Let’s Break Down That Season 17 Press Release!

So you probably didn’t hear it here first (because this is a fan blog not blessed with press materials and I unfortunately have a job that takes up too much of my time), but Season 17 now has an official airdate: July 9, 2025!

Why this date is what it is is anyones guess (honestly, I thought if it wasn’t premiering in June it was going to be released as part of a Fall TV lineup instead), but now that we finally have a hard-date, we have official information as well! So let’s not dwell on this fairly extended hiatus that still has a few months to go (with July as 17’s airdate, it’s officially the longest hiatus between two seasons that Sunny has ever had) and instead dissect what delicious information came along with the airdate announcement!

We’ve known for awhile now that Season 17 would be premiering with Episode #1705, Sunny’s half of the Abbott Elementary crossover, entitled “The Gang Fucks Up Abbott Elementary,” and based on minor information we’ve gathered about that episode, I had been speculating for a bit that this episode might stray from Sunny’s filming style and instead mimic Abbott’s docu-style format, and we now have official confirmation of that, via a sneak peek at the episode, featuring talking heads and everything!:

(Interestingly, this embedded video is a "replacement" trailer. FX removed the first one. The difference was a snippet of a scene in which Dee cuts the cafeteria line and Mac steals a brownie off a child's plate.)

Fellow fans of Sunny’s traditional filming medium who have no interest in the crossover shouldn’t feel turned away from this Premiere though, because the press release revealed we will once again be getting a double episode premiere. We don’t know which episode will accompany the crossover just yet, but Abbott fans who stick around for the second half-hour will surely be in for quite a treat, regardless.

Funnily, the biggest shocker of this announcement is not the date or the double premiere, but the time Season 17 will premiere: 9:00pm EST. This will be the first time ever that Sunny has aired earlier than 10:00pm EST. Will this just be for the premiere due to the crossover appeal of the first episode? Or will Sunny settle into a brand new timeslot for Season 17’s entire run?

Well, re-branding seems to be exactly what’s in store for this Season, as the press release teases that the Gang return to “shamelessly shed their "niche" label for grander aspirations…change[ing] everything about themselves to appeal to a broader audience.” Could this 9pm timeslot then be meta in-itself? (I’m definitely already reading it that way—a 9pm timeslot typically appeals to a wider audience than a 10pm one.)

But don’t worry too much about that claim, because the Season synopsis promises the Gang are still human beings who “crave love.. respect... conditional freedom... constant adulation... histrionic amounts of attention... non-stop gratification... and unfiltered, slaphappy eroticism” and will chase down all of these whims along with their ever-hungry pursuit of money and social privileges. So it sounds like the Gang we know (perhaps with the desperation cranked up a notch? And somehow more erotic than anal beads!?). 

Plot highlights from FX for this season include:

• Exploiting cross-network promotion to increase market share. (This could be meta about Abbott bringing in more views for the premiere OR an actual plot point about the Golden Bachelor Live, honestly.)
• Using one of the Gang as a scapegoat to avoid a PR backlash. (Could this be connected to Thought Leadership: a Corporate Conversation? Surely whatever scam they’re pulling there cannot end well)
• Risking everything for a handshake with the Saudis. (Now this one escapes me.. anyone have any ideas?)
• Bending the laws with side hustles to pad their pockets. (This could and may apply to multiple plots, as it’s something the Gang are prone to do, but my first thought here is definitely Mac and Dennis Become EMTs, re: using an Ambulance to deliver for Postmates)

(Of course, make sure to check out the Season 17 tab here on the Paddy's Pub Blog for all of the plots we're aware of to-date!)

And I’ve saved my favorite thing about this press release for last, because what many official articles passed over (either unknowingly or electively) was the fact that this release was sponsored by “Rhino Dynamo, a premium pleasure pill.”:

Via FXNetworks.com

What’s Rhino Dynamo, you might ask? Well, it’s not technically anything, as it does not exist. It seems that the sponsor of Season 17’s announcement is in fact a fake product, most certainly used for enhancing sexual pleasure. 

