Charlie’s Beard is GONE…so That’s a Wrap!

Today the cast of Sunny made an appearance at Cosm in Los Angeles to watch and support Wrexham, Rob’s football team, in a match against Barnsley. Their appearance wasn’t televised (though it surely will make it into the upcoming season of Welcome to Wrexham) but thanks to the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers popping by, we got a great pic of the Gang:

(Danny was also in attendance, but not pictured here) 

What I'm sure sticks out to everyone almost immediately is the fact that Charlie Day has gone completely beardless. If this were any other time of the year, I could shrug this off, but this is filming season! As far as we’re aware, they’re right in the middle of shooting Season 17 (in fact, Rob posted a video just yesterday from on-set), so what the hell is going on with Charlie’s bald face? Should we assume he’s wrapped filming? There’s no way Charlie Kelly is losing his iconic beard, right?

Well, ScreenRant was able to procure an answer for us only a few hours after this photo dropped, as Rob told one of their Interviewers onsite, “We just finished Season 17, or actually, tomorrow is our last day of production on Season 17. And then we're wrapped.” 

So tomorrow, Wednesday December 4, 2024, is the final day of shooting for Season 17! 

Honestly, it seems like it’s way too soon…we barely got any information, videos, or pictures from set (and almost anything we did get we had to scrounge for), but filming began on October 15, so wrapping December 4th is perfectly in line with the amount of time it took to shoot Season 16 (January 25 through March 11). 

I guess they really are just starving us this year! Hopefully as they go into post-production we get a little peek at something more…or maybe Rob will offer up a few more leaks? Either way, I’ll continue hunting, don’t worry. 

And at least it seems like we’re safe from seeing a world without Charlie Kelly’s beard… unless he’s filming tomorrow and this is some end-of-season shocker!? 

(Probably not, lol)

-Seth

Thought Leadership: A Corporate Conversation

Look at that title!! We have our first episode title of Season 17!

Via Zach Knighton on Instagram

The Director of this episode, Zach Knighton, is actually a Sunny alumnus, featured in the episodes The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis and The Gang Squashes Their Beefs as "Random Guy" (Or better known as the guy the Gang mistook for Bruce Mathis, stalked, blew in his apartment and up his car, and then trapped in their burning apartment). 

We're also able to gleam that this episode was written by Rob and Charlie (which makes at least two episodes this season written by the duo)!

Today, Zach was nice enough to share a photo of himself with the Gang:

And it's clear they're in wardrobe.. and all wearing vests!? (Mac's resting on Rob's arm) This sneak peek, combined with the title of the episode, gives us a bit of ground to speculate on... 

With the vests in play likely being a uniform for the Gang, and filming clearly taking place in Paddy's, my mind immediately goes to the Gang running some kind of grift... Lest we forget Sunny's proclivity for spoofing its own, Rob being one of the writers of this episode coupled with the launch of his own Corporation, More Better, this year definitely shouldn't be overlooked when trying to speculate what this might be about... I would put quite a few of my Paddy's eggs on the idea that we're getting an episode parodying LinkedIn leadership kind-of-bullshit, where Paddy's, having decades of existence behind it, gives the Gang the ability to front themselves as experts in keeping small business(es) afloat, willing the share their tips and tricks to others in the field (for a price, of course). 

Also in that Instagram post, Zach shared his Director slate, which reveals this episode was filmed (in part) on Friday, November 1st:

Interestingly, we know that there were some on-location shoots happening October 31. Might they be related? It's hard to know just yet, since on-location scenes typically don't film in order, but it's certainly possible... (it is funny considering the guest star who filmed the day before this shot (at least) was in an episode titled Underage Drinking: A National Concern, a very similar cadence to this brand new title...or is that too much of a stretch here?)

There's a lot of unknowns, but with some hard knowns, things become much more fun to speculate on. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Personally, I'm jonesing for the return of Frank's Fluids—some how or some way!

-Seth

Season 17 Poised to Bring Back a "Classic" Character...

