Catching Up With... It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

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Paste: So what are you most excited about next season?
Day: I'm most excited about the episode that takes place in 1776. The script is funny, but also the production value. It's the first time we'll be working with big set pieces and an expensive wardrobe. It will be fun to see if we can turn it into anything good. If we can't we'll just make it sepia-toned in the editing room.

Paste: When you guys were creating the show you all had the specific characters in mind. How much of the "Sunny" Charlie is taken from the real-life Charlie?
Day: You know, it's a difficult thing to quantify. In some respects a lot of its me, a lot of the improve and things are based on my sense of humor. The guy certainly sounds and looks like me. On the other hand, I can read and write. I don't huff glue. So, you know, its just a tough thing to tell. There are certainly things that are influenced by me or are exaggerated parts of my personality. Insecurities about my spelling become a guy who can't read or write. Normally I'm actually quite boring.

Paste: I don't know if I believe that. You're making me laugh.
Day: Well I'm trying to sell you here. It must be working.

Paste: So when they guys are kicking the shit out of you in the show, because, you know you're invincible, just how hard are they actually hitting you?
Day: At one point in time when Rob breaks a piece of board over my back, I let out a nice big yell because he missed the part of my back where he was supposed to hit -there was a pad on it - and just cracked it across the side of my arm. So sometimes they are hitting me pretty hard, other times we're doing it in a safe enough way that I can show up to work the next day.

Paste: Was the part where he accidently hits you in the arm including in the actual episode?
Day: Yeah, its in there. In the montage.

Paste: Well, that's a fun little piece of trivia I can keep in my pocket: At this point in time, Charlie is screaming in actual pain because Mac whacked him in the side of the arm.
Day: (Laughs) and I was going with it too.

Paste: So we know the Nightman makes an appearance in the new season, but what about the Greenman?
Day: Yes, the Greenman will be making a cameo. (Laughs) But that's all I'm saying.

Paste: Do you ever get mistaken for having the same personality as your character?
Day: Well how would I know?

Paste: I mean, has anyone every treated you like you're illiterate?
Day: Well, no one has every walked up to me and tried to break a chair over my back. Which is good, considering I'd probably shatter my spine.

Paste: How do you guys come up with the different topics for each episode?
Day: Just by going to the office on a daily basis when we're writing and saying what could be interesting to see these characters do. We also think about other things going on in the world, like the gas crisis or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and then we just take in from there.

Paste: Do you guys mess with each other on set at all?
Day: No, we aren't pranksters, we've been asked that before. We don't pull many pranks because we spend all of our time making jokes for the camera, we don't feel the need to make them behind the camera as well.

Paste: Glenn mentioned earlier that none of you were trained to act comedy. Is that a hard transition to make from more serious theater to comedy?
Day: My opinion with comedy is you either got it or you don't. I don't know how you would train to be a comedic actor, although I guess some people do. For me it wasn't hard, because I've always been a funny-ish guy with my friends. I feel like I took to it quite easily without much effort, but maybe it would be harder for someone else.

Paste: Is it harder to write comedy or act it?
Day: It's harder to write it. For me at least, maybe not for Woody Allen.

Paste: And lastly, what would be in a Charlie sandwich?
Day: Are we talking any type of Charlie sandwich or a Grilled Charlie?

Paste: Either or.
Day: I think it's peanut butter, chocolate, cheese, ummmm butter, toast, more cheese, more peanut butter, and some chocolate. And some cheese.

And that brings us to Rob McElhenney, the creator, co-writer, co-producer and sometimes director of Sunny. His character, Mac, is not only the show's resident martial arts aficionado, but also a proud rocker of the tribal armband and a not-so-proud lover of the transgendered.

Paste: We're really excited about the new season.
McElhenney: Good! Me too!

