With little money and a camcorder, they shot a pilot, which was eventually bought by FX.
So now in season 14, are you still as hands-on?
“ROB MCELHENNEY: It’s less stressful for us.
We’re laughing a lot more.
It’s always a lot of work, though.
It’s really weird, because I guess this is 14, and it doesn’t seem to be.
For me, it doesn’t get old.
These guys are writing, and then after we’re done with production, they go and edit it.
Whereas you don’t have the youthful excitement, you don’t have the youthful angst too.
How surreal does it feel to hear “14 seasons”?
But you all seem immune to that.DEVITO:It’s crazy.
It goes by fast.
Basically we’re just getting old and we don’t like thinking about it, so next question.
It allows us to have a tremendous amount of free time.
I’ve been on other shows [Howerton currently stars onA.P.
Bio], and there’s something so much more expansive about those other things.
You’ve got the directors and writers and producers and actors, and they’re all different people.
We are like a band.
We write and play all of our own music.
It does feel like that, which is cool.
Even though I can’t really say because I was never in a band.
[Laughs]HOWERTON:It’s what I imagine it to be.
Like, I know exactly what I need to say to tee Charlie up.
And I’m like, “Oh right, that isn’t Charlie.”
It’s like a family.
No one’s watching, so we will just move on with it.”
And I said, “Yeah.”
What made me do it was the fun of it.
I love to have a good time.
It was only Nielsen ratings, which everyone kind of recognizes is bulls.
Last year you did a Time’s Up episode and the episode with Mac coming out to his dad.
But FX was the one pushing us towards making entire episodes about those things.
But sometimes the episodes are just about going to a water park and what’s going to happen there.
Rob, what have you enjoyed aboutexploring Mac’s sexuality?
It doesn’t work like that.
True inclusion is bringing the LGBTQ down into the gutter with us.
And I’m like, “Great!”
Like, ‘Ahh, Kaitlin’s chest…'“MCELHENNEY:Alotof people didn’t like it.
Because a lot of people felt like it didn’t fit into the lexicon of what the show is.
Danny, you’ve gotten real down and dirty onSunny.
Hell, you’ve evengotten greased up and emerged naked from a couch.
You have to have compassion and mercy.
I keep saying to them, “Just push the envelope what can you do?”
It’s kind of like a challenge, the Frank challenge.
I wouldn’t skydive, I don’t think, I’m chicken.
As long as it’s funny, I’ll slime around and s like that.
Kaitlin, you’re used to Dee getting crapped on all the time.
It’s so funny to me.
It makes me laugh.
Like when she tried to become a comedian.
That was so mean.
It was so victorious and so emotional for them that they did this thing.
Oh my God, it was so funny to me.MCELHENNEY:Dennis didn’t know, though.
He was getting so mad that he didn’t know it was fake.
Even in that, ultimately, the true target was Dennis.
He would be the one who would revel in it the most.
So Dee can’t even be the butt of her own joke.
We always notice that people either love or hate those different ones.
And that’s great, that’s part of the experience.
It would just get tired.
It makes you realize we should shoot on those cameras anyway.
Oh, we gotDolph Lundgren!HOWERTON:PlayingJohn Thunder Gun.
And I directed two episodes this year.DAY:Which was great.
But nobody wants to slow down, they want the party to keep going, and to tragic results.
But that is the impending doom that isIt’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and our species.
Have you thought about the end?
Next year we’ll come back and do another season and just keep going.
It’s his favorite show and he pops it on when he feels like he needs a lift.
So our fanbase is growing; we have older guys, women, 11-year-old kids.
If we can be like Warner Bros. cartoons, let’s do it.
Throw on aLooney Tunesonce and a while and see what Frank and the gang are doing.
[Laughs] No skydiving, though!
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphiareturns to FXX on Wednesday at 10 p.m.
