The Gross Dee Gag In It's Always Sunny The Gang Wishes They'd Done Differently
Starring in "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" as the butt of every bird joke, Kaitlin Olson has done her share of gross-out comedy. The comedian was originally hired to be the feminine voice of reason on the show, but she had a different vision for the role. Olson is an incredible physical comedian and is unafraid to put her body on the line for a bit — she was even pregnant when she performed one of her most memorable moments in season 6. But even though the actress is a total trooper, there was one icky bit in season 5 that the series creators wished they had handled with more consideration for her.
For those who don't know, the series creators of "Sunny" are also Olson's co-stars: Glenn Howerton, who plays Dee's brother, Dennis; Charlie Day, who plays Dennis' friend Charlie Kelly; and Rob McElhenney, who plays their friend Mac and is also married to Olson in real life. Even though Dee was originally supposed to be the "straight man" of the group, Olson would only join "Sunny" on one condition: That her character be just as crazy as the others.
"In the beginning, before Season 1, I almost didn't take [the role], because I was reading the scripts, and Dee was the voice of reason, and they all were really funny," the actress recalled in an interview with Yahoo News. "I said, 'With all due respect, I just don't want to play that character. I don't want to be the voice of reason.' It just wasn't what I was interested in doing."
This decision definitely changed "Sunny" for the better, but there are times where Olson might regret that decision — and one particularly tough day of shooting in season 5 was one of those times.
In one season 5 gag, the series creators put her through hell
In the episode "Mac and Charlie Write A Movie," Olson had one highly physical gag that her bosses definitely wish they had handled differently. In that episode, Dee is an extra on an M. Night Shyamalan film. She is supposed to lie still and pretend to be a murdered corpse, but she consistently messes up the shot by attempting to steal the spotlight. For this hefty portion of the episode, Olson was drenched in fake blood, and it was far from fun to work in.
"You can't even go sit in a chair without sticking to everything," Day explained on The Always Sunny Podcast.
To make matters worse, most of her shots were lying face down on concrete. Unfortunately, the series creators and their producers failed to consider how uncomfortable Olson would be in the fake blood when they made the shooting schedule for this episode.
"The way we would shoot that now would be completely different," McElhenney said. "At the time, we didn't even think about the fact that there was four or five different scenes in four different locations with her wearing all of that makeup, that blood. So she put it on in the morning, and had to wear it all day."
Howerton speculated that Olson's shooting schedule was so nightmarish that day because the episode's producer wanted to shoot the episode "in the most efficient, cost-effective way possible" regardless of the actors' comfort, and that they were still "young enough to let the producer get away with that." Of course, the showrunner and his fellow collaborators have since learned from their mistakes. As the longest running live-action sit-com on the air, you're bound to make a few errors along the way — the important thing is that you don't keep making them.
"We would never do that now," Howerton added. "We would shoot all of her stuff in as short amount of time as we possibly could."
It was one of Olson's hardest days on set
Unsurprisingly, "Mac and Charlie Write A Movie" was one of Olson's least favorite episodes to make, and she wasn't afraid to tell her fellow co-stars about it.
"That was one of my hardest days," Olson admitted on another episode of The Always Sunny Podcast. "That ended in tears." Being covered in syrupy fake blood is disgusting enough, but the real trouble didn't start until it began to cake onto her skin and hair.
"The thing is, it's not just sticky and gross," she continued. "It starts to dry and every move you make your hair is ripping out of your body — whether it's your arm, or God forbid I look down, all the hair's ripping out of my neck. Then I had to lay down and, I'm sure they brushed the ground, but I had pebbles and rocks stuck all over my body."
McElhenney added that he took a video of Olson taken that day on an old flip phone. As she prepared to lay down in the fake blood again and take the final shot of the night, she repeated over and over, "I don't like it. I don't like it. I'm not having fun." The actress complains so rarely that her husband wasn't sure if she was joking at first, and it wasn't until she assured him that she was being serious that he realized she was not doing a bit. Even as she recounted how uncomfortable the shoot was years later, she cut herself off — "I mean, I'm not gonna complain," she said.
Olson often puts her body on the line for the bit
Olson's comedy has always been heavily physical. She is willing to put herself at risk for a good joke and has endured crazy conditions to provide an ideal take. In the episode "Who Pooped the Bed," Olson willingly performed a dangerous falling stunt onto concrete — in fact, she insisted upon it.
"We had a stuntwoman do it, and it didn't look very real, and then Kaitlin did it, and actually ran into the car, probably almost breaking her neck," Day recounted to Buzzfeed News. Olson added that she didn't want to stunt woman to perform the fall because "[t]here's a lot of acting that happens in between the running out and the head-hitting."
The "Curb Your Enthusiasm" alumni is also a self-admittedly massive klutz, an attribute that she infused into her character. The actress has reportedly broken her back, her foot, and her heel, not to mention sustained a gruesome on-set injury.
"I ripped my leg completely wide open on a steel grate that we were running on," she told Yahoo News. "It was a mess. Poor Glenn [Howerton] was like, 'I'm sorry, I have to walk away. I can't see this.' It was a lot of blood. But I've had two babies, so I was extremely calm. [...] You could see my bone, though..."
It's safe to say that Olson is no stranger to being a bit uncomfortable on set, but even still, the series creators try to make things as safe and easy as possible for their co-workers.
Dee is still the funniest character in the episode
Despite the occasionally rough conditions on the "Sunny" set, particularly back in the early days of the show when it was still finding its footing, Olson would rather be down in the trenches getting her hands dirty than to be the only cool head in a room of crazy characters.
With Olson in the driver's seat, Dee quickly evolved into one of the funniest characters in the show. She's desperate for attention and thriving to be taken seriously, yet she fails at every turn. In "Mac and Charlie Write A Movie," she tries to steal the shot, but ends up ruining it. Even though the actress was suffering that day, the conditions of the shoot being equally uncomfortable and degrading for her character played into the comedy of the scene. However, it's a shame that Olson's experience during the real shoot so closely mirrored Dee's experience in the fake one.
Thankfully, there's no hard feelings between the actress and the rest of the "Sunny" gang — she's still married to one of them, after all. Let's hope that the next time Olson is covered in some sticky substance for a "Sunny" episode, she isn't stuck waiting on the floor of a warehouse all day!