(And if the idea of boner pills seems vaguely apt or familiar to Season 17, it’s because the Gang getting involved in a sex-enhancing product was what this Blog’s guess for the Season 17 finale, at the time dubbed “White Board Episode,” plot was about… and the guess that, despite Rob’s claim that no one had made correctly, ended up earning us access to all of Season 16’s scripts! How interesting!!)

It’s probably safe to say that Rhino Dynamo is the function of some plot in Season 17, if not a major component of the finale, The Golden Bachelor Live. (And could the warning not to take more than 1 in a given 24-hour period perhaps be a further plot hint? I defer to our notes from Charlie’s chicken scratch.)

...I could not be more excited. 

P.S. FX has also announced the following as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s social media accounts for Season 17: Facebook: @alwayssunny; Instagram: @alwayssunnyfxx; TikTok: @FXNetworks; YouTube: @FX; Threads: @AlwaysSunnyFXX; Official Site: https://www.fxnetworks.com/sunny 

As some may notice, this does not include the website formerly known as, and still colloquially called, Twitter.  Unfortunately this is a strong indication that @alwayssunny on Twitter will remain an inactive account for the upcoming Season. (In my own experience, checking or turning notifications on for their Instagram page is the fastest way to get new official information as it becomes available.) 

Psst. Did you notice the new blog URL? ;)

- Seth

Another Sunny Summer

As previously reported, Season 17 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia wrapped production on December 4, 2024. They filmed for 50 days, which was the same amount of time they filmed for Season 16. With that aligned, it didn't seem like too big of a jump to assume that Season 17 post-production would also follow a similar timeline, and as Season 16 premiered three months after wrapping filming, it seemed logical to assume Season 17 would air some time in March, looking at a Spring 2025 premiere... 

Well, that idea is now officially off the table, as Rob McElhenney announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday, January 29, that the Always Sunny episode of the Abbott x Sunny crossover would air in June:

In a subsequent interview with TheWrap, Rob also shared that the crossover episode would be their premiere episode. This means Sunny is, without a doubt, premiering in June of 2025, exactly two years since Season 16 premiered. 

This isn't the longest gap we've had between seasons (Season 14 and 15 had two years and three months between their premieres), but it is the longest span of time Sunny has ever spent between wrapping filming and airing: over six months. (Seasons 15 and 16, which were both eight episodes like 17 will be, aired roughly three months after wrapping filming.) 

So it's interesting, then, that Rob also mentioned to TheWrap that the crossover would be the Season premiere in order to "get it as close to when the 'Abbott' episode premiered." Could that mean, then, that there is a reason for the six month wait (unrelated to an airdate decision made by the studio)?

Glenn previously teased to me that there were some "big swings" this season, and Charlie has subsequently revealed that there was a "completely out of pattern" episode in Season 17 (not including the crossover episode). So perhaps this long period between filming wrapping and Season 17 premiering indicates some time consuming post-production work being needed? Some prior clues may reveal as much: they were working with some complex filming equipment on Heath Cullens' episode, a camera car that may be connected to some kind of Postmates scheme involving the use of an Ambulance, teased by Charlie Day earlier this month. Knowing the Gang, that's probably a scheme going up in flames (perhaps literally). There also seems to have been something filmed in the Malibu Canyons, which was on location and in front of a green screen, potentially calling for a chunk of hours in the editing room. 

So perhaps with a few complex plots requiring some heavy post-production work, June is what it takes to get Season 17 perfected. Then again, Mythic Quest (though a completely different studio and on streaming as opposed to cable) wrapped their post production in May of 2024 and only just premiered in January of this year, so the delay could simply be up to the TV gods who love dangling promised seasons in front of our faces, just out of reach for as long as possible...

I won't lie and say I'm not bummed by this news; I was definitely hoping to get Season 17 sooner than two years from Season 16, but it's also nice to have a loose date to look forward to. And aligning with 16 is actually especially nice because we know (somewhat) when to expect things: we got a premiere date announcement and season synopsis in late April, the first teaser trailer in the beginning of May, and (most of) the episode titles by mid-May. So late-April to mid-May is the timeframe to keep our eyes on for the first big chunk of Season 17 info (outside of what can be pulled out of RCG while they're on their other endeavors, of course).