Paste: We're also excited about all the seasons to come. What was your reaction when you found out about the renewal? How did you guys celebrate?
McElhenney: It wasn't all in one moment. It sort of happened over time, so it wasn't like a "hey, we're picking you up for 52 episodes" type of a deal. They kind of tested the waters early on, asking us how many do we think we can do over the course of a season, how many over the course a few seasons, so we kind of knew it was coming. And then with the surprising success of the DVD sales and Hulu and iTunes, that kind of sealed the deal and then they made the official announcement to us and then we kept it under wraps for a few months. And we celebrated by, well, we celebrated by working. We knew that if we were going to try and get 52 of these things out we knew we needed to get right to work, and so we did.

Paste: So you guys are going to be writing a lot for quite some time. What is the creative process when you are constructing story lines and writing episodes?
McElhenney: We come into work, we have a staff this year, and we just knock around ideas of episodes we want to do and we kind of lay out the whole season right in the beginning. Like somebody says, "I want to do an episode with a glory hole," "I want to do an episode with Mac and Charlie dying," "I want to do an episode where my dad gets out of prison." And then we sort of put them all together, put those pieces together and make an episode. And then we'll sit down and break that down and then from there somebody goes off and writes it and then the final process is the three of us going through it and punching it out.

Paste: You are the show's creator. What was the impetus for you to create a show about a bunch of dysfunctional people?
McElhenney: It was desperation. I was sort of at the end of my rope. I was in L.A. and I was struggling and I thought of a funny scenario of two assholes talking to each other and then I put that into a short film. I had never seen anything where every character was quote-unquote unlikable. I just thought this is something the complete opposite of anything I had seen on TV, so let's just see what happens if we try it. And that's what happened.

Paste: You are the only one that is actually from Philly. How did you introduce the rest of the gang to your home town?
McElhenney: Everyone had been there except Caitlin. Glenn has worked there, Charlie's grandmother lived there, in fact, his father and I went to the same high school. So everyone had spent a fair amount of time there when we went to shoot the pilot, but we really got to explore the city in a different way than any of us had before.

Paste: While you were getting ready for this upcoming season, you were all in the writers' strike. What did you do with all of your new found free time?
McElhenney: I picketed. I hung out. It timed out really well for us too, because our show was already finished by the time the writers' strike had started, so we were on hiatus anyway. I was able to get involved in a lot of the meetings and things like that and the actual strike. I also had an opportunity to go and see some people I hadn't seen in a really long time and kind of just hang out.

Paste: What most excites you about the upcoming season?
McElhenney: Well, I'm definitely excited to see the actual growth in the amount of people that are going to watch. I've definitely noticed, all of us have noticed, a very big switch that's been turned on for this season. I think a lot of it does have to do with Hulu and iTunes and the DVD sales. I think that awareness has brought on so much and I'm really excited to see how many people tune in on Sept. 18.

Paste: You guys cover some rather controversial topics on the show: incest, retardation, drug addiction. Do you guys every get hate mail?
McElhenney: Yeah! I feel like if we don't, we aren't doing our job. There are plenty of people in this country that watch this show and hate it. And I love that. Because those are the kind of people that I don't want to like the show. Because they have their heads up their asses.

Paste: Agreed.

McElhenney: So where are you guys at?
Paste: We're just outside of Atlanta, in Decatur.

McElhenney: Atlanta? That's cool! I've been to Atlanta. I was in this one area, maybe the Bulkhead?

Paste: Buckhead?
McElhenney: Yeah!

Paste: That's kind of fancy-schmancy.
McElhenney: It is? It didn't seem that fancy! I almost got my ass kicked.

Paste: There are a lot of parts of Atlanta where that can happen. You can get your ass kicked pretty much anywhere in Atlanta.
McElhenney: Well I was in kind of a rough crowd, I guess and we almost got in a huge altercation. I loved it.

Paste: Well, be careful next time; we like the show too much. Is there anything else you wanted to share with us?
McElhenney: Yeah! Tell your readers that if they aren't watching the show they are just straight-up retarded.