The Office and 25 TV shows that were never supposed to be hits
By Kareem Gantt
16. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (FX/FXX)
Series run: 2005-Present (13 seasons/144 episodes)
It’s crude and amoral, and it’s not afraid to find the funny within the topics that seems to divide us every day.
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia premiered in 2005, and their unusual take on comedy has stayed on the cultural airwaves for the past 13 years. Though it rarely ever get any Primetime Emmy love, Always Sunny has built a hardcore fanbase that finds comfort in the show’s politically incorrect style of making viewers laugh out loud.
To be clear, Always Sunny is a show that would never be shown on network television, not even FOX, who owns FXX, the cable network that plays home to the show; and in a lot of ways, why would it? For what Always Sunny wants to accomplish, it’s actually right at home on cable, and moving it to network television would strip away the charm that makes the show so enduring.
Yes, Always Sunny has its detractors who feel as the show is too mean-spirited and crude, but, in actuality, it’s not a mean-spirited show. Always Sunny has mean-spirited characters, for sure, but the show does a great job in keeping those characters wrapped within the “sunny” aspect of which the show is built around.
Looking at the show from that aspect, Always Sunny is a groundbreaking piece of “anti-sitcom” that we hope will stick around for just a little while longer.