Filming on Season 17 began over three weeks ago now, and while Glenn promised some big swings and Rob has shared a few bits and pieces that may be indicative of that, the absence of The Always Sunny Podcast has left a noticeable gap between the amount of mid-production information we were able to gather last Season as opposed to this year. 

But not all hope is lost for those desperate for a peek at what's to come, because as the Gang inevitably end up in the streets of Philadelphia over the course of their schemes, the cast and crew move to run-down areas of Los Angeles that can pass for Philly, and sometimes (if we're lucky enough) shooting locations and third party information makes its way public. How any of these scraps can be used to speculate on or predict plots is a later issue—the first step is collection and connection! 

(POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD, OBVIOUSLY!) 

Last week, Sunny was set to film on-location around Los Angeles, with one filming notice at the 4th Street Bridge in Los Angeles on Santa Fe Ave. This location is right around the block from the Paddy's Pub exterior in LA, and has been used a few times in the past for "under the bridge scenes" (see A Woman's Right to Chop). A number of scenes and plots could occur under the bridge, so with little else to go on this information isn't worth much. But, funnily enough, we ended up getting an Instagram post from David Hornsby, showing him in the make-up chair for Rickety Cricket, the day after this filming notice. 

Suddenly, the bridge information is a little more valuable, as the chances of Cricket hanging out under the bridge are pretty high. (And we can speculate as we wait for more.. who could he be with? Frank and Charlie are our known bridge dwellers, but perhaps the Mac and Cricket pairing we saw in The Gang Gets Cursed is continuing?)

So Cricket is back and looking as depraved as ever, hanging out if not living under the bridge. That's cool, but not necessarily breaking information. The real news here is that the bridge wasn't the only location Sunny had a notice for last week, and the other one was much more perplexing to me: a suburban house. 

Could Frank be back in the real estate game? And would Mac & Dennis be back involved as realtors? Or is it Move to the Suburbs 2: Electric Boogaloo? With just a house, speculation and possibilities swimming around in my mind were quite literally endless, so having nothing to build off of I pushed the information to the side: collection with no connection...until, just like David Hornsby posting as Cricket brought the bridge location into better focus, information came to light that has given a direct context to this suburban house:

Based on the date and the background of this photo and a few others which were taken, the location quite-exactly lines up with the filming notice location for Sunny at the time, and thus is pretty much confirmed to be "on set". 

So, who is the "Actress Spotted Filming" in question? Jamie Alexander, most famously known to be Lady Sif in the MCU (Thor, AoS, Loki, etc.), but perhaps more importantly know around here as having started out on our show, all the way back in 2005:

Jamie Alexander in Season 1: Underage Drinking: a National Concern

Yep, "Classic Tammy," as Charlie would say, has been spotted on set for Season 17. 

How and why Tammy is back in the context of the characters and a plot is really anyone's guess: Does she make her way back to Paddy's after all these years, or does a member of the Gang happen to run into her elsewhere? Is she followed back to her house, or is a member of the Gang led there? How will the Gang inevitably fuck up the normal life she's likely living? Or will she instead fuck with theirs like she tried to in 2005?

UPDATE: In newly discovered photos, it looks like Glenn and Kaitlin were on set, in character, as Dennis and Dee. So we can safely assume that the twins are involved with Tammy's return!

(Charlie Day is in the background on set, but clearly not in character and likely there as a showrunner)

They seem to both be holding pieces of paper. Whether they're holding scripts or the paper is a prop of some kind is unclear, but I'm leaning toward the latter...

What's funny is, despite my earlier complaints that the absence of The Always Sunny Podcast was making it harder on us (as the spoiler-hungry audience) this Season, I really have to speculate that we may owe Tammy's return, at least in part, to the existence of the Podcast.

