"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"
Charlie Gets Crippled (2006)

Director:

Rob McElhenney

Writers:

Rob McElhenney (developer) and
Glenn Howerton (developer) ...

TV Series:

"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (2005)

Original Air Date:

29 June 2006 (Season 2, Episode 1)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

When Dennis accidentally runs over Charlie with his car, Charlie uses his new injury to get the sympathy of the strippers at the local strip club...

Plot Keywords:

Costume | Strip Club | Stripper | Wheelchair | Neck Brace

Cast

Charlie Day	...	Charlie Kelly
Glenn Howerton	...	Dennis Reynolds
Rob McElhenney	...	Mac
Kaitlin Olson	...	Dee Reynolds
Danny DeVito	...	Frank Reynolds
Kristoffer Polaha	...	Male employee
Natasha Leggero	...	Stripper #1
Sara Erikson	...	Stripper #2
Tiffany Haddish	...	Stripper
Josh Fadem	...	Wayne

Runtime:

23 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

3 Arts Entertainment

Quotes:

Frank Reynolds: I wanna live like you again, Charlie. I wanna be pathetic and desperate and ugly and hopless.
Charlie Kelly: Okay. I'm not ugly.

Haven't laughed this hard in ages!

I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did watching "The Gang Gets Crippled" as I have since the early days of "Simpsons" and "SNL." There are so many priceless jokes in this episode that it took me about two or three times re-watching the episode to catch a lot of the gags.

The episode begins with Charlie getting run over by a car and being put in a wheelchair. The gang heads to a local strip club where they find out it's easy to score girls while disabled due to sympathy. Charlie gets two free lapdances.

Earlier that day, Dennis' and Dee's father (Danny DeVito) arrives announcing he has divorced their mother and is giving away all his money to the poor and wants to be a part of "the gang." He ends up taking advantage of Charlie's disabilities at the strip club to pick up strippers ("I want to live in filth again") and the two decide to become roommates. The next day Charlie gets a brilliant idea to dress up as a Vietnam war hero in the strip club. (And seriously, the result of this is by far the funniest single line I've heard in a TV show in years - "What happened to you, honey?" - "Viet-G**d@mn 'Nam is what happened; now go get me a beer, b**ch!" And as DeVito wheels him away: "What, I was working her!") Don't get me wrong, you have to have a sick sense of humor to enjoy this. Dennis and Rob go to the mall in wheelchairs to pick up girls, and both pretend to have Polio. ("That's why I'm rockin' the FDR look.") They end up having wheelchair races and beating each other up.

The end of the episode is a killer. I won't ruin the joke, but just make sure you don't leave in the last minute or so.

Overall this was a delightful blast of fresh air - after seeing so many stale sitcoms, this proved to me that FX really is becoming the new lead in character-driven comedy-dramas (such as the equally superb "Rescue Me" which isn't quite as funny, however).

My only hope is that "Sunny" doesn't become so popular that it attracts controversy and sells out and dumbs down its humor. Right now it's on par with the early episodes of "South Park" and "SNL" in terms of how irreverent its humor is - and personally, in my opinion, its plots are better than most comedy films I've seen within the last few years.

Definitely must-see TV.