Philadelphia — I was awakened at 8 a.m. Wednesday by a worried call from a good friend, journalist and radical prairie activist Michael Caddell in Kansas. “Dave!” he said urgently, “Is Philly burning?”
- Always Sunny In Philadelphia Day Bow Bow
- It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia First Episode
- Always Sunny In Philadelphia
- It's A Sunny Day In Philadelphia
In celebration of the 15th anniversary of FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, we look back at the 10 quotes that we continue to say beyond the confines of Paddy's Pub. Directed by Rob McElhenney. With Morena Baccarin, Ronan Burden, Charlie Day, Mary Elizabeth Ellis. The original unaired pilot to 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'. It’s another day in December, and that means it’s time for some more great Christmas entertainment. After already cruising through “The Office” and “Christmas Vacation,” it’s time to enjoy the greatest holiday moments from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” (REVIEW: ‘ Westworld ’ Season 3 Ends With The Possible Deaths. Dec 10, 2020 With 14 seasons under its belt, it's only natural to wonder when It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will end. Thanks to a recent presentation at Disney Investor Day 2020, we now know we won't have.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has been a popular comedy since it first aired in 2005. Fourteen seasons later, it’s still going strong. And why wouldn’t it be? With hilarious one-liners, outlandish-but-lovable characters of Mac, Charlie, Dennis, Dea, and Frank, played by the one and only Danny DeVi.
I groggily asked him what he meant? Had the closed Sunoco tank farm and refinery in South Philadelphia suddenly exploded into an inferno again?
“It’s all over the news,” he said. “Even Democracy Now!. Fires burning, looting, and 30 police injured!”
The Philadelphia Inquirer (10/28/20) reported “scattered looting…in the area of Castor and Aramingo Avenues in the city’s Port Richmond section, and along City Avenue.”
I flipped open my computer and went to the digital Philadelphia Inquirer. There was no story about the city burning. No banner headline about dozens of Philly cops injured. Just a report (10/28/20) on the “mostly peaceful” protests by “hundreds of people” over the outrageous police shooting death Monday of Walter Wallace, Jr.
Wallace was a 27-year-old Black father having a mental health crisis, whose family had called 911 for an ambulance. Instead of an ambulance, they got two cops who, immediately on arriving in their squad car, pulled out their sidearms. Soon after, they shot Wallace over ten times, killing him, “because,” they said, he didn’t drop a small knife he was holding in his hand. This although he was at least 10 feet from them at the time, and his mother was pleading with the cops to back off and let her calm him down.
It was an event that had happened two days earlier, and I knew there had been protests over it, but not widespread unrest.
The Inquirer article mentioned a protest by hundreds of people from the neighborhood and supporters at the police precinct in West Philadelphia where the shooting had occurred, and also that some thousand people had gathered on the other side of the 1.6 million–person city, in its Port Richmond neighborhood. There they had broken into shops in a strip mall and a Walmart at the intersection of Castor and Aramingo Avenues. But aside from a police car and a few dumpsters set on fire, there was no mass unrest, and no torching of stores or other buildings.
Nothing like the uprising and conflagration last summer in Minneapolis following the police murder of George Floyd, or even like the widespread break-ins in the shopping district in Philly’s Center City and other cities last summer in response to Floyd’s videotaped strangulation.
What was going on? Why Mike’s anxious morning call?
It turns out that protests against the police shooting of yet another young Black man (an all-too-common event in Philadelphia, where there have been 400 fatal and non-fatal shootings by police, mostly of Black men, over the 2008–18 period), while reported fairly calmly and accurately in the local media, were being played up as another major urban explosion in the national media.
Perhaps what got their attention was Gov. 3d graphics applications. Tom Wolf’s decision to send a few hundred Philadelphia National Guard soldiers to, as he put it, “protect the right to peacefully assemble and protest while keeping people safe.”
The National Guard troops were deployed in the city during the protests over Floyd’s murder, and their presence actually had a calming impact by most accounts. That may be because the Guard units are more racially integrated than the Philadelphia police force, and because they are better trained about not resorting to their weapons as readily as Philly cops. Those cops seemed to be at their aggressive best in these latest protests, reportedly tackling and hitting protesters with batons.
Always Sunny In Philadelphia Day Bow Bow
USA Today (10/27/20) reported that “police in Philadelphia said 30 officers were injured during violent protests Monday night,” without mentioning that nearly all the injuries were minor.
Much of the nationalmediareported that 30 officers were injured during the Tuesday night police actions at the protest in West Philadelphia. But some neglected to mention, as the Philadelphia Inquirer (10/27/20) reported, that only one officer, a woman hit by a speeding pickup truck that had rounded a corner into a wall of cops, breaking her leg and causing other unspecified injuries, was still in the hospital. The other 29 officers, who had reportedly suffered minor injuries from thrown objects, were simply examined, treated if necessary and discharged.
Even the New York Times Logitech full size keyboard. (10/28/20) omitted the detail about the lack of severity of the injuries — a serious oversight or reporting failure. (An earlier article mentioned that the police had been “treated for cuts and bruises,” but that information dropped out in later reporting.)
