It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American comedy television series created by Rob McElhenney, and developed by McElhenney and Glenn Howerton, who also serve as writers and executive producers with Charlie Day.The series premiered on August 4, 2005, on FX, moved to its sister network FXX beginning with its ninth season. The series follows 'The Gang', a group of five narcissistic. Ranking the earliest episodes of Always Sunny is tricky, because it was such a different show at the time. Dee is the voice of reason. Dee is the voice of reason. Frank doesn’t exist.
While it’s been woefully overlooked in terms of awards recognition, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is easily one of the flat out funniest shows in the history of television. Other series’ may be nominated for Emmys and Golden Globes, but for 11 years and counting, It’s Always Sunny has made us laugh to the point of tears perhaps more often than anything else on TV. And at the end of the day, that’s what you want in a comedy. They’re a group of lovably insane, perpetually drunk Philly- born degenerates who make the cast of Seinfeld look well adjusted. Charlie, Mac, Dennis, Frank and Dee are all, in their own way, batshit insane. Lets take a look back at the 10 greatest episodes in the history of It’s Always Sunny. They’re all great, honestly, they are, but these are the cream of the crop.
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10. THE GANG GETS INVINCIBLE (Season 3, Episode 2)
There’s so much about this episode that makes it an instant Sunny classic. This is all about Dennis, Mac and Dee trying out for the Philadelphia Eagles. And while that, in and of itself, is a funny premise, there’s really so much more to this episode. In fact, two monumental Sunny milestones take place here. The first is that this is where the real Frank Reynolds begins to emerge. As it stands now, Frank is a pint-sized disaster human who loves prostitutes, sausage links and getting naked in the Philadelphia sewer system with Charlie, his possible son that he sleeps in the same bed with. He’s a bona fide maniac. Though in season 2, when the character was first introduced, Frank’s lunacy was a little more toned-down. But “The Gang Gets Invincible” is where Frank really starts letting his freak flag fly. While tailgating the tryout, Frank drops acid, shits in an outdoor garbage can and whips out his now ever-present gun. Now that’s the Frank we know and love! And the second milestone in this episode is that this is where Greenman – Charlie’s green bodysuit-clad self-invented mascot – was first introduced to the world. Greenman, though only making it into a handful of episodes over the show’s 11-year run, has now become part of the pop culture lexicon.
9. THE GANG REIGNITES THE RIVALRY (Season 5, Episode 12)
If you don’t know what Flipadelphia is – or better yet, know the song (“Flip! Flip! Flipadelphia!”) – you’re truly missing out. This episode is based on a citywide flip cup tournament that Paddy’s Pub had been banned from for a decade…for poisoning their competition, of course. But now, after 10 long years of banishment, the gang is looking to rise, like the perpetually hammered phoenix that they are, to vanquish their old drinking game enemies. But because the characters in Sunny have all the collective focus of an infant, they quickly abandon that idea and develop a new rivalry, this time with a group of college kids who are in Dennis’ old fraternity, a group of guys who Dennis learns have written “I chug dick” on his old picture in the frat house. This episode has everything you want, really. “Flipadelphia” is essential It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia viewing, if for nothing else than the sight of Danny DeVito in a pair of skinny jeans.
8. THE GANG GIVES FRANK AN INTERVENTION (Season 5, Episode 4)
Danny DeVito is a national treasure. In this episode Frank claims that he doesn’t know how long he has left, so he’s decided to “get really weird with it”. The degeneration of Frank Reynolds is an absolute joy to watch. He crashes a funeral, tries to have sex with his dead wife’s recently widowed sister and tries to put out a grease fire with a handgun. At one point Frank also gets a handjob from his non-blood relative niece, the girl Dennis and Dee call “the garbage pail cousin”, Gail the Snail. Watching Charlie “salt the snail” is reason enough to watch this episode multiple times.
7. THE GANG SOLVES THE GAS CRISIS (Season 4, Episode 2)
This episode is just rapid-fire hilarity from start to finish. Charlie, Mac and Dennis decide to sell gas door-to-door. Frank buys a spy van, which Dee refers to as “a rape van”. Charlie attempts to become a master of disguise. Frank water boards Dee. I can on and on with this one. Just watch it. Charlie Day yelling, “Wildcard, bitches!” before hurling his own body out of a moving car is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
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6. THE GANG MAKES LETHAL WEAPON 6 (Season 9, Episode 6)
Every few seasons Charlie, Mac and Dennis do this amazing thing where, intellectual property be damned, they take it upon themselves to make wildly low-budget sequels to the Lethal Weapon franchise. Seriously. It’s genius. Midway through season 6 the gang showed a bunch of high school kids, including an overweight Insane Clown Posse fan, their incredible Lethal Weapon 5. And that was pure brilliance. It truly was. But Lethal Weapon 6 was even better, mainly because the faux-film portion lasted through the entire episode. The plot is nonsensical. The acting is pure dog shit. Half way through the film Mac and Dennis inexplicably change roles, but whereas Mac decided to play Danny Glover’s character in blackface, Dennis ops not to. It’s madness, honestly. Brilliant madness.
