Why It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the best US sitcom

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http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/201...as-best-sitcom

As it embarks on a historic 14th series, Hannah Woodhead pays tribute to a comedy that is cynical, nihilistic – and perfect for the times we live in.

By Hannah Woodhead

24 September 2019

In a 2012 poll conducted by 60 Minutes and Vanity Fair, Seinfeld was voted the greatest American sitcom of all time, edging out tough competition from the likes of The Honeymooners, Friends, Cheers and Arrested Development. The “show about nothing”, created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, ran for nine seasons from 1989 until it ended in 1998, but clearly still lives large in US viewers’ consciousness. So too does Friends, which has just turned 25 and is still the subject of formidable bidding wars between streaming services hungry for the re-run rights.

However, there is another show about a group of quirky friends living in one of the US’s biggest cities that has quietly become a phenomenon in their wake. It eschews both the middle-class minutiae of Seinfeld, and the will-they-won’t-they romances of Friends – in favour of crystal meth, kitten mittens, and accidental kidnappings. In the process, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has become the best sitcom in the US, tackling everything from gun reform to Time’s Up with an irreverent, unmistakable lens. It’s also become one of its longest-running – this week the show returns for a historic 14th season, a feat only matched by the rather more wholesome 1950s classic The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.

The show comes from humble beginnings. It was initially conceived as a short film after its stars and co-creators Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day met in Los Angeles, where they were all out-of-work actors trying to catch a break. The concept was simple – as Howerton explained to the New York Times in a 2007 interview, it was to focus on “a group of friends who care so little for each other”.

It’s Always Sunny centres on a group of terrible friends who run Paddy’s Pub together, including Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Charlie (Charlie Day) (Credit: Alamy)

Utilising their inordinate amount of free time as unemployed thespians, they cobbled together a pilot episode, shot on a digital camcorder with no budget. After shopping their homemade DVD to various networks, it was enough to convince Fox subsidiary channel FX to give them the go-ahead for a full series. But while the per-episode budget of $450,000 was a considerable improvement on nothing, it was still less than a third of the network standard, positioning the show as an underdog right from the off.