The Gang Goes to Class in First Teaser for ‘Abbott Elementary,’ ‘It’s Always Sunny’ Crossover
The Gang and the Willard R. Abbott faculty finally meet in the first teaser for the long-awaited crossover episode between the two great Philly sitcoms, Abbott Elementary and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
The 30-second spot opens with Quinta Brunson’s Janine Teagues cheerfully welcoming the Paddy’s Pub crew to the “best elementary school in the universe,” only for Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson) to deadpan, “Is that what this is?”
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As for why Philadelphia’s most lovably loathsome dirtbags have been allowed to enter an upstanding elementary school, it appears to do some volunteer work (perhaps court-ordered, but who’s to say). Per ABC, the episode is titled “Volunteers,” and the logline reads: “Ava [Janelle James] 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.”
To exactly that end, the clip teases a few goofy bits like Rob McElhenney’s Mac not-so-subtly hitting on Ava, William Stanford Davis’ Mr. Johnson and Danny DeVito’s Frank arguing over who’s a bigger piece of trash, and Glenn Howerton’s Dennis scurrying away suspiciously after the gym’s scoreboard crashes to the floor.
The Abbott/It’s Always Sunny crossover is set to air on Jan. 8 on ABC. A follow-up episode is also in the works, with the Abbott crew slated to jump into the It’s Always Sunny world in a future episode airing later next year.
Speaking with Variety in October, Abbott executive producers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker spoke about breaking the story for the crossover episode and finding a way to blend the two shows’ distinct and disparate comedy tones. Without giving any plot away, Schumacker said the storyline for the Abbott episode would focus largely on Charlie Day’s character, Charlie.
“It was kind of a joke at first, that the two shows should cross over,” he said. “On paper, it feels like they’d be a real tonal mishmash. But then Rob and Charlie came to our writers room and we hashed out some real broad stroke ideas. From there, we emailed back and forth beat sheets and then an outline. They were super game for everything. All those concerns that we had about the tones of the shows butting against each other were alleviated the second we started filming with Charlie.”
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