Crossover ‘Abbott Elementary’-‘Always Sunny’ was full of Easter eggs

This week’s episode “Abbott Elementary” is only half the story. “Volunteers” featured the highly anticipated crossover with FX’s long-running “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” told from the point of view of the hit ABC sitcom. But you’ll have to wait for the upcoming season of “Sunny” before you get the Gang’s take on it.

“Scenes that took place off-screen in our episode will also take place on-screen in theirs,” teases Abbott executive producer Patrick Schumacker. “Someone should get a hold of both episodes [once they air] and cut them together. This isn’t quite the perfect composition, but people keep comparing it to ‘Rashomon.’ We don’t see any different truths happening, but their episode essentially takes place in the same time frame.

Schumacker suggests that Hulu should consider linking both episodes together so that audiences can watch them back-to-back once the “Sunny” version (which has also already been filmed) airs sometime this spring. But in the meantime, we also now have a pretty good idea of ​​what the setup will be in that episode: The “It’s Always Sunny” gang ends up doing community service at Abbott Elementary — and Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), who previously owned Paddy’s Pub visited, recognizes them for the criminals they are.

“We were like, who in our cast would ever go to Paddy’s?” says executive producer Justin Halpern. “Oh, Melissa might come across that place. We believe she could.” Garrett Werner, who wrote the episode, adds, “That’s also the neighborhood she lives in, South Philly, and that’s where Paddy’s is. It was the clearest overlap.”

Star/creator/executive producer Quinta Brunson and the ‘Abbott’ writers met early on with ‘Sunny’ EPs/stars Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day to brainstorm ideas for the A-story, and they settled on the ‘Sunny ‘-canon that Charlie (Day) is illiterate.

“As we were breaking down what we thought the stories could be, and the combinations we wanted to see together, we kept coming back to the fact that Charlie can’t read,” Halpern says. “A good ‘Abbott’ episode generally has some sort of emotional foundation to the story and a character who reaches some sort of satisfying, emotional moment near the end. And so we thought: Barbara [Sheryl Lee Ralph] teaching him to read could lead to a truly meaningful moment and still be true.”

And then, for a secondary storyline, the writers realized that both Janine (Brunson) of “Abbott” and Dee (Kaitlin Olson) of “Sunny” were going to the University of Pennsylvania — and that this unlikely duo could bond over it.

“Janine is the only teacher at Abbott who, at least at the top, wants to give these people the benefit of the doubt,” says Schumacker. “Because the way they come into the fold is that the gang does community service. So they have to volunteer with Abbott to avoid jail time. As soon as everyone puts two and two together and says these are criminals, they all say, we have to get them out of here. But then Janine has bonded with Dee over their mutual alma mater, and she’s a little blinded by that, a fellow Penn graduate.

Finding a way to merge the voices of two different types of comedy and mix those tones was difficult at first, Werner said. But the mockumentary nature of “Abbott” helped split the difference.

“The gang are terrible sociopaths, but they are still aware of how they are perceived,” he says. “So just the fact that they have to interact with cameras and that they’re going to be documented takes them back from where they could sometimes get – because there’s filmed evidence of what they’re doing. So that helped bring them down. And then just by unleashing four sociopaths into this school, it also loosens up the tone of our characters a little bit, just to interact with them. In the end it actually felt quite natural.”

It’s unclear how many “Abbott” fans are “Sunny” viewers and vice versa — though the producers note that there aren’t many comedies on TV, so chances are fans are watching both for laughs. But nevertheless, they made sure that the episode still makes sense even if you don’t know Charlie, Dee, Mac (McElhenney), Frank (Danny DeVito) or Dennis (Glenn Howerton).

“We wanted to treat them as if they were typical guest stars on the show,” Schumacker says. “I don’t think we explain it too much at all. There are a few little inside jokes, but they are few and far between. We wanted to treat it this way: If you’re just a fan of ‘Abbott,’ and you don’t know who these people are, you can appreciate it. And hopefully that works on the other side too. And in the ‘Sunny’ episode, I think that will be the case.”

