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?) 

I do hope they keep this for the actual promotional logo we end up seeing; there’s just something incredibly intriguing, yet comforting about the thin cursive of “Always" standing atop the classic “Sunny”. 

-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

It IS Always Sunny at Abbott Elementary

It seems Rob doesn’t want me to see a moments rest (or let my blog get any traction), because only a few hours after my last post, deducing that what RCG are currently filming is not Sunny but is, in fact, the speculated crossover with Abbott Elementary, Rob dropped two photos from set confirming that fact:

October 9, 2024:

More information has been released concerning the crossover, via Variety!

The first (and biggest, imo) is that the Crossover episode will be airing as Episode 9 of Abbott Elementary.

Abbott premieres October 9 and is currently set to air their first four episodes in the next four weeks, back-to-back. ABC has yet to set a firm schedule for the remainder of the year, but due to Abbott's late start this fall, it's likely Episode 9 will end up being the mid-season premiere for Abbott Elementary. If the intent of the Abbott episode is to air alongside Sunny's new season (the article teased a potential reciprocal episode on Sunny), that would mean Season 17 of Sunny would be premiering sooner than we might expect: late January or early February! 

Patrick Schumacker, one of Abbott's Executive Producers, shared that Charlie Day's performance on set alleviated any concerns anyone had concerning the ability for the shows to mesh together, and that Charlie Kelly has a significant plot in the crossover. In an interview on October 8, Lisa Ann Walter (who plays Melissa on Abbott) discussed how her character and Sheryl Lee Ralph's character, Barbara, share Charlie's plot in the crossover and had a great experience filming with him. She also spoke with ABC about how, in comparison to a normal Abbott episode, the one featuring the Sunny Gang is "unhinged." (Apparently Charlie Day sticks with the usual Sunny method of ad-libbing and improv'ing lines!) 

Hearing Charlie's plot is with Barbara, a kindergarten teacher, and has a lot of room to improv seems to be leading us right toward that "Charlie learns to read" plot everyone is gunning for!

As to Rob's presence on set? Seems like he's struggling to keep it PG, but having just as much fun as Charlie is. 

An interview from TVInsider with Tyler James Williams, who plays Gregory, revealed that there are some really interesting pairings in the crossover and teased that "there’s definitely people in Abbott who have seen and possibly been to their bar." Which could be anyone, really, but my money is definitely on Mr. Johnson... him or a random group of 6th Graders. He also said echoed the same sentiment the other Abbott cast members have been sharing, that the shows work surprisingly well together, and that it's "funny as hell."

October 12, 2024:

Danny Devito, in an interview with The Movie Dweeb, has revealed that there is a Sunny half of the crossover event, which "sets up the whole idea of why we have to be at Abbott." So if the Sunny half of the crossover explains why the Gang are at Abbott, that means it's highly likely the episode airs before Episode 9 of Abbott Elementary... again much closer to confirming a late winter/early Spring premiere for Season 17 of Sunny!

Danny also shares a few details about Frank's plot in the episode, stating he's outside the school in winter weather and he’s caught in a cage and eating mulch while packed in ice. (Winter! It's been a long time since we got a cold-weather episode of Sunny!) Similar to what we heard about Rob filming for Mac, Danny discusses [the Sunny cast’s] struggle with not being able to swear or say whatever they want while filming Abbott.

October 17, 2024:

A new group photo for the crossover has been released via Rob on Instagram:

Check out the poster on the doors into the school...Considering Danny says his plot takes place in the winter, seems an awful lot like a New Years sign! 

How soon can we official place our bets that Sunny 17 will premiere in January? I'm ready.

Filming Begins! But is it for Sunny?

Sunny news broke yesterday when Charlie Day posted an Instagram video in which he was wearing what's clearly Charlie Kelly’s wardrobe, tying his shoes to the song Going the Distance, accompanied by the caption “Gearing up for season 17.” Shortly after Charlie’s post, Rob McElhenney created a remake of Charlie’s video with Mac’s shoes and posted it to his Instagram story, and a few hours later Glenn followed up with his own special version. 

All three of the “gearing up” videos, courtesy of Babygirlmac on Twitter 

While Glenn isn’t wearing any Dennis clothes we’re familiar with, Charlie and Rob definitely seem to be in wardrobe, and this is a show in its seventeenth season so for the guys to be in wardrobe means they’re very likely currently filming—But is it Sunny they’re filming? 

Seeing Charlie dressed as Charlie Kelly this morning was a shock to a lot of people, because it seems a little too soon. Besides the fact that we normally hear a rumbling or two from the Sunny crew ahead of RCG making it to set, from all the information we currently have, Sunny shouldn’t start shooting until at earliest next week.