5. CHARDEE MACDENNIS: THE GAME OF GAMES (Season 7, Episode 7)
As Charlie quickly points out, CharDee MacDennis isn’t a drinking game, it’s a war. This episode focuses entirely on a preposterous drinking game invented by the gang many moons ago. On a particularly uneventful day at Paddy’s Pub, against Charlie and Mac’s better judgment, the gang decides to head into this metaphorical drunken battlefield yet again. If this episode doesn’t make you want to get together with your friends and drink far too many beers, you’re a better man than I. This is arguably the most fun – not funny, but fun – episode in the show’s history. Though it’s also wildly funny, too. Charlie’s illiteracy is exposed. Mac has a nervous breakdown. Frank gets ordered into a dog cage. This episode is just perfect. And luckily, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney agree, because they’ve written “CharDee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo”, which kicks off season 11.
4. HOW MAC GOT FAT (Season 7, Episode 10)
This episode makes the list simply because of what Rob McElhenney did to his body in preparation for his show’s 7th season. He got fat. Literally. McElhenney thought it would be absolutely hilarious if his character, Mac, put on 50lbs. And in order to make that absurd vision a reality, he literally got fat. No fat suit. No TV magic. Rob McElhenney, the man, gained upwards of 50 lbs. That may genuinely be one of most unsung moves in the history of comedy. I write that in all sincerity. That’s going above and beyond for your fan’s enjoyment. Mac’s weight gain – or as he called it, the fact that he “tacked on mass” – made this entire season pure television gold. Mac became a puffy-faced, Hawaiian shirt-wearing, food-obsessed fatso who constantly had candy wrappers hanging out of his pockets and who at one point traveled with a garbage bag full of chimichangas. Shit, even writing that made me laugh. Love live fat Mac. Watch this entire season.
3. THE D.E.N.N.I.S SYSTEM (Season 5, Episode 10)
One of the greatest character arcs in the history of comedy is Dennis Reynolds gradually becoming a sociopath. In Sunny’s earlier seasons, Dennis was more or less the straight man.If there’s a hierarchy of mental stability within this cast of characters, Dennis is, or rather was, the sanest of the group. But somewhere during season 5, that sanity fell by the wayside. Dennis now drives around with zip-ties in a hidden compartment in his car, secretly videotapes every woman he sleeps with and has admitted to no longer “having feelings”. When you go and look back, Dennis was first outed as being a cold, calculated psychopath in this legendary episode. The D.E.N.N.I.S system is Dennis Reynolds’ surefire plan for seduction, a plan that at one point includes him pretending to be a murderer and threatening his object of affection, only so that he can then protect said woman from this mythical killer. Yes, Dennis Reynolds is a genuine sociopath. This episode is also where Frank Reynolds first starts going by his sometimes alias, Dr. Mantis Toboggan. If that makes no sense to you, just watch the episode. Now.
2. THE GANG BEATS BOGGS (Season 10, Episode 1)
This 22-minutes is the entire cast at their individual and collective best. This episode takes place almost entirely on an airplane bound for Los Angeles. Why? Because the gang is trying to beat one of the most storied achievements in sports history: Wade Boggs’ record of drinking more than 70 beers on a single cross-country flight. Here Kaitlin Olson proves why she’s the most underrated female comedic actress on TV today. I defy you to watch this episode and refute this claim. Olson’s belligerently loaded Dee totally steals the show for the majority of this episode, but just slightly. Dennis has a fantastically creepy assessment of who he’s going to have sex with while on the fligh, Frank’s drunken meltdown as Dr. Mantis Toboggan is laugh-out-loud amazing, and Charlie’s eventual victory, with subtitles because he’s too wasted to be understood, is absolute comedic perfection.
1. THE NIGHTMAN COMETH (Season 4, Episode 13)
This episode is so legendary that for a short run in 2009 the cast actually went on tour and performed a live stage adaptation. This is Charlie Kelly’s grand creation, this illiterate rat killer’s masterpiece. The Nightman Cometh is a live musical that Charlie wrote, or better yet, nonsensically scribbled. His endgame here was at the end of it, live on stage, he’d propose to “the waiteress”, the yet-to-be-named woman who he’s been stalking for more than decade.
This episode is perfect in every conceivable sense. Frank plays “the troll”. Mac shows signs of his questionable sexuality when he gets a boner during a scene where he’s in bed with Dennis. At one point Dee hijacks the show with a hilarious impromptu number. The entire cast sings the far-too-catchy “Nightman” song near the end. If you’ve never seen It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and want to pick one episode, this is it.
