Here’s How Much Rob McElhenney Made During ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Season One
Creating and starring in a cable comedy series isn’t automatically “don’t quit your day job money,” just ask showrunner/waiter Rob McElhenney circa 2005.
Charlie Day shot a proof-of-concept pilot and showed it to FX president John Landgraf, who saw just enough potential in the project to sign the team to a seven-episode order.
In today’s Variety cover story, McElhenney talked about that daring, scrappy, skin-of-their-teeth first season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, revealing that, as a creator, showrunner and main cast member, FX only paid him $7,500 per episode while he continued waiting tables to make ends meet.
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God knows how many plates of scalding hot spaghetti McElhenney suffered through while waiting for Season Two to start.
Reflecting on that shoestring first season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, McElhenney told Variety, “That was our chance, and we’re very proud of those episodes.” And, while the show would take a couple years to flesh out its identity and reach its outrageous potential, McElhenney said that, in 2005, episodes like “Charlie Has Cancer” were changing the game of TV comedy.
“It was certainly unlike anything else on TV,” McElhenney said of Season One. “We knew we were betting on ourselves.”
Considering that his salary as the head of Always Sunny was making him less than $50,000 a year before taxes, McElhenney was putting his very livelihood on the table. “John (Landgraf) was very up front with us and saying, ’We’re taking a risk on you. You came in and said you want to be the showrunner. You’re not even the head waiter at a restaurant! But I believe in you.’”
And, despite the paltry paycheck by showrunner standards, Landgraf promised McElhenney something even more valuable: creative control. McElhenney says that Langraf told him, “We’ll give you meaningful ownership of the show. We won’t pay you very much for quite a long time, and we’ll see if we can gain an audience.”
"And it worked out pretty well!” McElhenney understated.
Today, McElhenney is a veritable entertainment mogul with multiple hit shows and a professional soccer team under his control. But in 2005, he was just a rookie showrunner working for tips in between takes — he probably couldn’t even afford to eat at Guigino’s until Danny DeVito ed Always Sunny.
