'leader' is a sociopath with a huge ego.
• Mac, pretends to be the muscle, chickening out often when needed leaving his friends high and dry.
• Charlie is the dim-witted one who is also a substance abuser and obsessed with a woman.
• Deandra, Dennis's sister suffers major inferiority issues because of the constant mocking and disregard by the others. She ends up being the fall guy when their plans go south.
• Frank (actor Danny De Vito) as Dennis and Deandra's father is the weirdest dad you could hope to find, encouraging their poorly planned schemes.

8) Extremely binge watchable. When ratings were poor due to lack of awareness initially, channel FX released the episodes on Hulu so that viewers could see the show more easily. Demand grew so much that today it is the most watched show on the channel and Comedy Central shelled out $33 million dollars for the rights. Not bad for a show which was rumoured to have shot the first episode (shot to entice studios)  was made on a paltry budget of $200/-. Turns out the rumours were wrong. It was actually shot for only $85/-.

9) The advantage of having a dark comedy like this is that it shines a mirror on topics you would be afraid to discuss. Be it Jihad, religion, child abuse, prostitution or what not, this show will go there. And in mocking the stereotypes, it forces you to see right and wrong probably better than a news channel debate would. 

10) Personal opinion: This is a guilty pleasure. You can't stop watching as this mad cap set drive each other and everyone who touches their lives insane. So just enjoy the depravity and don't learn any moral lessons from these people.

If aliens were to judge us based solely upon this show:

They would murder us to save the galaxy. Who could blame them?

Trivia:

• A common gag in the show is Charlie Day's unhealthy obsession with a woman simply called 'The Waitress' and how much she detests him and lusts for Dennis. In real life ironically, Charlie & the waitress are a married couple. Kaitlin Olson, who plays the forever harassed sister of the lead sociopath Dennis, also ended up marrying co-star Mac.
• The actors playing brother and sister on the show ended up co-owning an actual bar in Philadelphia, just like in the show.

To see all the shows  I have talked about till date, please CLICK HERE.