The year is 1776, and the floor of Paddy’s Irish Pub lays covered in hay. A row of dimly lit lanterns illuminate Sweet Dee, Dennis and Mac, who even in the 18th century doesn’t appear to like sleeves. Dee is stabbing her brother in the arm. Over and over again. Sound confusing? Probably not, if you’re a fan of the FX comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In fact, even the flashback to 1776, as told by Dee, Mac and Dennis on a quest to make their bar into a historical landmark, is so full of smutty jokes and references to bottom sex that there is no mistaking this show for any other.
The upcoming season, which premieres on Sept. 18, has Charlie and Dee getting addicted to human meat, the cast exploring the nation’s dire health care and gas crisis, “not dealing” with pedophilia, and dealing with the universal dilemma of who pooped the bed. By the time Dennis ends up in rehab with Rob Thomas and Sinbad, nothing will surprise you. Trust us.
After watching their homeless friend Cricket’s head get blown into a million pieces, we sat down with certifiably nuts Kaitlin Olson, Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day to discuss whether anything –ever- is off limits.
Hollywood.com: So where did the idea for this episode come from?
Rob: Well, we wanted to do a flashback episode for a really long time, but we weren’t sure how to get into it. It actually stemmed from us going to Philly and taking historical tours. We were thinking how interesting it would be if we decided to try to make our bar a historical landmark and to be a part of the walking tour to get people to come into the bar and get drunk. So we told the story about how Paddy’s played a part in the American Revolution.
Check out our exclusive photos from the set!
HW: And how was it decided that Dee would be a slave?
Kaitlin: Why not? Isn’t that what you would guess? They think I’m a witch. A straight-up broom witch.
Rob: Well, we mix our history up a little bit. We’re telling the story to a woman who is the head of the historical society and we kind of mix our histories together.
HW: So the next step would be logically to do the future episode, right?
Kaitlin: Mmm, space?
Rob: We thought about that, but then we feel like that limits us for how we want to end the show.
Kaitlin: We’d have to end it in like Year Eight Million.
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HW: We just watched you do about 15 takes. On average, does Take One make the show or do you use Take Ten?
Kaitlin: Somewhere at like number seven is where it’s good.
Rob: Yeah, it depends, we never know. I mean, sometimes we use the take that’s scripted and we just do it as is and sometimes take ten that has nothing to do with the script whatsoever.
HW: You have Danny (DeVito) for a certain amount of time and you also go to Philly. Is it really hard to keep your mind around you’re filming multiple episodes at the same time?
Glenn: We’ve had the advantage of not only just writing it, but also acting it. Because when we write, we’re basically acting everything, the three of us. Not only our roles, but everybody else’s roles, too, so we have the advantage of knowing the script but knowing how we want to play the scene.
Read our review of the season four premiere “Mac and Dennis: Manhunters”
HW: Do you find it stressful wearing so many hats?
Charlie: Well, it’s stressful because the buck stops here. You know? I think anytime something’s not going well, you can’t say, oh, well, the stupid writer or the stupid directors didn’t get this right, you know? You can’t point a finger at anyone else, although we do. Point fingers constantly. But I guess the stress is something that we set on ourselves, with the expectation of the episodes.
HW: When you were writing the episode about who pooped the bed, how much of that is based on what happens to you guys outside of the series?
Charlie: Only the poop part.
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HW: Is it cool to have more characters like that you can pull back in once in a while?
Charlie: I think that’s the charm of any successful television series. That you sort of know and love this world and it exists within the 20 minutes that you watch. Seinfeld was like that, with all the characters coming in and out, and the Simpsons did it better than any show out there with all of their lovable characters. And you know, Cheers. They all did it, they all did it. So how could you not do it?
HW: What’s Rob Thomas doing on the show this season?
Glenn: He teams up with Sinbad –
HW: Sinbad the comedian?
Glenn: I run into them in a rehab facility. They’re in rehab. They’ve ruined their lives with drugs and alcohol. And Sinbad has made Rob Thomas his bitch in the rehab and he sets about trying to make me his bitch, also.
HW: You guys certainly push boundaries on your show. What can fans look forward to in this upcoming season?
Glenn: Well, what we’ve discovered when we for the most part ran out of these largely-themed worldwide taboos and things that people deal with, like abortion, was that you can pretty much take it to the limit with even the smallest of subjects. We’re doing some very simple episodes this year. We’re doing an entire episode that is literally just about Charlie finding out that the waitress is dating somebody else. And the entire episode then revolves around who is going to help him, who is best suited to help him, who is his best friend? And then the whole episode kind of becomes about ‘am I best friends with Charlie or is Mac best friends with Charlie?’ Who is best friends with who?
Charlie: This year we went after what’s going on with the gas crisis in America and what’s going on with the mortgage crisis.
Kaitlin: You can do that type of humor with anything. It doesn’t have to be those big universal things like abortion and whatever. You can take anything and if you explore it well you can make it funny.
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HW: Is there something that you won’t do? Like a subject that you will never write about?
Glenn: I don’t think so. I mean, that’s an interesting question. We’ve never found any. We’re doing an entire episode this year that is dealing with rape and pedophilia. So I mean, uh…
HW: Do you guys get a lot of support from FX and feel like everyone will let you take it as far as you want to take it?
Rob: FX is always encouraging us to make the show that we want to make, you know. And they always want us to do what’s not being done on television. So that doesn’t necessarily mean to push the limits or to push the buttons, because that’s not what we’re trying to do, we’re just trying to –
Kaitlin: Make it funny.
Glenn: The only thing that makes us laugh are things that surprise you, that shock you a little bit. And not for the sake of offending people or anything like that, it has nothing to do with that. We’re never trying to offend anyone or push boundaries or anything like that. And the fact that it’s unique is why the people that find the show funny actually find it funny. The jokes are a little bit…they throw you off balance a little bit.
