Mac's Big Break

"Mac's Big Break" is the fourth episode of the sixth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Synopsis
After correctly answering a radio trivia question, Mac finally makes it big. Meanwhile, the Reynolds start their own internet podcast.

Recap
9:30 AM, On a Thursday, Philadelphia, PA

,, and are listening to the Preston and Steve Show, which is having a contest in which a caller who answers the "stupid trivia questions" wins the chance to take a shot from center ice at a Philadelphia Flyers game for a weekend at the station's beach house. Dee remarks "Who would want to spend a weekend at a beach house with these idiots?"

Back in the office, and Mac are desperately trying to get through to the radio station. Mac gets through, and gets the trivia question: what Philadelphia Flyer holds the franchise record for goals in a season? After Charlie fails spectacularly at trying to look the answer up on the Internet, Mac takes a wild guess and ends up answering the question correctly.

Mac and Charlie come back into the front of the bar celebrating their victory. Mac sees the chance to go to the beach house as his big break, a chance to meet celebrities and make himself known. Dennis and Dee ask Charlie and Mac to give them their cell phones, which they had borrowed to try to get through to the radio station, back, and Frank tries to goad them into yelling at Charlie and Mac for using up all the minutes on their cell phone plans. Dennis doesn't rise to the bait, seeing he doesn't give a shit about minutes, but Dee says she still does care about minutes. Mac notices that Frank is tapng the whole thing, and asks why, and Frank says it's because he enjoys listening to Dennis and Dee's "banter". Dennis and Dee agree that they're quite interesting, and that a podcast starring them would be far more interesting than anything on the radio. Charlie and Mac tell them that they're just jealous of their big chance, and go off to practice. Frank, meanwhile, notices his tape has run out and asks Dennis and Dee to not talk until he can flip it over—at which point he notices he's taped over his Luther Vandross mix.

Charlie and Mac practice their shot in the street in front of the bar. Mac wants to wave the hockey stick around like a ninja sword, but Charlie tells him he must be serious and hold his stick properly. Charlie tries to tell Mac to be careful with his shot, but Mac says he wants to make a "wicked slap slot" so he doesn't look like a "jabroni". His first attempts at a real shot are pretty terrible, so Charlie says that they should try it on actual ice.

Dennis, Dee, and Mac gather together in the bar's back office to record a podcast. Frank is loudly eating crackers, which Dennis tells him to stop. They start the recording, saying they will talk about technology, but soon they realize they have nothing to say. When they end up with dead air, Frank says he has a guest: Rickety Cricket. Dee doesn't want him on the show, but Dennis says this is a chance to have a discussion on homelessness. Cricket arrives, asking Frank where the rotisserie chicken he's been promised for appearing on the show is. His voice is very raspy, and Cricket says it's from the wound he got when Frank hit him with a trash can (from the episode The Gang Wrestles for the Troops), which has gotten infected. Frank tells Cricket he lied about the chicken, and gives him a bag of lemons instead. The podcast starts, and Dennis tries to have a serious discussion of homelessness. Cricket tells a horrifying story about how a "fully aroused" dog was sniffing at his wound, apparently thinking it looked like a dog's vagina. Frank goads Cricket into insulting Dee, and he says he is "over her" because she is a "whore." The podcast degenerates into a shouting contest as Cricket and Dee exchange insults, and Dennis angrily tries to keep the podcast on topic.

At a skating rink, Mac and Charlie show up with hockey sticks, walking on the ice without skates, while everyone else figure skates. Charlie says that Mac should wear a wig, but Mac says that if he becomes famous wearing a wig, he'll have to wear it the rest of his life (however they both agreed that Mac should wear his duster in it). They start taking shots in the middle of the rink, causing Mac to wildly fire a hockey puck towards the other skaters. A rink official tells them they cannot swing hockey sticks, and they must be wearing skates. As they leave the rink, Mac again uses the word "jabroni", and Charlie tells him that that word is "awesome". Charlie asks what it means, and Mac says he doesn't know ("I think it's some Dago word'), but Charlie says he should keep using it.

Dennis and Dee continue their podcast. Dennis wants to talk about stem cell research, and Dee appears to be willing to discuss it with him, but she soon starts hitting random keys on their computer to play wacky sound effects. Dennis is again annoyed that the podcast is not discussing a serious issue, but Dee keeps pressing sound effect buttons, and Dennis soon discovers he likes the sound effects too. Frank shows up, and says they should discuss war. He says he has a guest, who turns out to be Ben, the soldier who Dee briefly dated. Dennis asks about the war, and seems genuinely surprised when Ben tells him that the United States is involved in two wars.(It seems that Dennis is doing an impression of a confused "charlie". Frank interrupts him to discuss something more interesting: he wants to know how Dee and Ben used to bang. Dee, of course, is not so into this topic.

Back at a now-empty rink, Charlie and Mac are now on skates. Charlie soon discovers that Mac cannot skate. He starts teaching Mac how to skate, and to a montage set to the song "Push It to the Limit", he trains Mac on how to skate and play hockey. Mac seems to be getting the hang of it.

At the bar, Frank calls for the next guest on Dennis and Dee's podcast: the Waitress. Frank has told her that Dennis will be apologizing to her, but instead she's greeted with insults and still more wacky sound effects. Frank offers her $50 to take off her top and drink soup out of his shoe. She declines at first, but after Frank ups the offer to $500, she agrees to drink the soup, but not take off her top. Cricket says he can't find any soup, but does have dirty dishwater, which Frank tells him to dump over her head after she refuses to drink it. The Waitress runs out, humiliated.

