It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Was Going to be Canceled After Season 1
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia doesn't have a very big viewership, as far as sitcoms go, but it found enduring success, attracted dedicated fandom.
And by now it became the longest-running live-action comedy series on American TV, with 15 seasons released and three more ordered by FXX. While not a genre-defining hit, it is still doing quite well.
But what if we told you that at first It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was going to be cancelled after Season 1? After the first reason, its performance was considered so lackluster that the network seriously considered dropping it immediately.
As a matter of fact, its creator, Rob McElhenney, revealed that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was only saved at that point because they were able to cast Danny DeVito on it.
Always Sunny had a bad luck with its time slot, and its brand of black humor was not for everyone, so initially the show struggled.
Showrunners had to do something to convince the studio that their show has future, and the method they choose was casting the famous comedy actor.
As executive producer Glenn Howerton explained, at that point: "Our season-two pickup was predicated on if we could bring in that high-level name. Not only did it mean that we were getting Danny on the show, it meant we still had a show."
And this stunt worked. Not only DeVito's character, Frank Reynolds, became a worthy addition to the show, the showrunners used the respite from cancellation they got by hiring him to secure streaming deals on Hulu and syndication on Comedy Central, which allowed them to attract enough audience and make their show self-sustaining.
Studios are sometimes blamed for pushing out subpar products, which in hindsight seem destined to fail, but as examples like Always Sunny demonstrate, sometimes betting on a fairly bizarre premise
("what if we spoof a group-of-buddies sitcom, of the type popularized by Friends, by presenting a cast of narcissists and sociopaths with a wide range of repulsive habits, instead of glamorous and decent people?")
and being willing to tolerate some extent of failure can work out for everyone involved in the end.