Rob McElhenney Reveals the Inspiration Behind Frank’s Infamous Couch Scene on ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’
When Frank Reynolds told Dennis and Dee to “sew me into the couch” at his old company’s Christmas party, he was fulfilling a vision that started on the Serengeti.
In the 2009 Danny DeVito gladly sinks on the sitcom.
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While Dennis and Dee tried (and failed) to change their fake father’s ways with a Christmas Carol-style “Ghost of Christmas Present” lesson, Frank’s bizarre camouflage scheme derails their attempt to end the Christmas fake-out tradition. But as Always Sunny creator McElhenney revealed in his recent appearance on The Rich Eisen Show, the behind-the-scenes origin story for Frank’s couch rebirth starts with the circle of life:
When Eisen asked the Always Sunny star and creator to recount his favorite memories from working with a comedy legend like DeVito, McElhenney had to start with the scene that’s so burned into the minds of Always Sunny fans that some of us still see DeVito’s sweaty, wriggling body when we close our eyes.
McElhenney said that one of his favorite DeVito stories is, of course, “when he got buck-ass naked and decided he would just grease himself up like a pig and come through a couch.” But, as McElhenney recalled, DeVito didn’t need much convincing when it came time to film the most famous scene in “A Very Sunny Christmas.”
“When we asked him to do it, he said, ‘Yeah!’” McElhenney explained of DeVito’s can-do attitude toward the couch escape, then revealing that he showed DeVito the inspiration behind the iconic scene. “I said, ‘Danny, I wanna show you a video,’ and it was a video of a giraffe being born, and I said, ‘I wanna recreate this.’ And before I even hit play, he said, ‘No, I’ll do that.’”
While it comes as no surprise that McElhenney wrote the “A Very Sunny Christmas” couch scene with a live animal birth in mind, I do wonder if McElhenney has his safari animals mixed up — is the Always Sunny creator sure that he didn’t show DeVito a very famous nature documentary featuring the first gasps of air from a rhinoceros calf?