What Are The Five Banned Episodes Of ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’? And Why Were They Pulled?

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has been pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable on American television since 2005. Its reward for that comedic bravery has been becoming the longest-running American live-action sitcom (in terms of seasons) ever made.

During its 20-plus years on the air, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has largely escaped legitimate criticism for its audacity. Its comedy is consistently supported by an underlying intelligence — the show’s ignorant characters are always the ultimate butt of the joke rather than the subject being mocked.

The long-running Mac storyline is the clearest example: what began as an unacknowledged running gag about his sexuality has since developed over the course of many seasons and years into an active part of his character, and has been widely praised by the LGBTQ+ community as a result.

Despite its Hall of Fame status, even It’s Always Sunny‘s batting average isn’t a thousand, as five of its episodes have been deemed to have gone too far. All five of those episodes have something in common, too: racial caricature facepaint.

In June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests and a larger reckoning with racist imagery in entertainment, Hulu pulled five episodes of It’s Always Sunny from its platform, with all five of them featuring the use of either blackface, brownface, or yellowface by the gang.

There are two particular recurring gags responsible for the pulling of the episodes: Dee’s recurring character Martina Martinez — her attempt at impersonating a New York City Dominican — and Mac’s blackface portrayal of Danny Glover’s Lethal Weapon character Roger Murtaugh.

It’s Always Sunny is so ahead of the comedic curve, though, that it addressed the removals in the Season 15 episode “The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7,” which served as a meta, self-referential commentary on the bans — the first lines of the episodes feature Frank ranting and raving about Lethal Weapon 5 & 6 being “pulled from the library” — and brought in Black writers and actors as part of a deliberate shift in perspective.

 

The banned episodes remain off Hulu and Disney+ in the US, with the notable exception of “America’s Next Top Paddy’s Billboard Model Contest,” which has reportedly been quietly restored at various points. “Dee Day,” the most recent entry on the list, is also the only one missing from the DVD release — making its 2019 airdate potentially its last widely available screening.

With Season 18 arriving August 17, here’s a breakdown of the five episodes you won’t find on streaming.

These are the five episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia that are not available on streaming and their reason for being “banned”

5. “America’s Next Top Paddy’s Billboard Model Contest” (Season 4, Episode 3, 2008)

The episode in which Dee debuts Martina Martinez — a Latina character she portrays in brownface with a cartoonishly exaggerated accent — while competing in a billboard modeling contest is the earliest episode of It’s Always Sunny to be removed from streaming services.

Although the Martinez character was clearly played as a mockery of Dee’s own ignorance and racism rather than as an endorsement of either regressive trait, its visceral presentation and general crudeness were simply a bridge too far in hindsight.

4. “Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth” (Season 6, Episode 9, 2010)

2010’s “Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth” introduced the second recurring reason for the ban wave: Mac’s blackface portrayal of Danny Glover’s lead Lethal Weapon character Roger Murtaugh, as the gang attempts to screen their homemade Lethal Weapon 5 for a high school class.

While the episode is explicitly about the gang’s own obliviousness to why their choices are offensive, the presence of blackface on screen was deemed sufficient grounds for removal regardless of the show’s intentions.

3. “The Gang Recycles Their Trash” (Season 8, Episode 2, 2012)

Dee reprises her brownface caricature of Martina Martinez as the gang attempts to recycle plotlines from earlier seasons, such as the door-to-door sales scheme from “The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis,” the political corruption angle from “The Gang Runs for Office,” and the corporate buyout framework from “The Gang Sells Out.”

2. “The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6” (Season 9, Episode 9, 2013)

Both Mac’s blackface Murtaugh and Dee’s brownface Martina Martinez appear in the same episode as the gang continues their Lethal Weapon film franchise. The show had already addressed the controversy around the Lethal Weapon episodes by this point, making the decision to lean back into both characters an even bolder creative choice.

1. “Dee Day” (Season 14, Episode 3, 2019)

The most recently produced episode on the list and arguably the most thoroughly banned, as it’s the only one that was also excluded from the Season 14 DVD release, meaning its original 2019 airdate may represent the last time it will ever be widely seen (although, in the age of digital media, the episodes can always be found somewhere on the internet).

The episode sees Dee force the rest of the gang to portray all of her recurring characters: Frank wears brownface as Martina Martinez and Mac dons yellowface as Taiwan Tammy.