Most of the national reporting was more deliberately inflammatory and even frightening, reminiscent of the coverage of the major unrest in Portland, New York and other cities that followed the Floyd killing.
“Looters in Philadelphia Ransack Stores, Attack Reporter During Second Night of Chaos,” blared Fox News (10/28/20). (A reporter for the Blaze, Elijah Schaffer, claimed he was “jumped” by people he described as “BLM rioters,” said to be “looting a dozen stores.”)
The Boston Globe (10/28/20), under the rather overheated headline “National Guard Responds as Protests Over Walter Wallace, Jr. Killing Engulf Philadelphia,” contradicted Governor Wolf’s explanation for the Guard deployment, reporting instead, with no attribution, that the soldiers were there “to protect property” and to “quell unrest.” The injuries of 30 police officers were again mentioned in the Globe story, but not the minor nature of 29 of them.
Fox News (10/28/20) illustrates how the Philadelphia protests were spun in media catering to Trump voters.
ABC News’ headline (World News Tonight, 10/27/20) was “Turmoil in Philadelphia After Death of Walter Wallace, Jr.”
![Charlie day sunny in philadelphia Charlie day sunny in philadelphia](https://www.hdwallpaper.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/its_always_sunny_in_philadelphia-13.jpg)
The significance of the widespread overhyping of this Philadelphia story in the national media is, of course, that Pennsylvania, with its 20 electors, is widely viewed as the key state that will determine who wins the November 3 presidential election. President Donald Trump was quick to condemn the protests in Philadelphia, with the White House (Forbes, 10/28/20) calling the protests “the most recent consequence of the liberal Democrats’ war against the police.”
The Trump administration also said it “stands proudly with law enforcement, and will send federal resources to end the riots if asked.”
It’s likely that Wolf’s quick decision to dispatch some National Guard troops to Philadelphia had more to do with preventing Trump from doing what he did in Portland—sending in armed federal officers against the wishes of local authorities and provoking more violence—than with assisting in riot control, which appears not to have been necessary to any great degree.
Late Wednesday, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney declared a city-wide curfew beginning at 9 p.m., and as of midnight, things appeared calm in the city.
There is widespread anger at the police for this latest police killing, and calls for an end to police using weapons to deal with mentally ill persons, but Philadelphia is not ablaze or in chaos.
I’m going to bed.
Featured image: Boston Globe depiction (10/28/20) of protests against a police killing in Philadelphia (photo: Matt Slocum/AP).
Related Posts
If you're a viewer of FXX/FX on Hulu's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, then you know the good news by now: Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Mac (Rob McElhenney), Charlie (Charlie Day), and Frank (Danny DeVito) will be keeping the doors of Paddy's open for four more seasons- taking the series to a record-setting 18th season. So that means the title belt behind the bar just got a bit bigger and shinier because the renewal order means that the series will hold the record for the longest-running, live-action sitcom in television history. Let that sink in, because that '…in television history' line carries a ton of weight with it. The Gang clearly gets it, with Howerton, Olson, McElhenney, and co-star Mary Elizabeth Ellis aka The Waitress chiming in soon after the news was announced to offer their thoughts. Now we have a response from Day, who used the moment to both celebrate the occasion as well as put the awards season on notice (especially now that an EW cover just isn't as status-worthy as it used to be, with magazines on the downward trend).
Here's a look at Day's Instagram post- and we have to say, we respect the 'tickle/slap' approach he took. First, he lulls in Emmy voters with a fun clip of The Gang as if they were dancing to celebrate the series being renewed. A lot of fun, right? Then he hits them with a caption that rightfully and metaphorically pisses just a wee bit in their corn flakes (so to speak). We're sure it was done in 63% jest and 37% truth, so we're figuring Emmy voters should go with an 'awkward smile' reaction:
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia First Episode
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Charlie Day (@charliedayofficial)So what's the good word when it comes to production on the record-setting return of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Bleeding Cool had the opportunity to ask Glenn Howerton that very question during our one-on-one discussion on the return of A.P. Bio for a third season. In the clip below, Howerton explains that the combination of pandemic-related delays and other projects that the cast is committed to (for example, Rob McElhenney's Mythic Quest, Olson's Flipped, as well as other television and film projects- both behind and in front of the camera) has made it difficult to finalize a production ('at this point, it's more of a timing thing'). Though they may still be in the process of 'trying to figure it out,' Howerton expressed how excited and committed they are to a strong 15th run (and 'maybe even a sixteenth').
In April, McElhenney revealed that writing was underway, though production timelines were in flux due to production shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. McElhenney was hopeful that they'll be able to 'jump right into something new with 'Sunny' soon. And he also made one thing clear: as long as the fans want it (and FX Networks wants to keep paying for it) then Paddy's will be keeping its doors open for some time to come:
Always Sunny In Philadelphia
'How many years do I have on this planet? I'll do it forever. If people keep watching it and we keep having fun, why would we ever stop? It's my dream job. I never understand why people leave shows. I don't. I never understand that. The show is what I dreamed of doing my entire life. I don't take it for granted. And if they keep paying me and the audience keeps watching it and I still love it… why would I ever stop?'