Last year at one of the Dublin live shows (post filming Season 16), Rob made a very adamant point that the "Classic Tammy" line from Charlie was one of his favorites:

And I can't help but wonder how the live shows they put on in 2023, a further extension of the Podcast that involved not only rewatching their show, but sitting down to pick, highlight and discuss their favorite parts of each other, the plots, and their characters with live feedback, may have influenced what's to come this season. (Because you know what else was teased at that show? The return of Hugh Honey and Vic Vinegar)

Only time (and more reveals) can really tell us if Season 17 will have any TASP (+live)-born plots, ideas, and/or connections, but Jamie Alexander's presence on set indicating the return of Tammy certainly seems to be pointing toward a continuation of what we saw with Season 16: plots driven by the characters' basic wants and needs, inspired by diving into and pulling from Sunny's classics.

(And not that it isn't fun digging up information myself, but Rob, maybe you could throw us a bone this week? It's been a long one...)

- Seth

As a reminder, the Season 17 Updates page is regularly updated to add any new information that comes to light via cast/crew Instagram or Twitter, and also contains links to any Season 17 information posts.

Abbott Elementary Bound to Bring Shine to Sunny

As we’re all well-aware by now, the Sunny Gang will be appearing in an episode of Abbott Elementary during their current fourth season (an episode likely to air in January), and for a few weeks since the official announcement of this event, a lot of people have been asking: is this going to be a reciprocal crossover? Well, we now have an answer straight from Kaitlin Olson, courtesy of Variety: Yes. 

Not only will Sunny have an episode that works in tandem with the crossover, but the cast of Abbott Elementary will equally be featured in said episode. Kaitlin expressed how excited she was to see the teachers of Abbott get nasty in a few weeks, something they can’t do on the family-friendly ABC channel. (Though I wonder, will they? Or will most of the teachers attempt to keep their cool even when faced with some of the worst people on the planet?) 

And while it truly remains to be seen as to whether or not the characters of Abbott will bring some shine to Sunny in the form of spirit, we can very easily reason that the characters simply appearing on Sunny is guaranteed to bring shine: in the form of attention. 

As a statistics guy, the moment this crossover was officially announced I couldn’t help but obsess over the numbers floating around in my head (it’s one of the few things that made this crossover idea seem almost infeasible to me). Because while Sunny is well known by the general public for it’s insane out-of-context clips and memes (and its longevity legacy status), its actual audience is pretty cult-like: Sunny's live audience hits nowhere close to the numbers that any show you’ve never heard of on Network television reaches. (In fact, in 2015, when Sunny was in its tenth season and hit its all-time high record for viewership, it ranked only #524 in viewership for Primetime Series on Television, just below Food Network’s, Beat Bobby Flay and just above Diners, Drive ins & Dives.)

Knowing and enjoying Abbott Elementary enough to have followed the viewership and demos of the show for the past few years its been on air, I knew one thing for certain: Abbott’s audience is monumentally larger than Sunny’s, well more than double and maybe even tenfold. Looking at the raw stats from the most recent seasons of each show makes that pretty clear: 

Ratings and Viewership for Season 16 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Ratings and Viewership for Season 3 of Abbott Elementary

Excluding episode 6 (as Abbott’s episode 6 aired following the Oscars and should clearly be considered an outlier), Sunny’s average viewership for 7 episodes during the 2023-24 TV season comes in at 259,000, while Abbott’s is 2,508,000. In short, there are about 2.25 million more people tuning into new episodes of Abbott than there are people tuning into new episodes of Sunny:

This all being laid out in order to reckon with the fact the crossover on the Abbott side will be exposing Sunny[’s characters] to actually, truly, almost ten times (9.85x if you wanna get real specific about it) as many people as Sunny does, on average (on broadcast, that is). 

To me, this was a bit of a daunting number when we only knew (for certain) that the Gang would be appearing on Abbott… now that we know the Abbott teachers will appear on Sunny, these numbers are almost frightening...

Assuming a large portion of Abbott’s audience tunes in weekly because they enjoy the characters as much as (if not more than) the show in general, the audience will likely want to follow the teachers to witness them in another (harsher) environment (just like how Sunny fans are excited to follow the Gang into a different (softer) environment). In fact, it seems pretty likely that pulling Abbott's audience into Sunny may be just the intention, as Variety claims the crossover episode of Abbott Elementary will air before the episode of Sunny.

