As awesome as it is Charlie Day is branching out into movies like Horrible Bosses and slowly being recognized as the comedic genius he is and so on and proud of him are all of we, America just wants to know about Fat Mac. A FAT MAC FOR EVERY POT, should be Obama’s 2012 campaign slogan. Luckily Day is happy to oblige, delving into Rob McElhenney 50-lb weight gain for the upcoming season of Sunny. “Right at the beginning of the writing season, we started writing at the beginning of the new year, he said that he wanted to try to do that, and we said, ‘All right, we’ll start writing, and you start eating. And if you keep getting big we’ll write it into the whole season,’†Charlie told Vulture, explaining that McElhenney followed a regimen of a “lot of protein shakes filled with ice cream. And doughnuts.†Celebrities! They’re just like us, except we didn’t gain all this weight for any creative or comedic reason.
As for why, exactly, the character of Mac would pack on weight, Charlie rationalizes, “Well, you know, the reality of a guy who lives a lifestyle like this character, who owns a dive bar, is that he would start to go downhill at some point. We wanted to have a new, fun direction for his character to go. We knew that ‘fat equals funny’ isn’t good enough. It had to be like his character, specifically, because his character is just that into physical fitness. Actually, it would have been funny if Dennis had done it, too.†That grotesque Hawaiian shirt, however, remains mysteriously unexplained.