In an interview with Yahoo back in 2013, “It’s Always Sunny” star, writer, and co-producer Glenn Howerton explained that the writers had a lot of discussions about whether or not they wanted to poke fun at the Emmys:
“We really debated it for a long time. We were like, ‘If we don’t get this right, it could really look like we’re just bitter.’ So we almost didn’t do it. But the more we talked about it and conceptualized what the episode would be, we were all laughing. This is funny! We can’t back away from this just because we’re worried we might alienate the entertainment industry in some way. That’s not how we operate. So we decided to just go full-force into it. And I’m glad it turned out well, because it could’ve been a disaster.”
In the episode, the gang gets upset that Paddy’s Pub has never won any awards and they decide to compete, checking out some of the other award-winning bars and trying to imitate them. The two bars they try to copy are inspired by the shows that win awards: one bar is a cheery place that represents the average network sitcom, with forced romance and a bell that tells you when to drink (a brilliant metaphor for a laugh track), while the other is a burlesque club, representing more serious, artistic fare. It all works at face value, too, because it’s easy to understand why the gang can’t seem to win. After all, on “Sunny,” failure is the default.