Happy One-Year Anniversary to the Last ‘Always Sunny Podcast’ Episode

Yesterday was the first birthday of the last episode of The Always Sunny Podcast, but don’t celebrate so much that you burn all your party energy before the first birthday of the last episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia tomorrow.

The podcasting sphere is replete with sitcom stars from the 1990s and early aughts who cashed in on the nostalgia factor and behind-the-scenes intrigue of the popular rewatch series format as the fanbases of The Office, Boy Meets World and Scrubs all rallied around their respective retrospectives. However, when Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day dropped the first episode of what was supposed to be a simple, steady rewatch podcast in January 2022, I don’t think they had any inkling of how much fun a show with the Always Sunny creators behaving and riffing as their natural selves would be for their devoted fanbase — or for the creators, for that matter. 

Of course, the obvious difference between The Always Sunny Podcast and its contemporaries is (was?) that Always Sunny is still chugging along in its record-breaking 19-year run, but more than that, McElhenney, Howerton and Day’s side project grew into something much larger and more engaging than a simple episode-by-episode breakdown of the directorial decisions and on-set accidents that earn so many rewatch podcasts a profitable following. 

Compared to other shows in the genre, The Always Sunny Podcast went bigger with more in-depth conversations and an impressive list of guests that, as of today, ends with Randall Einhorn, perennial episode director on Always Sunny and possible harbinger of the end of the only rewatch podcast that’s worth a bird’s tooth.

Along with Always Sunny writer and executive producer Megan Ganz, McElhenney, Howerton and Day developed The Always Sunny Podcast into the single best talk show about the ins-and-outs of making comedy television over 77 (and possibly not counting) episodes. The Always Sunny Podcast started with audio-only episodes before the gang added video of themselves shooting the shit in, and Day showing up late to, a stuffy white conference room 15 episodes in; they later moved the show into the homey hangout studio featured in the above episode that turned one-year-old today. 

Ganz and the gang even took the podcast abroad, shooting one of the last episodes in Dublin, the setting of the series’ most outlandish plot line in recent memory. And, while the core of the show was still revisiting old episodes, remembering old stories and debating the creative choices each co-creator made during the making of Always Sunny, The Always Sunny Podcast maximized the entertainment value and the quality of the discussion both with the settings and the choice of guests — when the gang got to the fan-favorite musical episode “The Nightman Cometh,” they brought in none other than Broadway titan Lin-Manuel Miranda to dissect Charlie’s melodies from a master’s perspective.

Put simply, The Always Sunny Podcast was easily the best rewatch podcast ever created, and, exactly one year after we fans heard the last peep from the pod, we’re still antsy to hear more if McElhenney, Howerton and Day have anything left to say. As Frank would put it, “Dead air!”