The ‘Bad Writing’ in One of Glenn Howerton’s Favorite ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Episodes
For It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Glenn Howerton, road trips aren’t always about the destination, they’re about the journey — fruit-induced pit stops and all.
In an old interview with Season Five’s “The Gang Hits the Road.” Centering on a failed road trip from Paddy’s Pub to the Grand Canyon, Howerton credited “a real story that happened in the writers’ room” with inspiring the Gang’s most notable detour, stopping by an Italian market so Charlie Kelly could try a pear for the first time.
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“Scott Marder, who wrote many episodes of the show … had never eaten a blueberry,” Howerton told journalist River Donaghey back in 2019, noting that the writer then revealed that “there were, five, six, seven, eight other things that he’d never had.”
Even as Howerton touted the episode’s real-life inspiration and The Gang’s absurd stops for cementing the installment as one of his favorites — “I also love the specificity of that being like, ‘Okay, I know we’re trying to get to the Grand Canyon, but we got to stop and get this kid a pear,’ then saying, ‘You know what? Coffee on the road is really bad, I’m going to buy a French press’” — the show isn’t above criticism.
When pressed about the empty U-Haul trailing the Gang’s various vehicles, Howerton found himself at a loss about why, exactly, the Paddy’s Pub crew decided to lug along a seemingly useless trailer on their vacation. “There was a reason for it, I think,” he began, speculating that the U-Haul was introduced to add more “room” into his character’s Range Rover. But when Donaghey reminded him that the Gang switched to Dee Reynolds’ new car after hitting a cyclist, Howerton appeared to have some second thoughts about his own episode.
“Jesus Christ,” Howerton replied. “Maybe it was just bad writing. It might have just been bad writing, dude.”
