Faculty’s again in session at Abbott Elementary — and there’s a gang of troublemakers being despatched to the principal’s workplace.
When ABC‘s Emmy-winning docu-com set in an underfunded faculty returns from winter break on January 8, the wacky, well-intentioned academics collab with the vice-ridden characters of FXX’s long-running satire, It’s At all times Sunny in Philadelphia. The highly-anticipated crossover of Philadelphia-set comedies was first teased by creator and star Quinta Brunson (who performs the first-rate second-grade trainer Janine Teagues) throughout San Diego Comedian Con in 2024, and she or he declared it’ll “change tv as we all know it.”
Plot particulars are nonetheless largely below wraps, however we do know that within the episode, titled “Volunteers,” principal Ava (Janelle James) pronounces the arrival of a gaggle of helpers despatched by the college district. These volunteers are none aside from Sunny’s degenerates: Paddy’s Pub house owners Mac (Rob McElhenney), Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Charlie (Charlie Day), monetary supporter Frank (Danny DeVito), and waitress Dee (Kaitlin Olson). Are they doing neighborhood service, maybe?
(Disney/Gilles Mingasson)
To get began on the script for the thrilling episode, government producer Justin Halpern says, “Rob and Charlie got here into our writers’ room for a day and labored with us as we broke the Abbott aspect of it. After which, as quickly as we obtained the Abbott aspect of it, we kicked the define over to them, as a result of it was integral to how they had been going to interrupt the Sunny aspect.”
With every present boasting a big ensemble of robust characters, that’s no small feat. “We had been very cautious about how we selected the pairings,” government producer Patrick Schumacker provides. Within the teaser trailer beforehand launched, it appears to be like like faculty custodian Mr. Johnson (William Stanford Davis) and Frank will get into it (Frank hilariously calls janitor Johnson “the sheriff of trash”), Mac makes an attempt to flirt with Ava, and effectively, issues will most likely get loads worse earlier than they get higher once more for the good of us of Abbott…and possibly even the mostly-unseen digicam crews capturing Abbott’s doc. “We’ve actually embraced each a part of the crossover,” provides Halpern.
And although the Sunny gang would possibly trigger issues for the college staffers, it looks as if their journey to Abbott may need a severe impact on a minimum of one of many characters. Schumacker reveals that particulars “which have been baked into Sunny canonically play into the plot closely with our academics,” and that the Sunny gang “have crossed paths with a minimum of one in every of our characters earlier than.”
This might presumably imply good issues for Charlie, who, as Sunny followers know, can’t learn. “He’s closely concerned within the A narrative,” confirms Halpern.
The very best half about all of this? When Sunny, which can have a good time 20 years onscreen in August, returns later in 2025 for Season 17, they’ll air their very own crossover episode, too. That episode will present the Paddy’s Pub staff’ point-of-view of the occasions taking place on this installment. “One of many cool issues about this crossover is that it’s not simply two impartial episodes the place a few of our characters are of their present, and a few of their characters are in our present,” says Halpern. “That is an precise puzzle that has match collectively in a extremely wonderful means.”
No matter goes down, now we have a sense that it is going to be very chaotic, however a lot enjoyable to observe.
Abbott Elementary—At all times Sunny Crossover, Wednesday, January 8, 8:30/7:30c, ABC