The Office is Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Frozen cats, office romance, spooky outhouses, four-part harmony ringtones, stolen copy machines, inaccurate GPS navigation, armpit Maxi Pads, Serenity by Jan, dead models, cocaine addiction, pregnancy, fraud arrests, engagements and finally some office sex—that’s what you get with The Office: Season Four on DVD. The expected Michael Scott antics don’t disappoint, and the tryst between Jim and Pam is revealed, finally, to everyone. But it’s the little things, like Andy punching his fist through a wall because Jim hid Andy’s phone—ringing “Rockin Robin”—that make the season great.

TV shows on DVD are more enjoyable, of course, because they don’t have commercials. They also let writers collect royalties beyond the reruns they hope to sell to Fox and TBS. (You remember the writers’ strike, right?) Both The Office and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia have great writers, worth their cut. Rob McElhenny, better known as the character Mac from Sunny, has personally written every episode, save one. And he’s tackled ridiculous social taboos, from the perspective of four-and-a-half uneducated but extremely entertaining drunks. While The Office bases its humor on things that occasionally happen at, let’s say, an office, Sunny illuminates the possibilities of huffing glue every day, sleeping around, running a bar in between trips to the strip club and various other forms of chemical dependencies. Or things like Sweet Dee dating an aspiring but potentially retarded local emcee.

Basically, Sunny perfectly demonstrates the difference between cable and basic television. If you don’t like to poke fun at Dumpster babies, inbreeding, drinking, death, retardation, sweat shops, serial killers, sex offenders, drug dealers, prostitution and homelessness, then Sunny might not be your cup of sweet chamomile tea. This cable show is for people who enjoy their tea black, like their comedy.