Having the show with the larger audience lead in to the show with the smaller audience is not an unfamiliar practice of television; in fact, Network channels love a lead in. (Traditionally lead-ins are more commonly used to introduce a new show after a fan-favorite to bolster viewership ratings, but the practice of a lead in with crossovers is still familiar, as recent as the CW’s Arrowverse.) And, coincidentally (or not..) enough, Abbott Elementary and Always Sunny just so happen to air on the same day of the week as each other, in back-to-back timeslots, respectively (a fact I actually used in my initial speculation that the crossover for Abbott would be with Sunny). 

Of course, people would have to switch the channel (and also own cable), but the lead in would still have quite an effect on Sunny’s viewership, as there’s likely a huge chunk of Abbott’s audience excited to see their favorite characters in not only a different tone, but a different style of show (seeing the Abbott characters on Sunny will be the first time they’re ever viewed completely “off camera”), regardless of whether they like (or even know) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 

(Additionally, not factored into any of the numbers herein, both shows stream on Hulu in the States and Disney+ internationally, so for the many millions of people who watch Abbott on a streaming service (ABC's latest press release boasted 6.19 million viewers for Abbott's Season 4 premiere), the boost of the crossover episode will likely have an even larger effect on pulling an audience to Sunny (in fact, they’re already pushing Sunny on users who look up Abbott on Hulu).)

And the thing is, even if just a quarter of Abbott’s audience cares enough about the characters to tune into Sunny’s episode featuring them, those views would still result in triple the audience Sunny has pulled, on average, in the past four seasons. (And to restate, again, that there is the real possibility of that increase being a factor of ten.) That’s just a little (a lot) scary (but maybe good scary?). 

If/since the Abbott episode airs before the Sunny one (in which we know the Sunny characters are going to have to be censored), the Sunny episode, which will absolutely be as raw and uncensored as the rest of the show, is going to be major whiplash for anyone not well-familiar with Sunny and its dark satire. The reactions to this crossover are certainly going to span quite the range of responses on social media, and I think it's pretty obvious to us Sunny fans that we should brace for impact once this episode airs. 

Whether that impact be an influx of people discovering, understanding, and enjoying Sunny, excited to hop into the fandom and dig into these characters, or people watching and being completely appalled by the show, upset at everyone who loves it, will only be revealed with airing, but an impact will certainly be made. 

Do we panic? Do we celebrate? Should the blog start pumping out media literacy guides? Haha, jk... I'm sure our new viewers will be great... right?

From the bars of the Paddy's Pub gate,

Seth

A Kiss From a Rose on the Logo

For the past few Seasons, it hasn’t been the official start of Production until John Tanzer, Sunny’s Director of Photography, shares a photo of his parking spot to Instagram, and today he finally did:

What’s particularly striking this year is that the Sunny crew seem to be using a logo we’ve never seen before. 

Now, in the past, the logo/text on Tanzer’s sign hasn’t necessarily reflected what the actual Season’s logo looks like (e.g. for Season 16, the sign was simply the words “SUNNY” while the official Season 16 logo was a plumpy cursive), however, if it has been a logo design, it’s been something we’ve seen in the past (e.g. Season 14s cracked logo design was the same as the logo they used for promo in the earlier seasons (1-5), with a 14 slapped on the end).

So this logo has thrown us for a bit of a loop. It seems to be a Frankenstein of sorts, with the “It’s Sunny in Philadelphia” reflective of the old school promotional logo that carried a bigger “U” and a backwards second “N” (less the cracks), while the “Always” and “17” are in a new cursive font that looks almost like a fancy hybrid between Season 16’s fat cursive and Season 7’s thin cursive logos:

But there’s something even more different about this new logo—a brand new graphic off to the side:

On closer inspection, the graphic is very clearly a rose lying on its side… but why is it there? Does it mean anything? Could it be connected to the Sunny we already know? Symbolic of what’s in store? Or something else entirely?

