ABBOTT ELEMENTARY Crossover With IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY... Expands to 2-Episode Event Where the Teachers Will Crash the Bar
The highly-anticipated crossover between ABC’s Abbott Elementary and FX’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia just got bigger.
It was already revealed that the Sunny characters will show up on Abbott this season, and now it’s been revealed that as part of a two-episode event, the Abbott teachers will also show up on Sunny to hang with the Gang at Paddy’s Pub.
Earlier this month, Abbott creator and star Quinta Brunson and Sunny star/co-creator Rob McElhenney revealed that the two shows would be joining up for a very special episode of Abbott Elementary (which Brunson had previously hinted at San Diego Comic-Con).
The mash-up made sense, given that both shows are set in Philadelphia, plus they both air on Disney-owned networks.
The Sunny cast, which includes McElhenney, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito, already shot their scenes for Abbott episode 409, in a storyline that will take up the full half hour. Olson revealed the turnabout crossover Thursday on the red carpet at Variety’s Power of Women event.
“It was very fun,” Olson said, about shooting the Abbott episode, adding, “And they’ll be jumping into our world in a couple of weeks, which is very exciting. So it’s been really fun for both of our casts to be able to do, them a cable show and us a network show.”
Since Abbott star Lisa Ann Walter (who plays the tough-talking second-grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti) told Variety that she’d requested that Brunson write her scenes with Olson’s Dee Reynolds, Variety asked what requests the Sunny star made.
“I was just excited to get them to just get, like, nasty,” Olson replied. “They cannot do that at school; they can do that in the bar.”
The “Sunny-on-Abbott” episode will air first, and executive producers Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker revealed that Day’s character will have a “pretty significant storyline.”
Schumacker talked about breaking the story, saying: “It was kind of a joke at first, that the two shows should cross over. On paper, it feels like they’d be a real tonal mishmash. But then Rob and Charlie came to our writers room and we hashed out some real broad stroke ideas.
“From there, we emailed back and forth beat sheets and then an outline. They were super game for everything. All those concerns that we had about the tones of the shows butting against each other were alleviated the second we started filming with Charlie.”
It’s unclear, however, what the Sunny team has in store for the Abbott characters on their show. Writing for Season 17 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia took place this fall, and production on the season’s eight episodes has just commenced (with an eye toward a 2025 return).
Sunny has had to work around the stars’ busy schedules, including Olson on the new ABC breakout hit High Potential and Howerton on the Netflix series Sirens.