Fans are wondering how an Abbott Elementary and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover could possibly work when the characters probably shouldn’t be allowed within a hundred yards of a school.
Quinta Brunson and Rob McElhenney recently explained how the “authenticity still remains” with both of their shows in the upcoming crossover event, kicking off Wednesday, Jan. 8 on ABC with a new episode of Abbott Elementary, and which character they had to “keep away from the children.”
“On our episode, I had the philosophy that we just treat our story the way we would treat any other story,” explained Abbott star and creator Brunson to Rolling Stone. “When we went to break it, I said, ‘We need to treat this as not the Sunny cast, but as this is the story we want to tell, which is some volunteers coming to the school who wind up being not so great.’ And we could tell those stories with any number of characters, but we have the Sunny characters, which is great. They come fully locked and loaded with characteristics — you know, fears, loves, wants, whatever. But I thought the key was to treat it like a typical Abbott story.”
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McElhenney, who created and stars in It’s Always Sunny, added, “It was like we were modulating the specificity depending on which episode we were watching. So for Sunny, we just know that the audience comes in with a set of understandings. And we just jumped off from there and told the story as if we were working in a school and these were teachers. And even if you had not ever seen an episode of Abbott, you would totally understand the story based on the fact that they were just teachers.”
Although Brunson said that Danny DeVito‘s Frank Reynolds was “just fun to react to in our world,” she noted “we had to keep him away from the children.”
“For so many reasons, I still regret that we didn’t have a scene of a kid just reacting to him,” she said. “We didn’t have time. There was a version of it where there was a kid just looking at him, but he’s just fun to react to. And our show is based a lot in reactions to cameras. Although we realized in our world, we had to keep him away from the children. But he’s a riot.”
Noting that the It’s Always Sunny episode will air “four or five months later” on FXX, McElhenney said both parts of the crossover will be “the same story from two different perspectives.”
“We thought, OK, that then gives us an opportunity for our characters to play in their tone and to make an episode of Abbott, and then their characters to play in our tone and make what will feel like an authentic episode of Sunny,” he explained. “The authenticity still remains between both shows.”
Elsewhere in the interview, McElhenney and Brunson revealed how they were able to adjust the shows’ tones to match each other, whether it’s Sunny‘s crude adult humor or Abbott‘s lighthearted mockumentary about an elementary school.
“When the Sunny characters go into the school, we know that we’re being filmed for the documentary, and it’s a school, so we have to essentially pretend to be something we’re not,” he explained. “So that is what allowed us to play in that tone.”
Brunson said, “So in in the Sunny world, where their cameras are off, you kind of get raw versions of each character — nothing too insane, but raw versions. It’s honestly a dream come true. It’s rare you get to play with your characters in that way.”
As Brunson admitted Abbott fans are “having a mental breakdown” discovering It’s Always Sunny, McElhenney said they’ve “discussed this quite a bit.”
“Our biggest concern is that people will watch Abbott and think, ‘Oh, we like these characters. We like this episode. Let’s go check out the other show with the whole family,’” he explained. “And we’re going to caution people against that.”
Although the Sunny characters might have rubbed off on Abbott, as McElhenney told Brunson in another interview with the Los Angeles Times, “There’s a joke in your episode that I cannot believe is going to make the final cut. … I cannot believe that that joke was made on your show.”
The post Quinta Brunson Reveals Which ‘It’s Always Sunny’ Character They “Had To Keep Away” From ‘Abbott Elementary’ Kids appeared first on Deadline.
