PARTING SHOT
Illustration by BRITT SPENCER
THE FXX SITCOM IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA HAS BEEN RUNNING for 13 seasons—that’s two more than the classic comedy Cheers and four more than Seinfeld. Like Cheers, it’s about a gang of people who frequent a pub-style bar, Paddy’s; as in Seinfeld, the friends never grow or learn anything. Intentionally cheap and anarchic, the show (sometimes called Seinfeld on crack) features a group of sociopathic alcoholics: volatile Mac (co-creator Rob McElhenney), illiterate Charlie (Charlie Day), degenerate patriarch Frank (Danny DeVito) and his delusional twins, Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson). Since its debut in 2005, the shameless Dee has dabbled in blackface, lured her friend into cocaine addiction for her own financial gain and held a funeral for her fake baby to get out of an IRS audit. It’s the sort of behavior that turns a sitcom, and a character, into a cult phenomenon. “When we started, we were doing things that nobody else was,” Olson tells Newsweek, “and the show is still completely unapologetic and brave.”