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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray
20th Century Fox | 2009 | 43 mins | Not rated | Nov 17, 2009
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray ReviewMy Verdict: Mostly CloudyReviewed by Casey Broadwater, November 18, 2009 Okay, full disclosure. Before today, I'd never seen an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It's not that I haven't wanted to; I've just never gotten around to it. What I know of the series has been passed down from the wild raving of several friends, who have repeatedly told me it's "like Seinfeld on crack"—I later learn this is the show's tagline—and that "it's almost as good as Arrested Development." As an unrepentant Arrested Development apostle—I'm out to convert the uninitiated—these comparisons have always left me wary. Mitchell Hurwitz' tragically short-lived series is, in my mind, not only one of the best comedies to ever grace a TV screen, but one of the best shows of any genre. So, when I booted up this disc, I was open- minded but prepared to be underwhelmed. The disappointment set in early, but not for the reasons you might think.
On the disc's menu, there's a clickable section called "Producers' Blu-ray Introduction." This seemed like a reasonable thing to check out before I watched the episode, and I'm glad I did. Here, Writer/Producer David Hornsby and Actor Rob McElhenney explain that, in order to fit with the aesthetic of previous episodes, this Christmas special was filmed in standard definition and upscaled to 1080p for the Blu-ray release. Now, this information is on the back of the case, but it's written in a font so small that I doubt anyone purchasing the disc will notice it. I'm sure that more than a few buyers will be rightfully miffed when they slice open the shrink wrap, place the disc in a Blu-ray player hooked up to a 1080p television, and realize that this is just a simple up- convert job—and not a very good one at that. Now, there's no real Blu-ray consortium laying out strict rules on how the medium should and shouldn't be used—I'm actually surprised we haven't seen more releases of several standard definition titles crammed onto a single BD-50—but when most people think "Blu-ray," they expect high definition content. And 20th Century Fox hasn't exactly gone out of their way here to make it clear that this title is sourced from standard definition video. So, buyers beware. When it comes to the show itself, I was moderately entertained, but it's clear that this special 43- minute episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is meant as a holiday treat for the fans, and doesn't really work as an introduction for first-timers such as myself. Now in its fifth season, the show follows the exploits of The Gang, a remarkably self-obsessed and cynical group of friends who run Paddy's Pub, a dive bar in Philadelphia. In this episode, fraternal twins Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Deandra "Sweet Dee" Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson) are fed up with their Napoleonic father, Frank (Danny DeVito), who has given them nothing but empty boxes for Christmas since they were kids, sadistically buying the presents that they want for himself. When Frank pulls up to the bar on Christmas Eve in a brand new Lamborghini—Dennis' dream car—the two siblings decide to take a cue from A Christmas Carol and teach their scrooge of a dad a lesson in the Christmas spirit. To this end, they recruit a screwed-over former business partner to play the Ghost of Christmas Past, and together they take the incredulous Frank on a journey through his present—a holiday party where they hope Frank's one-time employees will gossip horribly about him—and to his inevitable future, a cold, lonely grave, marked with a headstone that reads, "He Was A Dick To His Kids." Of course, all of this goes horribly awry. Meanwhile, friends Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Charlie (Charlie Day) trade stories of their childhood Christmas traditions, realizing in the process that Mac's parents were gift thieves and that Charlie's mother was a prostitute. The episode was directed by Fred Savage—yes, that Fred Savage—and he uses this straight-to- video release as a chance to up the show's already risqué humor. F-bombs are dropped, and not only do we see a naked and sweaty Danny DeVito being birthed out of leather couch—don't worry, it'll make sense when you see it—but there are also two, yes, two pants-less elves who flash a bit more skin than most audiences probably want to see. There are a handful of laugh- out-loud moments, including a scene where Charlie unleashes his inner-zombie on a mall Santa and takes a bite out of poor Kris Kringle's neck. The episode's highlight is a fever dream by Frank that manifests itself in the style of the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman claymation Christmas specials. Only here, the California Raisins show up in Ku Klux Klan robes and set fire to Frank, who has been dismembered by his spiteful children and hanged from a pine tree by his spinal cord. Yes, it's intense, and gleefully irreverent. Still, I'm not sure this episode warrants a stand-alone purchase. It's funny, but not funny enough to watch multiple times. That said, my interest in the show was sufficiently piqued, and I have a feeling I'll be checking out the rest of the series in short order. Video  It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia makes a truly disappointing first appearance on Blu-ray, with an AVC-encoded transfer that's 1080p in name only. In reality, the standard definition video source material has been upscaled, and actually looks a lot worse than many of my DVDs when I allow my PS3 to do the up-converting for me. I wish I had the DVD of A Very Sunny Christmas on hand to do a side-by-side comparison, but I can't imagine that this Blu-ray iteration looks much better. The image is incredibly soft. Lines are indistinct and unresolved, textures are muddled, and fine detail is non-existent. While there are a few bright, Christmas-y colors, the image is drab, lacks depth, and is prone to a bland haziness. Black levels are soupy and grayish, white highlights are frequently blown out, and contrast is flat and lifeless. Worse yet, artifacts and noise clutter the frame throughout, shadows are susceptible to macroblocking, and both aliasing and ringing are readily apparent. Even for DVD-quality material, this looks quite bad. Audio  You would hope, then, that A Very Sunny Christmas would at least take advantage of Blu- ray's extra storage space with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. While it does, this track is only marginally better than the shoddy video quality. Dialogue is clear and easily understood throughout the episode, but that's as much of a compliment as I can muster. With the sole exception of when Frank rolls up in his Lamborghini—with a throaty roar—this track is thin and shrill. There's not much low-end here at all, and the music comes off as much too harsh. And let's face it, most Christmas music is pretty tiresome on its own. The music bleeds into the rear channels, but that's as much engagement as you're going to get from the surround speakers. Supplements  Producers' Blu-ray Introduction (SD, 00:55) Actor Rob McElhenney and Writer/Producer David Hornsby give a disclaimer about how the program wasn't filmed in high definition and was simply scaled up for this Blu-ray release. Young Charlie & Young Mac - Deleted Scenes (SD, 2:48) Here we get to see young Charlie and Mac throwing rocks, discussing how women have "a second butt-hole in the front," and decrying the onset of puberty. Behind the Scenes (SD, 7:24) Director and former Kevin Arnold of The Wonder Years Fred Savage gives us a look at the making of the claymation sequence, and we also get plenty of on-set footage and shenanigans from the cast, who all act exactly like their characters. Sunny Sing-A-Long (SD, 3:13) The Gang stands around a piano and sings perennial Christmas favorites, but this quickly descends into a yuletide nightmare, replete with cheesy 1980s video effects. Final words Though I certainly don't want or expect it to become the norm, I really have no problem with studios releasing standard definition content on Blu-ray, as long as they clearly—clearly— label it as such. The teeny tiny "1080p up-converted" disclaimer on the back of the case here simply doesn't cut it, and I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be disappointed by this release, especially if the retail stores where the purchases were made refuse returns on opened media. If you're a hardcore fan of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you might want to consider picking this Christmas special up, but really, this title would be better suited for inclusion on the next DVD box-set. 
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