The gang of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has been busy this year pumping out another hit season of the FX comedy – from taking a road trip, to tackling economic woes, to guest stars, to professional wrestling, to an attempt at cleverly marketing a product through an episode about marketing products for the pub. The laughs are still coming strong in the fifth season.
To coincide with that season, the gang released a straight-to-home video Christmas special subtitled “A Very Sunny Christmas,” which is available on both DVD and Blu-ray. But while the core content continues to bring the funny antics of Philadelphia’s biggest miscreants, with a few crude twists for the holidays, the special features and half-hearted (and even that term is being generous) hi-def transfer may leave fans wondering why this deserved its own release.
A Very Sunny Christmas is essentially a double-length episode of the show, clocking in at 43 minutes. And the only two things (maybe only one) keeping it from being aired on television are several uses of the F-bomb in quick succession in one scene, and viewers being “treated” to the naked, sweaty body of Frank (Danny DeVito). A rewording of the first and angle changes to the second and it is fit for the standards of cable television.
Make no mistake about it, A Very Sunny Christmas is in line with the humor of the show and brings the laughs constantly, providing a great holiday viewing experience for those with an offbeat sense of humor. Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Dee (Kaitlin Olson) are out to teach Frank a lesson for years of pranking them rather than giving gifts for Christmas. This year, Frank buys himself the Lamborghini Coontach Dennis has always wanted and is making modifications to it, while also purchasing for himself a designer bag that Dee would love and eating cheese puffs and malted milk balls out of it. The siblings decide to use the Christmas Carol idea to force him to change his ways.
Meanwhile, Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Charlie (Charlie Day), try to make up for past holiday indiscretions while remembering moments from their disgruntled childhoods and gaining new perspective. Of course, this trip down memory lane only leads to things like Charlie going for the jugular of a mall Santa. The gang also mixes things up with an old-school clay animation send-up of the holiday classics like Frosty the Snowman. As is the show’s pedigree, the Christmas special provides plenty of new lines to repeat ad infinitum, memorable gags and misanthropic shenanigans a la Seinfeld.
But as funny as the extended episode is, it seems like the gang is taking an opportunity to cash in on what simply could have been another hour-long episode on television. The content easily could have been aired with the season and included on the inevitable Season 5 DVD collection. Instead, it has its own steep price tag, the special features of which don’t make up for the remainder. There are several minutes worth of Young Mac and Young Charlie deleted scenes, which are funny, a 3-minute sing-a-long video that turns into an acid trip segment, and a 7-minute making of featurette that offers very little.
Even hardcore fans are better off pooling together for one copy to pass around, waiting for a hopeful later release with the season or simply renting the special. And if the suggested $20 retail price for the DVD (read: double episode) seems a bit much, the more expensive (read: $30) Blu-ray isn’t even in true high-definition, a point that is addressed in a 1-minute segment by McElhenney and David Hornsby (Rickety Cricket). Whatever the reasoning behind it, there is little reason for the Blu-ray to even exist. Most scenes look only marginally better than the usual episode on television, and some exterior shots actually look as though they were shot with a cell phone camera.
Ultimately, A Very Sunny Christmas is a hell of a lot better and funnier than a lump of coal, but at the going rates, buyers would get much more for their money purchasing the latter.
Special Features
-The It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray disc is presented in upconverted 1080p high-definition 1.78:1 aspect ratio video; 5.1 DTS-HD English Master Audio audio; with English SDH, Spanish and French subtitles
-Young Charlie & Young Mac Deleted Scenes
-Behind-the-Scenes Making Of Featurette
-Sunny Sing-A-Long
About the writer
Bill Jones is editor-in-chief for padsandpanels.com, a site dedicated to coverage of comics and games.
Title: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny ChristmasStarring: Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, Danny DeVito
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: November 17, 2009
Rating: 6.5 / 10
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