Posted in: ABC, FX, Hulu, TV | Tagged: abbott elementary, always sunny, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Abbott Elementary Set for Season 5; Always Sunny Crossover Scores Big

ABC and Quinta Brunson's Abbott Elementary is returning for Season 5 - and the crossover with It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia scored big.

How about some great news for fans of FXX's Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito-starring It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and ABC's Quinta Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Janelle James, Lisa Ann Walter, Chris Perfetti, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and William Stanford Davis-starring Abbott Elementary? For fans of Abbott Elementary, the word came down that the award-winning hit series will be back for a fifth season. Could that lead to another crossover with The Gang? Based on the viewing numbers, the chances might be pretty good. The first half of "The Greatest Moment in Television History" hit a series high (not including the show's post-Oscars episode during Season 3) in total viewers (with 8.05 million) and adults 18-49 (with a 2.57 rating) across all platforms and also brought in series-high episode views on streaming (based on the first seven days on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+). In terms of ABC and streaming, that viewing lovefest continued with 39% of the viewers (3.15 million) viewing the episode on Hulu or Disney+.

Abbott Elementary EPs on "Always Sunny" Turn at Crossover & More

Speaking with EW, Abbott Elementary's Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker offered some insights into the upcoming Paddy's chapter of the crossover. In addition, the EPs discuss a Frank (DeVito)/Mr. Johnson (Davis) backstory that was cut, an ad-libbed joke from McElhenney that couldn't make the Abbott Elementary cut, and why we didn't get much Dennis (Howerton) during this chapter.

Halpern & Schumacker on "Always Sunny" Episode: "It's been written, it's been shot. I was present for quite a bit of it, and it's very cool. The ideal viewing experience will eventually be watching these two episodes back to back, even though I don't know if they've even solidified their date yet, but eventually, they're going to end up on Hulu together and it'll be very easy to access both of them back to back. They do very much play off of each other," Schumacker shared. "Their episode is what's happening in between our episode in the scenes that we're not showing. You're seeing what they're doing. It's really clever the way that they piece together their episode. It's really ambitious," Halpern added.

Frank & Mr. Johnson Have a Grudge Dating Back to High School: "We did at one point have a whole backstory between Frank and Mr. Johnson that they did know each other. It was that they went to high school together. They dated the same woman who was a canonical character in Sunny. That ended up falling away just as a function of, 'Hey, we can't tell that story. Maybe let's save it for another time.' 21 and a half minutes is not a lot of time to tell a story," Schumacker.

Schumacker on McElhenney's "Johnny Knoxville" Ad-Lib: "Ava [James] has a line about the white guys that she's into, and she names Johnny Knoxville and Johnny Bravo. I almost ruined a take off-camera cackling and spitting out my coffee because Rob ad-libbed, 'That Johnny Knoxville guy destroyed his penis. There's nothing there.' I was like, 'Okay, well, that one, we can't say on ABC.'"

Schumacker on Why We Didn't Get Much Dennis in "Volunteers": "Glenn [Howerton] had a show that he is a series regular on called 'Sirens.' It's the Netflix show, and it was shooting in New York. He flew in specifically to work on this and had to fly back. We had him for half a day, so we had to build that in. That was one of those ones where we didn't know if we had him, and so we had to stay a little bit nimble as far as breaking the story. But he's very heavy in their episode."

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!