It's (Almost) Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I had the pleasure of receiving a copy of the book It's (Almost) Always Sunny in Philadelphia: How Three Friends Spent $200 to Create the Longest-Running Live-Action Sitcom in History and Help Build a Network early, and am grateful to Kimberly Potts for not only sending me a copy, but also for writing it!

This book diligently combines behind the scenes information (from various interviews, a good chunk of things shared on The Always Sunny Podcast, as well as new interviews conducted for this book) with a well-detailed walkthrough of the sixteen seasons Sunny has put out so far, diving deeper than I could hope into not only how certain episodes contributed to Sunny’s lore in the development of the show and characters itself, but how the passionate fanbase has influenced the show had such a major impact on Sunny’s longevity and success. 

It is an uncensored, full look at the history of Sunny, dedicated to honoring the show while also discussing many of it’s more controversial origins and plots at face-value, and is inclusive of every facet that helped them reach this 20 year milestone. In addition, the walk-through of dozens of episodes throughout the book is a great guide for linking references, connections, and later-provided pieces of information that elevate a viewers understanding and enjoyment of many episodes. 

There are also a ton of fun tidbits baked into this book, among my favorite being the fact that the house first used as Bonnie Kelly’s house in Charlie Got Molested was, in fact, Sunny director Todd Biermann’s house (and that her and Rob actually reconnected because Biermann wanted to help Rob with some remodeling of his sad one-room garage apartment he was living in at the time), that Artemis Pebdani was the one who penned Artemis’ Coyote Ugly monologue in Charlie Has Cancer, that Brittany Daniel would actually love to return as Carmen (RCG are you hearing this?), and that there once existed an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia branded iPod (DOES ANYONE HAVE ONE OF THESE?). 

My personal favorite thing about hearing anything “behind the scenes” of Sunny is how highly people tend to talk about being on set and working with RCG, so I was happy to see that nothing in this book contradicted that point, in fact in more guest star conversations, it was only reiterated how great it is to appear on the show (and how most hope to return!). My favorite recount came from Wade Boggs, who not only loved his time filming after initially being hesitant, but was bummed not to have got a chance to visit Paddy’s Pub!

I won’t spoil any other reveals/interviews, because it was a lot of fun to discover things while reading, but I do want to use this post to link to a PDF I created, compiling blog posts by Erin Ryan (a staff writer in Seasons 13 and 14) which were referenced in Chapter 11, but are no longer available to view on FX’s Website (due to being deleted by FX). This detailed recount of the Season 13 writers room is something I wasn’t aware had been published until reading this book, and is a really great insight into how the Sunny writers room operates! (If you’ve watched The Always Sunny Podcast, you might already have a pretty good idea, but this 5,000 word series of blog posts discusses the writers room process in much more succinct detail.) It will remain linked on the side bar of the blog as "Writers Room Process"! -->

So even as massive of a Sunny fan as I claim to be, I still learned a couple new things in this book (and throughly enjoyed reading everything I already new), so I can definitely recommend picking it up once it’s released Tomorrow (July 1) to any fan of the series, especially if you’re interested in a detailed exploration of the show’s history, as it paints great connections across the (almost) 20 years of lore that’s been built around Sunny. 

Also, as a really cool bonus to the release of the print copy of It's (Almost) Always Sunny in Philadelphia: How Three Friends Spent $200 to Create the Longest-Running Live-Action Sitcom in History and Help Build a Network, Brian Unger (the Lawyer) is narrating the audiobook version..!! (I could listen to that man read off Dennis and Dee’s mom’s will for hours, so I will 100% be seated for him to re-read this book to me on Tuesday.)