I’m standing on the set of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” It’s about noon and I’m watching Rob McElhenney, Glen Howerton and Kaitlin Olson rehearse a scene they’ll be shooting as soon as they figure out the delivery of the lines and where they’ll be standing. The scene takes place in 1776 (more on that later) and it features Kaitlin’s character of Sweet Dee trying to get out of slavery. It ends up she’s Dennis’ (Glenn Howerton’s character) slave and in an attempt to get out from under his control, the scene starts with her walking into the bar and stabbing Dennis multiple times. She thinks by killing him she’ll be free….but then Dennis explains that if she kills him, she’ll be Mac’s slave and that’ll only mean one thing…bum sex. Lot’s and lot’s of bum sex.

As we watch the extremely funny scene get put together, we see Glenn Howerton struggle a bit with the amount of lines he has to say and it takes awhile for the scene to be figured out. Of course, when it actually comes time to film, he’s spot on and after a few takes, we see both Glenn and Rob add some lines to the end. Each line is different, and I’d say almost every take could be used. After watching “It’s Always Sunny” in person, I feel very bad for all the editors.

But let me back up a bit.

About a week ago I was invited – along with 8 other “bloggers” and online journalists – to the set of one of my favorite shows. If you haven’t been watching “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” you are absolutely missing out on one of the best and funniest shows on television. Every episode will make you laugh, and since it airs on FX, they get to do and say a lot of things that would never be able to make it past the sensors on network television. Like bum sex.

If you aren’t familiar with the show, “It’s Always Sunny” is the adventures of Charlie (Charlie Day), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Mac (Rob McElhenney), Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson) and Frank (Danny DeVito).  Some of them own a bar in Philadelphia and the others are the close friends. The episodes follow their lives and they’re usually about the everyday things that come up. That’s why so many compare the show to “Seinfeld.” But saying it’s like one show does “It’s Always Sunny” a disservice, as the show can also easily be compared to “South Park” with the way it pushes the boundaries of what you can talk about on TV. During the first few years, the show dealt with such hot button issues as abortion, underage drinking, health care and the handicapped. It’s a show where nothing is taboo and everything is fair game. It’s also extremely funny, hence the ever growing ratings.

Anyway, the reason we were invited was to help promote the upcoming release of the 3rd season on DVD, and the premiere of the 4th season on September 18th.

While we didn’t find out that much about the upcoming episodes as most of you would like, I did participate in a roundtable interview with the cast (no Danny DeVito) and it’ll be posted very soon. During our almost 30 minutes, we talked about everything – from upcoming episodes to how they write the show. If you’re a fan…you’ll like it as we asked fan questions.

Anyhow….back to what I saw on set.

While I forget the exact reason why the episode takes place in 1776 (I think it’s to make the bar a historical landmark), as you can see in the pictures below, they converted it to reflect that era. Not only do the walls and floor reflect the time period, but we get to see Mac, Dennis and Sweet Dee in costumes to reflect the era. It was very funny to see all three of them wearing the costumes and doing interviews with extensions in their hair.

But let’s be honest…”It’s Always Sunny” isn’t “Masterpiece Theater.” I don’t think any of you will be upset that I don’t know the exact reason why certain things are taking place. All you need to know is the scenes I saw being filmed were very funny and had all of us laughing. Actually, on one of the last takes, we heard Mac tell Sweet Dee (after Dennis’ line of Bum Sex) that he hopes she doesn’t mind getting syphilis - as he has it. Right after he said it, all the journalists started laughing out loud and I think we ruined the take. What can I say…it was very funny and we hadn’t heard it before.

And that’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” It’s a show that features things we’ve never seen on TV and for that I’m grateful.

Anyway, since I don’t want to bore you any longer before getting to see all the pictures I took on set, instead of me summing everything up now, I’ll post some words above a few of the photos to let you know what the scene was about or where I was when I took it.

And one final thing before the images.

As a huge fan of “It’s Always Sunny,” I want to take a moment to thank everyone who got me on the set, as it was a blast to see the bar up close and to see how the show gets put together. Thank you. And now…here’s a lot of photos….

The sets. As you can see, they’re not that big

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