Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day Played the Cruelest Prank on Danny DeVito During His Early Days on ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’

The Office would have you believe that workplace pranks are lighthearted affairs full of Jell-O and fake glasses. Well, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia isn’t that kind of sitcom.

When the Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated and universally beloved movie star Danny DeVito signed on to appear in a loud, low-budget and indulgently offensive comedy series on FX in the mid-aughts, many critics and fans alike wondered what the hell such a successful actor and director was doing playing a lecherous lout on a little-known show that’s too crass to ever become a big hit. At the time, no one could have predicted that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia wouldn’t just be the steadiest gig of DeVito’s legendary career, but that it would also live to be the longest-running live-action sitcom in American television history.

Now, DeVito seems determined to continue doing Always Sunny until it’s time to throw his body in the trash, but one April morning early in his tenure on the series, his co-stars and the show’s co-creators Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day almost sent him sprinting away from the production over a brutally graphic script that would have seen DeVito spend an entire season premiere getting repeatedly sexually assaulted in prison. 

Somehow, the infamous couch scene seems tame in comparison.

DeVito has retold the story of reading the most harrowing script of his career numerous times during many different media appearances, once telling Uproxx that he considered pursuing legal action to get out of the awful storyline. “I said, ‘What the fuck, man? Call my lawyer.’ Right?” DeVito explained of his initial reaction to the script, later clarifying that, once he read the closing line and realized how much effort had gone into giving him an April 1st aneurysm, he immediately realized what an impressive prank had just been pulled. 

“It’s love,” he rationalized. “They love me. I called them up. They were all on the call, laughing their asses off. And then we went and did some other crazy show.”

During a 2010 interview on Conan, Day told his side of the April Fool’s joke, saying of his co-star’s lauded commitment to the demanding and occasionally degrading responsibilities of being Frank, “He’ll do pretty much anything,” admitting that one moment nearly made DeVito re-evaluate his “anything goes” approach to acting on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. “We freaked him out one time pretty good, we pulled an April Fool's Joke on him.”

“He called his lawyer,” Day confirmed of DeVito’s initial response to the script before discovering the date. 

Thankfully, DeVito’s lawyer wasn’t The Lawyer from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, or Day’s little joke could have sent him to the losing side of a duel.