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