When Rob McElhenney created It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, he struck gold by appealing to a local audience that found it funny to watch people from their city buy tickets for a cross country plane ride just for a drinking competition.
McElhenney is a South Philly native and a frequent guest on The Preston & Steve Show. The depiction of his hometown hit the nail on the head in a brutally honest way.
The location of Always Sunny is as central to its core as any other show on television. The non-stop references to Philadelphia neighborhoods, landmarks, sports teams, schools, and people captures the city accurately. Not bad for a show whose scenes are shot mostly in Los Angeles.
The show has wrapped up filming for Season 16, extending its run as the longest running live-action sitcom in television history.
While (hopefully) nobody from Philadelphia is digging up dead bodies to steal from people buried in their own jewelry, the absurdity of the main characters eliminates the need to take the grains of truth about Philly people too seriously.
References to the City of Brotherly Love stuck out the most in 11 cases.