Production
The show began as a short film idea written by Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton about a man telling his friend he might have cancer, while the friend's only intent is on trying to borrow a cup of sugar for the "shitload of coffee" he has made. This was then developed into a pilot called It's Always Sunny on TV and was shot on a digital camcorder by Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney. This pilot was shopped by the actors around various studios, their pitch being simply showing the DVD of the pilot to executives. After viewing the pilot, FX Network ordered the first season. Although it is often stated publicly that Always Sunny was one of the first shows to be shot in 24p video, using Panasonic's DVX100 MiniDV camcorder, from the sixth season forward, the show was shot using high-definition cameras.
The first season ran for seven episodes with the season finale airing September 13, 2005. According to McElhenney, word of mouth on the show was good enough for FX to renew it for a second, which ran from June 29 to August 17, 2006. To boost ratings and achieve more mainstream exposure, Danny DeVito joined the cast in the first episode of the second season, playing the father of Dennis (played by Glenn Howerton) and Sweet Dee (played by Kaitlin Olson). Reruns of edited first season episodes began airing on FX's parent network, Fox, in 2006, but after only two episodes ("Gun Fever" and "Charlie Gets Molested"), Fox removed the show from its lineup. The show would not be shown on broadcast television until 2011, when FX began offering the show for syndication.
On August 18, 2007, the episode "Mac is a Serial Killer" from the third season appeared on the group's MySpace page. The third season ran from September 13, 2007 to November 15, 2007. On March 5, 2008, FX renewed It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for a fourth season. On July 15, 2008, it was reported that FX had ordered 39 additional episodes of the series. All five main cast members were secured for the entire scheduled run. The fifth season ran from September 17, 2009 to December 10, 2009. On May 31, 2010, Comedy Central began airing reruns of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. WGN America also began broadcasting the show Fall 2011. The sixth season ran from September 16, 2010 until December 9, 2010, running twelve episodes. The seventh season ran from September 15, 2011 until December 15, 2011, running 13 episodes. On August 6, 2011, FX announced it had picked up the show for an additional two seasons (the show's eighth and ninth) running through 2013, which would make it the longest-running live-action comedy in basic cable history. There is also an option for a tenth season.
Read more about this topic: It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
“The heart of man ever finds a constant succession of passions, so that the destroying and pulling down of one proves generally to be nothing else but the production and the setting up of another.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)