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Since 2021, the ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary” has informed humorous and heartwarming tales concerning the devoted academics at an underfunded Philadelphia faculty, working exhausting to encourage their college students and make a greater world.
Since 2005, the FX (and FXX) sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” has … effectively, it has additionally informed humorous tales. Riotously and raunchily humorous ones. But is that this comedy about egocentric, sleazy Philadelphia dive bar operators heartwarming? Hardly ever.
The casts of those two reveals appeared collectively in an “Abbott Elementary” episode on Wednesday night time (accessible now on Hulu) that has been teased by the “Abbott” creator and star Quinta Brunson and the “Sunny” creator and star Rob McElhenney since earlier than the present TV season started. When the crossover was introduced, nearly anybody who has ever watched these two reveals needed to surprise: Can this mixture work?
The reply is a certified “sure.” What Brunson and firm have produced right here is one thing that appears like an “Abbott” episode that includes a model of the “Sunny” characters with their rougher edges sanded off, maybe in order that they received’t appear doubtlessly dangerous to schoolchildren.
This isn’t like when the “Mad About You” characters crossed into the equally urbane New York worlds of “Friends” and “Seinfeld,” or when Thomas Magnum and Jessica Fletcher solved crimes collectively in “Magnum P.I.” and “Murder, She Wrote.” “Abbott” and “Sunny” might share a metropolis — and a company overlord in Disney, which owns ABC and FX — however they don’t share a humorousness or function.
Titled “Volunteers,” the episode has Abbott’s principal, Ava Coleman (Janelle James), asking the neighborhood for some assist across the faculty. The gymnasium scoreboard has fallen off the wall. The second ground air ducts don’t distribute warmth evenly. Raccoons are destroying the neighborhood backyard. Even the ever-optimistic, can-do second-grade teacher Janine Teagues (Brunson) is falling behind on grading. (“It takes a shocking quantity of effort to offer everybody an A for effort,” she chirps.)
Enter the gang from Paddy’s Pub: Mac (McElhenney), the dim, boyish hunk; Charlie (Charlie Day), the illiterate, simply confused handyman; Frank (Danny DeVito), the millionaire libertine; Dee (Kaitlin Olson), the self-absorbed schemer; and Dee’s twin brother, Dennis (Glenn Howerton), the good-looking sociopath. True to its nature, the gang from “Sunny” arrives at Abbott not as a result of its members really wish to do good; slightly, it’s due to court-ordered neighborhood service. (They had been caught dumping 100 gallons of child oil, 500 T-shirts and a Cybertruck within the Schuylkill River.)
The episode is structured a bit like a superhero comic-book team-up, with characters from every present working collectively in numerous subplots. Ava drafts the eager-to-please Mac to be her private assistant. Frank agrees to assist the first-grade teacher Gregory Eddie (Tyler James Williams) and the varsity custodian, Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis), within the backyard. Dee — who went to the University of Pennsylvania, identical to Janine — turns into a surprisingly adept second-grade classroom helper.
Charlie, in the meantime, solutions the decision of the sixth-grade teacher Jacob Hill (Chris Perfetti) to repair the ducts. But Charlie’s incapacity to learn alarms Jacob, and he palms off Charlie to the academics Barbara Howard (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa Schemmenti (Lisa Ann Walter) to allow them to take him to the library.
Dennis is conspicuously absent from any of those story strains. He seems at the beginning of the episode, then shortly disappears as a result of he desires to keep away from Abbott’s ever-present documentary cameras. (The sitcom falls into the “mockumentary” subgenre.)
It might be that Dennis’s entire persona on “Sunny” — as a proudly amoral and predatory womanizer — was simply too powerful to mood for such a family-friendly sequence. Otherwise, it’s shocking — and considerably illuminating — simply how simply the “Sunny” characters slot in.
Frank’s basic weirdness pairs effectively with the eccentricities of Mr. Johnson as they squabble over outwit the raccoons. (When he hears that Gregory intends to unfold chili powder and garlic on the soil, Frank warns that it will “make the filth style scrumptious,” then eats the filth himself.) And whereas Dee initially has a sisterly bond with Janine, she kills the vibe by repeatedly flirting with Gregory, Janine’s boyfriend.
None of that is too off-brand for “Abbott,” the place unusual and annoying characters often pop up and briefly complicate the academics’ lives. The two reveals additionally share the Philadelphia bond, evident on this episode in references to the UPenn hangout Smokey Joe’s and in a fast depend of what number of of those characters have gotten right into a struggle at an Eagles recreation. (The reply: just about all of them.)
The relative seamlessness of this crossover could also be due to the reveals’ much less often mentioned qualities: “Abbott” is commonly a bit of meaner than its fame, and “Sunny” is typically unexpectedly candy.
It’s no shock that the “Abbott” character on this episode who’s essentially the most energetic (versus reactive) is Ava, who tends towards the devious. The writers usually lean on Ava after they want somebody to fireside off insults or do one thing soiled, and right here she fortunately exploits Mac, who’s hoping to impress the principal and go house early. Instead, Ava begins on the lookout for methods to maintain the free labor round longer.
It’s additionally no shock that the “Abbott” writers lean into the “Charlie learns to learn” story line. Charlie is an oddball. (When requested what sort of library books may curiosity him, he mentions three of his favourite matters: beer, “milk steak” and chicken legislation.) He can also be charmingly childlike, in his personal freaky method.
That the 2 reveals find yourself meshing in addition to they do is a testomony to the abilities of those actors, who’re all expert at getting laughs. Their subsequent check? When the solid of “Abbott Elementary” seems in an episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” as is deliberate for the approaching season. We now know that the “Sunny” solid may be mellow after they must be. But how edgy can the “Abbott” solid get?