Werner watched several famous TV crossovers to prepare for this, and he came away knowing he wanted this one to have teeth.

“Growing up as a TV viewer in the ’90s, all those crossovers were always cameo-driven, as if the characters weren’t driving the story,” says Halpern. “We didn’t just want to do, ‘oh my god, Urkel appeared on ‘Full House!”. We wanted to do something really ambitious that tied these two episodes together. That if you were someone who watched both episodes, you could have a would have a viewing experience that I don’t know you would have in any other crossover.

Meanwhile, the writers of “Abbott” also faced the challenge of not knowing which “Sunny” stars would be available for the episode outside of McElhenney and Day. Olson was busy working on “High Potential,” while Howerton was shooting Netflix’s “Sirens.” And DeVito’s availability was initially unclear.

“Rob says, you’ve got Danny, and then our casting people would say, ‘Danny’s not calling back, and we don’t know where he is,'” Halpern says. (Which was confusing because “Abbott” and “Sunny” share the same casting teams.)

Werner adds: “We didn’t know Dennis was going to be in the show until the day I went out for the script. So it was like, let’s figure out a way to explain why he’s there for such a short time. It was just motivated by so much fun and enthusiasm from all parties that that kept pushing us forward no matter when a little logistical challenge came up. Everyone’s attitude was, ‘Well, we’ll figure it out.’”

Executive producer/director of “Abbott” Randall Einhorn also served as a bridge between the two shows, as he also directed for “Sunny.” “Randall was kind of a middle ground for building trust between both parties, where Randall could vouch for us and they could vouch for each other,” says Werner. “There was, I think, just an immediate comfort that he brought to everything that we couldn’t have gotten with any other director in the world.”

Among the episode’s Easter eggs, Werner notes that each episode of “Sunny” begins with a title card listing the day and time. So for “Abbott” we don’t have any title cards, but after the cold open the very first line is someone saying the day and time, a nod to “Sunny.” There are other little references like they make. It’s just really fun to discover all the knowledge of ‘Sunny’, and then what the knowledge of us is. So both Janine and Dee both have big feet. It’s something very strange, because they can focus on that and serve both target groups.’

And in addition to his inability to read, Charlie’s affinity for bird law in “Sunny” also plays a role in “Abbott.” That’s partly because the ‘Abbott’ team wanted this episode to still play an important role in Season 4’s ongoing storyline: the legal showdown involving a golf course moving to the ‘Abbott’ neighborhood.

“This episode is as important as any other episode in this season, as far as the season mythology goes,” Schumacker said. “In season 4 we have the specter of this golf course and the gentrification in the area. There’s the illegal deal Ava made with the golf course lawyer that essentially gives Abbott hush money. Those kinds of things are all addressed in this crossover episode, and the ‘Sunny’ Gang influences that relationship as well. This episode doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s actually one that rewards ‘Abbott’ fans who plan to watch the entire season.”

This episode even features what the writers say is the most elaborate special effect “Abbott Elementary” has ever done: the school scoreboard falls off the gymnasium wall into the cold open air.

“It actually has nothing to do with the ‘Sunny’ people at all, it was just something big that we did for this episode,” says Werner. “We dropped the scoreboard before, but that was off camera and just the sound effect. But we really rigged this one. There were all these tests where the scoreboard fell. It can fall all these different ways and everything. Randall and I were like, “What’s the quickest and funniest way to drop it?” That’s why we did it in one take. It was really great.”

Quips Halpern: “We’re a regular ‘Avatar’ here.”

Next, it’s still unclear when the “sunny” side of this crossover will air, and the producers are hesitant to give any hints as to what might happen during their version of the story.

“I don’t want to spoil any of their material, because it’s really their story to tell, but I do want to say that what they did is very ambitious,” Halpern says. “If you’re a fan of ‘Abbott,’ you’ll definitely want to watch their episode.”