It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia co-creator and star Rob McElhenney speaks about the difficulties in continuing to come up with fresh storylines for the show. In December of 2020, It's Always Sunny was renewed for four more seasons, meaning that the show's creators still have plenty of stories to write for the five main characters. This means that the show will run for at least 18 seasons, making it one of the longest running live action comedy shows of all time. Throughout the show's 16 year run, it has become known for its crude comedy, topical episodes, and unapologetic characters.
In addition to working on It's Always Sunny, McElhenney is a creator on the Apple TV+ show Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet alongside It's Always Sunny heavy weights Charlie Day and Megan Ganz. Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet is the third original series to premiere on Apple TV+. The show follows a group of video game developers working on a multi-player role playing game similar to World of Warcraft. Before the show officially aired, it was already renewed for a second season, which premiered in May of this year.
Between It's Always Sunny and Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet, McElhenney certainly has his hands full, but according him, the two shows are very different beasts. McElhenney described working on Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet as "incredibly liberating." Citing a whole new batch of characters and situations to work with, McElhenney talked about how it is easier for him to write new episodes and stories for Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet than it is for It's Always Sunny. Speaking with ET Online, he opened up about the challenges of the latter:
“The limitations that we have with Sunny is that there’s only so many stories that you can tell with this group of people. And we’ve done a lot of them. So, it’s a challenge for us to continually come up with new stories for them. Whereas with Mythic Quest, when you have a whole fresh set of characters and a whole brand new situation, it becomes so much easier to invent new situations to put them in.”
This doesn't mean that McElhenney doesn't enjoy his work on It's Always Sunny, however. In the same interview, McElhenney described feeling "fortunate" that he had his It's Always Sunny crew to go back to, especially after their time apart due not only COVID but also the numerous other projects that the cast has been working on. "Those people are my best friends. They’re my family members," he said in his interview with ET Online, "and they’re the people who I love spending time with more than almost anybody on the planet."
After 16 years on air, it isn't too surprising that the It's Always Sunny creators would sometimes struggle to come up with new content and situations for the gang at Paddy's Pub. The show has seen its characters through kidnappings, cruises, scams, and more. In season 9, the Always Sunny gang even went through a quarantine of their own, years before COVID. Now, McElhenney teased that the pandemic will factor in heavily to the new season, saying that some episodes will practically write themselves. It is currently unclear when the next season of It's Always Sunny will premiere, but fans can catch up up the show's current seasons on Hulu and Amazon.
Source: ET Online