It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Copied Seinfeld's Best Character Trick
FX's It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is a spiritual successor to Seinfeld in many ways, even utilizing a character trick that had worked for the classic 90s sitcom since its early seasons. It's no secret that the show was an influence on the creators of It's Always Sunny, as they have listed it frequently as an inspiration, in addition to The Office (U.K.) and Larry David's other hit, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Sunny even pays homage to Seinfeld by completely recreating a scene from the show in the Season 13 episode «The Gang Does A Clip Show».
Both It's Always Sunny and Seinfeld are the epitome of the «anti-sitcom». These shows thrive when they take normal comedy show tropes and turn them on their head. Where a normal sitcom would push virtuous characters that an audience can root for, characters like Jerry and Dennis (Glenn Howerton) are selfish and sociopathic. While an average show would try to develop growth within these characters that an audience could sympathize with, both It's Always Sunny and Seinfeld each derive their humor from their characters not being capable of growth.
Related: It's Always Sunny: Why Charlie Loves The Waitress
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia utilizes a big character trick that made Seinfeld such a great anti-sitcom—the treatment and characterizations of their female characters, Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson) and Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). While it's an easy trap for female roles in sitcoms to be reduced to a potential love interest or the «straight man» to enhance the antics of the more comedic (generally male) lead characters, neither Seinfeld nor It's Always Sunny seemed interested in making this the case on their show.
The casting of both characters played a big part in taking
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