Seems to me the characters on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” have evolved from being truly off-putting to being hilariously funny dunces. But that could just be me, the stars say.
“I think it’s your perception,” Rob McElhenney told me at a press conference. “It’s like that first bitter taste of coffee that you get when you first have coffee, and then you start to develop a taste for it — or maybe an addiction. And I feel like the characters are off-putting at first because you’ve never seen a group of people like this – maybe for good reason, I don’t know — together in a sitcom acting the way that these people do.
“That was something that was our goal, something that you had never seen before, which I think can leave a bad taste in your mouth at first. But then over time, you start to see that these are not just obnoxious people, but they are people who are pathetic.”
Kaitlin Olson puts it more succinctly: “I think people have gotten used to it.”
Glenn Howerton, a third actor and creator of the successful comedy says the people they play “are somehow representative of a certain type of mentality in our society. I really do believe that. And I think that’s why it actually resonates with people.
“I think a lot of people have a side of themselves that are these characters. I really do. I know I do,” Howerton says. “I know I have a side of myself that’s a screaming baby who wants exactly what he wants, wants it now, and isn’t going to take no for an answer and is going to do whatever it takes to get it, even if it means I’m stepping on everybody’s heads to get it.”
That means the “there’s a side of all of us, I think, that is reminiscent of these characters. And I think that that is why it resonates,” he says.
“That’s why we’re proud of the satirical look at American culture,” McElhenney says. “Which we think our show is. And we believe that the core audience understands that.”
The show is a lot more popular than it once was, in part because it’s been syndicated and showing on broadcast stations as well.
“Not only has the syndication expanded our audience; it’s also broadened it and made it a little bit younger,” McElhenney says. “I think our mean age was, at one point, somewhere in the mid to late 20s. I think it’s down in the early 20s now, which is great.”
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” returns for its sixth season Sept. 16.