10 Best It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia Characters Only In One Episode
Who are the best characters to ever grace the worst bar in Philadelphia?
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is coming up to its fourteenth season, and despite having some of the least likeable characters on television, it's only gone from strength to strength.
Unlike a lot of shows that run this long, Sunny has only had a couple of big name celebrities over the years, and it’s typically stayed away from ratings bait guest spots.
Sure, three of the four Kings Of Leon appeared at the high school reunion, but there was no special celebrity spotlight; two played bartenders and the other a customer angry at Mac.
With stellar writing though, what it hasn’t been short of is magnificent one-off appearances from brilliant characters. While they haven't often called in huge names to pique interest, there's still been some fantastic guest spots littering the show's stellar run. Many series that last this long start trading on celebrity names, but It's Always Sunny has largely gone for substance over style.
Some of these mesh with the Gang perfectly, while others clash against them in the best way.
With show as unique as It’s Always Sunny, there was of course plenty of bizarre characters to choose from, but it’s strictly one episode only, so the likes of Schmitty, Maniac and not-Bruce Mathis all just miss out.
11. Honorable Mention: The Gang, But Black
In the Season 12 premiere, The Gang Turns Black, the Gang wakes up to find that (you’ve guessed it) they’re all black. Quantum Leap style, they only appear black in the mirror, and are the regular cast as we see them for a decent chunk of the episode.
However, alongside great performances from Danny DeVito and Charlie Day, who are both excellent with this high concept, the black Gang offer a perfect contrast to the regular Gang. They fit some stereotypes and play against others, all adding up for a wonderful one-off mix of personalities and characters.
This is very much a ‘greater than the sum of their parts’ deal, though. While the rest of this list will focus on individual hilarious performances, this episode was too good to exclude here.
Focussing on racism in America in an entirely Sunny way, the episode’s controversial theme and musical sensibilities mean it’s not for everyone, though it’s typically thought of as one of the better modern episodes.
Despite none of the alternate Gang standing up enough to be the one we can pin it on and say ‘yep, black Mac makes this episode great’, together the cast are worthy of inclusion.