Since 2021, the ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary” has told funny and heartwarming stories about the dedicated teachers at an underfunded Philadelphia school, working hard to inspire their students and make a better world.
Since 2005, the FX (and FXX) sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” has … well, it has also told funny stories. Riotously and raunchily funny ones. But is this comedy about selfish, sleazy Philadelphia dive bar operators heartwarming? Hardly ever.
The casts of these two shows appeared together in an “Abbott Elementary” episode on Wednesday night (available now on Hulu) that has been teased by the “Abbott” creator and star Quinta Brunson and the “Sunny” creator and star Rob McElhenney since before the current TV season began. When the crossover was announced, just about anyone who has ever watched these two shows had to wonder: Can this combination work?
The answer is a qualified “yes.” What Brunson and company have produced here is something that feels like an “Abbott” episode featuring a version of the “Sunny” characters with their rougher edges sanded off, perhaps so they won’t seem potentially harmful to schoolchildren.
This isn’t like when the “Mad About You” characters crossed into the similarly urbane New York worlds of “Friends” and “Seinfeld,” or when Thomas Magnum and Jessica Fletcher solved crimes together in “Magnum P.I.” and “Murder, She Wrote.” “Abbott” and “Sunny” may share a city — and a corporate overlord in Disney, which owns ABC and FX — but they do not share a sense of humor or purpose.
Titled “Volunteers,” the episode has Abbott’s principal, Ava Coleman (Janelle James), asking the community for some help around the school. The gym scoreboard has fallen off the wall. The second floor air ducts do not distribute heat evenly. Raccoons are destroying the community garden. Even the ever-optimistic, can-do second-grade teacher Janine Teagues (Brunson) is falling behind on grading. (“It takes a surprising amount of effort to give everyone an A for effort,” she chirps.)
Enter the gang from Paddy’s Pub: Mac (McElhenney), the dim, boyish hunk; Charlie (Charlie Day), the illiterate, easily confused handyman; Frank (Danny DeVito), the millionaire libertine; Dee (Kaitlin Olson), the self-absorbed schemer; and Dee’s twin brother, Dennis (Glenn Howerton), the handsome sociopath. True to its nature, the gang from “Sunny” arrives at Abbott not because its members actually want to do good; rather, it is because of court-ordered community service. (They were caught dumping 100 gallons of baby oil, 500 T-shirts and a Cybertruck in the Schuylkill River.)
The episode is structured a bit like a superhero comic-book team-up, with characters from each show working together in various subplots. Ava drafts the eager-to-please Mac to be her personal assistant. Frank agrees to help the first-grade teacher Gregory Eddie (Tyler James Williams) and the school custodian, Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis), in the garden. Dee — who went to the University of Pennsylvania, just like Janine — becomes a surprisingly adept second-grade classroom helper.
Charlie, meanwhile, answers the call of the sixth-grade teacher Jacob Hill (Chris Perfetti) to fix the ducts. But Charlie’s inability to read alarms Jacob, and he hands off Charlie to the teachers Barbara Howard (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Melissa Schemmenti (Lisa Ann Walter) so they can take him to the library.
Dennis is conspicuously absent from any of these story lines. He appears at the start of the episode, then quickly disappears because he wants to avoid Abbott’s ever-present documentary cameras. (The sitcom falls into the “mockumentary” subgenre.)
It could be that Dennis’s whole persona on “Sunny” — as a proudly amoral and predatory womanizer — was just too tough to temper for such a family-friendly series. Otherwise, it is surprising — and somewhat illuminating — just how easily the “Sunny” characters fit in.
Frank’s general weirdness pairs well with the eccentricities of Mr. Johnson as they squabble over how to outwit the raccoons. (When he hears that Gregory intends to spread chili powder and garlic on the soil, Frank warns that this will “make the dirt taste delicious,” then eats the dirt himself.) And while Dee initially has a sisterly bond with Janine, she kills the vibe by repeatedly flirting with Gregory, Janine’s boyfriend.
None of this is too off-brand for “Abbott,” where strange and annoying characters frequently pop up and briefly complicate the teachers’ lives. The two shows also share the Philadelphia bond, evident in this episode in references to the UPenn hangout Smokey Joe’s and in a quick count of how many of these characters have gotten into a fight at an Eagles game. (The answer: pretty much all of them.)
The relative seamlessness of this crossover may be because of the shows’ less frequently discussed qualities: “Abbott” is often a little meaner than its reputation, and “Sunny” is sometimes unexpectedly sweet.
It’s no surprise that the “Abbott” character in this episode who is the most active (as opposed to reactive) is Ava, who tends toward the devious. The writers often lean on Ava when they need someone to fire off insults or do something dirty, and here she happily exploits Mac, who is hoping to impress the principal and go home early. Instead, Ava starts looking for ways to keep the free labor around longer.
It’s also no surprise that the “Abbott” writers lean into the “Charlie learns to read” story line. Charlie is an oddball. (When asked what kind of library books might interest him, he mentions three of his favorite topics: beer, “milk steak” and bird law.) He is also charmingly childlike, in his own freaky way.
That the two shows end up meshing as well as they do is a testament to the talents of these actors, who are all skilled at getting laughs. Their next test? When the cast of “Abbott Elementary” appears in an episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” as is planned for the coming season. We now know that the “Sunny” cast can be mellow when they have to be. But how edgy can the “Abbott” cast get?
