After three appearances in “Sunny,” Barbara Reynolds was killed off-screen in the third season from a “botched neck-lift,” never to return to the show again. “Dennis and Dee’s Mom is Dead” was a great episode, but was it worth losing Barbara? Maybe not. Years later, the series creators expressed regret about getting rid of her character so soon.
“Every time I watch an episode with Anne in it, I’m like, man, what a great character, why did we — what happened?'” Rob McElhenney asked his co-creators on the “Always Sunny” Podcast.
Although the deviation of her will and the jokes about her “turkey neck” made for a great episode, Barbara’s death had major consequences — a great character was lost to the show forever. “It was a good storyline, it was an interesting storyline, but I think we really shot ourselves in the foot by killing that character because she was so great,” Howerton added.
So, what reason could the “Sunny” creators possibly have had for killing off a character they loved so much so early in the show’s run, you may ask? The answer is simple — they weren’t thinking that far ahead.
“We’re not projecting that far into the future so we’re just like, ‘Oh my God, what are we gonna do? This is a fun story, let’s kill a character,'” McElhenney elaborated. “And we don’t realize the repercussions that we’re gonna cost production.”
The show has now aired for 16 seasons at counting, making it the longest-running live-action sitcom of all time. But when it first aired on FX, “Sunny” had only a modest audience without much hope of longevity. However, the show’s viewership grew year by year, and just a few years after killing off Barbara, it became inescapable.