‘Sun’ is shining

He won’t let them rain on his parade, however. All he hopes is that people watch the show, laugh out loud, and perhaps give a little thought to the issues it addresses.
The half-hour, scripted series about three self-absorbed, 20-something friends who own an Irish pub in Philadelphia mines for laughs such touchy topics as racism, homosexuality, abortion, underage drinking, gun control and cancer.
“We’re getting a reaction and that’s what I was interested in,” the South Philly native told The Irish Echo in a recent phone interview, adding that most of the people who previewed the show before it aired last Thursday night liked it, while a small percentage was “scared off.”
“Like, really off-put by it, which is exactly what we were going for,” he admitted. “Honestly, we felt like if someone wasn’t pissed off by it, we weren’t doing our jobs correctly.”
Frustrated by how few acting gigs they were getting, McElhenney and his friends, Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton, filmed the pilot for the wickedly funny show on a paltry budget of $200, then sold the idea for the series to FX, making it one of the first two sit-coms developed by a cable network known for edgy, ground-breaking dramas like “Rescue Me” and “The Shield.”
In the first episode of “It’s Always Sunny,” Mac (McElhenney,) Charlie (Day) and Dennis (Howerton,) are elated when business at Paddy’s Irish Pub starts to boom after they enlist the help of an African-American party promoter. The lads have a very different reaction, however, when they discover their clientele is made up mostly of homosexual men, who are quickly transforming Paddy’s into the hottest new gay bar in Philly. Episode 2 follows the guys as they try to pick up girls on opposite sides of an abortion rally, while the third installment of the show finds the guys and waitress Sweet Dee (played Kaitlin Olsen) reliving their high-school years as they gleefully embrace the illegal practice of serving alcohol to minors.
“Nothing is for pure shock value,” insisted the handsome, tattooed McElhenney. “We didn’t want it to come across like that. We just felt there were some issues that are a very important part of American culture that have not been used in comedy and we felt there is a way to make them funny.”
McElhenney said he thinks the reason TV writers have shied away from laughing at these hot-button topics is because they either don’t know how to make them funny or because they are afraid of offending those who feel so strongly about them.
“People have these preconceived notions about things and refuse to see the other side,” he observed. “They refuse to get into a discussion and, therefore, immediately, when something like this is joked about, they just turn off and they refuse to accept that it might be interesting or at least to engage in some type of dialogue, which is what we are hoping will happen.”
Because the creative partners are young and don’t have families to feed, they are able to take the risk of finding the funny sides of serious matters and making a show that could alienate part of its audience, McElhenney confessed.
“We are totally responsible for ourselves. Me, I had nothing to lose. I was working in a restaurant before this. I had, literally, nothing to lose by just going for it,” remarked the actor whose resume includes appearances on “ER” and “Law & Order.”
“Because I’m not really worried about a paycheck — I can always go back and work in a restaurant or tend bar — I don’t want to, but I know that if I have to, I would-that frees you creatively. You have no boundaries.”
Raised by a Catholic family in Philadelphia, McElhenney stayed with friends in a dorm at Fordham University — even though he wasn’t a student there — while he struggled to find acting jobs. Sick of not being able to make a living from his art, he teamed up with Day and Howerton to shoot a pilot for a show that was loosely based on the worst parts of their own personalities.
“I didn’t have any money, so I knew I couldn’t make a film, but I thought, ‘I have talented friends and I would love to be doing something instead of working in a restaurant all day, waiting for auditions,'” McElhenney recalled. “So, I wrote the script for a TV show that was basically about me, Glenn and Charlie.”
McElhenney said the original concept for the pilot had the three guys playing actors living and trying to find work in Los Angeles. That idea was eventually scrapped for two reasons: it has been done before and the humor came from the guys’ relationships with each other and self-absorbed personalities, not from their career choices, so it could basically take place anywhere.
The pilot the three men shot with a couple of camcorders and edited with Final Cut computer software, however, established the show’s characters and the dark tone of its humor.
“Episode 4, which is our original pilot, revolves around Dennis going over to Charlie’s house and Charlie telling him he has cancer,” McElhenney revealed. “That is something I’ve never seen on TV done in a comedic way because cancer is a serious topic and somebody dying is not necessarily funny, but I thought what is funny is to watch somebody going through the process of learning that his friend has cancer and learning to deal with it.”
The actor said he first wrote a scenario, which then grew into a scene, which later evolved into a story about what this experience could be like.
“Then Dennis comes over to tell my character and I’m pissed off because Charlie told Dennis and not me and what does that say about my relationship with Charlie? And then I try to force Charlie to tell me and we thought: ‘This is pretty funny. I’ve never seen anything like this,'” he revealed.
McElhenney said he, Howerton and Day gave the pilot to an agent who then brought the video to FX. The cable network loved the show, but told the guys to find another setting.
“The fact that the characters were actors had nothing to do with it,” he reasoned. “It’s the fact that these people are completely self-involved and you can put self-involved people into any circumstance and it’ll be funny. All we needed to do was give them a profession where they have nothing to do all day.”
Asked why he decided to set the show in an Irish pub, McElhenney said it is a good place to have the characters discuss, debate and defend the topics the show raises, adding: “Those are the places I like to hang out in. I was Irish-Catholic, growing up in Philly. Most of my friends are Irish-Catholic, as well. I just thought it was an interesting kind of blue-collar situation to put people in. It’s very specific and it’s an interesting culture that, again, you don’t see too much on television.”
Emphasizing that the show doesn’t take a stand on the issue of abortion, the actor said he and his collaborators wanted to show that people arguing both sides of the debate can have valid points, while they can also be ridiculous.
“It’s easy to make a decision about racism or abortion or gun control, which is a later episode, except when a human being is put into that position because then his or her decision-making process changes because now it is personal,” McElhenney said.
Given the fact that much of the humor of the show is at the expense of Irish-Americans and the Roman Catholic Church, one might reasonably wonder if McElhenney is concerned about incurring the wrath of his own people, but the actor said that isn’t the case.
“I hope that people will be able to look at me and say, ‘Well, he’s one of our own,'” McElhenney confided, pointing out that the show is about “three idiots” and not meant to reflect an entire community.
“It’s one of those situations where if you’re Jewish, you can make Jew jokes, but nobody else can. I feel like if you’re Irish-Catholic, you can make jokes about alcoholism and Catholicism and say: ‘Well, look, I’m not an outsider making fun of you. I grew up this way and I know what it’s like and if you guys are going to sit there and tell me that it’s not like this, then you are the ones that are full of (crap,) not me.'”
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” airs Thursday nights on FX.