Kaitlin Olson Tells the Origin Story of the ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’/’Golden Bachelor’ Crossover
It took a dating-show-turned-cultural-phenomenon to make It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creator Rob Mac realize that the formula for comedy gold is just Danny DeVito plus a room full of broads.
In the most recent season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Mac and the rest of the creative team experimented with cross-network crossovers, courtesy of the consolidated Disney entertainment ecosystem. Thanks to a little brand synergy, Mac was able to bookend Always Sunny Season 17 with crossover episodes that brought both Abbott Elementary and The Golden Bachelor into the Always Sunny universe, but the season finale, “The Golden Bachelor Live,” never would have happened without Kaitlin Olson trying to get her workaholic husband to watch her favorite reality show instead of thinking up Always Sunny schemes.
Don't Miss
Thankfully for the Always Sunny fans who loved how the most recent season closed, Mac’s mind is always on the next Always Sunny plot line, as Olson revealed during her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night:
“The Golden Bachelor (Live), I believe, came about because I’ve been trying to get Rob to watch The Bachelor with me for 10 years. Not interested at all,” Olson began of the story behind the emotional It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 17 finale. “When The Golden Bachelor first came out, I started watching it by myself, and I was like, ‘Hold on a second, you might actually like this because it’s really sweet.’”
Said Olson of the smash-hit dating show about AARP members finding love, “It’s not just like trashy and whatever — I mean, it’s trashy, but it’s perfectly trash. But it was sweet, and it was nice. So I was like, ‘Just watch a couple episodes with me.’”
While Olson didn’t intend for the couple’s Golden Bachelor viewing to be anything more than some romantic enjoyment of trash TV, Olson quickly realized that Mac was still on the clock. “So he’s watching, and I look over, and he’s just got this look on his face, and I’m like, ‘You are not even watching. You are thinking about something else, aren’t you?'” Olson recalled.
“He was like, ‘What if Frank was the Golden Bachelor?’” Olson said of her husband’s idea that turned into the perfect Always Sunny season finale. Unsurprisingly, DeVito was up for the task.
“Danny loves being surrounded by women, and I think he enjoyed every moment of filming that episode,” Olson reported.
I’m sure he also loved that one of the women surrounding him wasn’t so “crackly,” as he’d put it.