What do you think of the summer airdate? Is it just a studio decision or another clue (similar to those Charlie and Glenn have given us) that there could be some pretty unique episodes this season?

It is an odd one, after all!

-Seth

The Gang "Volunteers" at Abbott Elementary

 We've got a lot of news these past few days about the episode of Abbott Elementary that will be featuring the Gang, so let's break it down!

First and most importantly, the episode will be airing on Wednesday, January 8, 2025 at 8:30pm Eastern Standard Time, and has a run time of 32 minutes (including commercials). It will also be rebroadcast on Friday, January 10th, 2025 at 8:30pm (reason unknown, but potentially related to a Sunny announcement? Hopefully?)

According to ABC's press release of December 23, 2024, the episode is called "Volunteers" and the summary of the episode is as follows:

"Ava announces the school district is sending a group of volunteers to help out at Abbott; however, when they arrive, things don’t go as planned."

We know based on prior interviews and releases that the episode is entirely focused on the Gang, and this seems to confirm that fact! Though we don't get any hints at what might happen in the episode, we also got a shit load of stills along with the press release. So that, plus what we've already got hints about, means it's safe to say we can pretty easily deduce some of the teams-ups and plots. So let's break down what we know:

Charlie has a significant plot in the episode, and he shares many scenes with Barbara and Melissa. Checking out some press release photos we see this group together, and it looks like Charlie is also helping out in Melissa's class of second graders:

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Melissa's kids might be better at spelling and grammar than Charlie is, so it's a bit of a worry what he's "helping out" with here... Maybe the kids are the ones helping him!? 

The press release also has a lot of stills of Mac, almost exclusively paired up with Ava, the Principal of Abbott Elementary:

In the top two photos it looks like Mac is vying for Ava's attention, and he's clearly set up in her office in the bottom two, as if they're working together... Is Mac on his way to Vice Principal? Or is he working the distraction angle while the Gang carry out a scheme behind Ava's back?

We've also got a few stills of Dee in action:

Not only is she in Janine's classroom, but it looks like she's also making a move on her man! Janine is cheery in a few of the stills, so it will be quite interesting to see how she handles Deandra Reynolds moving in on her territory...

As for Frank and Dennis, we don't get much of them "in action" from the release stills, but we do know Frank has a plot involving being trapped in a cage outside, so maybe releasing any stills of that would be too much of a spoiler! What does seem pretty clear from these press photos is that Frank and Dennis both have talking heads:

What also sticks out to me among all of these stills is the fact that the Gang are wearing many different outfits... I think that means it's safe to assume this singular episode of Abbott takes place over at least a school week (based on Mac wearing at least four different shirts), and the teachers might be getting to know the Gang a little better than we may have assumed (for better? probably for worse)!

One major question that remains following this press release is: why the hell would the Gang be volunteering? The last time they "volunteered" with kids it was by mandatory court order, way back in the Season 2 episode The Gang Gives Back (one of my favourites!), when they "coached" basketball. I'd assume that the Gang are once again being forced to volunteer, perhaps once again by court order, but why? 

Well, while the reason technically remains to remain seen, based on an exclusive promo video released by Decider earlier today we might be able to deduce what they've done:

One of the headlines on Mr. Johnson's conspiracy board reads, "5 Arrested in Connection to Baby Oil Spill," and that certainly sounds like it's connected to our guys...Hopefully we get some expansion on what kind of "baby oil spill" is so large it leads to wrecking havoc on the ecosystem (and why they were dealing with massive amounts of baby oil in the first place...), but this headline promo certainly seems to give us a solid guess as to how they've ended up as "volunteers" at Abbott Elementary—they were arrested, and are once again working with kids based on a court order. 

It seems like we've got so much information on this episode, all that's left is to get the episode itself! Wait, we need a trailer for the episode, when's that coming?? Hopefully either this Wednesday (a Christmas gift) or next (a New Year's Day surprise)!

Anyone have any good theories for Dennis' plot we seem to be lacking? Or ideas as to how baby oil gets the Gang arrested (prior cameos on the show notwithstanding...)?

-Seth

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