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Danny DeVito, the beloved Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, producer, and director from Neptune (wait, what? Yeah, Neptune) recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the finale of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s 17th season. The conversation included an image of a 1980s celebrity shindig almost too awesome to fathom.
Recent Sunny episodes have seen DeVito working once again with Carol Kane, his former Taxi costar currently enjoying a bit of a career resurgence with appearances on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and starring in the well-received indie comedy Between the Temples.
With the mini Taxi reunion on his mind, the 80-year-old DeVito reflected back on the great sitcom and its final days, especially with talk that next season (number 18!) might be the last one for the current series.
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“[Taxi was] canceled after four seasons by ABC, and [NBC’s] Grant Tinker and Brandon Tartikoff picked us up for the fifth season,” DeVito reflected. “We did 22 shows that year, but prior to that, we didn’t know. In fact, we’d all won Golden Globes and Emmys. I was in New York, all set to do Saturday Night Live, and we got the call. [Co-creator] Jim Brooks called us up, and we were devastated.”
He continued, “We all got together and got drunk. I brought everybody on the show. Lorne Michaels was nice enough to let us on, but what I was getting at was we knew that that was going to be the last season [when we got picked up], so we all had it in our bones that we were doing the last episode.”
Apparently a big boozy blow-out wasn’t out of the ordinary for the cast, which in addition to DeVito and Kane included Judd Hirsch, Marilu Henner, Jeff Conaway, Christopher Lloyd, Andy Kaufman, and Tony Danza.
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“We were party animals anyway,” DeVito shared. “Every Friday night we had a big party. It was really wild. For five years on Taxi, we worked from Monday to Friday. We did the show on Friday night, and then we had a party and everybody came to that party, from people who were on the sets of all the other shows, like Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days — Henry Winkler used to come.”
The incredible guest list continued. “We had people like John Belushi play at our wrap party. Michael Jackson was there. Michael loved our show. He used to come and watch in the booth up in the top where the technicians were,” DeVito added. “Robin [Williams] was there all the time, and we visited him too.”
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Jackson being a fan of Taxi may seem a little incongruous for the King of Pop, but it has been previously reported by Maureen McCormick (TV’s Marcia Brady) that the Thriller recording artist was a devotee of The Brady Bunch.
One wonders if Jackson was ever jealous that his sister Janet got to appear on the sitcom Good Times. The closest Jackson ever got was an uncredited voice appearance on The Simpsons.
Anyhow, back to the idea of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia maybe one day ending, DeVito feels that if that ever happens, the cast and crew will be ready.
“When Sunny comes to an end, we’ll know it and we’ll all embrace it,” he said. “We really dig each other and we’ll always work together.”
If all this talk about Taxi has you yearning for smooth, glassy Fender Rhodes tones, have no fear. Check out the extended version of jazz keyboardist Bob James’ 1978 tune “Angela,” which was abridged to make the theme from the classic show.