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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is my favorite comedy show, excluding South Park of course. It is a series that has been consistently great for 12 years and 12 seasons now. Needless to say, it has quite a lot of amazing, classic episodes so making this list was very difficult for me. I of course had to do top 20 as ten just wasn’t enough for this show. But even with twenty, it was tough. Still, I tried to include as many great and different episodes as possible so without further ado, here is my list.
20. The Gang Reignites Their Rivalry
This is one of those episodes that showed us how childish the gang really is and sure enough, it features the fivesome pitting against a fraternity house for a drinking competition called ”Flipadelphia”. I loved the dynamic between the gang and the college kids plus it features such a great, fitting ending.
19. The High School Reunion War of the servers soundtrack.
This is one of a few episodes on this list that is a two-parter. The first part is better, but both are excellent. I loved it because it was such a rewarding experience. I have been constantly hearing about their high school experiences and friends and finally I got to see them myself. It is a rich episode that serves all explanations and backstories to all four of the characters. Watching Charlie being shy and afraid was cute and funny, Dee trying to correct her past mistakes naturally led to many great scenes and of course the highlight is Dennis’s part as we finally see that he never has been popular to begin with.
18. Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games
This is one of the most entertaining and authentic episodes in Sunny’s history. This concept of a game that they made up is ripe for the show’s dark and silly sensibilities and the execution was perfect with many memorable moments. I loved the ending of course, but the highlights were Frank figuring out Dennis and Dee’s cheating, the jokes about Charlie’s illiteracy and just following those crazy rules of this silly game.
17. The Gang Dines Out
The Gang Dines Out is one of the rare instances where we get to see the gang ‘s dependence on each other and that they truly are friends after all. That is why it is a very important episode. Dennis and Mac got some very funny scenes, but it is Dee who absolutely shines here with a hilarious banter between her and that waiter plus the ending is perfect and hilarious, but also heartwarming, at least for the show’s standards.
16. A Very Sunny Christmas
Another two-part episode, A Very Sunny Christmas is quite possibly one of the darkest episodes in the entire Philly’s run which is saying a lot. As with The High School Reunion, this is another look at the gang’s past and it perfectly explains how they ended up being so crazy. That finale is a rare emotional scene from this show and whether it is Mac realizing that his parents stole Christmas gifts from other houses or Charlie learning for the first time that his mother was basically a prostitute, this episode surely is an undisputed classic.
15. Hero or Hate Crime?
A rare late episode on this list, this season twelve outing deserved to be here as it truly is hysterical. It is of course important for finally giving us gay and proud Mac and the road to that was quite rewarding and very funny, but the entire episode is brilliantly structured, everyone gets their moment to shine and the highlights were the dildo bike sequence as well as the ending where the four say how glad they are for Mac, but how they still hate him. This is one of the most consistent and funniest episodes for sure.
14. The Gang Gets Analyzed
Frank’s scene wasn’t as great, but everyone else is marvelous here. A great psychological episode that gives us a full profile of each of the gang’s members, it features again terrific pacing and structure along with many simply hilarious moments such as the one with Dee pretending to act, Charlie holding a dead pigeon and Dennis trying to seduce the doctor who is, in his words, decades older than him.
13. Mac Fights Gay Marriage
This is another two-parter, but this time around I chose only the first episode as it is much better than its conclusion in my opinion. Dee’s part gets better in the second episode and this is important for introducing us to Maureen Ponderosa, but this is Mac’s episode and one of his finest hours came here when he fought with tranny and her future husband about gay marriage. Hilarious stuff.
12. The Nightman Cometh
This musical theater effort worked like a charm. Can you update from el capitan to mojave. The twist ending was obvious, but still great as Charlie tried to seduce the Waitress and thus did all of this, but the songs themselves are incredibly funny with such amusing lyrics. Frank singing about a boy’s hole and Mac getting hard while laying with Dennis are some of the standout moments in this silly and different outing.
11. The Gang Gets Held Hostage
The Gang Gets Held Hostage is one of those classic It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes from the first half of its run which benefits from the best use yet of the McPoyle siblings. A classic episode where the gang turns on each other, this one is pure over-the-top mayhem which is entertaining and funny from start to finish.
10. Paddy’s Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens
This very well titled episode (per usual) finds the gang at one of their most entertaining. The Lawyer is used really well here and I loved how in the end he got the best of them. The various ridiculous products such as Kitten Mittens and Dick Towels provide many amusing moments and it is all the more ridiculous having in mind that they have actually made money out of these products as evidenced by future episodes.
