This Episode Of It's Always Sunny Was Inspired By Jaws And An Infamous Horror Novel

The gang on "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" love riffing on popular culture, both onscreen as their characters and in the episodes themselves. From the bonkers Bruce Willis-inspired antics of the season 3 episode "The Gang Gets Held Hostage" to a way less classy take on the classic noir "The Postman Always Rings Twice" that involves a whole lot of diarrhea poisoning, elements of pop culture have been riffed on throughout the long-running series. There's one episode, however, that almost feels like a pop culture Easter egg hunt, and that's the glorious "The Gang Goes to a Water Park" from season 12. 

"The Gang Goes to a Water Park" has it all — a great nod to Steven Spielberg's seminal feature film "Jaws," references to one of the most infamous horror novels of the 21st century, an extended riff on an oft-forgotten Nicolas Cage movie, cameos from some very famous TV showrunners, and even a joke referencing one of the internet's oldest memes. Seriously, it's like a pop culture smorgasbord with a little something for everyone, and it also happens to be a ridiculously funny episode in its own right. Sure, it gets a little dark, with Frank (Danny DeVito) getting horribly injured on a dry water slide and a child possibly drowning when Dee (Kaitlin Olson) and Mac (Rob McElhenney) push him down a slide face-first, but this is "It's Always Sunny," so that's honestly to be expected, right? 

The references in the episode are numerous, as the entire subplot around Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and a young girl he takes under his wing is a spoof of Ridley Scott's 2013 dark comedy "Matchstick Men," which starred Nic Cage and Sam Rockwell. Not only that, but the "Game of Thrones" showrunners appear as two very lazy lifeguards who let a child drown, and one of them announces "pool's closed, AIDS," in a direct reference to an ancient and characteristically offensive 4chan meme. 

Throughout "The Gang Goes to a Water Park," Mac repeatedly warns the other characters to avoid sitting on the pool drains for any reason, "no matter how good you think they might feel on your butt." He explains that it's because someone was disemboweled this way and had to chew through their intestines, which is a reference to the infamous Chuck Palahniuk short story "Guts," from his 2005 horror novel "Haunted." Palahniuk is best known for writing the 1996 novel "Fight Club," but "Guts" became infamous when people fainted during readings of the story at book signings. At the very end of the episode, Mac ends up ignoring his own advice and sitting on the pool drain himself before grinning at the camera, all set to John Williams's unsettling and iconic "Jaws" theme. There's one other "Always Sunny" episode that references "Jaws," however, and in a much bigger way. 

While there are some horrific moments in "The Gang Goes to a Water Park," it's not really a horror-based episode, unlike "The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre," which was set on Friday the 13th and featured some seriously spooky moments (including a cameo from famed horror director Guillermo del Toro as patriarch Pappy McPoyle). "The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre," from season 8, took the "Jaws" references as bit further, with Charlie (Charlie Day) "recounting" being attacked by rats by directly quoting Robert Shaw's incredible monologue as Quint in "Jaws," just substituting rats for sharks. I mean, if you're going to rip someone off, you might as well go for the best of the best, right? Day's clearly having a blast mimicking Shaw's inflections and performance, so much so that it's almost a shame when he's interrupted by Dennis asking him if he's "doing the speech from 'Jaws'." Charlie might be almost completely illiterate, but he has an impressive memory for movie quotes that helps cement his status as the crew's wild card. 

It's always fun when the "Always Sunny" gang play around with the tentpoles of pop culture, and if the gang decided they wanted to try and make their own "Jaws" remake or sequel in the same vein as their somewhat ill-advised "Lethal Weapon" episodes, fans would absolutely eat it up. The only real question is if the implication would end up coming into play ... now that's scary.