At the Flyers game, Mac waits to take his shot. Charlie tells him he might throw up, which Mac doesn't want to hear. Dennis and Dee show up. Mac thinks they're there to support him, but actually they're there so that Mac can give a tape of their podcast (their computer was ruined when Cricket dumped the water on The Waitress' head) to Preston and Steve. Mac and Charlie go out onto the ice to a loud ovation. He tosses the Preston and Steve the tape, and when they hear him use the word "jabroni", they also remark that it's a very cool word. Mac takes his shot, which he absolutely nails, completely destroying the cutout figure of a goalie in front of the goal. The crowd goes crazy, and the announcer says that he is now a "Philly sports legend", and the crowd chants his name... ...and then Mac wakes up. The "Mac, Mac, Mac" chant he thought was the crowd is actually Charlie trying to wake him up. Charlie tells him that he fell flat on his face almost immediately after taking the ice, and knocked himself out cold. The tape was completely smashed in his fall. Charlie ended up taking the shot in his place and missed badly. But, on the bright side, Charlie tells him Mac is going to be a sports legend, because the video of him falling flat on his face will undoubtedly be played over and over on ESPN.

Alliances

 * and Mac - scheme to win radio show prize.
 * and - team up to make internet podcast.

Starring

 * Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly
 * Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds
 * Rob McElhenney as Mac
 * Kaitlin Olson as Dee Reynolds
 * Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds

Guest Starring

 * Preston Elliott as Himself
 * Steve Morris as Himself
 * Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Waitress
 * David Hornsby as Cricket
 * Travis Schuldt as Ben Smith

Co-Starring

 * Tom Virtue as Rink Official

Trivia

 * "Push It to the Limit" by Paul Engemann (from Scarface soundtrack) plays during Mac and Charlie's training. Like the movie, it plays over a montage: in the movie, the montage shows Tony's rise to power as the most powerful drug lord in Miami. The version used in the episode is a cover version performed by another band.
 * Mac keeps calling people "Jabronis".  The term gained popularity when the WWE wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson started insulting his opponents with it.
 * When Charlie says to Mac "You might throw up when you get out there, you know, from the nerves" - that's based on his personal experience from . ​
 * There are 3 Dennis and Dee's podcasts on the Season 6 Extras (altogether they are about 12 minutes long).
 * The two radio DJs are portrayed by Preston Elliott and Steve Morrison from the 'Preston and Steve Show' a Philadelphia radio show on FM 93.3 WMMR. The duo have also appeared in a minor role as construction workers 'America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest'. Kathy Romano, Nick McIlwain, and Casey Foster are also personalities on the show and have appeared in several episodes playing minor roles. Kathy calls Dennis an asshole in 'Dennis Looks Like A Registered Sex Offender'.
 * After Mac says he is concerned that if he wears a wig to take the shot, he'll have to keep wearing it because people would know him by his hair, Charlie says "Like Andre Agassi, huh?" This is a reference to a revelation Agassi made in his autobiography that the mullet hairstyle he was famous for in the '90s was actually a wig; he had lost most of his hair due to male pattern baldness at a very early age.
 * When Mac and Charlie are practising hockey outside on the road outside Paddy's Pub, 2 people in the background can be seen walking at different times and both disappear when the camera cuts back to the same shot.
 * The setting for Mac's center-ice shot was during the April 2, 2010 game between the Montréal Canadiens and Philadelphia Flyers at the then-Wachovia Center. This can be ascertained by the out-of-town scoreboard showing a Calgary Flames-Colorado Avalanche game for later that night. April 2 is the only date from the 2009-2010 NHL season where these two matchups occurred on the same day.

Quotes

 * (Dennis, Dee, and Frank are recording a podcast, with Rickety Cricket as a guest.)
 * : Dennis and Dee Reynolds here. We are talking about the homeless issue here in Philly, that's a big issue these days, and we're here with our friend Cricket, he is a homeless man. Cricket, walk us through a day in your life.
 * : Oh, a day in the life...Well, the other morning, I wke up, I find a dog sniffing at my wound. He's fully aroused, mind you. So I'm thinking, "Oh great, what does this jerk want." Of course, I know what he wants. He's lookin' at me right in the eyes. He does not have to say it. Not that he could.  (He sucks on a lemon, and his voice gets very high pitched) Oh, that is tart. That is really tart. (His voice returns to normal) I mean, does my scar look like a dog's vagina? I dunno, maybe. I'm not going to sit here and try to get inside the mind of a dog. I mean, that's God's work. Well, not that I believe in God. I don't. Not since that Chinaman stole my kidney.
 * : Cricket, tell Dee how much you think she's ugly.
 * : That's not going to make any sense, Frank. He doesn't think I'm ugly. He's madly in love with me.
 * : Don't flatter yourself. I'm over you, sister.
 * : Since when?
 * : Since I found out that you are a whore!
 * : Can you stop talking about this? This has nothing to do with...
 * : OK, well maybe you're a whore, you stupid ugly homeless bitch!
 * : Zing!
 * : I mean, a dog banged your neck the other day...
 * : Well at least someone's banging my vagina, you know what I'm sayin'?
 * : (high-fiving Cricket) That's a good one. Get into it...
 * : (very upset) This is not good radio!

"Bro, when you tack on mass you sacrifice flexibility - that's just a straight-up fact!.."

- mac