‘Always Sunny’ Visits ‘Abbott Elementary’ in Crossover Episode — Now Charlie Day Wants a Sheryl Lee Ralph Buddy Comedy
[This story contains spoilers from season four, episode nine of Abbott Elementary]
Abbott Elementary returned Wednesday night with a few more characters than usual as it debuted the first of two highly anticipated It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover episodes.
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In the episode, titled “Volunteers,” the crew of South Philly misfits arrives at Abbott Elementary through a new program from the district that allows people in the community to lend a helping hand to the school. Initially, the teachers are grateful when the group arrives and Janine (Quinta Brunson) hits it off with Dee (Kaitlin Olson), while Ava (Janelle James) takes pride in being able to boss around Mac (Rob McElhenney).
Mac is all too eager to do everything she asks so he and his Paddy’s Pub Gang can fulfill their court-ordered community service requirement and leave the west side as quickly as possible. But when Dee unabashedly tries to make a move on Gregory (Tyler James Williams), Frank (Danny DeVito) and Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) butt heads over a raccoon problem and Jacob (Chris Perfetti) suspects Charlie (Charlie Day) is missing a few screws, they can’t wait for the school day to end.
Unlike the rocky relationship between the ABC and FX show’s characters, working with the cast and crew of Abbott Elementary was a breeze, says Day.
“It was a real privilege for me to get to be a part of it, to have them bring us in and make us a part of what they do, which they do so well,” says the It’s Always Sunny star and executive producer, who already sees the potential for another hilarious movie matchup with one cast member of Abbott Elementary.
Below, Day chats with THR about pulling off the crossover episodes, his initial hesitations about the idea and why he thinks the next season of It’s Always Sunny will be one of their best.
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Quinta Brunson told THR this crossover all started with a tweet that was sent to Rob McElhenney saying, “this could be a funny It’s Always Sunny episode,” and he said, “I think it would be great for Abbott,” and the two started talking. How did things unfold from your perspective?
I’d met Quinta, and I knew she was a big fan of the show. And then Rob said that he’d met her and had a similar sort of experience where she was talking about what a big fan she was. I don’t remember if he said they discussed it then, or he might’ve just texted me later, but he was saying, “yeah, let’s do a crossover thing.” I was a little hesitant about it, only because I don’t know how many more episodes of It’s Always Sunny we’re going to do. We did eight this year, and I think we might do eight more next year, and that could possibly be it.
So it was a piece of me that was not sure I wanted to do too many that didn’t feel like typical It’s Always Sunny episodes. Then in addition to that, I knew that them coming on our show, we could make it funny, but I was a little nervous about what they would do with our characters because I’ve been writing these guys for 20 years; I’m pretty precious about it. But once I just sort of gave in and said, “Okay, you’re right. It could be really exciting,” from then on out, it was just a fantastic experience from beginning to end. As usual, Rob was right.
I imagine being under the same Disney umbrella helped with the execution. Were there any internal hangups? What were network executives’ initial responses?
Actually, they were both surprisingly receptive. That surprised me the most. That was the smoothest part of the process. From go, at least on our end, I guess I can’t speak for the Abbott end, there didn’t seem to be any hesitation.
What was it like coming into the writers room with the Abbott team, particularly for their PG show coming from your series for a mature audience?
I had an idea in my head that I wanted to do a sort of Billy Madison-esque storyline for my character. I started to get excited about the potential of that, but keeping in mind that we’ll just be guests on their show; they’re the stars, it’s their tone. I was sort of walking into that room saying, “How can we help support them, but make sure that it still feels true to our show for any of our fans that might watch it?” The good news is they were so prepared and totally understood what was great about our characters that could work on their show and still be within the family-friendly version of what they do. That was a pretty smooth process and the thing that surprised me the most, because I spent 20 years writing one show and zero years really on a staff on any other show (laughs), was how similar it was. I was like, “This is just sort of the same thing.” Everyone’s sort of sitting around in a room banging their head against the wall trying to come up with something funny to do.
Charlie Kelly fit so naturally into the Abbott world with the running joke of him being illiterate and now learning how to read, and then bringing in his bird law expertise.
(Laughs) It was very generous of them to give me such a nice storyline. I was excited to do it. I really wanted to do that back-to-school thing. It’s something I’ve been kicking around in the Sunny room for years and years, and just haven’t found a way to do it. So the fact that they jumped on that was great.
How did it feel the first day of filming being with a new cast and crew after having been with yours for so long?
That was funny, too, because there were a handful of their crew members who have worked on our show for years. It was directed by Randall Einhorn, who was a long-time Sunny director, and his script supervisor was Jeff Gonzalez, who went to college with my wife, and I gave him his first script supervising job on It’s Always Sunny. And then it’s always invigorating to meet new people, especially the cast. I really enjoyed the cast of Abbott. I felt as though they all really knew their characters so well and brought so much to every take. Sheryl Lee Ralph and I, we clicked right away. We’re like a funny odd couple. I almost felt like we could go do a buddy comedy. It just was good chemistry from the minute we started filming.
Every cast member kind of has their foil, too, Janine and Dee, Frank and Mr. Johnson, and then Mac and Ava sort of being partners in crime. How did you decide those match-ups?
That mostly was their room and who they saw together. But I do think the Sunny characters will foil with anybody (laughs). I think you can mix them around and they’ll be contentious with Mother Teresa.
How many crossover episodes will there be in total?
Two total episodes. We appear on an episode of their show and then we do the same episode of their show through an entirely different prism when you see it on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and that version is much less family-friendly.
Is this the first time It’s Always Sunny has done a crossover?
I believe so. It’s definitely the first time we’ve appeared on anyone else’s program. And I don’t think we’ve had anyone on our show that was a character from another show.
You just wrapped filming in December. What can you tease about your upcoming 17th season?
I do feel like it’s one of our strongest seasons in years. We had Dave and John Chernin back in the room along with Rob Rosell and David Hornsby, who are a handful of our most veteran writers, and their voices really were a big part of the show through the bulk of our run. Whether it’s using an ambulance to do Postmates or going to a dog track, we have some very It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes that feel like classic, great old episodes combined with this Abbott crossover and another one that I won’t spoil that are completely out of pattern. I think it’s a really exciting season.
Lisa Ann Walter always speaks about how embraced she feels by Philly. What’s your relationship with the city having done your show for so long?
My dad grew up in Philly and even went to the same high school that Rob went to. I would go to Philly a couple times a year to see my grandmother and my aunt and my cousins. My cousins are still there so I’ve always had a closeness to Philly. It’s always felt like a part of my identity. But the way the city embraces you, there’s nothing like it. It’s hard to explain to somebody what that’s like, but Philly is just, it’s the best city, and the people are the best, too. I love it.
Coming off of the Golden Globes this past Sunday, did you watch and were there any big surprises to you or wins you were particularly happy about?
I was excited about my pal Adrien Brody. He had worked in a film that I had directed [Fool’s Paradise], and he couldn’t have been lovelier to work with. He really went to bat for me when I needed him to come back and do some reshooting. So it was real nice to see him get a win. He’s been in the game a long time and he’s had some highs and lows, so I was really happy that that he got acknowledged.
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Abbott Elementary airs new episodes of season four each Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC, streaming the next day on Hulu.
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