Charlie Day Was Eager For The Challenge Of Filming The ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ / ‘Abbott Elementary’ Crossover Episodes: “It’s Great Fodder for Comedy”

After more than two decades of playing Charlie Kelly, Charlie Day‘s beloved It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia character is finally changing for the better. That’s thanks to the good-hearted Abbott Elementary characters.

After ABC pulled off a 9-1-1 and The Bachelor crossover episode in April 2024, the two Philadelphia-based comedies are set to collide at warp speed in new episodes which have fans heralding that the golden age of television crossovers is back. In the first episode, “It’s Always Funny at Abbott Elementary,” fans will see the Abbott crew’s take on a week in which the gang from Paddy’s Pub — a.k.a. Mac (Rob McElhenney), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Charlie (Day), and Frank (Danny Devitto) — “volunteer” to help out an underprivileged school in their beloved city. The second episode, which will release on FX and Hulu when the comedy returns for Season 17 at an as-yet-undetermined date later this year, will be a much darker, raunchier take on the same timeline.

When Abbott Elementary creator Quinta Brunson announced the crossover event back at San Diego Comic-Con in 2024, fans jokingly speculated that due to their shared parent company, Disney, and being set in the City of Brotherly Love, an It’s Always Sunny crossover would be a sight to see. The joke here is that Abbott — lauded by fans and critics alike for its wholesome humor and storytelling — is staunchly opposed to Sunny‘s 16 years of “can they say that?” comedy.

Talking with Decider about the crossover, Day, who also serves as EP on the long-running FX comedy, shared that while he had a similar reaction to the fans at first — brief confusion followed by elation, that is — the wheels in his head immediately began spinning about what could play out and the fun challenge it could be.

“I think the bread and butter for us comedically is us being in a situation where we really don’t fit in,” Day shared.” So whether the characters go into a bank and try to get a loan and they’re talking to a very normal banker, but they’re having a very absurd conversation […]The idea of us going into a school, that’s great fodder for comedy.”

As for how the situation plays out and what it looks like for fans of one or both shows, it’s a watch-and-see-what-happens type of deal, Day shared. The Horrible Bosses actor teased that the episodes will feel very different but still cohesive, even as he initially wondered and worried about how bringing Paddy’s to Abbott would mesh.

“How are they going to put us on their show and be able to stay true to the characters and the tone of what we do, so that if an Always Sunny fan watches their show, it feels authentic to the characters they know,” he explained. “But they really didn’t seem to have a hard time doing that. And the second we pressed “go” and committed to doing it, it all gelled pretty nicely.”

Keep reading for Decider’s full conversation with Day for the “It’s Always Funny at Abbott Elementary” episode of Abbott Elementary.

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DECIDER: I’m so excited to talk about this crossover. Everybody had a similar reaction when they first heard about this. It was kind of a “Wait, hold on,” followed by a “Hold on, though, that could work.” What was your initial reaction to it and how are you feeling now that it’s done and almost out there? 

CHARLIE DAY: I think I went through the same process. Rob had mentioned it to me and I was like, “Hang on a second. How are we going to do that?” Less so, “How are we going to have them on our show?” I think the bread and butter for us comedically is us being in a situation where we really don’t fit in. So whether the characters go into a bank and try to get a loan and they’re talking to a very normal banker, but they’re having a very absurd conversation […] So the idea of us going into a school, that’s great fodder for comedy. We’ve done it before, and it’s worked well. More confusing to me was what are they going to do with us? How are they going to put us on their show and be able to stay true to the characters and the tone of what we do, so that if an Always Sunny fan watches their show, it feels authentic to the characters they know. But they really didn’t seem to have a hard time doing that. And the second we pressed “go” and committed to doing it, it all gelled pretty nicely. It was fun for us to work in a different way, having done sort of the same thing for so many years. 

I was talking with [Abbott Elementary star] Chris Perfetti last night at the Golden Globes, and he teased the dichotomy between the Sunny episode and the Abbott episode and how it’s two different takes on the same day. I’ve seen the Abbott episode now, but what can you tease or what would you say might be in store for a very different-looking Sunny episode? 

I think Rob and I got a little bit excited about the fact that their show is a documentary, and that if there was a crew there filming, what else are they filming that you don’t see during the course of the episode of Abbott? There has to be other things. So we thought there could be something really interesting with finding additional footage that isn’t aired during the Abbott episode. So I can tease that there is some much more R-rated It’s Always Sunny-style content that you get to see when you see our episode. 

A lot of the reaction to this crossover also happened to be around Charlie’s illiteracy. I’m sure you probably saw some of the memes because there were lots. Did you see any? Did you have any favorites? What was your first thought? Did you immediately go to, “Oh, Charlie’s going to learn how to read in this episode?”

Like you said, I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to do. So when I went in the writers’ room with Rob, I had an idea from a day or two before that kind of got me excited where I thought it could be fun to do the sort of Billy Madison-esque thing with my character. And so I just pitched to them: “I don’t know if there’s a world in which you guys would be comfortable with this, but my character historically can’t read. And I think it would be funny if he is ‘back in school.’” And they jumped on that right away and ran with it more so than I was expecting them to do.

It is two separate episodes, but obviously it’s a crossover. So what was the collaboration process like? I know you just said that you pitched something to them and they kind of came back. Was it one big writers’ room or did you guys kind of break out? How did that come together? 

Rob and I went into their room and just sort of pitched them a few things about our characters, listened to what they were thinking, and bounced ideas back and forth. Aside from a few suggestions on our end, I don’t think we really had to contribute too much to their writing. They sent us a draft, and it was pretty great. We might have had a thought or two, but not enough to make any real changes to what they did. In terms of our episode, I think we were a little bit more concerned about whether or not they were going to be willing or comfortable to do the things that we were going to ask them to do. But they were all just great sports. And then in terms of crossing things over, there were just a few little storyline things in our episode that we came up with that we asked if they could reflect in their episode. That was a little trickier to do, only because they’re a bigger animal over there at the network. I think they have a lot more of an approval process than we do at Sunny. But they were able to accommodate us, and we were able to sort of get those little adjustments in their episode to make sure that the two really feel tied together when you see ours. 

I know you guys rely a lot on improv, and I don’t think the same thing is as true for Abbott. Were there any lines or scenes that you had to leave on the cutting room floor because it might have just gone a little too far for one show or the other? 

I can’t speak to their show. I know that Rob was doing a fair amount of improvisation. I think maybe they weren’t able to use a lot of it on theirs. I didn’t really have to improv on their episode. It was scripted so specifically, and I thought so well, that I really just did their thing. In terms of our episode, if we want to do something, it usually gets done. We jammed as much in as we could, and I don’t think we cut a single thing. 

Do you have a favorite line or a favorite scene from each episode that you are so excited for the fans to see? 

In terms of my stuff, I really love a lot of my scenes with Sheryl Lee Ralph, so I’m excited for the fans to see those. I don’t have a specific line or anything like that. In terms of the Sunny episode, there’s so much that I really don’t want to spoil anything. I’m really excited for fans to see how that episode ends. I think there’s a good surprise at the end of it. 

The Abbott Elementary crossover event with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia airs on ABC Wednesday, January 8, at 8:30 p.m. EST. The episode will stream the next day on Hulu.