10 Long TV Running Gags You Never Even Noticed
3. The Gang Always Re-Uses The Same Videotape - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is basically built on the foundations of in-jokes and running gags, though one of the sneakier ones involves the Gang always using the same damn grotty VHS tape to record and display their latest audio-visual scheme.
The ads for Fight Milk and Kitten Mittens, Dee's (Kaitlin Olson) Invigaron video, Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Mac's (Rob McElhenney) fake terrorist video, and so many more were all shot on the same tape, with each recording over the previous one.
Several times throughout the show when their latest video is playing, we'll see scattered fragments of their previous ones at the beginning and end of the tape. It's easily missed if you're not paying total attention, but an hilarious ongoing callback if you do.
Hopefully they'll never ditch this gag because the longer it goes on and the further we as a society stray from the VHS era, the funnier it becomes.