Off the top of my head, I can only think of two major uses of roses in Sunny in the past:

The first (and perhaps most obvious due to the title of this post) is Dee’s screen name in The Gang Wrestles for the Troops being “Desert Rose.” In the episode, she engages in online dating with a solider named Ben and, upon his arrival in Philly, presents herself as a rose, with a rose, while the Seal song “Kiss from a Rose” plays. (Coincidentally (or not?) that song turned 30 years old this year.)

Ask any Sunny fan what’s the funniest use of Kiss From a Rose and they’re going to cite this scene, guaranteed. 

So, if the rose is connected to Sunny’s past, could it be a nod to Dee, hinting at a more Dee-centric season, perhaps? (The return of the Chernin brothers likely means a focus for her in at least an episode or two, as Dee is their favorite character to write.) 

The other use of roses we’ve seen with Sunny is actually connected to prior promotional material. In 2017, ahead of the premiere of Season 13, FX’s Instagram page for Sunny ran a spoof of The Bachelor with Mac, called “The Machelor”. In a series of Instagram stories, fans got to vote who they thought should fill the “Dennis shaped hole” inside of Mac, with Mac granting a yellow rose to the winner. In the end, it was of course Dennis who got the yellow rose (it’s always been Dennis):

(The joke here being the reveal of the Dennis sex doll, which, funnily enough, FX and Sunny made a random post about on Instagram, today)

So, if we take the promo route of a rose’s involvement, could its appearance in a Season 17 logo (promotional or otherwise) mean something for Mac and Dennis? 

Or maybe it’s simply indicative of something romantic in general? We know the Season finale features Frank going on a date, could this be part of a larger, over-arching plot? Or could romance be a big theme this Season (for promotional purposes, as a gimmick, or actually?)

Though, perhaps the rose, laid down next to Sunny’s logo, is really to give the cast and crew their flowers. Back in January the cast of Sunny presented an award at the 75th Emmys, doing so in recognition of their accomplishment for being the longest-running sitcom on television, but also doing so with no nominations in tow. (And while Season 16 didn’t actually qualify to be nominated until the 76th Emmys this September, they still received no nominations following their recognition earlier this year.) Sunny deserves its flowers, especially the cast and crew who have been involved for going-on twenty years now, and maybe this is something to acknowledge that. 

For whatever the rose might mean, this logo in general is still very clearly Frankensteined, and the cursive font integrated with the old-school logo has really managed to gag me (because why create something brand new if it’s not for anything official?) 

UPDATE: On December 4th a color version of the logo was shared. It looks like the rose is yellow (or gold, if you would), and the cursive "y" in "Always" loops through the "Y" in SUNNY:

(And if you look closely, it looks like the logo is sitting on... bedsheets?)

Should we..take it as a hint that the rose is yellow as opposed to red? Mm..

It's almost giving "Golden Bachelor" vibes, isn't it?

-Seth

Now Rolling on Season 17!

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Los Angeles, CA

Filming begins on Season 17

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Today's the day! The sun is shining and it's directly over the Fox Lot in Los Angeles as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia officially begins shooting its Seventeenth Season today.  Glenn Howerton marked the start of filming by sharing a throwback photo, accompanied by a very sweet caption:

Rob McElhenney later reused the photo Glenn shared in a post of his own, adding an additional photo: a recreation of that one from almost 20 years ago, today.

These spot the difference games are pretty hard, huh? Glenn and Charlie look almost exactly the same, and as Rob pointed out on Instagram, he's wearing the exact same jacket.

(It looks like Kaitlin was also on set today, via a video she posted to Instagram outside of her trailer, and while there was no Danny sighting, we know he's gunning to film the Sunny half of the Abbott Elementary Crossover this week!) 

Anyone manage to pick up any clues from the background? No?

-Seth

Season 17 is Getting REAL Weird With It!

