Making It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Chardee MacDennis Episode Was Miserable
Chardee MacDennis might be the game of games, but making this unforgettable episode did not feel like a game to "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" creator and star Rob McElhenney. He and his fellow castmates have a lot of fun shooting the series, but not every day at the office is fun for everyone. His wife and co-star Kaitlin Olson really enjoyed shooting their aggressive gameplay, but that might have something to do with why McElhenney wasn't having such a good time. Olson has kissed their co-star Charlie Day on the show, but this season 7 episode was still the most painful for McElhenney to shoot. Chardee MacDennis is one of the most memorable parts of the entire show, but the shoot itself is something McElhenney wishes he could forget.
The inspiration for the board game came from the idea to do the show's very first bottle episode. Even though Paddy's Pub acts as home base for the gang year after year, their harebrained schemes often take them into the outside world — but not this time.
"We talked about doing a whole episode that takes place in the bar this year because we've never really done an episode where the whole thing just takes place in the bar," explained co-creator and star Glenn Howerton in a 2011 interview with Collider. "So, yeah, we actually have an episode where it's kind of a rainy day and our characters don't know what the hell to do with the day and they're kinda bored and our characters end up busting out this game that they invented years and years ago named Chardee MacDennis."
The rules of the game are complex, and most of the competition is punctuated by screaming, aggression, and verbal abuse. Howerton said the episode was "pretty fun," but not all of his castmates agreed.
The gang had no relief while shooting Chardee MacDennis
Watching the cast of "Sunny" play Chardee MacDennis might have been a lot of fun for the audience, but it wasn't a very fun shoot for McElhenney, who plays Mac. Unfortunately for him, the episode gets brought up a lot to this day.
"[T]here's two episodes that I hear the most about from fans — 'The Nightman Cometh' and the Chardee MacDennis episode, which I don't know, I always thought it was funny and fine," McElhenney confessed to Collider. "It was kind of miserable to shoot, but fans really seem to love it."
In the game of games, the gang releases their aggression between rounds by smashing their glasses and doing war-like dances. It's necessary catharsis for the characters, but McElhenney found this practice thoroughly exhausting. The nature of the bottle episode also set him up for nonstop action, whereas their characters are typically split into A and B plotlines. With all the weight he put on for season 7, McElhenney was not in any shape for a marathon shoot.
"[W]e were screaming at each other for the entire thing and we didn't really have relief, so it was just scene after scene after scene around a table in the bar screaming at each other," he explained. "We all lost our voices. I think it turned out OK, and I really like that episode, but fans seem to really love it."
But losing his voice probably wasn't the only reason that McElhenney didn't like shooting Chardee MacDennis. His character has never won a game of Chardee MacDennis because he isn't cut out for the competition, and in a sense, McElhenney is the same. Believe it or not, Mac losing to Dee might have hit a little too close to home for the actor.
Olson loved getting competitive — but McElhenney hated it
Part of why McElhenney didn't enjoy shooting Chardee MacDennis might have had something to do with his wife, Kaitlin Olson. Olson plays Dee in the series, who forms an unstoppable team with her brother Dennis that has never failed to defeat Charlie and Mac. As it turns out, the dynamics for this episode might have been inspired by Olson's competitiveness — an idea that totally backfired for McElhenney, who later had a "miserable" time.
"The idea for how I was playing it came from Rob McElhenney hating how I actually play a game, because I get really into it and I have to win them," the actress told MovieWeb. "I'm a little aggressive."
Even though her husband didn't enjoy making the first Chardee MacDennis episode, Olson had a great time. She also particularly loved the side of Dee — and her relationship with her brother — that the episode brings out, a symbiotic sibling dynamic that we don't often get to see.
"That was such a fun one for me to shoot because I always love when Dennis and Dee are on the same page," the actress said in that same interview. "It happens so rarely, but it's so sweet and endearing to me. In this game that we play the entire episode, Dennis and Dee are on the same team and they're just ridiculous [...] So that's a fun one for me, because I just think that it highlights Dennis and Dee's relationship when they can kind of get together and it's them against everyone else."
This raises the question: When the cast gets together for a dinner party, how deadly are their games of Pictionary? Chardee MacDennis might have brought up some real emotions for McElhenney, but his fans and castmates would all agree that his suffering was well worth it.