On September 20, 2024, Glenn told us Sunny starts filming in about three weeks. Whether that be the start of the third week following September 20 (October 7) or a full three weeks following that weekend (October 14), it’s hard to justify October 2 as being about three weeks from September 20. Though, for the benefit of the doubt, let’s say it’s not impossible that Glenn may have misspoken, or maybe filming got pushed up… 

BUT there is actually a logistical impossibility for filming Sunny that currently exists.

On August 15, 2024, Kaitlin and Rob’s episode of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast dropped, and in that episode Kaitlin shared a fun fact about her ABC show, High Potential: it films not only on the same lot, but the same stage as Sunny. That means once High Potential wraps, they’ll clear all its sets off the sound stage to bring in all of the Sunny sets. So, if Sunny has started filming, they’ve started without the majority of their sets (Paddy’s and the Gang’s apartments), which makes very little sense. Though, say they’re shooting on-location ahead of all the sound stage scenes (it’s not unheard of, though pretty unlikely), then maybe they could have started filming Sunny… 

EXCEPT on that same Podcast, Kaitlin stated she has “three or four days off and then we go right into Sunny.” As of today, High Potential is still shooting, and funnily enough Kaitlin was the one to supply us with that information, yesterday. While the guys were sharing their gearing up videos, Kaitlin shared a photo of her nails (a cute tribute to Dee) from on set of the season finale of High Potential:

And if Kaitlin is still filming High Potential as of today and she gets a few days off after wrapping (which makes sense considering they share a stage), Sunny really has not started filming yet. The evidence is mounted against them. (Which means Glenn didn’t misspeak, though I only said that for the lead to harder evidence, not because I ever doubted him.)

So, if Rob, Charlie, and Glenn aren’t filming Sunny but they’re dressed as their Sunny characters and “gearing up” for Season 17, what could they possibly be up to?

Well, remember my first Season 17 speculation post back in July? I’m still parked right there, and more confident than ever following my conversation with Glenn about Randall Einhorn’s potential directorial return: the Abbott Elementary crossover is with Sunny. And it very well may be filming right now as Abbott actively films their fourth season and RCG are in character, a week prior to Sunny filming. 

Ok, yes, maybe I look like this to a lot of people right now:

But just know, once they finally officially announce it, you heard it here first. 8.5 episodes for Season 17, and it all starts with filming the 0.5; that’s what I’m calling.

Which means there's nothing from Paddy’s Pub just yet. I’d say give it another week or so and hopefully we get a glimpse of that shitty bar we all miss dearly. And, in the meantime, get hyped and get your bets in for Abbott Elementary plots… is a kindergarten teacher all Charlie needs to be able to adapt to reading?

News, news, news, every day there's news...

-Seth

Rob McElhenney’s Challenge Has No Winners—But Still Awards a Prize

Rob gave the Fandom a challenge on Thursday: work out what the episode on the board is and win $100, and he gave us exactly twenty-four hours to do so. 

Unfortunately, at 5pm on Friday he announced “no one got anywhere close,” which means we’ll have to wait a couple more months to find out how Charlie Day’s cryptic notes end up being the season finale (!!news). 

So that should have been the end of that. No one got close, ah well, put on your clown noses if you were convinced you’d cracked it and take another look at Charlie’s board if you’re really that obsessed. But not me because 1) I’m stubborn with a bit of an inflated ego when it comes to knowing Sunny (even the shit that hasn’t hit our eyes yet) and 2) He tweeted this Friday evening while I was a shot of tequila and a few beers deep on an empty stomach. 

Now I’m not saying I’m convinced my friends and I got it right regardless of what Rob claims, but my drunk brain was definitely saying that. So I tweeted a reply. And I drank some more and I tweeted my thoughts, and I tweeted I think he’s lying, and I continued to drink while I tweeted some more thoughts, directly to Rob this time, and then an hour passed and I tweeted “release the s16 scripts anyway idk” and then I drank some more. And then Rob McElhenney quoted me.  

But before I go any further, let’s back up so I can explain why I drunk tweeted about a release of the Season 16 scripts in the midst of this.  

See, Thursday night when I sat down to crack the Season 17 episode, I collaborated with some friends who are just as insane about this show as I am. We spent two hours on the phone, and then another couple hours via text and Notes app to put everything together and come up with what we were pretty certain was the episode Charlie and Rob were writing. Pulling directly from Charlie’s white board, our notes ended up as follows:

1. 
   [REDACTED] with Frank
2. Clips of Frank [REDACTED] (meeting Girls? Investors?) 
   
