Three Times ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Went to Great Lengths to Fix a Continuity Error
When a sitcom runs for a long time, there are inevitably times when a throwaway line from an early episode doesn’t necessarily align with the details unveiled in later seasons. In Seinfeld, for example, Jerry and George both make reference to siblings who are ultimately erased from the show’s continuity. Generally, these kinds of mistakes are forgivable — unless, apparently, you’re a writer for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
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Like so many other shows, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has introduced a number of plot points that future developments contradicted or just flat-out ignored. But over the course of the series’ 17-year run, Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day have gone out of their way to correct them, even going so far as to dedicate entire episodes and story arcs to setting the record straight.
Here are three such instances in which It’s Always Sunny… made a continuity error, only to go to great lengths to fix it…
Charlie’s Sister(s)
In Season One, an intervention is held for Charlie because everyone thinks he was molested in school (he wasn’t). Present during the intervention is the gang, the McPoyles, Charlie’s mom, his grandma, his Uncle Jack and two young twin girls who don’t say anything. In the very next scene, Charlie makes mention of a sister being at the intervention, seeming to imply that those two girls were Charlie’s sisters.
But for the next 14 seasons, Charlie’s sisters are never mentioned again. While some It’s Always Sunny… fans noticed, McElhenney admitted on the It’s Always Sunny Podcast that it wasn’t until he re-watched Season One for the podcast that he remembered Charlie had sisters at all. And so, he decided to write an episode dedicated to them.
High School
Where the gang went to school is pretty haphazard early on, too. In that same episode where people think Charlie got molested in school, it’s mentioned that Mac and Charlie went to school somewhere other than where Dee and Dennis did. Later episodes, however, imply they all went to school together.
It all gets cleaned up in the two-part Season Seven arc when the gang goes to a high school reunion. It’s explained that Mac and Charlie went to a Catholic middle school, then met Dennis in high school at Saint Joseph’s Preparatory School, which was an all-boys school. For her part, Dee attended the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, an all-girls school that held many co-ed events with Saint Joseph’s.
While a little convoluted, it does account for most of the earlier school-related inconsistencies.
Charlie’s Dog Painting
The saga of Charlie’s German Shepherd painting could be an entire movie. It begins in Season One, when Charlie (mistaken for Dennis) meets Dennis and Dee’s grandfather, Pop-Pop, an ex-Nazi soldier who asks Charlie to retrieve his Nazi memorabilia.
We don’t see or hear about the painting in this episode, but in Season Two, it appears on the wall of Charlie’s apartment. By Season Three, however, the painting was gone and never heard from again until the musical episode “The Nightman Cometh.” One of the sets for Charlie’s play is his apartment, and on the set wall is a recreation of the German Shepherd painting, which continues to go unmentioned.
The painting doesn’t pop up again until Season Eight, when a truly epic story was built around it. Pop-Pop is about to die, and the gang is trying to locate his Nazi treasure (which Frank had heard about). That’s when Charlie reveals to Mac that the dog painting belonged to Pop-Pop and that he’d kept it when he got Pop-Pop’s stuff, but that Frank had taken it down shortly after moving in with Charlie. Charlie also speculates that the painting itself could be the treasure, as it may have been painted by Hitler in remembrance of his beloved dog.
Mac and Charlie retrieve the painting and discover it’s worthless, so they burn it. As it burns, though, Adolf Hitler’s signature is revealed in an homage to the ending of Citizen Kane.
In reality, the painting was just a random set decoration with no connection to the Pop-Pop character, but McElhenney decided it was too distracting so it was removed after Season Two. At some point, McElhenney became aware of online clamoring for the painting, so he gave it a nod in “The Nightman Cometh.” When Season Eight rolled along, he gave it this complex backstory that tied it all the way back to the show’s first season in what was an entirely unnecessary, yet incredibly rewarding story for It’s Always Sunny… fans.