Last week our first “leak” of Season 17 was the confirmation that Sunny will have a crossover episode with Abbott Elementary, one of the most wholesome sitcoms currently airing on television. This week, our second “leak” went the exact opposite direction of wholesome when Rob chose to share Network notes regarding scenes in an upcoming episode (while attempting to redact certain information):

As you can see, his attempt at redaction was fairly crude, so when you brighten the image, you're able to make out pretty much the entire redacted portion of the screenshot. The Network Note reads:

“Caution on scene where Dennis sho[ws/ots] video footage of him masturbating a dog & [w/t]hen Dennis holds up a Tupperware container. Any graphic bestiality simulation must be avoided for cuts airing on both FX linear channel & the Hulu platform. Given the nature of the scenes, always shoot alternate angles and positioning so that there are options to work with should they be needed during Post Production. Please keep the semen Tupperware as generic and nondescript as possible.”

And, even with the redactions properly redacted, “graphic bestiality simulation” is an eye-catching phrase which would immediately cause a stir among the fandom every-which-way, so being able to uncover Rob’s redactions and learn that this season we will be witnessing Dennis jerking off a dog to completion (on camera) and collecting the semen as part of a currently-unknown plot only exacerbated the fandom’s reaction to Rob’s post. 

We saw basically everything from “I’m throwing a party, they’re finally letting Dennis get really freaky,” to “I’m not watching the newest season, this is too far even for Sunny.” But, after a day of initial reactions, the fandom has pretty much settled into a space of either moving past this leak, chalking it up to being something egregious, added (and shared by Rob) for “shock value” that's better off not to be thought about, or trying to deduce if there is a “rational” (for Sunny) explanation as to what could be happening in connection with this content warning.

If you know me, you know I’m always in the camp of figuring out a plot (and then well beyond it), so taking the content at face value for what we uncovered (collecting dog semen, yeah that’s what we’re talking about) let’s try and deduce something about this Season 17 episode:

First thing that immediately struck me is the Network Note referencing Page 26 of the script. For a 22-minute show, this a pretty big tip off that the scene(s) being referenced are toward the end of the episode, if not serving as the actual end of the episode. Thankfully, Rob just supplied us with the Season 16 scripts, so we have a perfect point of reference:

And funnily enough, the average script length for an episode last season hovered around 26 pages. (The script in question was likely sent to the Network as a Production Draft, so you can also look to the four Season 16 Production Drafts to see page 26 is about on par with what would be the final scene(s) of an episode.) 

Since the note regarding bestiality simulation is being inserted at Page 26, it’s probably pretty safe to say this is the first instance of such a thing in the episode, so the video footage, and Dennis presenting a Tupperware full of semen, is likely an end-of-episode reveal. My best guess, based on all of the information we have on hand, is that this plot in the episode (whether it’s the A, B, or rare C) hinges on some mystery “product” being implemented or used and, as a final scene reveal, Dennis shows the video footage of where the product came from, revealing to his audience (and the audience) that the product is actually dog semen. (Think, opening of Kitten Mittens, where we watch the advertisement on the CRT TV and then reveal Charlie presenting it to the Gang, cut to their reactions, and cut to title, only this time it’s raw footage on the TV, reveal Dennis’ Tupperware, maybe reactions, and then cut to black, cue end credits.)

That’s my guess as to how this all goes down…WHY Dennis needs dog semen (for himself? or is it for a scheme the Gang are pulling? or perhaps tied to a dog we already know?) or WHAT he’s using it for (an ingredient in a product to be used or is it something to inflict on others? or is it for its actual purpose, making more dogs?) is impossible to glean at this point, it’s really anyone’s guess… and you can guess too! There have been some good theories about dog semen usage floating around, so I’ve laid them all out on this Tumblr poll that’s open to voting for the next week. The options are as follows:

(Results to be published October 16)

None of the poll options calling to you? Let me know if you have your own theory (with rationale and evidence, if you've got it). Does this plot perhaps link to the episode Rob shared of Charlie’s whiteboard? (If so, that would make for quite the tone shift of season finales we’ve had in the last few years... so I'm leaning toward doubting that connection.) It really, very much probably doesn’t link to the Abbott Crossover (or ABC would have notes, surely…), but we wont’t know for sure until we know!

Thanks for the plot leak, Rob; you’re excellent blog fuel!

- Seth