FX Compiles An Adorable ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Husband-and-Wife Supercut for Mac and Dee
Who’s the cutest couple in sitcom history? Pam and Jim on The Office? Maybe Niles and Daphne on Frasier? What about Mac and Dee?
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia isn’t exactly a romantic comedy — its characters’ carnal urges are often dark and devoid of anything we can loosely describe as “love.” However, behind the scenes of the longest running live-action sitcom in American history, a beautiful love story brewed and blossomed into a whole family as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star and creator Rob McElhenney fell in love with castmate Kaitlin Olson during the early seasons, eventually marrying his onscreen coworker.
Today, Mac and Dee have two kids with whom they travel the world running soccer teams and palling around with Ryan Reynolds, and the story of their love is written in the furtive glances and physical chemistry of their onscreen work on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
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The official FX TikTok account recently reminisced over the years of romance between McElhenney and Olson with a collection of all the charged moments between them that teased the steamy romance going on behind the scenes:
@fxnetworks
McElhenney and Olson met during the preparations for the inaugural season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia at the latter’s audition for the role of Sweet Dee, a part previously played by McElhenney’s then-recently-ex-girlfriend in the show’s low-budget pilot. No sparks flew between McElhenney and Olson during Always Sunny Season One, but Olson quickly developed a crush on her co-star/boss that she managed using the exact same methods as her character.
According to Olson, she and her now-husband began dating during the making of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season Two after she finally made a move at one of the regular game nights hosted by another Always Sunny power couple, Charlie Day and Mary Elizabeth Ellis. “He was there, and I’d been drinking, because that’s how I handled being nervous around him,” Olson later told actor Dax Shephard on his podcast Armchair Expert. “I would just move in to sit at the game and back up between his legs, and, like, move myself into his lap.”
Unlike on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, drinking to cope with her nerves about a hot guy didn’t spell disaster for Olson, and, unlike his onscreen character, McElhenney wasn’t physically repulsed by his co-star. Within two years, McElhenney proposed to Olson at a beach house owned by Danny DeVito, and, in 2010, they had their first son, Axel. In 2012, the couple had a second child, named Leo, meaning that, by the time the iconic episode “The Gang Desperately Tries to Win An Award” aired in 2013, McElhenney and Olson already had a full house, and Mac was strangling the mother of his children.
Looking at Mac’s parents, at least he’s a better husband and father than Luther.
