Charlie Day Made A Small But Historic Change To It's Always Sunny's Pepe Silvia Speech
The 16 seasons and counting of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" are filled to the brim with unforgettable moments, from a musical proposal to Frank bursting out of a couch. However, it seems the one thing the internet will truly never let die is Charlie's Pepe Silvia monologue in the season 4 episode "Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack."
In this misadventure, Charlie and Mac get office jobs working in a mailroom in order to secure health insurance. When Charlie attempts to deliver mail to Pepe Silvia, an employee who seemingly does not exist, the mystery drives him to pin up the mail on a corkboard connected by string, much like a detective solving a murder case. When Mac returns to the mail room from impersonating another employee upstairs, he finds Charlie embroiled in this conspiracy, chainsmoking cigarettes and ranting about Pepe Silvia in a now-famous monologue that has since been memed millions of times over.
Now, the name Pepe Silvia has been the subject of a lot of fan discourse — a bit of a conspiracy in itself, some might say. Fans have hypothesized that the name that Charlie keeps seeing is actually the name of the state to which the letters are addressed, Pennsylvania. However, the series creators Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, and Glenn Howerton have since disavowed that rumor on the "Always Sunny" Podcast.
This fan theory rests on the fact that Charlie is illiterate, a running gag in the series that has never truly been confirmed or denied. As it turns out, though, the name Pepe Silvia was the result of a misreading — not by the character, but by the actor himself.
Pepe Silvia's name wasn't Pepe Silvia
This might blow your mind, so make sure you're sitting down when you read this next part. Pepe Silvia's name wasn't actually Pepe Silvia in the script. It was... drumroll, please... Pepe Silva. However, the actor consistently said Pepe Silvia while shooting his monologue, and the character's name was officially changed as a result.
"I remember Charlie [Day] just going, 'Just make it Silvia, 'cause that's what I keep saying,'" McElhenney added. "And so they changed it up on the set."
Pepe Silvia, the "Horrible Bosses" star continued, just "rolled off the tongue better." However, this was one of the only parts of the monologue that was not in the script. The monologue was written by Rob Rosell, a writer and executive producer for the series whose credits also include the hit sitcom "New Girl."
"I was probably adding some flourishes, but only because of the speed at which we move at," Day continued. "You know, sometimes it's hard to memorize something that big, because we shoot 12 pages a day, and producing, and all that stuff." Despite these challenges, however, Day "had it down cold."
The memeification of Pepe Silvia
The Pepe Silvia board has become one of the most popular images on social media. It's used to identify a crackpot conspiracy, either as an insult directed at someone else or to punctuate one's own harebrained theories. All these years later, Day still doesn't understand why he is the internet's chosen portrait of nonsense.
"You know what's really weird is that, obviously the meme of me smoking, and pointing at the board with Pepe Silvia and all the strings, is used all the time for someone who's crazy," he went on. "But like, we didn't invent the string-board thing."
As confusing as it is for Day, it doesn't stop him from taking pride in being a meme. "I'm very proud of it," he confessed to NPR. "I like it immensely."
Memes don't necessarily correlate to new viewership for the show, but Day doesn't mind. In fact, he recognizes that it's an even bigger achievement when images from the show take on a life of their own. If it was just "Sunny" fans sharing these memes, they would still reach millions of people, but transcending the fandom means reaching even more people. Luckily for the "Sunny" creators, the show is full of extremely meme-able moments, and Pepe Silvia is one of the best.
"Certainly, as meme culture started to become prevalent, I don't go a week without somebody forwarding something where somebody used a meme of one of us to express themselves about any given hot-button issue of the rage cycle," Day explained to Rolling Stone. "When you realize you hit the zeitgeist is when you have someone who's never heard of 'Sunny' using those memes. They know the meme, but they don't know where it came from."
Is Pepe Silvia a misnomer for Pennsylvania?
Pepe Silvia was decidedly not supposed to be Pennsylvania, despite the many fans who say otherwise ... although the series creators wish that the fan theories were right.
"Some fans, very astutely, have put together that because my character can't read, Pepe Silvia might be Pennsylvania on the mail," Day told NPR. "But actually, I think for us, it was just a funny name for a guy to go crazy about. But I like their theory better."
Charlie's illiteracy is a defining characteristic for him, but it wasn't always part of who he was. In fact, it wasn't originally written into the series that Charlie couldn't read. The bit was initially improvised by Day in the season 2 episode "The Gang Gives Back." As the Paddy's Pub proprietors review their community service sentencing over brunch, Charlie struggles to read basic phrases like "interstate sanitation" and "six hours."
"In that first scene, it was not written in the script that [Day] couldn't read," Howerton revealed on the "Always Sunny" Podcast. "That was something that you wanted to do. You were like, 'I'm gonna try something.'"
McElhenney supported the idea from the very beginning, but Howerton wasn't sure at first. He felt that such a major decision required some extra thought.
"I distinctly remember Glenn, being like, 'This is so dumb,'" the "Mythic Quest" star interjected. "And then, me being like, 'I think it's dumb too, but it's also funny.' And, you're like, 'Wait, are we literally saying that Charlie can't read?' [...] 'Are we making a massive character choice right now on the fly in the middle of a scene?'"
Charlie might be illiterate, but is he a buffoon?
Despite being illiterate and curiously ignorant, Charlie is also one of the most capable characters in the gang. He might be the most buffoonish on the surface, but he oscillates between the two extremes of intelligence more than anyone in the group — we see his genius side more rarely in episodes like "Charlie Work." It might seem inconsistent, but Day enjoys how his character keeps the audience on their toes.
"I think that's more true to life than we want to admit," the "Fool's Paradise" director told /Film. "I've seen some of the smartest people in the world not know how to open the wrapper of a cheese stick. And at the same time, someone who might not have the book smarts of someone else might be much more world-savvy. So I think, I like those differences. I think sometimes you just have to just find that little sweet spot in between about what's too smart or what's too dumb and that's a moving target. But I'm glad that it's not just all one thing. I think it would get boring."
Just like his character, Day often contradicts himself. According to Howerton, his series co-creator can never decide just how ridiculous Charlie should be. Day is "constantly making his own character dumber and dumber," Howerton revealed on the "Always Sunny" Podcast, "and also complaining about how dumb his character is getting."
The Pepe Silvia monologue perfectly encapsulates Charlie's diametric nature. He has formed an elaborate conspiracy theory around a simple misunderstanding that may or may not have to do with his inability to read. Pepe Silvia might just be a mispronunciation, but it's a name we won't soon forget.