3. Talks __ too OLD
4. Cock chews ages/info 
5. Sam Frank DATE
6. In stocio meets [REDACTED]
7. Have two of//tour visit paddy’s 
8. Dennis/Dee Sam
9. Mac/Charlie Sam
10. F gang most/meets/moment ch-
11. Dennis and Dee w/ Chew
12. Mac and Charlie w/ Chew
13. Taking last gang 
14. Dennis brings Charlie’s
15. Taking [REDACTED] Frank Begs?
16. Frank dumps Sam because she doesn’t put out 
17. F b,ing Chew / test goes wrong 
18. To stocio eruption/explanation  
19. Frank to get ___  to make up 
20. In [REDACTED] 

Which, I’ll admit, kinda seems like nonsense typed out instead of written in Charlie’s handwriting, but hear us out here, there is a way to approach this:

Drawing from connections between certain words and ideas, there’s a pretty clear thread of Frank dating a woman named Sam, with the Gang interspersed in pairings (Dennis & Dee and Charlie & Mac), and something or someone called “Chew”. Our first thought was that, given the all caps “OLD” lead in, perhaps the Gang has told Frank he’s too old to be dating and he tries to prove otherwise by dating two people at once, hence the Gang with Sam and then the Gang with Chew. And while that seemed like a solid idea, there was no real Sunny aspect we could pull from that. Aside from “Frank is old,” what’s the spoof, where’s the satirical element, what are they ripping on? There has to be something in here we’re missing…

While we ruminated on what the overall joke could be, the word “Chew” kept sticking out to us. It appears over and over, and there’s a parallel of Chew to Sam, which may mean it’s two people… but there’s differences in how Charlie Day writes the Chew parts to the Sam parts (i.e. having “w/” following M+C for Chew but not Sam), so perhaps it’s not a person but a thing. And in considering that, I threw out a joke, “Hey what if this whole episode is actually just a sponsor for BlueChew because they miss the Podcast advertisers,” and no one laughed. I clarified that BlueChew is a viagra pill just like Hims, a viagra pill they used to have as a sponsor on The Always Sunny Podcast, and while having to explain your joke is never going to make someone retroactively laugh, the funny thing is it actually led us to what the Sunny plot here could be. Maybe it is just that. A shitpost (in part) on themselves. 

Last season Celebrity Booze: The Ultimate Cash Grab was a spoof on the fact that Rob, Charlie, and Glenn, themselves, had recently stepped into the market of celebrity liquors. Since the whiteboard episode in question is being written by Rob and Charlie (and probably Glenn), the chance that it’s full of jokes on themselves is fairly high, and what better to rip on than the fact that 1) they advertised a viagra product on their (now dead) Podcast and 2) they’re all getting old. 

With the word “Cock” ahead of the first instance of “Chew” following the all-caps OLD being followed by Frank on a DATE, the connections began to flow:

• Sam = woman Frank is dating
• Cock Chew = BlueChew/viagra/boner pill
• Gang meets Sam and then gets involved with the Chew (pairings Dennis&Dee/Mac&Charlie have different motivations...)
• Dennis goes off with Charlie’s 
• Frank can’t test the product because Sam won’t put out
• Eruption/Climax - pills go wrong ?

And the idea basically wrote itself:

"Struggling with erectile dysfunction in his old age, Frank gets the Gang involved in a new product to enhance his sex life.”

Locked in, we tweeted our guess(es) to Rob, and as it was a group effort (and because we really didn’t care about making $100 here, this is all for the love of the game), I followed up on our submission with the following reply:

Which takes us back to the beginning of this story, explaining that one final drunk tweet in all of this, resulting in Rob’s quote tweet:

Yes, the Dropbox contains all of the Season 16 scripts (mostly Production Drafts!), which you can read here. 

So, a prize was awarded as a result of this little game, though not exactly directly. But for Rob to understand what my tweet meant means he very likely saw our submission and the reply (and maybe a few of my other drunk tweets, sorry Rob), and offered up the scripts based on that knowledge, giving us exactly what we asked for in the case in which our guess was correct. Which now begs the question: does that… in a way…perhaps somewhat…say something about our guess? Or was this just done purely out of the goodness of his heart, a consolation prize? (Or due to my persistent badgering? Or the fact that he saw I saw drunk at a bar and thought it would be funny to do it now?)

Only time can truly tell, but I do think it’ll be a shame if they never do an episode of Sunny that spoofs on their prior Podcast advertisers…especially one so pertinent to former Sunny dialogue.

But one thing is for certain, it sure will be fun to come back to Charlie Day’s whiteboard once the episode airs! (Or even once we get the synopsis…or even the Season 17 summary…)

Go enjoy those Season 16 scripts!!

-Seth