If you're dealt a bunch of lemons,
you've got to take those lemons and stuff them
down somebody's throat until they see yellow.
There's something incredibly special about watching
a fictional character evolve, to see them take their first baby
steps, play dress-up, and then emerge nude
from the stitching of a leather couch.
We love to grow alongside characters
to change with them as the years pass,
but how does that growth happen?
How does the longest running live action sitcom
run against stream to devolve a beloved actor
into a beloved degenerate?
You've had 14 beers.
You don't know that.
It's written on your shirt.
[GROANS]
Danny DeVito's casting in the second season of It's Always
Sunny in Philadelphia is pretty well
trodden ground at this point.
But in case you're not quite up to speed,
the show aired its first season in 2005
at a budget of $450,000 per episode, less than 1/3
of the network average.
But despite its relatively cheap cost,
the ratings were not there to keep the show afloat
without adding a bigger name to boost the show's signal.
While initially adamant against the change,
the creators, Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day,
and Glenn Howerton, agreed when they
were told the alternative was the show being canceled.
Since FX president John Landgraf was already
friends with DeVito, he hoped to convince the actor
to help out the fledgling show.
While DeVito was no stranger to comedy
with such classics as Taxi, Romancing the Stone,
and Matilda, Sunny was a very specific type of comedy series
with a clear voice and satirical tone.
Just get a job?
Why don't I strap on my job helmet
and squeeze down into a job cannon
and fire off into job land where jobs grow on jobbies.
The satire was never afraid to drive into strange places
and seemed to relish in tackling taboo subjects like milking
cancer for guilt, underage drinking, gun violence,
and for their very first episode, racism.
We weren't expecting you--
Yeah, we weren't expecting--
We weren't expecting you to be Black, that's all.
Right.
All members of the gang have evolved over the years,
but Frank Reynolds was a character initially
developed by McElhenney mostly on the spot.
McElhenney knew the broad strokes of a rich man joining
a group of lower class misfits, but in their first meeting,
DeVito questioned who this person was.
He wanted to know why Frank was here
or what he wanted out of this wild decision
to leave his previous life behind.
In the season two premiere, "Charlie Gets Crippled,"
the world was introduced to Frank Reynolds.
And despite DeVito's questioning,
he was still mostly broad strokes.
The father of Dennis and Dee, Frank
returns as a rich businessman who wants to reconnect,
not with his children, but with a life he feels he never
got to truly live, a youthful recklessness
that could now involve partying with strippers
or running inconsequential political campaigns on a whim.
I want to live like you again, Charlie.
I want to be pathetic and desperate and ugly and
hopeless.
Even with the character being a shallow puddle of anarchy
compared to the ocean of nihilism
he'd eventually become, Danny DeVito makes it work.
DeVito gives every bit of himself to every moment.
Howerton recently said on the Always Sunny podcast--
One of the most delightful things about Danny
is he still continues to approach things
with a youthful exuberance.
And that joy is infectious, even with DeVito playing it
all slightly '80s businessman goes punk for the summer.
When he first appears, Frank is more of a tourist.
He is only momentarily dipping his toes
into debauchery and self indulgence.
Throughout the early episodes, he
feels as if they're writing with the intent of appeasing
the seasoned actor.
McElhenney has stated that a big part of what
made DeVito want to take the role
is because the creators were young.
DeVito wanted to know what they thought was funny,
not what he had already been doing for decades.
So with one season under their belt,
they began to treat Frank not as an outsider
wanting something from a cool kid inner circle,
but as a part of the gang.
And watching these episodes, we see
Frank take a more active role within the crew.
He plays detective when he believes Mac's a serial killer
and acts like an investigative journalist
when he sets Dee on fire.
He even starts a band with Mac and Charlie.
Season three is genuinely watching him play dress-up,
trying on new personas and questioning who he is
or who he could be.
As an audience, we adore that in our characters.
This idea of endless possibility or playing pretend
just for a little while is different from the tourist
angle because we're now seeing an earnest engagement.
After season two, Frank isn't just following along.
He's often leading the charge.
As he spells out in the sixth episode of season 10,
"The Gang Misses the Boat," Frank
likes to bankroll schemes.
While his ideas often veer more absurd, the same episodes,
"Man Cheetah," Frank sees himself
as a fancier of the odd.
In the episode, "The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention,"
Frank gives a declaration that not only
changes how we see his character,
but also how the writers do as well.
When Frank says--
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left.
I'm going to get real weird with it.
--it's the writers verbalizing the power they now
realize is at their disposal.
In Frank, there's an opportunity to satirize
whatever they see fit.
The small bits of backstory we have
is that Frank is a multimillionaire who,
at one point, ripped off his business partner.
There are other breadcrumbs, but more often than not,
are played for gags.
In the episode "Frank's Back in Business,"
Frank returns to work with Charlie in tow,
but Charlie never grasps what Frank and his company
actually makes or contributes.
And here, the writers take a moment
to joke that his wealth is just wealth eating
itself and consuming more.
What do we make?
We make money.
No, I know we make money.
I mean, what do we create?
We create wealth.
Whether they're talking about the complexities of money
making more money, real estate, or government bailouts,
Frank's ambiguous backstory and comically endless fortune
is one of the writer's sharpest satires.
With Frank, they also comment on the ability
of the wealthy to often remain bulletproof.
And the greatest joke of them all
is how Frank seems to reject and defy the class system
while still remaining upper class.
They present Frank as an outsider, someone
on the fringe of shoving glue, illegal substances, and cat
food into their body at the drop of a hat.
But they also give him a sense of heart.
In the episode, "Mac Finds His Pride,"
Frank serves as the confusion some might face
when a loved one comes out.
With a very not subtle festering wound
that Frank is trying to ignore, he
walks Mack through various gay bars,
trying to force him to come to terms with his sexuality
on Frank's selfish terms.
We follow the two with Frank's face
becoming more grotesque as it fills with blood
until the wound explodes.
Jesus, Frank, that's a lot of blood.
Is that from just now?
Uh, no.
No, that's from earlier.
A sense of comfort washes over Frank,
and he makes one desperate plea to his friend,
hoping Mac can find the same comfort.
The writers could have chosen any character
to walk these moments with Mac to witness what was simply
one of the most beautiful moments put
to TV during the dance sequence, but they chose Frank.
They chose DeVito's face to swell with tears
and quietly say--
I get it.
These are heady topics, but with DeVito's childlike glee
and wonder, everything just works,
partly because it's so clear that he's having a blast.
And honestly, the guy just deserves it.
Whether it's dancing in an awful toupee
or going on a real world tour in a musical,
the man has become a national treasure.
DeVito is long past the age of being able to retire,
and it really seems like he's doing this just
because he has fun with it.
I love when you throw me out of a window.
I love when I get caught in a, you know--
A coil?
--a Porta-Potty or a coil.
Yeah, or a coil, yeah.
Or a coil in my underwear.
DeVito is such a genuine person, it's almost impossible
to be offended by the same man when his character
pretends to have AIDS so he can cut in line at a water park.
For many, DeVito won't be Martini from One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest or even Penguin from Batman Returns.
He'll be Frank Reynolds.
And Frank has always been an attempt
to get a sense of understanding, not about how
a rich white man continues to thrive despite every attempt
otherwise, but how the world around him supports him,
how we embrace him.
The greatest joke of all in Sunny
has always been the creators and writers showing
the worst in humanity and, thanks to actors like DeVito,
making us love them.
So what do you think?
Are there any other characters throughout TV who
have changed so drastically?
Let us know down in the comments below.
And as always, thank you for watching.
[MUSIC PLAYING]