The ‘Always Sunny’ Gang Gets Dragged Into the AI Discourse

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has made a habit of using absurd posters to promote the … absurd show. They’ve shown the gang as cow s*** and babies. One year they looked like the kids from Village of the Damned for some reason. There’s one poster where they all look like glam rock stars. It’s fun! Then, in the last few years, it started to get more bizarre as the posters became more animated. It kicks off with the gang running for their lives in the 13th season, and then it just gets weirder.

There is some thematic relevance. The year the Gang took a trip to Ireland, the poster showed them as red-headed and clad in green. Frank is dressed like a Leprechaun. Another year saw them drawn as professional wrestlers. It wasn’t relevant to the season, but it called back to one of the show’s classic episodes. The most recent animated poster saw them painted onto the side of a van you’d expect to be parked outside of Patty’s. It’s fun, even if they all look like monstrosities.

Anyone who has turned on their Hulu in the last few years knows what it’s like to stare at these posters for what feels like forever. They do not look good. That’s not a swipe at the artist; there’s just an uncanny valley aspect to them all that feels insane. It seems like you are looking at something that shouldn’t exist, but there were still elements to them that suggested human innovation. They still feel like they were executed by a person with an idea. But what happens when they don’t look like something done with human hands, and are we still capable of making that distinction?

AI art is out in the world, and, despite claiming that they want to use it fairly, studios have already tried to sneak it past us. Disney has been one of the biggest perpetrators. They used AI to make the monstrosity that was the Secret Invasion opening credits. Then, they were accused of using AI to create posters for Fantastic Four: The First Steps. Now, people are saying the company used AI to make art for the upcoming season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And, honestly, I’m not sure that’s what it is.

Is it a hideous abomination that has no place in our world of rules and reason? Most definitely. But that could be used as a descriptor for several animated Sunny promos of the past. This one, while being fun in concept, I guess, looks like the stuff of nightmares. They’re all struggling as the meat of a hot dog under a bunch of mustard. They are screaming and making crazy faces, and they look weird as hell. But, again, that’s all the posters. Is this one actually AI, or just something that looks so bad that’s what everyone assumed?