9. Hundred Dollar Baby
Functioning both as a ‘Fight Club’ and ‘A Million Dollar Baby’ parody, Hundred Dollar Baby works at all cylinders and manages to make the fullest use of both of its subplots. Charlie getting his ass kicked is hilarious and Dee becoming a boxer was a lot of fun. This truly is such a terrific season two episode.
8. Paddy’s Pub: The Worst Bar in Philadelphia
Again a self-explanatory episode, this one finds the funniest angle with the subject of abduction. This is finally an episode that addressed how terrible their bar truly is and thankfully the results are more than stellar as every scene with that critic was just brilliant and simply hilarious.
Top Rated Episodes Of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia
7. Mac and Charlie: White Trash
Although Mac and Charlie are in the title of this episode, Dennis and Dee are also terrific in here. This is a great episode that showcased so well how those two see themselves as being better than Mac and Charlie when in reality they are all white trash. For me the highlight here is Mac trying to do a back flip and Charlie scolding him for not being capable of doing such a task.
6. The Gang Saves the Day
This has to be the most original episode that the show has ever done. The gang witness a robbery and we see everyone’s imaginary scene where they handle the situation. Frank’s part was fine, but not the greatest. Charlie’s segment was such a wonderful, fitting tribute to Pixar’s ‘Up’. Dennis’s part was expectedly sexual and of course the highlights were Mac and Dee. She kills the guys and goes on to become a famous actress and gets engaged to Josh Groban whereas he uses his karate skills to kill the villains and then dies and goes to heaven surrounded by muscular men. I laughed like crazy watching those two and this is a great proof of what awesome character development and attention to detail the show has and how they perfectly made fun of every single character and their dreams here.
5. The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatty McGoo
I think here we hear for the first time of Dee’s hilarious nickname from high school and of course that was funny. The opening is phenomenal. Jw org the watchtower online library 2019. But the ending is even better as Dennis in drag was a hilarious, yet realistic turn for the character. And we finally see Frank’s experience in a Vietnamese sweatshop so well recreated here. The episode uses all the characters so well.
4. Mac Day
This season nine episode is the best ever episode starring Mac. Mac Day finds Mac trying to convert the gang to Christianity with poor results of course. But it is a perfect character study where finally the guys get tired of him living a lie as he doesn’t know karate and he isn’t straight. His country cousin is such a memorable one-off character and there are so many highly recognizable and incredibly funny lines to be had here.
3. The Gang Solves the North Korea Situation
To me this is one of Sunny’s most memorable episodes which is why it takes such a high spot on my list. From Dee becoming ‘‘a dirty, dirty whore” to Dennis playing it sexy, this episode has it all and Charlie’s scenes with that Korean girl were so amusing and silly. It is a very rich episode in both its setting and characters and yes, it is over-the-top for sure, but I loved it for that.
Top Rated Episodes Of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia Zoo
2. The D.E.N.N.I.S. System
Top Rated Episodes Of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphiaia
The D.E.N.N.I.S. System isn’t the finest episode as it is second best, but it is definitely the most quintessential and most representative episode for the entire series and that is why it should be watched first as a test screening. Dennis is great here as we see how demented and manipulative he really is and to what lengths he would go to bang a chick. Charlie is hilarious here as is Dee, but Frank’s line about condoms has to be the most memorable moment of the entire episode.
1. Dennis and Dee’s Mom Is Dead
This episode is perfect! In fact, it is the funniest episode of any comedy that I have ever seen and the opening scene with the Lawyer (his first scene actually) is the funniest scene that I have ever seen and I rarely laugh out loud, but here I totally lost it and I’ve seen it countless times by now. That is how hilarious the dialogue is and how effective and funny Frank’s use of the word whore is. But the entire episode is amazing, I loved how eventful it was and its every sequence was a riot and so well scripted. And of course it ended in a satisfying manner. Each and every character gets its proper due here, but Dee and Frank are easily the highlights as they made me laugh the most. Dennis and Dee’s Mom Is Dead is hilarious from start to finish and it is definitely the best It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode ever.
Honorable Mentions:
The Gang Dances Their Asses Off – I am sad that I did not put any Cricket episodes on my list, but at least he gets an honorable mention as this is one of his better outings.
Frank Reynolds’ Little Beauties – A truly great episode where Dee is one of the highlights along with Frank who killed it here.
Top Rated Episodes Of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia Center City
McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century – This recent episode is one of the campiest in the show’s run with Charlie bird lawyering and Maureen becoming a cat.
Top Rated Episodes Of Its Always Sunny In Philadelphiadelphia
Charlie and Dee Find Love – This one features one of the best unexpected turns at the end with Charlie proving how far he would go to win the Waitress’s heart.
The Gang Broke Dee – A perfectly constructed episode, The Gang Broke Dee gives us just that as Dee is being played for laughs phenomenally here.
You can get the entire show with all seasons for a ridiculously small price on Amazon.
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