Saving Money through DVD Watching: IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA

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By: Felipe M

A good, yet underrated TV comedy show is the stellar It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which currently airs on FX. The show follows three friends who own and run the day-to-day operations of an Irish dive pub, Mac, Charlie, and Dennis. Also working at the bar is Dennis’ paternal twin sister Deandra, a.k.a. Sweet Dee, and the twins’ father, Frank (played by Danny DeVito). Collectively, they are known as “The Gang.” Each character is different, but what all five have in common is their extreme, self-centered nature. It is this character flaw that creates the foundation of almost every episode of the series. A quick rundown of each character is as follows: Mac exudes a lot of confidence in himself and more times than not, is the member of The Gang who is the first to point out other people’s errors, especially the first to accuse someone of being racist. Dennis is, in one word, Narcissistic. Charlie seems to have a Napoleon/ inferiority complex being the shortest person outside of Frank so, of course, a lot of times he tries to prove to everybody that he’s not inferior and is often the loudest of the bunch. Sweet Dee is an aspiring actress—model, artist, college student, dancer, ballerina, etc. Sweet Dee has a lot of aspirations to become successful, but is not very proactive in reaching those goals and often can be found blaming countless situations and people (mainly her parents). Frank might just be the worst of the bunch.

So why attempt to watch a TV show seemingly full of characters who are full of themselves? Because this show is uproariously funny! The conflict in egos makes for hilarious storylines as each character is always trying to prove they are better than the last and constantly put both friends and strangers down in order to boost their perceptions of themselves providing more twists and turns and betrayals than any reality TV show can attempt to edit in on the final cut. Think Seinfeld with younger actors. The other thing this show has going for itself is the way they fit socio-political issues into each episode as it provides better social satire than any current sketch on Saturday Night Live. So far, The Gang have tackled such as issues as racism, public smoking, sweat shop labor, and other controversial topics. Never leaning too far to the left or to the right, each issue is tackled by characters who think they have an educated worldview, but in reality their views are narrow minded and The Gang usually comes off as shallow-minded people. So the show never feels like it’s insulting people’s political views, but it does shine the light on issues nonetheless to an audience who rarely watch FOXNEWS or MSNBC. Remember, the issues create the setting for each episode, but each episode’s story is strictly character driven.