How It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Used Pretty Woman For Comedic Fuel
"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" has pushed the boundaries of comedy many times over the years. Some controversial episodes featured blackface, others included homophobic slurs, and one included an homage to the beloved 1990 rom-com, "Pretty Woman." The film is fondly remembered as one of Julia Roberts' breakout roles following "Mystic Pizza" and "Steel Magnolias." It is lauded as a romantic rags-to-riches fairytale, a modern Cinderella if you will — but the "Sunny" creators had a slightly different take on the premise.
Series co-creator and showrunner Rob McElhenney has played the karate-loving Mac for all 16 seasons of the series, but he also plays a large part in the show's writing process. He and his fellow co-creators were inspired by the '90s blockbuster while flipping channels and decided to let it shape one of the plotlines in the season 7 premiere.
"[W]e were watching 'Pretty Woman' recently when it was on TV," he recalled in an interview with Time Out. "You know, people think our show is offensive. To me, a movie like that is offensive. Even though I loved it, I still felt like, 'Wow, what a misrepresentation of what that would be like.' To find a prostitute and to marry her, would she look and act like Julia Roberts? A real prostitute? [...] So, we decided to go down that road and see what would that really be like. To me, it's a more fair representation. That's our first episode."
The inspiration to create a more "realistic representation" of the premise behind "Pretty Woman" was the catalyst for one of the funniest "Sunny" episodes of all time.
Pretty Woman felt unrealistic to the Sunny creators
The female lead in "Frank's Pretty Woman" wasn't the only character that was given a "realistic" spin. Frank presents an even funnier and starker contrast to the leading man in "Pretty Woman" than his fiancée does to Julia Roberts.
But Frank wasn't the only one that went through a transformation in the season 7 premiere. Mac had also undergone a massive weight gain in the gap between seasons 6 and 7, and it had to be addressed in the very first episode — even though the full explanation wouldn't come until much later.
"[In the season 7 premiere], we knew we wanted to do something addressing my character getting fat and so we decided what would be funny about that is if Glenn [Howerton, co-creator and star] and I went to the doctor and Glenn was going to prove to me how unhealthy I was and found out he's just as unhealthy as I am," McElhenney explained to The Futon Critic. He continued:
"We thought that would work really well with this particular storyline of Charlie trying to show Frank how he's worthy of getting a wonderful woman and pretending to go on this date. Also, someone had just [watched] 'Pretty Woman' and said 'That is such a ridiculous movie and we're supposed to believe that Julia Roberts is a prostitute?' [...] and like ingredients of a soup we just throw it all in together and stir it up."
Who had the idea for Frank's Pretty Woman?
Now, it's unclear where exactly the original idea for this hilarious premise came from, but that's because the writing process on "Sunny" is heavily collaborative. Each of the co-creators has written about 50 episodes apiece, while writers' room staples and story editors like the Chernin brothers have also written over 10 episodes each.
"Ultimately, the writing process is very different from episode to episode but it will start on the first day when all the writers are there with me, Glenn, and Charlie [Day, co-creator and star]," McElhenney told The Futon Critic, continuing:
"We just start throwing out ideas of episodes we'd like to do and things that we're not seeing anywhere else on television. We do that for 3-4 days and that gets us to the point where we have enough ideas and then we start trying to see what storyline will work with what storyline and then break it down from there. Generally, there's an overall thematic element that runs through the entire episode and then there are set pieces from that point forward."
McElhenney and Howerton are both credited with developing the idea for "Frank's Pretty Woman," while "Rick & Morty" writer Scott Marder and "New Girl" writer-producer Rob Rossell fleshed out the premise and wrote the rest of the episode.
Since comedies like "Sunny" blur the lines of writer, creator, and actor through a heavily improvisational environment, who gets credit is less important than working together to create a hilarious episode like the season 7 premiere. Without this collaborative spirit, "Sunny" would have never lasted for 16 seasons and counting.