Over the years, whenever I've spoken with Rob Mac about It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as the FX comedy has passed one sitcom classic after another in number of seasons, he's quick to acknowledge that the playing field isn't level. Yes, they've now made more seasons than any other live-action TV comedy. But most of those other shows were making 22 or more episodes per season — The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, the previous record holder, made multiple 39-episode seasons, and made more than 30 per year for more than half of its run — where the most Sunny episodes in one season was 15. And for more than a decade, the show has gone back and forth between only eight and 10 episodes a year. Prior to the 18th season, which debuted this week on FX and Hulu, Sunny had produced 178 episodes. There are 435 episodes of Ozzie & Harriet. It's both easier to go on for years and years, and to maintain a relative level of creative strength, when the workload in each of those years is much smaller. Quality over quantity.
But even if Mac and friends were making fewer episodes per year, when you stick around this long, you are nonetheless going to make a lot of episodes. And that's a thing that I think sometimes gets missed when we talk about Sunny's remarkable longevity. The show is obviously never going to catch Ozzie & Harriet or My Three Sons (380 episodes) in sheer episodes of television. Nor is it likely to get within spitting distance of shows like Cheers (275 episodes), Frasier (264 episodes), or Friends (236 episodes). All in the Family (205 episodes) might be in range, depending on how committed everyone is. But there aren't that many live-action comedies, let alone great live-action comedies, that have produced as many episodes as Sunny. So I thought I would look at some of the ones Sunny has either already passed in that context or is on the verge of passing:
Taxi (114 episodes): Let's start with Danny DeVito's other iconic ensemble comedy. It ran five seasons, at a time when broadcast network shows still made a lot of episodes every year. Sunny passed it with the Season 11 premiere, "Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo."