A Season 10 Moment In It's Always Sunny Had Glenn Howerton Cackling In Bloopers
Watching "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is hilarious, so one can only imagine what it's like to be in the same room when the gang are engaging in their over-the-top antics. The "Always Sunny" blooper reels have always been pretty great because there are so many fun little alternate line-readings and moments where everyone loses it, with a few rather funny highlights of their own. I get the giggles every time I imagine Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day cracking up talking about "the white hot cream" of a preteen Charlie in "The Gang Dances Their A**es Off," for example. Laughing can be contagious, and chuckling along with folks behind the gang is pretty easy, but apparently even star Glenn Howerton sometimes bursts into bouts of laughter when he thinks about how much he lost it during one particular moment in season 10.
On an episode of "The Always Sunny Podcast" where Day, McElhenney, Howerton, and writer/co-producer Megan Ganz discussed the show's bloopers, Howerton revealed that one co-star's specific delivery of a potentially edgy joke just sent him into hysterics every time. He even starts snickering thinking about himself laughing on that season's blooper reel. Who's to blame? Danny DeVito, of course.
Howerton can't hold his hahahas
On the podcast episode, Howerton details the moment that makes him laugh every single time:
"It's from 'The Gang Group Dates.' And Danny is like describing how in the '70s he would go to all the orgies. And there was sounds like the 70s. 'A bunch of people would get together and the next thing you know, it was all hands and butts and tits and woo. I could just slip right in there and out. Nobody would know the difference. It was great. Then AIDS ruined everything.' The way he drops and says that, like, the way I break in the blooper is exactly how I break every single time I watch the blooper of it. I'd say for me, it's so funny."
AIDS jokes are pretty dark, but dark humor is part and parcel for this series. (There's an entire episode around human euthanasia, remember?) The show has gotten a surprisingly small amount of backlash given how frequently they push the boundaries of good taste, but maybe people just expect it from the gang at this point. The moment in the episode is pretty funny, too, because the way DeVito says it, it sounds like somehow he was the biggest victim. Its also very, well, frank.
Inflection changes everything
One of the greatest comedic strengths of the actors on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is their ability to turn up the absurdity on their dialogue using just a bit of inflection. The guys behind the show decided early on to not try and do Philly accents at all times, and it's definitely for the better because it allows each actor to get weird with their line deliveries. Howerton is incredible at adjusting his pitch to make even the most basic phrase sound hilarious, while Day's ability to get increasingly shrill as he gets upset is high comedy. But perhaps the best of the best is DeVito, who has learned over his long career how to pause at just the right moments, raise and lower his tone, and generally just deliver a line in the funniest way possible.
There are few things on this planet as funny as Frank Reynolds trying to say "whores" ("hoors") or even just "yeah" (he can say it in a thousand different ways), and it's wonderful to see DeVito stretch his skills in comedic pronunciation. Thank goodness we don't have to try and hold it together while he does it.