“Abbott Elementary” set a January premiere date for its crossover with “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
The special episode will premiere Jan. 8 at 8:30 p.m. ET, serving as the midseason return for “Abbott Elementary” Season 4 on Wednesday nights. It will air after the series premiere of Tim Allen and Kat Dennings’ new comedy series “Shifting Gears,” which debuts at 8 p.m. ET.
After “Abbott Elementary” creator and star Quinta Brunson teased earlier this year that the ABC sitcom would have a crossover episode in Season 4, a photo of Brunson, Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, Danny DeVito, Tyler James Williams and William Stanford Davis together on the “Abbott” set in October confirmed the “Always Sunny” special.
By the time “Abbott Elementary” debuted its fourth season in early October, co-showrunners and EPs Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern told TheWrap the crossover had not yet wrapped production and has been shot “piecemeal” in what Schumacker describes as “a real puzzle” to coordinate cast availability.
“We’re not quite done filming it, and that’s just due to cast availability and where ‘Sunny’ is in their upcoming 17th season,” Schumacker said days before the Season 4 premiere of “Abbott.” “Their writers’ room is going, they’re about to start production; Kaitlyn Olson’s on ‘High Potential,’ Glenn [Howerton] is in New York doing ‘Sirens’ for Netflix.”
Instead of being “born out of some marketing person’s gross desire for synergy,” Halpern said the crossover originated from conversations between Brunson and McElhenney, who frequently see each other at industry events.
While the EPs are keeping the plot for the crossover under wraps, Schumacker teased some scenes that have been filmed “probably never make it to ABC.”
“When we were shooting last week, Rob [McElhenney] had this improv in this one scene with Ava that I did not know was … coming; he just thought about it extemporaneously,” Schumacker said. “[It] made me spit out my coffee, and then wish that we had just an episode that was like a gag reel of all the stuff that we can’t use … I hope it exists at some point in time, because it’s so damn funny.”
“Abbott Elementary” Season 4 premieres Wednesdays 9:30 p.m. ET/PT on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.